More Stories from the September 30, 2006 issue
- Tech
Muscling up colors for electronic displays
Researchers have found a way to provide the complete color palette for television and computer screens.
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Insecticide gets help from gut bacteria
The world's most widely used organic insecticide appears to rely on an insect's normal gut flora to do its dirty work.
- Animals
Mother deer can’t ID their fawns by call
Fawns can distinguish their mom's voice from another deer's, but a mom can't pick out her fawn's call.
- Materials Science
Rice-straw sweaters
Textile scientists have for the first time extracted from rice straw natural cellulose fibers that can be spun into yarn.
- Chemistry
Altering ant uniforms
The chemical coat that an invasive ant species relies upon to recognize its kin may someday serve to turn family into foe.
- Chemistry
Catalyst cleans up
A new chemical catalyst can remove the pollutant perchlorate from water.
- Physics
Hot Stuff: A usually ultracold, odd state forms when warm
An exotic quantum state that had previously appeared only under conditions of astonishing cold has made its room-temperature debut.
- Health & Medicine
The Bad Fight: Immune systems harmed 1918 flu patients
The 1918 Spanish flu virus may have launched an intense immune attack that devastated patients' lungs.
- Earth
Mystery of the Missing Heat: Upper ocean has cooled slightly in recent years, despite warming climate
Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went.
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Montessori Learning Aid: Alternative school shows impact on poor children
An alternative teaching program known as the Montessori method gave an academic and social boost to Milwaukee youngsters that did not occur in their peers attending other schools.
- Earth
Gassy Bugs: Microbes may produce propane under the sea
Microbes deep under the ocean's floor could be the source of some ethane and propane found in sediments.
- Health & Medicine
Mixed Bag: Islet-cell transplants offer good and bad news
Most people who've received transplanted islet cells for type 1 diabetes still need daily insulin shots, but the transplanted cells curb blood sugar crashes.
- Animals
Scent Stalking: Parasitic vine grows toward tomato odor
A wiry orange vine finds plants to raid for nutrients by growing toward their smell. With video.
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Chemical Enlightenment
After a 40-year hiatus, research on the psychedelic drug psilocybin indicates that it often triggers mystical and spiritual experiences in ordinary people, at least temporarily changing their lives for the better.
- Humans
Good Gone Wild
New research shows that the ecotourism model of raising conservation awareness while protecting indigenous cultures doesn't always work out as planned.
- Humans
Letters from the September 30, 2006, issue of Science News
Not a pretty picture “Deadly Disorder: Imagined-ugliness illness yields high suicide rate” (SN: 7/22/06, p. 52) raises some questions. What about people who are physically unattractive—those whom a majority of the society considers ugly? I suspect that many people treated for body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) are unattractive by that definition. The psychiatric profession tends to […]
