More Stories from the September 15, 2007 issue
- Health & Medicine
How platelets help cancer spread
A tumor cell protein influences blood platelets in a way that helps a cancer spread through the body.
- Astronomy
Major merger
Four galaxies are ramming into each other in one of the biggest cosmic collisions ever recorded.
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Perfect pitch isn’t so perfect in many
Among people with perfect pitch, the most common error seems to be misidentifying G flat as A, the note on which orchestras traditionally tune.
- Anthropology
Advantage: Starch
An enhanced ability to digest starch may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage over their ape relatives.
- Archaeology
Ancient city grew from outside in
A 6,000-year-old city in what's now northeastern Syria developed when initially independent settlements expanded and merged, unlike other nearby cities that grew from a core outward.
- Chemistry
Nanoparticles multitask
Magnetite nanoparticles have catalytic properties that may be useful in wastewater treatment and biomedical assays.
- Astronomy
Bloated planet
A newly discovered exoplanet is the largest and lowest-density such object yet found.
- Health & Medicine
Blood vessel growth factor also does housekeeping
A growth factor that promotes blood vessel development also maintains normal blood vessel health, perhaps explaining the vascular side effects of some cancer drugs.
- Physics
Alliance of Opposites: Electrons and positrons make new molecule
Positronium, consisting of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, has been made into a molecular form.
- Planetary Science
Survivor: Extrasolar planet escapes stellar attack
An extrasolar planet survived after its aging parent star ballooned into a red giant that almost engulfed it.
- Animals
Fish Switch: Salmon make baby trout after species, sex swap
Salmon implanted with trout reproductive tissue bred to produce a generation of normal rainbow trout.
- Health & Medicine
Debate Renewed: Diabetes drug ups heart risk
A popular diabetes drug significantly increases the risk of heart failure and heart attack in those who take it.
- Earth
Grazing on the Periodic Table: Some ancient microorganisms lived on a diet of pure sulfur
Microorganisms that lived 3.5 billion years ago obtained energy by metabolizing pure sulfur.
- Health & Medicine
Brain Sabotage: Alzheimer’s protein may spawn miniseizures
Amyloid-beta, a protein implicated in Alzheimer's disease, causes misfiring of neurons and minor brain seizures in mice.
- Tech
Spot On: Printing flexible electronics one nanodot at a time
A new high-resolution printing technique could make flexible electronics such as plastic displays and solar cells easier to produce.
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Consciousness in the Raw
Observations of children born without most of the brain's outer layer, or cortex, and evidence from animal studies suggest that a basic form of consciousness may arise from the brain stem alone.
- Health & Medicine
Curry Power
A component of the spice turmeric, the color-giving ingredient in yellow curries, may help prevent and possibly treat Alzheimer's disease.
- Humans
Letters from the September 15, 2007, issue of Science News
Talk talk talk “Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism” (SN: 7/7/07, p. 4) didn’t mention that traditional IQ tests are in one sense “language” tests. The Ravens test doesn’t involve language processing in a typical manner. A person with a language disorder, as an autistic person is assumed to be, would do […]
