More Stories from the September 25, 2010 issue
- Health & Medicine
New gel seals wounds fast
A synthetic material revs up blood clotting at low cost.
- Chemistry
Tracking bird flu one poop at a time
Mice can sniff out duck droppings laced with the virus.
- Health & Medicine
New drug fights metastatic melanoma
A novel compound joins two other promising therapies to offer hope for patients with the advanced form of the skin cancer, who currently have poor treatment options.
- Anthropology
Prehistoric ‘Iceman’ gets ceremonial twist
Rather than dying alone high in the Alps, Ötzi may have been ritually buried there, a new study suggests.
- Physics
Very tiny, very cool
Physicists outline a scheme to build a ‘refrigerator’ that can cool to near absolute zero and is based on only a few particles.
- Earth
Primordial bestiary gets an annex
A classic Canadian fossil trove extends to thinner deposits, geologists find.
- Archaeology
Big eats from a 12,000-year-old burial
Middle Eastern villagers may have feasted around a shaman’s grave 12,000 years ago, before the dawn of agriculture.
- Space
Still no Earths, but getting closer
Two newly discovered planetary systems shed light on the likelihood of producing terrestrial planets.
- Health & Medicine
Ovary removal proves beneficial for cancer-prone women
BRCA mutation carriers who opt for surgery survive longer than those who forgo the operation, a new study shows.
- Life
Hints of altruism among bacteria
E. coli bacteria fight antibiotics with help from drug-resistant neighbors.
- Health & Medicine
Alzheimer’s trade-off for mentally active seniors
Staying mentally active may delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease but may also prompt rapid cognitive decline once symptoms appear.
- Life
Feud over family ties in evolution
Prominent scientists dispute kinship’s role in self-sacrifice among highly social creatures.
- Earth
Geomagnetic field flip-flops in a flash
Rocks in Nevada preserve evidence of superfast changes in Earth’s magnetic polarity.
- Life
Microbe’s survival manual
Researchers have uncovered how D. radiodurans can withstand extreme radiation.
- Physics
String theory entangled
Scientists forge an intriguing mathematical link between black holes and the physics of the very small.
- Humans
DVDs don’t turn toddlers into vocabulary Einsteins
Young children don’t learn words from a popular educational program, but some of their parents think they do.
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Science Future for September 25, 2010
September 25Free admission day to 17 museums in Houston. See www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org September 30Peter Gleick gives an evening talk in San Francisco on Bottled & Sold, his book about the bottled water industry. Ages 21 and up. See www.calacademy.org October 4 – 6 Nobel Prizes announced for medicine or physiology, physics and chemistry. Go to http://nobelprize.org
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What’s Eating You? People and Parasites by Eugene H. Kaplan
An ecologist takes readers on an engaging, if sometimes squirm-worthy, tour of the world’s hangers-on. WHAT’S EATING YOU? BY EUGENE H. KAPLAN Princeton University Press, 2010, 302 p., $26.95.
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Off the Grid by Nick Rosen
A journalist travels the country to visit Americans who, for a variety of reasons, have opted out of the electrical grid and into alternative lifestyles. OFF THE GRID BY NICK ROSEN Penguin, 2010, 292 p., $15.
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Book Review: Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History by Ahmad Dallal
Review by Tom Siegfried.
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Biomedical research needs more consistent funding
This summer William Talman became president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, an organization that advocates the advancement of biological and biomedical research. He is a professor of neurology and neuroscience at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and a practicing physician at the university’s hospital and at the Iowa City […]
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Fire & Ice
Volcanoes and frozen lands make an explosive combo.
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Rust Never Sleeps
A new flare-up in an age-old battle between wheat and a fungal killer.
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A New View of Gravity
Entropy and information may be crucial concepts for explaining roots of familiar force.
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Letters
New views of enzymes “Enzymes exposed” (SN: 7/17/10, p. 22) was an interesting read, but is there more to the story? When biologists consider the lock-and-key model for enzymes, I wonder if they are stuck in the static stick-and-ball mentality of traditional chemistry. Is biochemistry really static or is it dictated by the vibrational mode […]
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Science Past from the issue of September 24, 1960
SCLEROSIS AND COSMIC RAYS — Radiation bombarding the earth from space may be a factor in the occurrence of multiple sclerosis, the Harvard University neurologist Dr. John S. Barlow believes.… Dr. Barlow’s statistical study of the distribution of multiple sclerosis shows that the frequencies of occurrence of the disease vary systematically with geomagnetic latitude. The […]
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Bulletproof Feathers by Robert Allen, ed.
Photos and illustrations highlight how nature inspires technology, from airplane wings that change shape to stainproof fabrics. BULLETPROOF FEATHERS BY ROBERT ALLEN, ED. University of Chicago Press, 2010, 192 p., $35.
