Letters to the Editor
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19914
Your article suggested yet a second possibility leading to the decline or extinction of the mammoths in the region of the apparent iron micrometeorite-shower impact, which drove the metallic particles into the sides of the fossil tusks examined. That same shower of high-velocity metallic particles found in the tusks probably perforated the skin and soft […]
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19913
There is little mystery why some female fishing spiders are so aggressive that they eat their suitors before mating can take place. It would take a very bold male to court a female knowing he is going to be lunch. To maintain such inherited aggressive behavior in the female, one only has to assume that […]
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19912
As I read this article, I was wondering whether the findings discussed suggest that a woman who has had both a hysterectomy and an oophorectomy should be on estrogen hormone therapy. Does a woman with no uterus or ovaries produce enough estrogen in other organs to benefit from the estrogen receptor beta? Cathy GregorAlexandria, Va. […]
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19911
In this article, the definition of patients with severe psoriasis as those needing systemic drugs raises the question whether treatment itself may be linked to early mortality. The journal article cited in the story indicates that some systemic treatments may be less toxic than others, but I found nothing to refute the hypothesis that mortality […]
- Humans
Letters from the December 22 & 29, 2007, issue of Science News
Amylase with your veggies Your article (“Advantage: Starch,” SN: 9/15/07, p. 173) notes how groups of people may have different numbers of copies of the amylase gene. Is it correct then that individuals have varying numbers of the gene as well? If so, would this explain why some people don’t like meat and become vegetarians […]
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19910
I believe that the term declination was used in error in this article. On any nautical navigation chart the difference between magnetic and true north is called “variation.” Declination has always been the angle from the horizon to a point higher into the sky. Bob NickelsonKing and Queen Court House, Va. While navigators use the […]
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19909
The photo illustrated in this article does not show a golden eagle. The bill of a golden eagle is black on the outer half and pale blue at the base, and the feathers on the back of its head are bright tawny. It could be a white-tailed eagle, a very close relative of the bald […]
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19908
This article talks of restoring prairies to an earlier state, but if the concepts summarized in Charles C. Mann’s book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus are even within shouting distance of reality, the “native prairie” being pursued by some represents a fleeting moment in time created by the destruction of a civilization […]
- Humans
Letters from the December 15, 2007, issue of Science News
Fuzzy logic Astronomer Masanori Iye of the National Observatory of Japan blames the blurry appearance of meteor trails at about 100 kilometers altitude on the fact that they were photographed with telescopes focused at infinity (“Out-of-focus find,” SN: 9/29/07, p. 205). But optics teaches that any object much farther away than the focal length of […]
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19907
I was disappointed to see optical quantum computers described as “exponentially faster than ordinary computers” in your article. Despite frequent misuse in the lay press, “exponentially” does not mean “a whole bunch.” It refers to a specific mathematical functional relationship, not merely a comparison of two numbers. The article doesn’t describe any such function. Even […]
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19906
When Ai, mother of the chimp Amuyu, whose mental feats you reported in this article, appeared in a television documentary a few years ago, I reproduced for myself the number-sequence test she performed and found that, after practice, I could easily outperform her. After reading about Ayumu, I tried the number-recall tests that he and […]
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19905
This article says that American students’ science and math skills have been falling relative to those of their peers in other countries. How true. Recent tests put the United States in 14th place in an international comparison. But at least we are still in the top 10! Tom ReesorConway, S.C.
