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The final climate frontiers

Scientists aim to improve and localize their predictions.

Tiny tubes, big riddles

Carbon cylinders’ odd traits continue to stump scientists.

Science Future for December 4, 2010

December 5Closing ceremony of the 2010 World Memory Championships in Guangzhou, China. See www.worldmemorychampionship.com December 13 – 14Geminid meteor shower, all night but best after moonset around midnight. Look east and up. Info at http://earthsky.org December 17 Mummies of the World exhibit debuts in Milwaukee as part of its three-year tour. See www.mummiesoftheworld.com

Science Past from the Dember 3, 1960 issue

ASTHMA CLUE FROM HORSES — Research into the deaths of thoroughbred horses, especially foals, has produced an entirely new approach to the treatment of asthma, hay fever and skin troubles in human beings…. During the course of the investigation on horses, a substance was found in certain white cells in the horses’ blood that played […]

Book Review: Shark: In Peril in the Sea by David Owen

Review by Sid Perkins.

Death in a Small Package by Susan D. Jones

Part of the Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease series, this history of anthrax describes the bacteria’s transformation from agricultural disease to biological weapon. DEATH IN A SMALL PACKAGE BY SUSAN D. JONES Johns Hopkins Univ., 2010, 329 p., $24.95.

Lenin’s Laureate by Paul R. Josephson

A historian explores Soviet science in this biography of Zhores Alferov, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering the heterojunction used in LEDs. LENIN’S LAUREATE BY PAUL R. JOSEPHSON MIT, 2010, 307 p., $29.95.

The Species Seekers by Richard Conniff

Tales relate the adventures of early naturalists who risked life and limb in the quest to discover new species. THE SPECIES SEEKERS BY RICHARD CONNIFF W.W. Norton, 2010, 464 p., $26.95.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Giant Crossbow by Matthew Landrus

A da Vinci expert takes a technical look at the design and engineering underlying one of the artist’s most popular but least understood drawings. LEONARDO DA VINCI’S GIANT CROSSBOW BY MATTHEW LANDRUS Springer, 2010, 180 p., $59.95.

The Best American Science Writing 2010 by Jerome Groopman, ed.

Highlights some of the most intriguing science articles of 2009, including a tale of sexual evolution by Science News’ Susan Milius. THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING 2010 BY JEROME GROOPMAN, ED. Ecco, 2010, 346 p., $14.99.

Letters

Superfluid’s roots I’m confused. A little. I thought that a Bose-Einstein condensate occurred only in a gas and that the first time it was achieved was in 1995 using rubidium atoms. “A matter of solidity” (SN: 9/11/10, p. 22) states, “Superfluidity arises when the atoms in superfluid helium join up in a quantum state called […]

An engineer teaches her colleagues to share their toys

In her synthetic biology lab at Stanford, Christina Smolke designs circuits and switches using biological components, work that may lead to yeast that crank out medicines or ways to reprogram the immune system. Winner of the 2009 World Technology Award in biotechnology for doing work of “the greatest likely long-term significance” in her field, Smolke […]