Uncategorized
- Computing
Check on Checkers: In perfect game, there’s no winner
Thanks to an immense calculation that worked out every possible game position, computers can now play a flawless game of checkers and force a draw every time.
- Health & Medicine
Persistent Prions: Soilbound agents are more potent
Prions, deformed proteins that cause brain-destroying diseases such as chronic wasting disease or mad cow disease, are more infectious when bound to soil particles.
- Earth
Birth of an Island: Megaflood severed Europe from Britain
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the spillover from an immense glacial lake carved a chasm that in a matter of weeks separated what is now Britain from continental Europe.
- Health & Medicine
AIDS Abated: Genome scans illuminate immune control of HIV
Three genetic variations picked out by powerful whole-genome scans help explain why some people develop AIDS quickly while others keep it at bay.
- Health & Medicine
fryPod: Lightning strikes iPod users
A jogger wearing an iPod music player suffered second-degree ear and neck burns, burst eardrums, and jaw fractures after lightning struck a nearby tree.
- Materials Science
Crystal matchmaker
Nonperiodic structures called quasicrystals can act as interfaces between different crystal structures that would ordinarily not stick to each other.
- Tech
Double-decker solar cell
A two-layer, polymer-based solar cell has good efficiency and could be cheap to mass-produce.
- Planetary Science
Hyperion’s hydrocarbons
New observations by the Cassini spacecraft indicate the presence of ice and solid carbon dioxide on Saturn's moon Hyperion, and suggest an explanation for the orb's spongelike appearance.
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Alcohol problems hit nearly 1 in 3 adults
Nearly one in three recently surveyed U.S. adults reports having had serious alcohol problems at some time in their lives.
- Health & Medicine
Brain stem cells help Parkinson’s monkeys
Transplants of human-brain stem cells triggered signs of improvement in monkeys with a Parkinson's disease–like disorder.
- Math
Math as a Civil Right
A longtime activist in the civil rights movement now teaches that mathematical literacy is the key to full participation in the country's economy.
- Humans
Letters from the July 21, 2007, issue of Science News
Quantum leak? Perhaps there need not be “degrees of quantumness” (“Degrees of Quantumness: Shades of gray in particle-wave duality,” SN: 5/12/07, p. 292). As the beams pass increasingly closer to the surface, the plate will induce a small (but increasingly larger) spread of energies (hence wavelengths) in the electrons within the beam, possibly explaining the […]
