Uncategorized
- Animals
Mad Deer Disease?
Chronic wasting disease, once just an obscure brain ailment of deer and elk in a small patch of the West, is turning up in new places and raising troubling questions about risks.
By Susan Milius - Earth
Taming Toxic Tides
A growing international cadre of scientists is exploring a simple strategy for controlling toxic algal blooms: flinging dirt to sweep the algae from the water.
By Janet Raloff - Planetary Science
Martian Radiation: Giving off a faint X-ray glow
Astronomers have for the first time taken an X-ray image of the Red Planet.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Predisposed to Trouble: Gene variants implicated in stomach cancer
A person's risk of stomach cancer can depend on the genetics of both the individual and the bacterium Helicobacter pylori.
By Nathan Seppa - Ecosystems
Worm Attacks: Invading earthworms threaten rare U.S. fern
An unusual study of the effects of invading earthworms on North American plants finds that the exotics might be on the way to killing off a rare fern.
By Susan Milius -
Lost That Smoking Feeling: Emotions sputter as cigarette motivator
The first detailed effort to monitor the reactions of cigarette smokers as they carry out their daily activities finds that they feel neither better nor worse than at times when they don't begin smoking.
By Bruce Bower - Math
Fold-and-Cut Magic
One of the treats of holidays long past was an activity that involved folding, then cutting a sheet or strip of paper to reveal a lacy snowflake or a chain of identical spruce trees, connected at their sides so it looked like branches brushing up against each other. The result was invariably a delightful surprise. […]
- Earth
Outside-In: Clearing up how cloud droplets freeze
A fresh look at old experimental data suggests that water droplets in clouds freeze from the outside inward rather than from their core outward.
By Sid Perkins -
19202
What is reported in this article is a new application of an old idea. In the 1950s and early 1960s, engineers would check a computer by setting a radio beside the central processing unit to pick up the electromagnetic signals put out by switching vacuum tubes and, later, transistors. By programming so that the switching […]
By Science News - Computing
Loony Tunes: Bugs blare in software set to music
A novel way of converting computer programs into familiar-sounding music helps programmers locate errors in their code.
By Peter Weiss - Astronomy
Cosmic Couple: One galaxy, two gravitational beasts
Astronomers welcomed the discovery of two black holes in one galaxy, which confirms some ideas about how galaxies and black holes merge and evolve.
- Humans
From the November 26, 1932, issue
BOYS WORSE OFFENDERS To aid the harassed parents of temperish youngsters, Dr. Florence L. Goodenough of the Institute of Child Welfare, University of Minnesota, has made a scientific study of anger in young children–what are the immediate causes of outbursts, what are the underlying causes, what methods are commonly used to suppress it, and what […]
By Science News