Uncategorized
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Female pipefish face toughest odds
In the world of pipefish, which are cousins of sea horses, sexual selection may reverse, wherein females battle each other for male favor through sexual selection.
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18989
I have to tell you that your new look will keep your base audience and attract new readers. Your new design leaped off the kitchen counter and said, “Read me, read me!” It is still serious, as it should be, but so much more inviting. Becky MoserKings Mountain, N.C. I hate the new look. The […]
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A New Look for Science News
Starting next week, the print edition of Science News will have a new appearance.
- Earth
Toxic Pfiesteria inhabit foreign waters
The notorious Pfiesteria microbes, implicated in fish kills and human illness along the mid-Atlantic U.S. coast, have turned up in Norway.
- Humans
Official chooses Nevada for nuclear waste
On Jan. 10, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham notified Nevada's Governor Kenny Guinn by telephone that he intends to recommend that southwestern Nevada's Yucca Mountain site serve as the nation's long-term geological depository for high-level nuclear waste.
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18988
I was disappointed to see Science News depart from its usual objective reporting to cite an antinuclear propagandist as sole authority on the “dangers” of nuclear waste. The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is a single-issue political action group. Such organizations have a right to exist, but they should be identified as such in […]
- Math
Computers by the Trillions
The notion of using molecules as the working elements of a computer goes back several decades. It wasn’t until 1994, however, that anyone actually stepped into a laboratory and succeeded in solving a computational problem in a test tube. That was when computer scientist Leonard M. Adleman of the University of Southern California, using techniques […]
- Health & Medicine
Nicotine metabolism shows ethnic bias
A comparison of Latino, white, and Chinese-American smokers suggests that people of East Asian descent are apt to clear nicotine from their blood more gradually than the other smokers do, thereby staving off a craving for the next cigarette.
- Materials Science
Mammal cells make fake spider silk better
Using long and abundant water-soluble proteins secreted by bioengineered mammal cells, scientists have spun the first artificial spider silk demonstrated to have some of the remarkable mechanical properties of the real thing.
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Much psychosis in elderly may go unnoticed
Swedish researchers identified hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms in 10 percent of a sample of 85-year-olds, a much larger figure than previously reported for elderly people.
- Astronomy
Some gamma-ray bursts may occur nearby
A sizable minority of gamma-ray bursts may originate relatively nearby, in galaxies within 325 million light-years of our own.
- Chemistry
Detonating silicon wafers can ID elements
Researchers have discovered a way to make certain silicon wafers explode on command.
