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- Tech
Brain cells stay in focus as rats roam
So light that it doesn't weigh down a rat's head, a new microscope mounted over a hole in the awake animal's skull promises to open a window into individual neurons as a rat carries out normal activities.
- Tech
Natural micromachines get the points
In custom-made microscopic channels marked with arrows, mobile and thread-like cell structures called microtubules no longer wander aimlessly but slither in a fixed direction—a potential step toward tiny, man-made factories where cellular micromachinery churns out drugs or novel materials.
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Gene defect leads to warts and more
Scientists have found the gene for an immunodeficiency syndrome.
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DNA hints at origin of all language
A genetic study of African tribes suggests early language contained clicking sounds.
- Astronomy
Young stars shed light on young sun
If our own sun had been as active in its youth as is a group of young sunlike stars recently observed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, it could account for the abundance of several isotopes, such as aluminum-26, calcium-41, and beryllium-10 found in meteorites.
- Astronomy
Asteroid studies reveal new puzzles
Belying the image of an asteroid as a bare rock, a detailed study of the asteroid 433 Eros reveals that many of its crater floors and depressions are coated with fine dust and nearly half of the largest rocks strewn across the asteroid's surface represent material blasted from a single crater.
- Astronomy
Moon plume breaks the record
The Galileo spacecraft has found the tallest plume seen so far on Jupiter's moon Io, the only volcanically active moon known in the solar system.
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19032
A Canadian nurse I know is working in Mt. Selinda, Zimbabwe. She is currently designing her dissertation, in which she will interview local women in an attempt to understand their perspectives on health and how to prevent HIV infection and AIDS. When I read your article on stigmas’ harm to public health , I e-mailed […]
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Plight of the Untouchables
Stigma's largely unexplored effects on the health of people sufering from ailments ranging from AIDS to schizophrenia attracted much interest at a recent conference.
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19031
I found the article on Welwitschia enthralling–it made me want to set off for the Namibian desert straightaway! The author mentions that a local name for the plant is “long-haired thing,” but an even more evocative and picturesque one is the Afrikaans tweeblarkanniedood (two-leaf-cannot-die). Darwin was fascinated when he learned of Welwitschia and its extraordinary […]
- Plants
Torn to Ribbons in the Desert
Botanists puzzle over one of Earth's oddest plants: the remarkably scraggly Welwitschia of southwestern Africa.
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From the October 24, 1931, issue
GLACIERS CAUSED GEOLOGICAL MOVING DAYS Evolution, not revolution is a nice-sounding catchword used on all sorts of occasions by all sorts of people, especially by conservative politicians posing as liberals. But a broad view of the evolutionary stage, recorded by a leading scientist who has just left it, indicates that evolution has often proceeded by […]
