Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. DNA: Promise and Peril

    Linda L. McCabe and Edward R.B. McCabe, Univ. of California Press, 2008, 339 p., $39.95.

  2. What’s the Big Idea? Four Centuries of Innovation in Boston

    Stephen Krensky, Charlesbridge, 2008, 64 p., $18.95.

  3. Out of the Blue

    John S. Friedman, Delacorte Press, 2008, 290 p., $24.

  4. Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming

    Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump, DK Publishing, 2008, 208 p., $25.

  5. From Science News Letter, September 13, 1958

    RNA INFLUENCES CELL DIFFERENTIATION — Ribonucleic acid has been pinpointed as having an essential role in cell differentiation, the process by which the early embryo’s look-alike cells become nerve, bone, skin and other organs. Working with extremely small quantities of cellular material, 20 to 50 cells, taken from embryonic newt and salamander tissue, Dr. M. C. Niu […]

  6. Science Future for September 13, 2008

    September 7–9 The first INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics. To be held in Stockholm. Visit www.neuroinformatics2008.org Sept. 21–Nov. 2 The walk-through Spider Pavilion opens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Visit the museum’s website at www.nhm.org Sept. 27–Oct. 12 Wired magazine’s NextFest in Chicago’s Millennium Park showcases global innovations. Visit www.wirednextfest.com

  7. Letters

    Disturbing numbers I found the “Sizing up science” Science Stat (SN: 8/2/08, p. 4) somewhat disconcerting with regard to the opinion about medicine. Basic medical research, in which ties to pharmaceutical companies and the like are not limited, may be “scientific” in the usual sense, but once you enter the arena of clinical research, the […]

  8. Protecting the Internet from the criminal element, by Eugene Spafford

    From the September 13, 2008 issue of Science News.

  9. Science Future for August 30, 2008

    September 14 Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy premieres on the Discovery Channel. Visit http://www.dsc.discovery.com October 5–9 International Banana Conference in Mombasa, Kenya. Visit http://www.banana2008.com October 18 Climate Change: the threat to Life and Our Energy Future opens at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Visit http://www.amnh.org

  10. From Science News Letter, August 30, 1958

    NO “SAFE” RADIATION DOSE — There is no period of safety after exposure to harmful radiation, a geneticist reports. Radiation has been found to affect the primitive germ cell from which the sperm develops. Chromosome abnormalities may be transmitted to offspring in dangerous numbers for a long time after irradiation of the male. This also […]

  11. Hidden Harmony: The Connected Worlds of Physics and Art

    by J.R. Leibowitz, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2008, 160 p., $24.95.

  12. Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research

    by Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner, Harvard Univ. Press, 2008, 384 p., $45.