All Stories by Science News
- Earth
Sustainable Table
Created by the GrassRoots Action Center for the Environment (GRACE), this Web site aims to help consumers understand problems with the nation’s food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives. It provides an introduction to the burgeoning sustainable food movement and information about organizations, people, and programs that are trying to change the way people […]
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19769
This article shares a common deficit with many other reports addressing cost-effectiveness of the medications used to treat schizophrenia. It is clearly true that the newer medications are much more expensive than the older ones, but tardive dyskinesia (TD) rates have plummeted by about 99 percent with the advent of the modern antipsychotic medications. To […]
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19768
I write as a psychiatrist and a mother. My ex-husband is now in prison, and my son likely carries the genes of sociopathy. The quality of fearlessness mentioned in the article seems to be one of the temperamental traits most associated with the development of sociopathy. Fear would seem necessary for the development of guilt […]
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19767
This article states that “human-breast milk is not available for sale.” When I was breast-feeding my children, had I known that my breast milk could help people suffering from disease or that it could have helped scientific research, I certainly would have been willing to donate extra milk. While the concept may raise ethical questions, […]
- Humans
Letters from the December 9, 2006, issue of Science News
War is not the answer “U.S. Population to surpass 300 million” (SN: 10/7/06, p. 238) concludes with the interesting fact that the only annual drop in U.S. population during the past century “occurred between July 1917 and July 1918, when the country was at war,” implying a military cause for the decline. Indeed, the honored […]
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- Humans
Artistic Artificial Life
This Web-based project represents the work of three Calgary artists: Vera Gartley, Arlene Stamp, and Mary Shannon Will. These artists use computers and other technology to generate designs that simulate growth patterns found in nature, explore image and text relationships by engaging viewers in movement and drawing, and combine layers of color and pattern with […]
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19766
Regarding this article, economists would suggest that population growth allowed the division of labor. Notice that the most advanced economies are those with the largest populations, allowing for specialization in production. As Adam Smith wrote in 1776, “The division of labor is determined by the extent of the market.” Jim KleinSan Francisco, Calif.
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19765
This article leaves us up in the air with this statement: “. . . since the traditional wine-making techniques still in use in southwestern France and Sardinia increase concentrations of polymeric procyanidins, he says, other vintners may soon adopt such methods.” As a home winemaker, I have to ask, Which techniques contribute to increasing procyanidins? […]
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19764
This article says that a planet so close to a red dwarf would be forced to “rotate in sync” with the star. Is this the same situation that causes the moon to rotate in sync with Earth? Ken BollersHudson, Colo. Yes. First, the larger body (the red dwarf) pulls the smaller body (the planet) slightly […]
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19763
If membership in a species is characterized by the inability to breed with members of another species, how can there be “animal species known to have arisen from crossbreeding with other species? Jeffry D. MuellerEldersburg, Md. Exceptions happen. Also, biologists argue about what defines a species. —S. Milius I suggest that the new species be […]
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19762
Your article made a common mistake in characterizing the mechanism of steroid-hormone receptors. These receptors are not “proteins on the cell surface” but rather, and uniquely, positioned intracellularly. Steroid hormones pass directly from the bloodstream to the cytoplasm, where they induce changes in the receptor proteins, enable movement into the nucleus, and activate specific genes. […]
