More Stories from the April 27, 2002 issue
- Chemistry
Unlikely ion made in lab
Chemists have created a molecule—the pentamethylcyclopentadienyl cation—that many researchers thought was too unstable to exist long enough to be identified or studied.
- Chemistry
Fluorine atoms used to cut nanotubes
Researchers have found that they can cut carbon nanotubes into short, potentially useful pieces using a technique for adding groups of atoms to nanotubes.
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Whazzits get their own insect order
Insect specimens that have puzzled museum curators for decades turn out to represent a lineage so odd that scientists have named a new order just for them.
- Earth
Smog’s ozone spawns funky carpet smells
Strange, unpleasant odors may emanate from carpets for years due to reactions caused by exposure to smoggy air.
- Health & Medicine
Shocking findings
Implanted defibrillators reduce the occurrence of sudden death by about a third among people who had previous heart attacks and continue to suffer impaired heart function.
- Health & Medicine
Put Out to Pasture: Strategy to prolong antibiotics’ potency
The use of antibiotics to promote growth in farm animals hastens the end of their medical effectiveness.
- Health & Medicine
Risk Factor: Genetic defect hikes breast cancer threat
A mutation already linked to several types of cancer doubles the risk of breast cancer in a woman and multiplies men's slight risk of the disease even more dramatically.
- Astronomy
Super Wallops: Tracking the origin of cosmic rays
Two new studies shed light on the longstanding mystery of where cosmic rays—the energetic charged particles that bombard our galaxy—originate.
- Earth
The Silent Type: Pacific Northwest hit routinely by nonquakes
Once every 14 months or so, portions of coastal British Columbia and northwestern Washington State experience a slow ground motion that, if released all at once, would generate an earthquake measuring more than 6 on the Richter scale.
- Health & Medicine
Deadly Pickup: Enzyme permits plague germ to ride in fleas
Acquisition of a gene that enables the plague bacterium to live inside blood-sucking fleas may have set the stage for the Black Death.
- Anthropology
Attack of the Ancestor: Neandertals took a stab at violent assaults
The pieced-together fragments of a 36,000-year-old Neandertal skull reveal a bony scar caused by a blow from a sharp tool or weapon.
- Materials Science
Self-Sutures: New material knots up on its own
Researchers have used a new biodegradable material to make surgical sutures that knot and tighten themselves as they warm to body temperature.
- Physics
Not-So-Neutral Neutron: Clearer view of neutron reveals charged locales
A sharp, new picture of the neutron reveals that rather than being uniformly electrically neutral, the particle contains regions of positive and negative charge.
- Health & Medicine
Mammograms on Trial
New controversy about old data has physicians, women, and policy analysts struggling to decide whether all women should be screened with mammography in order to reduce deaths due to breast cancer.
- Animals
Rebranding the Hyena
Zoologists are hoping that long-term ecological studies of the spotted hyena will assist in dispelling the animal's undeservedly bad reputation.
