More Stories from the August 19, 2000 issue
- Animals
Slavemaker Ants: Misunderstood Farmers?
A test of what once seemed too obvious to test—whether ant colonies suffer after being raided by slavemaker ants—suggests that some of the raiding insects have been getting unfair press.
- Health & Medicine
DNA vaccine immunizes fetal lambs
Canadian scientists have devised a way to vaccinate fetal lambs, which could spawn more research into in utero methods for preventing the spread of disease from mothers to their babies.
- Astronomy
Young pulsar has a split personality
A new pulsar, the youngest discovered to date, unexpectedly exhibits properties of both regular pulsars and a recently explored class of supermagnetic pulsars, the magnetars.
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Study explores abortion’s mental aftermath
A majority of women report no increase in psychological problems after having an abortion, although nearly one in five express dissatisfaction and regret 2 years later about their decision.
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Skin cells reveal they have hairy origins
The outer layers of the skin may spring from cells in hair follicles.
- Tech
Nanotechnologists get a squirt gun, almost
A novel computer simulation of molecular behavior suggests that a minuscule squirt gun able to spit liquids a few hundred nanometers ought to work.
- Paleontology
Feathered fossil still stirs debate
More than 2 years after scientists first described 120-million-year-old fossils of a feathered animal, a new analysis seems to bolster the view that the turkey-size species was a bird has-been and not a bird wanna-be.
- Astronomy
Telescope takes close-ups of distant star
Radio astronomers have for the first time probed ejected gas in the immediate surroundings of a distant star.
- Physics
Answer blows in wind, swirls in soap
A swirling soap film gives new clues to how turbulent flows, such as the circulation of Earth's atmosphere, squander their energy.
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Older isn’t wiser in moral reasoning
Researchers find more endorsement of immanent justice, the belief that the natural world punishes human misdeeds, among college students than sixth-graders.
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In gauging beauty, congeniality counts
People judge others who have positive personality traits by more lenient physical criteria for attractiveness than they do those about whom they have no personality information.
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Feedback matters for getting the joke
Plausible information about how others react to jokes colors a college student's own perception of the humor value of the material.
- Health & Medicine
Genes of cholera germ deciphered
The bacterium that causes cholera has nearly 4,000 genes on its two circular chromosomes.
- Health & Medicine
Microbes implicated in heart disease
Viruses and bacteria besides chlamydia may play a role in human heart disease through an immune reaction to a heartlike protein they produce.
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotic for Huntington’s disease?
In mice genetically engineered to develop an illness similar to Huntington's disease, the drug minocycline significantly delays the onset of symptoms and death.
- Computing
Strength and weakness in diversity
Although the Internet's redundancy and diversity help it survive local node malfunctions despite its vast size and complexity, it is vulnerable to attacks aimed specifically at the most highly connected nodes.
- Computing
Computer grid cracks problem
A large network of powerful computers solved a 32-year-old optimization challenge known as the "nug30" quadratic assignment problem.
- Computing
Tight packaging for digitized surfaces
A novel digital compression scheme may make it practical to transmit detailed models of three-dimensional surfaces over the Internet.
- Physics
To pack a strand tight, make it a helix
The optimal way to pack long strings into small spaces is to coil them into helices—particularly the types of helices found in proteins and perhaps DNA.
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