More Stories from the August 25, 2007 issue
- Animals
Tail singers
The male Anna's hummingbird impresses females and intimidates other males by making a whipping sound with its tail feathers.
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The origins of immunity?
In social amoebas, sluglike clusters of usually independent organisms, certain cells take on a protective role that hints at the origin of immune systems in higher animals.
- Earth
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature
Throwing tiny particles into the atmosphere to counteract global warming could cause extended droughts and other weather disruptions.
- Earth
Cat disease associated with flame retardants
An epidemic of hyperthyroidism in house cats may be the result of environmental exposure to certain flame retardants.
- Health & Medicine
Lithium might help bone healing
In mice, treatment with lithium assists in the production of a bone-repair protein and improves the healing of fractures.
- Archaeology
Map yields new view of ancient city
A new map shows that Angkor, the world's largest preindustrial city, covered more than 1,000 square kilometers of what is now Cambodia and possessed an elaborate canal system.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine targets ovarian-cancer cells
A vaccine for ovarian cancer enables some women who've undergone chemotherapy to stay in remission.
- Physics
Frizzed molecular carpets
Measurements of the speed with which heat travels along single hydrocarbon molecules could aid in the design of molecular electronics.
- Health & Medicine
If You Can Stomach It: Obesity surgery extends life span
Drastic weight loss achieved through gastric bypass and other stomach surgeries improves long-term survival for very obese people.
- Health & Medicine
Infectious Obesity: Adenovirus fattens stem cells
Some cases of obesity may result from infection by a virus that can transform adult stem cells into fat-storing cells.
- Animals
High Volume, Low Fidelity: Birds are less faithful as sounds blare
In noisy surroundings, normally faithful female zebra finches flirt with unfamiliar males.
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Groomed for Trouble: Mice yield obsessive-compulsive insights
Mice lacking a gene that makes a certain brain protein display behaviors much like those of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a poorly understood psychiatric ailment.
- Astronomy
Separation Anxiety: Cosmic collision may shed light on dark matter
The debris from an ancient collision of galaxy clusters seems to show cosmic dark matter behaving in a puzzling way.
- Physics
Crueltyfree: Counting photons without killing them
A delicate quantum measurement counts photons without destroying them.
- Earth
O River Deltas, Where Art Thou? Coastal sinking stalls sediment accumulation
The western coast of Siberia lacks river deltas because of the way the terrain has subsided since the end of the last ice age.
- Earth
Cellulose Dreams
Turning cellulose from plants into ethanol for fuel could help lower greenhouse-gas emissions—but the conversion is far from straightforward.
- Tech
Fire Inside
The events of 9/11 put new urgency into efforts to design buildings able to withstand the structural damage that fire can cause.
- Humans
Letters from the August 25, 2007, issue of Science News
Where did the chicken cross? “Chicken of the Sea: Poultry may have reached Americas via Polynesia,” (SN: 6/9/07, p. 356) states, “The most likely sea route ran north of Hawaii and down America’s Pacific coast.” The Polynesians were master mariners, so anything is possible, but continuing east from Tonga to South America is an extension […]
