More Stories from the August 28, 2004 issue
- Tech
A new deep-sea submersible
Scientists have announced a 4-year, $21.6-million design-and-construction effort to replace the aging research submersible Alvin.
- Animals
How dingoes got down under
DNA analysis suggests that Australia got its famous dingoes from a very few dogs brought along with people fanning out from East Asia some 5,000 years ago.
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Some corals like it hotter
The heat-tolerant algae that live symbiotically within some corals may enable their hosts to adapt to the warmer water temperatures projected to accompany long-term climate change.
- Planetary Science
Martian ice could be sculpting surface patterns
Images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor suggest that most areas with geological features known as patterned ground appear at high latitudes.
- Animals
Policing egg laying in insect colonies
Kinship by itself can't explain the vigilante justice of some ant, bee, and wasp workers.
- Health & Medicine
Bright nights kindle cancers in mice
Data from mice subjected to constant illumination suggest that artificial light may increase risks of lung and liver cancers and leukemia.
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Brain protein peps up and soothes rodents
A recently identified brain hormone increases wakefulness and appears to suppress fear when it's injected into rodents.
- Health & Medicine
Vitamin may guard against mental decline
The B vitamin niacin may protect people against Alzheimer's disease and other forms of mental decline.
- Materials Science
Face to Face: Crystal-growth method bodes electric payoff
A new method for growing silicon carbide eliminates crystal defects that have long prevented the compound's wider use in electric devices.
- Earth
Rounding Up Resistance: Weed sacrifices seeds to put up with a herbicide
Use of herbicides containing glyphosate can drive evolution in the tall morning glory, even though the weed must simultaneously sacrifice a measure of its fertility.
- Astronomy
Super Portrait: X-ray telescope eyes supernova remnant
Trained on Cassiopeia A for 11.5 days, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has taken the most detailed portrait ever recorded of any supernova remnant.
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Ringing Out Despair: Phone therapy gets call as depression buster
Psychotherapy delivered over the telephone shows promise as a depression treatment when offered in conjunction with prescribed antidepressant medication.
- Earth
North and South: Equal melting from each hemisphere raised ice age sea levels
The gargantuan volumes of meltwater that boosted sea levels during the most recent round of ice ages derived equally from ice sheets in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
- Earth
There’s a Catch: Recreation takes toll on marine fish
Recreational fishing isn't just a tiny, harmless nibble on saltwater-fish populations.
- Health & Medicine
Keeping Cells under Control: Enzyme suppression inhibits cancer spread
Shutting down an enzyme can slow the spread of cancer in mice.
- Math
A Better Distorted View
The mathematics used to describe diffusion can also be used to generate maps based on population data.
- Plants
Smokey the Gardener
Wildfire smoke by itself, without help from heat, can trigger germination in certain seeds, but just what the vital compound in that smoke might be has kept biologists busy for years.
