More Stories from the December 6, 2008 issue
- Archaeology
An ancient healer reborn
A research team in Israel has uncovered one of the oldest known graves of a shaman. The 12,000-year-old grave hosts a woman’s skeleton surrounded by the remains of unusual animals.
- Humans
Food allergy advice may be peanuts
Early exposure to peanuts in a baby’s diet seems to lessen the risk of developing a peanut allergy later.
- Chemistry
Household cleaner makes blood removal simple!
Common household “oxy” cleaners remove blood almost too well.
- Chemistry
Blueprint to repel oil and water
The texture of surfaces could be designed so that both water and oil can bead up and thus flow off.
- Health & Medicine
Mini heart attack best treated like the big one
Patients admitted to hospitals with mild symptoms of a heart attack may benefit from getting a heart catheterization performed promptly.
- Health & Medicine
Treating viral heart infections
Viral heart infections respond to interferon treatment, easing cardiomyopathy in some patients.
- Earth
Minerals evolved along with life
Turns out, the variety and number of minerals in the solar system and on Earth have increased through time, and some minerals exist because Earth has life.
- Physics
Take the time to break quantum encryption
A time-travel scenario permitted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity offers a bit of possibility for breaking quantum encryption.
- Space
Extrasolar planetary system makes pictorial debut
The first images of a planetary system beyond the solar system are released, while the Hubble Space Telescope snaps a shot of likely planet orbiting a nearby star.
- Life
Stone Age gal gets hip
Researchers have found an approximately 1-million-year-old fossil pelvis that, in their view, indicates that Homo erectus females gave birth to surprisingly big-brained babies.
- Health & Medicine
Diversity of human skin bacteria revealed
First large-scale inventory of microbes charts types, locales of bacteria.
- Space
Misplaced muons either mundane or monumental
During an experiment in Fermilab's Tevatron particle accelerator, a group of elementary particles called muons showed up in a strange place. Physicists are considering the likely implications.
- Health & Medicine
Still crazy (in love) after all these years
A brain imaging study reveals that some people are as giddy as teenagers in love, even after two decades of marriage.
- Psychology
Your body is mine
Scientists have developed a technique for inducing an illusion of having swapped one’s own body with someone else’s body, providing a new means for investigating self-identity and body-image disorders.
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Sequencing the dead to save the living
Reviving ancient genomes of long-extinct creatures offers a window into past extinctions—and may help prevent future die outs.
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No gene is an island
Even as biologists catalog the discrete parts of life forms, an emerging picture reveals that life’s functions arise from interconnectedness.
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The decider
Informing the debate over the reality of ‘free will’ requires learning something about the lateral habenula.
