More Stories from the December 9, 2000 issue
- Planetary Science
Mars Views Hint at Early Land of Lakes
New, high-resolution images unveiled this week not only offer supporting evidence that parts of ancient Mars resembled a land of lakes but also point out prime locations to look for fossils if life ever existed on the Red Planet.
- Tech
Tiny tubes could ease eavesdropping
A team of researchers is developing highly sensitive acoustic sensors using ordered arrays of carbon nanotubes, which act much like the rodlike stereocilia of the inner ear.
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Language goes beyond sight, sound in brain
Two brain areas long considered crucial for perceiving and speaking words also spring into action in deaf people who are using sign language or watching others do so.
- Earth
Chalk reveals greatest underwater landslide
Seismic waves generated by an extraterrestrial object crashing into Mexico 65 million years ago appear to have sent sediment from shallow waters sliding off the continental shelf.
- Paleontology
Fossil birds sport a new kind of feather
Two fossil specimens of a primitive, starling-size bird that lived about 125 million years ago have tail feathers that may hold the clues to how feathers originated.
- Materials Science
Anyone want to knit a microscopic sweater?
Microscopic polymer tubes can tangle themselves into a new and possibly useful structure—tiny "yarn balls" that flatten out and partly unravel in an electric field.
- Earth
Lemon-scented products spawn pollutants
Some fragrances used in home-care products can play a role in generating potentially harmful air pollution.
- Health & Medicine
Drug aids destruction of lymphoma cells
The drug rituximab, when added to chemotherapy, boosts survival rates in people with diffuse B-cell lymphoma, a kind of cancer.
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Crippled fungus acts as vaccine
A genetically crippled strain of yeast can vaccinate mice against deadly normal strains.
- Astronomy
What a blast!
Astronomers have glimpsed a rare, long-lived neutron-star explosion that may represent the burning of carbon just beneath the surface of this superdense star.
- Astronomy
More moons for Saturn
With the discovery of two additional moons, the ringed planet now has a retinue of 24 known satellites orbiting it.
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Brain sets sights on mind’s eye
Brain regions implicated in vision may also contribute to the images in the "mind's eye."
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Man’s brain incurs disgusting loss
A brain-damaged man yields clues to the neural organization responsible for experiencing disgust.
- Health & Medicine
Is penicillin-allergy rate overstated?
A study finds that 20 of 21 people who reported having a penicillin allergy when filling out paperwork during a hospital visit in fact don't have one, suggesting that the prevalence of this allergy is overstated.
- Health & Medicine
Marker signals esophageal cancer
Silencing of the gene that encodes the cancer-suppressing protein APC is common in people with esophageal cancer, suggesting that physicians might use this genetic abnormality as a marker for the disease.
- Physics
When all is a spin, calm is dragged in
When laboratory vortices are mixed to create the equivalent of a tornado in a hurricane, the "hurricane" may gobble up spots of calm from the outside world.
- Physics
Hot little levers write beaucoup bits
Arrays of microscopic tips may offer a way to pack digital data more tightly and transfer it more quickly than is possible with magnetic hard disks.
- Physics
Particle hunt off, collider comes down
Despite tantalizing, last-minute hints of a long-sought, mass-giving particle called the Higgs boson, dismantling of the Large Electron-Positron collider has begun.
- Materials Science
Making Stuff Last
Chemistry and materials science step up to preserve history, old and new.
- Health & Medicine
Weight Matters, Even in the Womb
Status at birth can foreshadow illnesses decades later.
