More Stories from the January 22, 2000 issue
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Popular Boys Show Their Tough Side
Some highly aggressive boys may become popular figures in their elementary school classes and wield much influence over classroom discipline.
- Health & Medicine
Oxygen limits infections from surgery
Giving patients extra oxygen during and shortly after colorectal surgery halves the incidence of infection.
- Earth
As globe warms, atmosphere keeps its cool
Scientists confirm a confusing discrepancy between temperatures at Earth's surface and in its atmosphere.
- Astronomy
Hubble Space Telescope: Eye wide open
Two months after the failure of a fourth gyroscope shut it down, and 3 weeks after a shuttle crew paid it a service call, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business.
- Animals
Butterfly ears suggest a bat influence
Researchers have found the first bat-detecting ear in a butterfly and suggest that the threat of bats triggered the evolution of some moths into butterflies.
- Chemistry
Powerful explosive blasts onto scene
Researchers have synthesized what could be the most powerful nonnuclear explosive known.
- Physics
Lasers act on cue in electron billiards
Electrons torn from atoms by a laser beam can shoot back into the atom and knock loose other electrons like balls in a billiard game, a finding that may have applications in nuclear fusion, particle acceleration, and fundamental physics experiments.
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Obesity hormone tackles wound healing
The hormone leptin, which seems to have many roles in the body including regulating fat storage, may speed the healing of wounds.
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Readers’ brains go native
Brain functions linked to reading reflect cultural differences in spelling systems.
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Social thinking in schizophrenia
Training that fosters thinking skills in social situations may improve attention, memory, and social skills of people with schizophrenia.
- Physics
Magnets trap neutrons for a lifetime
A new device that uses magnets to trap neutrons may enable physicists to measure more precisely how quickly free neutrons decay, a time period with implications for understanding both the weak force and the early universe.
- Physics
U.S. time now flows from atom fountain
The United States has switched to the atomic fountain clock, which sets itself according to the resonant frequency of rising and falling balls of cold cesium.
- Tech
Building a Supermodel
Researchers are combining ergonomics and biological research with computer power to build a virtual human that can simulate human biology from anatomy down to the genetic code.
- Anthropology
Cultures of Reason
East Asian and Western cultures may encourage fundamentally different reasoning styles, rather than build on universal processes often deemed necessary for thinking.
- Health & Medicine
Survivors’ Benefit?
Smallpox outbreaks throughout history may have endowed some people with genetic mutations that make them resistant to the AIDS virus.
