More Stories from the January 6, 2001 issue
- Paleontology
Genes Seem to Link Unlikely Relatives
Genetic markers on three proteins suggest a common African ancestor for elephants, aardvarks, elephant shrews, golden moles, and other animals.
- Health & Medicine
Vision: The risks of being too fat or too tall
Excess weight or height can have a blinding impact, fostering the development of cataracts.
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New ant species plunders other ants’ farms
A newly discovered Megalomyrmex ant specializes in raiding the nest gardens of fungus-cultivating ant species.
- Agriculture
Tasteful new wrapping can protect produce
New, fruit- and vegetable-based edible packaging could reduce the amount of synthetic wrapping needed to protect food.
- Astronomy
X rays unveil secret lives of black holes
New studies challenge the notion that supermassive black holes finished growing soon after their host galaxies formed and suggest new ways to find these black holes and measure their mass.
- Physics
Heating, simulations get the drop on drips
Air can buoy a layer of oil and, perhaps, even water leaking through a ceiling, if the air is relatively warm compared with the liquid.
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Suicide rates revised for depression
A research review concludes that the suicide rate among people diagnosed with depression has been overstated.
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Brain keeps eye on performance
A brain area that controls eye movements may also participate in a broader neural system of self-regulation.
- Tech
From silicon seeds, laser might sprout
The achievement of light amplification in a layer of tiny nuggets of silicon called quantum dots raises the possibility that long-desired silicon lasers are on the way.
- Tech
Current may flow free and cheap
Wires that carry electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures--and are inexpensive--moved a large step closer to reality as a 100-fold speed-up in depositing a key material wiped out a major obstacle to making those wires.
- Earth
Y2K: One of the hottest, wettest yet
Preliminary data from the National Climatic Data Center indicate the year 2000 will be one of the six hottest and one of the ten wettest years on record.
- Earth
Pollution in India may affect climate
Computer models show that air pollution over India could be preventing up to 15 percent of the sunlight from reaching the ground in the springtime, possibly causing temperature drops of up to 2 degrees Celsius.
- Earth
Snowpack chemistry can deplete ozone
Pollutants trapped in Arctic snow can be reactivated by sunlight when the sun returns to high latitudes in the spring, leading to ozone depletion in the snowpack and at low altitudes.
- Earth
Sediments show bipolar melting cycle
Both the North and South Poles have experienced regular and simultaneous periods of significant melting during the past 3 million years, according to sediments from the ocean floor at high latitudes.
- Earth
Lake sediment tells of Maya droughts
Sediment cores taken last year from the bottom of a lake on Mexico's Yucatán peninsula indicate that a series of extended droughts coincided with major cultural upheavals among the Mayan inhabitants of the area.
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