More Stories from the July 2, 2005 issue
- Earth
Antarctica’s gaining ice in some spots
Large portions of Antarctica are storing more snowfall than they once did.
- Tech
Sensor measures mass of one DNA molecule
A new biosensor that can detect the mass of a single DNA molecule could lead to faster and more accurate screening for HIV infection, cancer, and other diseases.
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Placebo gives brain emotional break
Placebo-instigated anxiety reduction is accompanied by sparse activity in emotional parts of the brain as well as by intense responses in neural structures that dampen pain, a new brain-scan study finds.
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Monkeys keep track of small numbers
Monkeys show signs of knowing when the number of faces that they see matches the number of voices that they hear, leading a research team to conclude that these primates possess basic counting skills.
- Planetary Science
Flashy news from Mars
A streak across the Martian sky observed by the rover Spirit was most likely a meteor associated with a comet called Wiseman-Skiff.
- Health & Medicine
Sleepy teens haven’t got circadian rhythm
High schools that begin classes as early as 7:30 a.m. deprive teenagers of sleep, and attempts to reset an adolescent's biological clock fail to solve the problem.
- Plants
Long search reveals cell receptor for plant growth
More than 70 years after biologists identified the important plant growth hormone auxin, they have finally found a cell-receptor molecule for it.
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Sleepless in SeaWorld: Some newborns and moms forgo slumber
Orca-whale and dolphin babies and their mothers appear to skip sleep for as long as a month after the pups' birth.
- Health & Medicine
Running Interference: Fresh approach to fighting inflammation
Two experimental drugs stop inflammation in mice by preserving a natural inflammation inhibitor.
- Chemistry
Inside a melting crystal
A model crystal made of water-saturated polymer spheres shows that small defects in a crystal can cause it to melt from the inside out.
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Muscle Men: Lab-grown cells mirror source’s characteristics
Researchers studying muscle cells maintained in petri dishes burn sugar and fat with the same efficiency as do the people from whom the cells are isolated.
- Earth
Bacteria Ride the Tide: Moon’s phases predict water quality at beaches
At many ocean beaches, full and new moons coincide with the greatest concentrations of bacteria in the water.
- Planetary Science
Pebbles from Heaven: Tracking planets in the making
Recording radio waves from the region around a young star, astronomers have for the first time documented the making pebbles, a key step in the rocky road to planethood.
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Mother Knows Worst: Abusive parenting spans generations in monkeys
Many female rhesus monkeys who were abused as infants by their mothers do the same to their own infants, raising the prospect of using these animals as a model for human child abuse.
- Animals
He Clones, She Clones: Dad, mom ants as different species
In the little fire ant, males and queens clone themselves, the closest science has gotten to declaring males and females as separate species.
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Sound Off
By using bits of RNA to eliminate the effects of selected genes, scientists are developing new ways to study gene function and treat diseases.
- Astronomy
Panning Distant Dust
Astronomers are using hundreds of newly detected debris disks found around a variety of nearby stars to hunt for planets and learn about the evolution of our solar system.
- Humans
Letters from the July 2, 2005, issue of Science News
Chlorine’s fate? “Special Treatment: Tiny technology tackles mega messes” (SN: 4/23/05, p. 266), on the reaction of nanoparticles of iron with trichloroethane (TCE) contaminating an aquifer, states that the TCE is converted “into ethane.” What happens to the chlorine stripped off the TCE? Is it converted into insoluble inorganic compounds or is it available to […]
