More Stories from the June 8, 2002 issue
- Earth
Most oil enters sea from nonaccidents
Nearly all of the oil entering the marine environment traces not to accidents but to natural seeps and human activities where releases are intentional.
- Environment
Old thermometers pose new problems
Though health groups advocate getting mercury thermometers out of the home, obtaining sound advice on how to dispose of the thermometers can be problematic.
- Health & Medicine
Learning from leprosy’s nerve damage
The bacterium that causes leprosy directly damages a protective sheathing around many nerve cells.
- Health & Medicine
Arthritis drug fights Crohn’s disease
The inflammation-fighting drug infliximab can hold off the painful symptoms of Crohn's disease for as long as a year in many patients.
- Health & Medicine
Dieting woes tied to hunger hormone
A rise in the appetite-enhancing hormone ghrelin after weight loss may explain why dieters regain pounds.
- Planetary Science
Odyssey’s Homer: Hints of water near both poles of Mars
Sensors on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft have spied strong signs of ice buried near both poles of the Red Planet, exactly the regions where scientists previously had said that such frozen water deposits could exist.
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Wayward Moods: Bipolar kids travel tough road to teenhood
Children diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a psychiatric ailment characterized by severe mood swings, exhibit a depressingly poor response to standard drug treatments and psychotherapy.
- Astronomy
Rare Find: Odd type of ammonia detected in space
The discovery of deuterated ammonia in space could help astronomers better understand the complex chemistry of dark clouds in star-forming regions.
- Health & Medicine
Transplant Triumph: Cloned cow kidneys thrive for months
Cow kidneys and other tissue made by cloning ward off immune rejection after transplantation into cows.
- Ecosystems
Plight of the Iguanas: Hidden die-off followed Galápagos spill
Residues of oil spilled in the Galapágos Islands in January 2001 may have caused a 60 percent decline in one island's colony of marine iguanas.
- Health & Medicine
Efficient Germ: Human body boosts power of cholera microbe
Some genes in the cholera-causing bacterium Vibrio cholerae are activated and others are silenced when the microbe passes through the human gut, changes that make the bacterium more virulent.
- Astronomy
Seeing Red: A cool revival of Hubble’s infrared camera
New images provide a graphic demonstration that the Hubble Space Telescope's infrared vision has been restored.
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Bacterial genes and cell scaffolding
A bacterium may have revealed the origin of a key cell structure.
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Ironing out underarm odor
Chemicals that deprive bacteria of iron may improve deodorants.
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- Humans
Solar series wins award for Science News
The Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society has given its 2002 popular writing award to Ron Cowen and Sid Perkins for a two-part series on cyclic variations in the sun's activity.
- Health & Medicine
What Activates AIDS?
New studies suggest that a natural process called immune activation—the signaling that alerts immune cells of foreign invaders—plays a key role in explaining why infection with the human immunodeficiency virus progresses to AIDS more quickly in some people than in others.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Dawn
New computer simulations suggest that the first stars in the universe were extremely massive and left behind gamma-ray bursts that may already have been detected by telescopes orbiting Earth.
