More Stories from the March 13, 2004 issue
- Physics
Radioactive sprinkles keep machines true
Needing tiny radioactive sources to calibrate medical scanners with ever-sharper vision, an Australian team dipped tiny balls the size of candy sprinkles into a radioactive liquid.
- Materials Science
Cinching nanotubes into tough fibers
Irradiating bundles of carbon nanotubes can lead to tougher fibers.
- Chemistry
New champions among corrosive microbes
Newly discovered strains of bacteria have developed a metabolic shortcut for eating away iron with great efficiency.
- Earth
Deep Pacific waters warmed in recent years
Oceanographic data gathered across the North Pacific in 1985 and again in 1999 indicate that the deepest waters there have been heating up.
- Anthropology
Extinct ancestor wasn’t so finicky
Contrary to much anthropological thought, the genus Paranthropus showed as much dietary and behavioral flexibility as ancient Homo species did between 3 million and 1 million years ago.
- Earth
Pompeii debris yields calamity clues
The magnetic characteristics of rocks and debris excavated from Pompeii reveal the changing temperatures of the volcanic ash cloud that smothered the Italian city in A.D. 79.
- Health & Medicine
Two arthritis drugs work best in tandem
Two anti-inflammatory drugs for rheumatoid arthritis—methotrexate and etanercept—work better together than either does individually.
- Earth
Diesel fumes suppress immune response
Recurring exposure to soot particles from diesel exhaust fumes reduces the immune system's capacity to fend off infection, tests on rodents indicate.
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Scrambled Dogma: Stem cells may make new eggs in women
Scientists may have come up with a new explanation for how a woman's biological clock works.
- Anthropology
Brain Size Surprise: All primates may share expanded frontal cortex
A new analysis of brains from a variety of mammal species indicates that frontal-cortex expansion has occurred in all primates, not just in people, as scientists have traditionally assumed.
- Astronomy
Deepest Vision Yet: Hubble takes ultralong look at the cosmos
Astronomers unveiled the deepest visible-light portrait of the universe ever taken, a million-second-long exposure by the Hubble Space Telescope that includes near-infrared images of what appear to be the most-distant galaxies known.
- Health & Medicine
Shutting Off an On Switch: Novel drugs slow two cancers in mice
By shutting down a signaling molecule on cancerous cells, scientists have found a way to slow multiple myeloma and fibrosarcoma, tests in animals show.
- Tech
Special Treatment: Fuel cell draws energy from waste
Researchers have created a fuel cell that breaks down organic matter in wastewater and, in the process, generates small amounts of electricity.
- Health & Medicine
Meat of the Matter: Fish, flesh feed gout, but milk counters it
Nutrition research supports the ancient notion that a diet rich in meat contributes to the development of gout, a form of arthritis common in men.
- Animals
New Green Eyes: First butterfly that’s genetically modified
Scientists have genetically engineered a butterfly for the first time, putting a jellyfish protein into a tropical African species so that its eyes fluoresce green.
- Health & Medicine
Born to Heal
The controversial strategy of screening embryos to produce donors for siblings raises hopes and presents new ethical dilemmas.
- Planetary Science
A New Flight Plan
President Bush recently unveiled an ambitious plan for a manned mission to Mars, using the moon as a testing area and stepping-stone, but for many planetary scientists the moon is a desirable destination in and of itself.
- Humans
Letters from the March 13, 2004, issue of Science News
Dry hole? “Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen” (SN: 1/17/04, p. 46: Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen) seems to be delivering good news for the environment: “Clean” hydrogen can be produced from water using solar energy. This seems to me, however, to be even more horrifying than the burning of […]
