More Stories from the March 3, 2001 issue
- Ecosystems
Fish Epidemic Traces to Novel Germ
A new mycobacterium, related to the one causing tuberculosis, is responsible for a mysterious epidemic sickening some of the Chesapeake Bay's most prized fish.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine may prevent some cervical cancers
A new vaccine spurs people to produce a strong immune response against human papillomavirus, a virus that can infect both men and women and causes cervical cancer in women.
- Planetary Science
Images suggest icy eruptions on Ganymede
New stereo images of Ganymede, the solar system's largest satellite, suggest that eruptions of water or slushy ice a billion or more years ago gave parts of the moon a facelift, creating long, flat bands of nearly pure water-ice.
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Some police see through killer’s lies
For the first time, a person's ability to size up a highly motivated liar has been assessed in a study of police officers viewing videotaped interviews of a murder suspect.
- Physics
Run-of-the-mill compound becomes superstar
The discovery that simple, common magnesium diboride can conduct electric current without resistance and does so at a surprisingly high temperature has sent physicists racing to understand its properties and to try to improve upon them.
- Health & Medicine
Fat harbors cells that could aid joints
Researchers have found a way to trick fat into generating cartilage.
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Roach females pick losers with good scents
Male Tanzanian cockroaches lose fights if they have too much of a particular pheromone, but females find it alluring.
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Living it up below the ice sheet?
A recent earthquake in Antarctica points toward geologic activity that could provide the energy necessary to incubate life in a liquid lake deep beneath the ice.
- Health & Medicine
Surveying the Swiss: The eyes have it
Magnetic resonance imaging can help determine the health of a wheel of cheese.
- Astronomy
In moon race, Saturn is still champ
New discoveries have raised the retinue of Saturn's known moons to 30, making the ringed planet the solar system's champ.
- Astronomy
Magnetic flip heralds solar max
Scientists have found another indicator that the sun has reached the maximum of its current activity cycle: The polarity of its magnetic field has reversed.
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Stick insects: Three females remain
An Australian expedition locates three females of a big, flightless stick insect species thought to have gone extinct.
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Quoll male die-off doesn’t fit pattern
Males of a ferretlike marsupial called a quoll die off after one mating season-unusual behavior that suggests the need for new theories of why such deaths occur after mating.
- Physics
Physicists get B in antimatter studies
New observations that subatomic particles called B mesons decay differently from their antimatter versions may help explain why the universe is made almost entirely of matter, not antimatter.
- Physics
When warming up causes cooling down
Under the right circumstances, heating a tiny cluster of sodium atoms makes its temperature fall.
- Health & Medicine
The Good Trans Fat
One arcane family of fats may be tapped to treat or prevent a host of diseases.
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Why Fly into a Forest Fire?
Scientists puzzle over why some wasps and beetles race to forest fires.
