More Stories from the November 15, 2003 issue
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- Earth
Bioengineered crops have mixed eco effects
An unusually large test of the ecological impact of genetically modified crops finds mixed results, depending on the crop.
- Anthropology
Europe’s Iceman was a valley guy
The 5,200-year-old Iceman, whose mummified body was found 12 years ago in the Alps between Italy and Austria, spent his life in the valleys just south of where his body was found, according to chemical analyses of his remains.
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Chronicling a war of beetle vs. leaf
A meshing of family trees provides a rare example of an arms race between toxic Bursera plants and the beetles that manage to eat them anyway.
- Tech
Laser beam powers flying machine
Caught in a laser's glare on its maiden launch, a lightweight drone with a solar panel demonstrated that continuous flight powered by ground-based lasers is possible.
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The good side of a viral infection?
Hepatitis A infections may protect people from allergies and asthma.
- Astronomy
Chow Down! Milky Way gobbles its closest known neighbor
A tiny, newly discovered galaxy being shredded by the gravity of the Milky Way is our galaxy's closest known neighbor, residing just 42,000 light-years from the Milky Way's center.
- Astronomy
Sound of the fury
On Oct. 28, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft recorded the radio wave "sound" of a powerful solar flare as it raced toward Earth.
- Paleontology
Northern Extinction: Alaskan horses shrank, then disappeared
Horses that lived in Alaska shrank dramatically in body size before they went extinct at the end of the last ice age.
- Physics
Humpty-Dumpty Effect: Acoustically, people resemble large eggs
The first measurements of how people intrinsically scatter sound waves indicate that, acoustically, a human body resembles a hard ellipsoid of the same height and girth as the person.
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Whiffs of Perception: Sniffing activates the mind’s nose
People spontaneously sniff while imagining various smells, an act that intensifies odor perception.
- Tech
Plastic Memories: Polymer materials store data permanently
Researchers have fabricated a memory device that stores data permanently in electrically-conducting polymers.
- Earth
Not Just Neurotoxic: Pesticide chlorpyrifos affects heart and liver cells
A pesticide known to be toxic to the brain may also have subtle effects on heart and liver tissues of animals exposed to this substance during early development.
- Ecosystems
Will Climate Change Depose Monarchs? Model predicts too-wet winter refuges
A computer analysis suggests that eastern monarch butterflies may not be able to tolerate the increasingly moist climate in Mexico, their current wintering site.
- Plants
Micro Sculptors
Snippets of RNA that control biochemical reactions by squelching the creation of specific proteins play a role in the development of leaves.
- Earth
Attack of the Rock-Eating Microbes!
Geologists who examine mineral transformations increasingly see bacteria at work, leading the scientists to conclude that if microbes aren't driving the underlying chemical reactions, at least they're taking advantage of the energy that's released.
