More Stories from the November 19, 2005 issue
- Planetary Science
Cassini snaps icy moon Dione
Saturn's small moon Dione has a heavily-cratered, fractured surface.
- Health & Medicine
Monthly cycle changes women’s brains
Activity in a brain region that regulates emotions fluctuates over the course of a woman's menstrual cycle.
- Earth
Sex and the sewage
Chemicals in sewage sludge appear to have stunted the testes and fostered other reproductive-system changes in fetal lambs.
- Health & Medicine
Dairy fats cut colon cancer risk
High-fat dairy foods appear to confer protection against colon cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Wearing your food
A broccoli extract, applied to the skin, has been found to reduce the incidence of skin tumors in mice.
- Health & Medicine
Our big fat cancer statistics
A new analysis of data from a 2002 report shows that obesity is the second-largest cause of cancer in the United States.
- Paleontology
Ancient Grazers: Find adds grass to dinosaur menu
Analyses of fossilized dinosaur feces in India reveal the remains of at least five types of grasses, a surprising finding that's the first evidence of grass-eating dinosaurs and an indication that grasses diversified much earlier than previously recognized.
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Mental Meeting of the Sexes: Boys’ spatial advantage fades in poor families
The frequently observed superiority of boys to girls on tests of spatial skill disappears in children of poor families, indicating that this mental ability responds more sensitively to environmental influences than has been assumed.
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Way to Glow: Butterfly-wing structure matches high-tech lights’ design
The blue-green wings of the swallowtail butterfly harbor an intricate optical system with a design reminiscent of the latest in light-emitting diode technology.
- Animals
Tszzzzzt! Electric fish may jam rivals’ signals
An electric fish appears to sabotage a rival's electric signals as a fight starts. With Audio and Video.
- Tech
Hidden in Disorder: Chaos-encrypted information goes the distance
Scientists have demonstrated that a message encrypted in a chaotic laser signal can be transmitted more than 100 kilometers through a commercial optical-fiber network.
- Astronomy
Infrared telescope spies mountains of star creation
Viewing a star-making region in the infrared, the Spitzer Space Telescope has captured mountains of gas and dust being eroded by winds and radiation from a massive star, triggering waves of star birth.
- Earth
Global Wetting and Drying: Regions face opposing prospects for water supply
In the next half century, rivers and streams in some parts of the world will diminish in flow, while waterways elsewhere rise in output, according to a new analysis of climate simulations.
- Health & Medicine
Novel Approach: Cancer drug might ease scleroderma
The chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, when given to mice, shows signs of impeding the skin disease scleroderma.
- Humans
Willis Harlow Shapley (1917-2005)
Willis Harlow Shapley, a longtime member of the Science Service Board of Trustees, died Oct. 24.
- Planetary Science
Groovy Science
The Cassini spacecraft is shedding new light on Saturn's icy rings.
- Humans
Katrina’s Fallout
Scientists whose laboratories were devastated by Hurricane Katrina have found help, and sometimes safe havens for their studies, from colleagues around the nation.
- Humans
Letters from the November 19, 2005, issue of Science News
It’s not there “Organic Choice: Pesticides vanish from body after change in diet” (SN: 9/24/05, p. 197), as presented, doesn’t address the statement made in the headline. The article shows only that on days when no pesticides are ingested in food, no pesticides are excreted in urine. Charles WyttenbachLawrence, Kan. Sex differences I am dismayed […]
