More Stories from the November 2, 2002 issue
- Earth
More Frog Trouble: Herbicides may emasculate wild males
New studies of male frogs in the wild link trace exposures to common weed killers with partial sex reversal.
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Neural Shape-Up: Brain anticipates object perception
A new brain-scan study indicates that so-called higher visual areas predict the structure of incoming visual information and suppress activity in the visual system's entry area to foster object recognition.
- Planetary Science
Echoes of Icequakes: Simple probe could measure Europa’s ocean and icy shell
A football-size space probe could provide a low-cost way to determine whether there's a liquid ocean on the Jovian moon Europa.
- Materials Science
Metal Manipulation: Technique yields hard but stretchy materials
Researchers have combined a standard metalworking technology—rolling—with a programmed sequence of cooling and heating steps to process copper into a form that contains both nanoscale and microscale crystal grains.
- Animals
Fish Fraud: Cleaners show off before biting clients
Some of the reef fish that make their living by nibbling parasites off other fish may be luring clients into scams by offering free massages.
- Astronomy
Iron-Poor Star: Closing in on the birth of the first stars
Astronomers have found a star so old and metal poor that its chemical composition carries vestiges of the origin of our galaxy.
- Health & Medicine
Hidden Effect? Hypertension risk linked to common, over-the-counter pain relievers
Women who take ibuprofen or acetaminophen for headaches or inflammation boost their chances of developing high blood pressure.
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- Astronomy
Enlarging a Mars photo album
A new set of more than 18,000 images of Mars, posted online in early October, features the sharpest picture of the Red Planet ever taken by an orbiting spacecraft.
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Ant cheats plant; plant cheats back
An Amazonian tree grows little pouches on its leaves to invite ants to move in and provide guard duty, but the tree drops the pouches from old leaves because ants ravage the flowers.
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Brain trait fosters stress disorder
A brain-scan study of pairs of twin brothers, in each of which only one twin had been a Vietnam combat veteran, indicates that the inheritance of an undersized brain structure called the hippocampus predisposes individuals to post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Physics
Putting the brakes on antihydrogen
By mixing ultracold antiprotons and antielectrons, physicists have created the first atoms of antihydrogen that move at a leisurely enough pace for direct measurements of their properties.
- Materials Science
Knitting with nanotubes
Researchers can draw fine yarns of carbon nanotubes from a reservoir of the microscopic cylinders.
- Physics
Motor design flouts physical law
A proposed silicon device the size of a red blood cell would transform random thermal motion into useful mechanical power in violation of the second law of thermodynamics, its designers claim.
- Math
Election Selection
By ignoring how voters might rank all the candidates in an election, the plurality system opens the floodgates to unsettling, paradoxical results when there are three or more candidates.
- Earth
Once Upon a Lake
As Earth warmed at the end of the last ice age, the immense volumes of fresh water that occasionally and catastrophically spilled from Lake Agassiz—the long-defunct lake that formed as the ice sheet smothering Canada melted—may have caused global climate change and sudden rises in sea level.
