More Stories from the November 24, 2001 issue
- Earth
Desert glass: Is it baked Australia?
A profusion of fused, glassy material found on the desert plain of southern Australia might be the result of the intense heat from an extraterrestrial impact.
- Earth
Tube worms like it hot, but larvae not
The larvae of some tube worms that attach themselves to the seafloor around hydrothermal vents can't stand the heat there, but they go into a state of suspended animation when they drift into the chilly water nearby.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer drugs may thwart Huntington’s
Drugs developed to fight cancer could also be effective against Huntington's disease and several related neurodegenerative conditions.
- Health & Medicine
Genomes of dangerous bacteria exposed
Researchers unveiled the genomes of bacteria that cause severe food poisoning, typhoid fever, and the plague that devastated the Middle Ages.
-
Babies show an eye for faces
By 9 weeks of age, babies can learn to recognize and favor a new face in a matter of minutes.
-
Sight sounds off in brains of the deaf
Deprive the brain of access to sounds, and it reorganizes so that tissue typically consigned to handling acoustic information instead joins the visual system.
- Earth
Warm spell did little for Eocene flora
A rapid warming period that began the Eocene epoch dramatically reshaped North America's animal community but not the continent's plants.
- Earth
Greeks sailed into ancient Trojan bay
A combination of sedimentary analysis and careful reading of classical literature helps pinpoint where the Greek fleet that attacked Troy came ashore.
- Earth
Coral-killing army recruits human bugs
The army of pathogens responsible for black band disease, which kills corals, contains some human bacteria that polluted waters carry out to sea.
- Earth
Ripples Spread Wide from Ground Zero
Seismic vibrations produced by the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan were recorded by seismometers scattered across the Northeast, some more than 425 kilometers away.
- Health & Medicine
Fragile X protein reveals its RNA partners
The master gene behind fragile X syndrome—the most common inherited form of mental retardation—encodes a protein that binds to strands of messenger RNA.
- Animals
Birds with a criminal past hide food well
Scrub jays that have stolen food from other bird's caches hide their own with extra care.
- Tech
Technique senses damage before it hurts
A new technique for automatically detecting damage to aircraft, buildings, and other structures may lead to practical damage-monitoring systems by reducing false alarms that make today's laboratory prototypes unsuitable for real-world use.
- Astronomy
Is this young star ready to form planets?
New observations suggest that a mere stripling of a star, which might be as young as 300,000 years old, has already formed planetesimals, the building blocks of planets.
- Health & Medicine
Enzyme fighter works as well as tamoxifen
The drug anastrozole generally works as well in fighting advanced breast cancer as better-known tamoxifen, and even surpasses it in certain patients.
- Physics
Mishap halts work at Japanese neutrino lab
A costly accident has indefinitely disabled Super-Kamiokande, a cutting-edge neutrino detector in Japan.
- Health & Medicine
Things Just Mesh
Researching are studying ways to make stents, which prop open arteries, even better at keeping these channels open.
- Earth
The Mountain
Tall, steep slopes, a crest of glacial ice that's larger than that on any other mountain in the lower 48 United States, and a burgeoning population in its surrounding valleys combine to make Washington state's Mt. Rainier the most dangerous volcano in America.
