More Stories from the October 14, 2000 issue
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria Provide a Frontline Defense
Bacteria genetically engineered to secrete microbe-killing compounds can fight disease in mice and rats.
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Some teens show signs of future depression
Certain characteristics typify teens who suffer recurrences of depression as young adults, raising researchers' hopes for devising improved depression treatments.
- Tech
Software enhances view of aircraft flaws
New software can run an ultrasonic machine that will map corrosion beneath the surface of an airplane more quickly, safely, and effectively than can existing devices.
- Astronomy
Cosmic afterglow steals the limelight
Thanks to a chance cosmic alignment, researchers appear to have resolved the detailed structure of the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst—even though the parent burst erupted halfway across the universe.
- Animals
Wasps drive frog eggs to (escape) hatch
A tree frog's eggs can match their response to the degree of danger: all-out mass action for snakes but less activity for one wasp.
- Physics
Solid-state insights yield physics Nobel
The 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three scientists and inventors whose work laid the foundation of modern information technology, particularly through their invention of rapid transistors, laser diodes, and integrated circuits.
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Pioneers of brain-cell signaling earn Nobel
Three neuroscientists who delved into the ways brain cells receive and respond to signals from other cells won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- Chemistry
Nobel prize recognizes future for plastics
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three researchers for the discovery and development of plastics that conduct electricity.
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Intimate violence gets female twist
An analysis of data on relationship violence in the general population finds that, excluding murder and sexual assaults, women prove slightly more likely than men to commit one or more aggressive acts against a partner—though men are more likely than women to inflict injuries that require medical help.
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Same interviewer, better memories
Children may remember details of a witnessed crime more accurately if the same person conducts successive interviews with them.
- Health & Medicine
HIV outwits immune system, again
The AIDS virus uses immune system proteins to hitch rides on the antibody factories known as B cells, possibly helping it find potential host cells.
- Health & Medicine
Aging protein saps muscle strength
Proteins crucial for muscle strength begin to function poorly as rats get older.
- Physics
Electron cloud mirrors fossil life-form
Remarkable molecules whose electron clouds would resemble now-extinct marine creatures called trilobites could appear in experiments on ultracold atom clouds known as Bose-Einstein condensates, theorists predict.
- Physics
Goo’s melting could keep battery cool
Using the sometimes dangerous heat of lithium batteries to melt wax or similar materials may keep the potent cells cool enough for safe use in electric vehicles while also boosting the batteries' performance.
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What’s Worth Saving?
A fracas over a biological term could have huge consequences for conservation.
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