More Stories from the October 25, 2003 issue
- Health & Medicine
Cocoa puffs up insulin in blood
Eating foods flavored with cocoa powder as opposed to other flavorings stimulates surplus production of the sugar-processing hormone insulin, but the metabolic implications of the finding aren’t yet known.
- Earth
Flame retardants take a vacation
The lifetime in blood of flame- retarding diphenyl ethers, now-ubiquitous pollutants, ranges from 2 weeks to 2 years, Swedish researchers find.
- Health & Medicine
Balance benefits from noisy insoles
Sending subliminal vibrations to nerves on the bottoms of feet helps people, especially the elderly, keep their balance.
- Earth
Gulf War vets face elevated ALS risk
Two studies suggest that veterans of the 1991 Gulf War are at elevated risk of developing the fatal neurodegenerative condition amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared with other military personnel and with the general population.
- Tech
Sweet-toothed microbe tapped for power
Using a newly discovered bacterium that both frees electrons from sugars and injects those charges straight into electric circuits, scientists have created a fuel cell that converts carbohydrates to electricity with extraordinary efficiency.
- Health & Medicine
Treatment helps newborns avoid HIV
Giving healthy newborns whose mothers are infected with HIV a combination of anti-HIV drugs shortly after birth makes the infants less likely to contract the virus through breastfeeding.
- Astronomy
Extrasolar planet gets heavier
An extrasolar planet that tightly orbits its parent star is heavier than astronomers had thought.
- Astronomy
Vanishing planet
An object orbiting a distant star is too heavy to be a planet, researchers have concluded.
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IQ Yo-Yo: Test changes alter retardation diagnoses
Mental retardation placements in U.S. schools rose dramatically in the first five years after a commonly used IQ test was revised, raising concerns about how IQ scores are used to diagnose mental retardation.
- Earth
Chicken Little? Study cites arsenic in poultry
Most chicken eaten in the United States contains 3 to 4 times as much arsenic as is present in other kinds of meat and poultry.
- Tech
Timing Is Everything: Implantable polymer chip delivers meds on schedule
A polymer microchip implanted under the skin could deliver multiple doses of medications at programmed intervals, eliminating the need for pills and injections.
- Health & Medicine
First Viruses, Now Tumors: AIDS drug shows promise against brain cancers
A potential AIDS drug may also slow the growth of deadly brain tumors.
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Bad for the Bones: Thwarted hormone leads to skeletal decay
Thyroid-stimulating hormone plays an unexpected role in bone remodeling.
- Astronomy
When really big winds collide
A newly released image shows dramatic details of the Crescent nebula, a giant gaseous shell created by outbursts of a massive star about to explode as a supernova.
- Paleontology
Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along: Dinosaur buoyancy may explain odd tracks
New lab experiments and computer analyses may explain how some of the heftiest four-legged dinosaurs ever to walk on Earth could have left trackways that include the imprints of only their front feet.
- Physics
Super Spinner: Seven-atom speck acts like superfluid
Scientists have for the first time directly observed the onset in liquid helium of superfluidity—a quantum-mechanical state in which liquids flow without friction—as helium atoms accumulated one by one to form a droplet of liquid around a gas molecule.
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- Chemistry
The Nature of Things
An earth scientist's proposed alternative periodic table of elements is emblematic of the growing desire among scientists to recast this 130-year-old chart.
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