More Stories from the September 18, 2004 issue
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The woman who lost her capacity to dream
A rare instance in which brain damage caused a woman to lose the ability to dream may help scientists understand the neural basis of dreaming.
- Astronomy
Beryllium data confirm stars’ age
Measuring trace amounts of beryllium in two elderly stars, astronomers have found additional evidence that the first stars in the universe formed less than 200 million years after the Big Bang.
- Health & Medicine
Liver transplants succeed in many hepatitis C patients
People who receive liver transplants for hepatitis C infections fare about as well as people getting such transplants for other diseases.
- Anthropology
Human ancestor gets leg up on walking
A new analysis of a 6-million-year-old leg fossil from a member of the human evolutionary family indicates that this individual walked upright with nearly the same deftness as people today do.
- Astronomy
Crashing Genesis
Scientists are trying to salvage the fragile samples of the solar wind collected by the Genesis spacecraft, which crashed to Earth on Sept. 8 after its parachutes failed to open.
- Plants
A new, slimy method of self-pollination
When all else fails for pollination, a Chinese herb in the ginger family resorts to something botanists say they haven't seen before: a do-it-yourself oil slick.
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Nature reduces kids’ signs of attention disorder
Spending leisure time amid greenery rather than in built-up environments appears to improve behavior in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
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Staph bacteria are choosy about their iron source
Staphylococcus bacteria prefer to get their iron from heme, the ring-shaped portion of oxygen-carrying proteins such as hemoglobin.
- Astronomy
Sky Lights: Picture might show an extrasolar planet
A faint point of red light may be the first picture ever taken of a planet outside the solar system.
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Mothering Malnutrition: Moms’ depression weighs on infants in Pakistan
Maternal depression critically contributes to malnutrition-related health problems among infants in rural Pakistan.
- Materials Science
Nanotech Goes to New Lengths: Scientists create ultralong carbon nanotubes
In an advance toward making superstrong fibers, chemists have synthesized a 4-centimeter-long carbon nanotube, the longest nanotube reported to date.
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Flies ‘R’ Us: Fruit fly cells mimic the mammalian pancreas
A new study suggests that the common fruit fly has cells that function much as those in the human pancreas do.
- Health & Medicine
Tapping an Unlikely Source: Scientists use mouth membrane to construct corneal-surface transplants
Using membranes taken from the inside of the mouth, researchers have fashioned transplants that act as replacement outer layers for corneas in people with damaged vision.
- Animals
Pirates of the Amphibian: Males fertilize eggs of another guy’s gal
For the first time among amphibians, scientists have found frogs that sneak their sperm onto egg clutches left by another mating pair.
- Health & Medicine
Motor Ways: Gene mutation impairs muscle coordination
Scientists have identified a gene mutation that appears to cause the motor impairment that occurs in a rare disorder called Joubert syndrome.
- Anthropology
In the Neandertal Mind
Neandertals possessed much the same mental capacity as ancient people did, but a genetically inspired memory boost toward the end of the Stone Age may have allowed Homo sapiens to prosper while Neandertals died out.
- Physics
Extreme Impersonations
By creating tiny clouds of remarkable new kinds of ultracold gases, physicists are, in essence, bringing to their lab benches chunks of some of the most extraordinary and hard-to-study matter in the universe.
- Humans
Letters from the September 18, 2004, issue of Science News
A Pauling oversight I was surprised to find no mention of Linus Pauling’s theory of anesthesia in “Comfortably Numb” (SN: 7/3/04, p. 8: Comfortably Numb). In 1961, Pauling provided detailed arguments that interactions between anesthetic agents and water, rather than lipids, form hydrate microcrystals in the brain that entrap side chains of proteins and interfere […]
