Science News

In the December 5 Issue:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Climate might be right for a deal: Copenhagen negotiations will take steps toward a climate-stabilizing treaty
Botanical Whales: Adventures in the Tortugas reveal that seagrass fields need saving too
Breaking the Speed Limit: Studies examine physiology and technology to better foresee the ultimate edge of human performance

A female case-bearing beetle hangs onto a leaf and carefully excretes flattened plates of feces that she presses in rows around each reddish egg to form a case. Full Story Christopher Brown

SN Today:

GPS bolsters view that big Cascadia quakes could hit inland Satellite tracking of plate movements shows that a magnitude-9 tremor in Pacific Northwest could strike close to urban areas Read the full story. | Nov 24th 2009 Found in: Earth and Earth Science
First programmable quantum computer created System uses ultracold beryllium ions to tackle 160 randomly chosen programs. Read the full story. | Nov 23rd 2009 Found in: Computers and Matter & Energy
Case of the toxic gingerbread man Featured blog: A search for the source of some indoor-air anomalies turns up a surprising culprit. Read the full story. | Nov 21st 2009 Found in: Chemistry, Environment, Molecules and Science & Society
Malaria shows signs of resisting best drug used to fight it The frontline malaria medicine artemisinin shows gaps in effectiveness in Southeast Asia. Read the full story. | Nov 19th 2009 Found in: Body & Brain
Classic view of leaf-cutter ants overlooked nitrogen-fixing partner A fresh look at a fungus-insect partnership that biologists have studied for more than a century uncovers a role for bacteria. Read the full story. | Nov 19th 2009 Found in: Ecology, Life and Zoology
Corn genome a maze of unusual diversity Multiple teams announce complete draft of the maize genome, with a full plate of surprises that include hints about hybrid vigor. Read the full story. | Nov 19th 2009 Found in: Genes & Cells and Life
Climate not really what doomed large North American mammals Prevalence of a dung fungus over time suggests megafauna extinctions at end of last ice age started before vegetation changed. Read the full story. | Nov 19th 2009
Revving up particles in the cosmos Newly recorded gamma rays from a microquasar may reveal how the black holes or neutron stars powering them can accelerate particles to enormous energies. Read the full story. | Nov 18th 2009 Found in: Atom & Cosmos

SN Multimedia:




The First Sound Bites	New species in Papua New Guinea	Interactive Darwin Timeline
Hear Sound Recordings from the 1908 presidential campaign	See photos of frogs and spiders recently discovered	View key events and discoveries related to evolution

In the News:

RSS

Fecal architecture is beetle armor
11.24.09 - Predators have a hard time getting through the layers of excrement some beetle moms give their young Found in: Life and Zoology
How to mix oil and water
11.24.09 - Bouncing an oil-coated water droplet creates tiny emulsion Found in: Physics
Nation by nation, evidence thin that boosting crop yields conserves land
11.23.09 - Goals to intensify agriculture may not necessarily return farmland to nature, new survey of UN data finds Found in: Agriculture, Ecology, Environment, Life and Science & Society
Metal gives pigment the blues
11.23.09 - Researchers studying manganese oxides unexpectedly discover a new way to achieve blue hue Found in: Chemistry
Low-tech approach stifles high-risk Nipah virus
11.21.09 - Shielding palm-tree sap from fruit bats may limit spread of deadly disease
Visual illusion stumps adults but not kids
11.20.09 - Finding suggests that sensitivity to visual context develops slowly Found in: Humans and Psychology
Where humans go, pepper virus follows
11.20.09 - Plant pathogen could help track waters polluted with human waste Found in: Environment, Life and Science & Society
Deep hole spotted on moon
11.20.09 - Feature may be ‘skylight’ in an underground lava tube Found in: Earth and Planetary Science
Obese people can misjudge body size
11.19.09 - Survey finds that many overweight individuals consider their body size normal and healthy Found in: Body & Brain and Humans
Marathoners' hearts stressed, but not necessarily by heart attacks
11.19.09 - Detailed imaging of runners’ hearts before and after races doesn’t find signatures of heart attacks Found in: Body & Brain
FOR KIDS: New twists for phantom limbs
11.19.09 - An experiment explores the connections between brain and body Found in: Science News For Kids
FOR KIDS: The paleontologist and the three dinosaurs
11.19.09 - Skulls thought to be from three different dinosaurs may actually be from the same dino type at three different ages Found in: Science News For Kids
Sun may not be a 'Goldilocks' star
11.18.09 - The stars that are just right to support life might be dimmer and longer-lived than the sun Found in: Atom & Cosmos
Mummies reveal heart disease plagued ancient Egyptians
11.18.09 - CT scans of preserved individuals show hardening of arteries similar to that seen in people today Found in: Biology, Body & Brain and Humans

Reader Favorites

Blogs:

Science & the Public Toxic playgrounds
By Janet Raloff Nov 23rd 2009

On the Scene Changing the paradigm around Alzheimer's disease
By Science News Staff Nov 16th 2009

Columns:

Comment From fringe to electromicrobiological mainstream
By Ken Nealson Nov 20th 2009

Math Trek The four color problem gets a sharp new hue
By Julie Rehmeyer Mar 6th 2009

Not to Miss:

SN Special: The Science of Slumber

Interview: Murray Gell-Mann

SN Special: Darwin Turns 200

2008: Science News of the Year

SN Bookshelf:

Quantum Leaps by Jeremy Bernstein
Review by Tom Siegfried
Buy now | More Books

Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention by Stanislas Dehaene
A cognitive neuroscientist describes how the brain has adapted to reading and what can cause reading...
Buy now | More Books

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