Invertebrate enigmas I found the recent article “Evolutionary enigmas” (SN: 5/18/13, p. 20) fascinating because I know of another example of an invertebrate animal possessing a “strictly vertebrate” quality. As a high school human anatomy and physiology teacher, I sometimes have my students test the effects of the constituents in cigarette smoke on live Daphnia heart rates. These ... 06.13.13 | more >>

Balloon Clears Arteries A tiny balloon inserted into dangerously clogged arteries at the tip end of a long tube is saving lives by sweeping away the blood clots. A 29-year-old resident in surgery invented the device…. It has been used on 22 patients at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati. Dr. Thomas J. Fogarty, now at the University of Oregon Medical School, originated the new … ... 06.13.13 | more >>

As a child, Tim Samaras frustrated his parents by sneaking kitchen appliances into his bedroom to dismantle them. One day his mother had to coax him to come watch a movie musical with her. It was The Wizard of Oz, and the 9-year-old sat transfixed throughout the tornado scene. As he recalled last year, his only thought was: “I’ve got to take that apart!” For much of the last two decades, ... 06.13.13 | more >>

Carsten Peter/National Geographic

Thirty years to Mars Men should land on Mars before the century’s end. Some optimists say this could happen by the late 1970s but others argue that the formidable problems to be solved make any time period less than some 30-odd years unrealistic. Unless, they add, there is a now unforeseen breakthrough in launching giant loads into orbit or propelling such loads through interplanetary space. ... 06.04.13 | more >>

Wet Earth Erin Wayman’s article “Faint young sun” (SN: 5/4/13, p. 30), about how the early Earth stayed warm enough for liquid water, made me wonder about the effect of the temperature of the planet itself. A hotter core, thinner crust, more volcanism — wouldn’t those factors in addition to atmospheric influences affect surface temperature? Virginia Bruce, via e-mail 06.04.13 | more >>

PHOENIX — A self-driving vehicle brought its inventor, a 19-year-old Romanian computer scientist, the top prize — and $75,000 — last month at the world’s premier high school research competition. Ionut Budisteanu, of Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania, was the big winner at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. 05.30.13 | more >>

For Brian Switek, the arrival of warm weather means it’s time to grab a case of beer, jump in the car and head out for the first dinosaur dig of the season. As a blogger who writes mainly about dinosaurs, he’ll spend days at a time camped out with paleontologists in America’s premier dino-hunting territory. 05.30.13 | more >>

M. Ellison; Ed T

June 24 Last day to see the Picturing Science exhibit on high-tech imaging at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. See bit.ly/SFpicsci 05.16.13 | more >>

Fusion reactions It is not true that fusion packs the highest punch of any known energy-generating process (“Ignition failed,” SN: 4/20/13, p. 26). Matter-antimatter annihilation far exceeds it (Star Trek had it right back in the 1960s). I believe that under certain conditions, matter falling into a black hole can also yield more energy than fusion. Bobby Baum, Bethesda, Md. 05.16.13 | more >>

ENVIRONMENT See good news for birds in “So far, the great tit has coped with climate change.”

LIFE Fossils show how birds shifted their weight as they evolved. Read “Birds may have had to crouch before they could fly.” 05.16.13 | more >>

A new device now maps the body’s internal organs with sound waves.… Shaped like an oversized fountain pen, the transducer is held over the body above the internal organ to be studied. Short pulses of ultrasonic energy radiate out, and harmlessly bounce back from the internal surfaces. The time they take to return is analyzed, and results are recorded immediately on the instrument’s ... 05.16.13 | more >>

Entomologist Michael Raupp is enjoying Swarmageddon. The giant batch of cicadas began emerging from the ground in late April and will be heard in some northeastern states through June. 05.16.13 | more >>

Matt Houston/AP Photo

May 29 The World Science Festival opens in New York City. Learn more at bit.ly/SFwsf2013

May 31 Learn about wildflowers at Botany Washington at Seattle’s Burke Museum. See bit.ly/SFwf2013 05.02.13 | more >>

GENES & CELLSSee a roundup of some of the latest discoveries about China’s H7N9 virus in “New bird flu claims more victims.” 05.02.13 | more >>

The atmosphere whistles while scientists work. Series of whistles — short or long, going up scale or down — keep radio scientists busy deciphering their messages of the density of charged particles in the outer regions of the earth’s atmosphere.… Generated by lightning as it strikes the earth, the radio waves are propagated back and forth in the atmosphere of the earth, in a ... 05.02.13 | more >>

Ethics of humanized mice The recent stories “Human cells rev up mouse brains” (SN: 4/6/13, p. 16) and “Of mice and man” (SN: 3/23/13, p. 22) drove home to me that human-animal hybrids are now reality. In science fiction stories with such hybrids, a big part of the plot is the resultant ethical gray area: There are certain standards for animal research, and much stricter standards for ... 05.02.13 | more >>

DENVER — “I’m a little tired of the cold,” Geoff Hargreaves says with a sigh.

No surprise there: Hargreaves works in a deep freeze — 38 degrees Celsius below zero (−36° F). As curator of the National Ice Core Laboratory, his job is to keep ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland frozen. 05.02.13 | more >>

Gifford Wong/Wais

EARTH IN ACTION Learn about sinkhole science in Alex Witze’s column “Geologists develop weapons to combat that sinkhole feeling.” 04.18.13 | more >>

May 10 The 2013 Omnifest film festival opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. Catch daily screenings of five documentaries on the Omnitheater’s giant screen. See the schedule at bit.ly/OmniFest 04.18.13 | more >>

The first effective technique for measuring the ages of large numbers of stars like the sun has been developed. Providing a powerful research tool for astronomers, the new dating technique is based on relatively simple measurements of a single chemical element, lithium. The age calculations can be applied to both young and “ordinary” stars, as well as to the sun itself. The new method ... 04.18.13 | more >>

Give a man a fish and he’ll have a seafood supper. Teach a man engineering principles and he could start an aquafarm, devise a better net or fishing pole or maybe even come up with an entirely new way to combat chronic fishlessness. 04.18.13 | more >>

Future Scientist