Sources:

Pacific Warmth Augurs Weird Weather

Rising temperatures in the central Pacific hint at the arrival of an El Nino ocean warming.

Sources:

Vernon Kousky
Climate Prediction Center
National Centers for Environmental Prediction
NOAA/National Weather Service
World Weather Building
Washington, DC 20233

Mary Voice
Climate Analysis Section
National Climate Centre
P.O. Box 1289K
GPO Melbourne 3001
Australia
Website: http://www.bom.gov.au

Napless cats awaken interest in adenosine

In cat brains, the chemical adenosine builds up during waking periods and declines in sleep, adding weight to the theory that it governs when an animal must sleep.

Sources:

Robert W. McCarley
Brockton VAMC
Harvard Medical School
116 A
940 Belmont Street
Brockton, MA 02401

T. rex bested by Argentinean beast

A carnivorous dinosaur from Argentina surpasses T. rex in size and weight.

Sources:

Rodolfo Coria
Museo Carmen Funes
8318 Plaza Huincul
Neuquen
Argentina

Bruce M. Rothschild
Arthritis Center of Northeast Ohio
Youngstown, OH 44512

Risks for women: Passive smoke and obesity

A large, ongoing study of U.S. nurses indicates that secondhand smoke is a potent risk factor for heart disease, as obesity is for stroke.

Sources:

Ichiro Kawachi
Channing Laboratory
180 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115

Genevieve Matanoski
Department of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
624 N. Broadway, Room 280
Baltimore, MD 21205

Moyses Szklo
Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
615 N. Wolfe Street, Room 6009
Baltimore, MD 21205

Sound conveyor belt for delaying photons

An acoustic wave can carry light-generated electron-hole pairs in a semiconductor, allowing the slowing down or storing of optical signals on an integrated-circuit chip.

Sources:

Carsten Rocke
Sektion Physik der Ludwig-Maximilians
Universitaet Muenchen
Geschwister-Scholl Platz 1
D-80539 Muenchen
Germany
E-mail: carsten.rocke@physik.uni-muenchen.de

Laurels and laureates at 48th science fair

Six Nobel prize winners joined 1,089 high school students competing for $2 million in scholarships and prizes at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Louisville, Ky.

Sources:

Ann Korando
Science Service
1719 N Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
E-mail: youth@sciserv.org

How zeolites hold tight to metal ions

A computer analysis explains how metal ions bind to porous catalysts called zeolites.

Sources:

Kenton D. Hammonds
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
Cambridge CB2 3EQ
United Kingdom
E-mail: kenton@mint.esc.cam.ac.uk
Website: http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/~kenton/

Research Notes:

Anthropology

Brawn of humanity

A new fossil analysis finds that members of the Homo species between 1.8 million and 36,000 years ago had considerably bigger bodies than modern humans.

Sources:

John Kappelman
Department of Anthropology
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712-1086

Christopher B. Ruff
Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
725 N. Wolfe Street
Baltimore, MD 21205

Seeds of agriculture in the Americas

Squash seeds and stems found in a Mexican cave suggest that plant domestication originated 10,000 years ago in the Americas, about 4,000 years before the cultivation of maize and beans.

Sources:

Bruce D. Smith
Archaeobiology Program
Department of Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560

Biology

Uncle Sam needs a few good biologists

The military agency DARPA intends to fund a variety of research efforts in biological weapons countermeasures.

Sources:

Shaun Jones
DARPA
E-mail: sjones@darpa.mil

The benefits of mother's milk

A protein found in breast milk may protect infants against a bacterial toxin.

Sources:

Steven Dallas
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
3601 4th Street
Lubbock, TX 79430

Earth Science

Vanished sea leaves climatic legacy

A sea that disappeared from Asia 30 million years ago transformed the climate of the entire continent.

Sources:

Gilles Ramstein
Laboratoire de Modelisation du Climat et de l'Environnement
DSM CEN Saclay
Bat. 709
91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex
France

Debate smolders over cause of ice ages

A new report argues that subtle shifts in Earth's orbit are the cause of the ice ages.

Sources:

R. Lawrence Edwards
Minnesota Isotope Laboratory
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Isaac Winograd
U.S.Geological Survey
MS 432
Reston, VA 22092

Food Science

Deciphering the grapefruit juice effect

A new understanding of why drinking grapefruit juice enhances the potency of certain drugs may pay off in recipes for more reliable pharmaceuticals.

Sources:

Kenneth S. Lown
Department of Internal Medicine
University of Michigan
1500 E. Medical Center Drive
University Hospital
Room A7119-UH
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0108

Paul B. Watkins
Department of Internal Medicine
University of Michigan
1500 E. Medical Center Drive
University Hospital
Room A7119-UH
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0108

Dieting impairs reaction time

Women who alter their diet to shed weight lose a little speed in responding to simple stimuli.

Sources:

Mary J. Kretsch
US Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
Western Human Nutrition Research Center
P.O. Box 29997
Presidio of San Francisco, CA 94129

Articles:

Beyond Hot Air

Will the world adopt strict limits on greenhouse gas emssions?

Although scientific evidence indicates that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, the U.N. Framework on Climate Change has produced little substantive action toward its stated goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

Sources:

Bert Metz
Ministry of Environment
Air and Energy Directorate
P.O. Box 30945
The Hague 2500GX
Netherlands

John Shlaes
Global Climate Coalition
1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Suite 1500-North Tower
Washington, DC 20004-1703

Tuiloma N. Slade
Permanent Mission of Samoa to the United Nations
1020 2nd Avenue, Suite 800D
New York, NY 10017

Chemical Buzz

Honeybees and their hives act as sensors for pollution

Scientists can paint a picture of the environmental contamination in an area by analyzing the substances bees bring back to the hive.

Sources:

Jerry J. Bromenshenk
Division of Biological Sciences
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
E-mail: jjbmail@selway.umt.edu
Website: http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees/

Michael Burgett
Oregon State University
Department of Entomology
2046 Cordley Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331-2907
E-mail: burgettm@bcc.orst.edu

Dewey M. Caron
Department of Entomology
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19717
E-mail: dewey.caron@mvs.udel.edu

Garon C. Smith
Department of Chemistry
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
E-mail: ch_gcs@lewis.umt.edu