Full Text Available for Selected Articles

News of the Week:

Nailing Down Pheromones in Humans

Women exude chemicals that influence the menstrual cycles of other women with whom they have close contact.

David H. Abbott
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Medicine
H4/568-5148 Clinical Science Center
600 Highland Avenue
Madison, WI 53792

Martha K. McClintock
University of Chicago
Department of Psychology
Chicago, IL 60637

 

Stone artifacts found on an Indonesian island provide evidence for sea travel by a predecessor of humans at least 800,000 years ago.

Sources:

Michael J. Morwood
University of New England
Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology
New South Wales, 2351
Australia

 

Math enthusiast wins Science Talent Search 

The top winners in the 1998 Westinghouse Science Talent Search are students from Indiana, Arizona, and New York.

Sources:

J. Richard Gott
Princeton University
Department of Astrophysical Sciences
118 Peyton Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544

 

Stimulating clue hints how lithium works

New studies of lithium’s effects on cells may help explain how the drug combats manic depression.

Sources:

De-Maw Chuang
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Mental Health
Section on Molecular Neurobiology, Biological Psychiatry Branch
10 Center Drive, MSC 1272
Bethesda, MD 20892-1272

Husseini K. Manji
Wayne State University
Department of Psychiatry
4201 St. Antoine, 5V DRH
Detroit, MI 48201

 

NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft has gathered the best evidence so far of frost deep within craters at the moon’s north and south poles.

Sources:

Paul D. Spudis
Lunar and Planetary Institute
3600 Bay Area Boulevard
Houston, TX 77058-1113

 

Atmospheric ions created by cosmic rays could play a role in creating the precursors to cloud droplets.

Sources:

David S. Covert
University of Washington
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Seattle, WA 98195

Richard P. Turco
University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565

 

A microscopic device based on an 18th century scientific instrument mechanically measures tiny amounts of electric charge.

Sources:

Theodore A. Fulton
Lucent Technologies
Bell Laboratories
Murray Hill, NJ 07974

Michael L. Roukes
California Institute of Technology
Condensed Matter Physics 114-36
Pasadena, CA 91125
Website: http://www.cmp.caltech.edu/~roukes/

 

Physicists report new evidence that fragments created in nuclear collisions sometimes travel unexpectedly short distances before decaying.

Sources: 

Piyare L. Jain
High Energy Experimental Laboratory
Department of Physics
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260

William C. McHarris
Department of Chemistry
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48823

Research Notes
Biology

The sense of touch may play a role in the accuracy of rattlesnake strikes.

Sources:

William K. Hayes
Loma Linda University
Department of Natural Sciences
Loma Linda, CA 92350

Kenneth Kardong
Washington State University
Department of Zoology
Pullman, WA 99164-4236

 

Small birds benefit from harassing big, dangerous predators.

Sources:

Keith L. Bildstein
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
1700 Hawk Mountain Road
Kempton, PA 19529-9449

Chris R. Pavey
University of Queensland
Department of Zoology
64 Arafura Street
Upper Mt. Gravatt
Brisbane 4122
Australia

 

Biomedicine

Calcium ions may enter heart cells through an unexpected pathway.

Sources:

W. Jonathan Lederer
University of Maryland
School of Medicine
Departments of Molecular Biology and Biophysics and Physiology
Medical Biotechnology Center
725 West Lombard Street
Baltimore, MD 21201

 

A cough suppressant known as noscapine may also combat tumors.

Sources:

Keqiang Ye
Emory University School of Medicine
Departments of Anatomy and Cell Biology
Graduate Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Atlanta, GA 30322

 

Paleontology

The remains of a Jurassic-aged pterosaur indicate these animals could not walk on their toes.

Sources:

James M. Clark
George Washington University
Department of Biological Sciences
Washington, DC 20052

Kevin Padian
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Integrated Biology
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140

 

A duck-billed dinosaur has been discovered in Antarctica.

Sources:

Michael Woodburne
University of California, Riverside
Department of Earth Sciences
Riverside, CA 92521

 

Physics

Increasing the ability of a detector to determine whether an electron has passed through one opening or another of a pair of narrow slits reduces the amount of quantum interference observed.

Sources: 

Mordehai Heiblum
Braun Center for Submicron Research
Department of Condensed Matter Physics
Weizmann Institute of Science
Rehovot 76100
Israel

 

Interactions between electrons in a metal and those in another material may contribute to friction.

Sources: 

Jacqueline Krim
Physics Department
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115

Articles:

Inner Strength
Gene therapy aims to build cells that thwart HIV replication

 Intracellular immunization tests are stepping from animals to people.

Sources: 

David Baltimore
California Institute of Technology
1200 East California Boulevard
Pasadena, CA 91125

Larry A. Couture
Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
2950 Wilderness Place
Boulder, CO 80301

Wayne A. Marasco
Harvard Medical School
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Divisions of Human Retrovirology and Infectious Diseases
44 Binney Street
Boston, MA 02115

Richard A. Morgan
National Human Genome Research Institute
Clinical Gene Therapy Branch
Gene Transfer Technology Section
Building 10, Room 10C103
Bethesda, MD 20892-1851

Racing the Waves
Seismologists try to catch quake tremors quickly enough to save lives 

A new network of earthquake sensors in southern California will soon provide information about quakes even before the shaking starts.

Sources:

James D. Goltz
California Institute of Technology
Seismological Laboratory, 252-21
Pasadena, CA 91125

Egill Hauksson
California Institute of Technology
Seismological Laboratory, 252-21
Pasadena, CA 91125

Lucille M. Jones
United States Geological Survey
525 South Wilson Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91106

References

Table of Contents - 3/14/98

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