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News of the Week:

Grown-Up Monkey Brains Get Growing 

Elizabeth Gould
Princeton University
Department of Psychology
Green Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544

William T. Greenough
University of Illinois
2325 Beckman Institution
405 North Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801

 

Cage provides key to water droplet 

A cluster of six water molecules exhibits properties of the bulk liquid, making it the smallest-possible drop of water.

Sources: 

David C. Clary
University College London
Department of Chemistry
London WC1H OAJ
United Kingdom

Richard J. Saykally
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Chemistry
D31 Hildebrand Hall
MC 1460
Berkeley, CA 94720-1460

Seismologists dispute the notion that Southern California faces a future filled with more numerous or stronger quakes.

Sources: 

Thomas L. Henyey
University of Southern California
Department of Earth Sciences
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740

Yeast cells point to human cancer gene

Specific mutations in human cancer cells may allow the distribution of an abnormal number of chromosomes.

Sources: 

Daniel P. Cahill
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
424 North Bond Street
Baltimore, MD 21231

Stephen J. Elledge
Baylor College of Medicine
Department of Biochemistry
One Baylor Plaza
Houston, TX 77030

Terry L. Orr-Weaver
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Biology
Cambridge, MA 02142-1479

Red glimmer reveals most distant galaxy

Astronomers have found a galaxy so far away that observers may be seeing it during its first burst of star formation.

Sources: 

Arjun Dey
Johns Hopkins University
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Baltimore, MD 21218

David N. Spergel
Princeton University Observatory
Princeton, NJ 08544

Hyron Spinrad
University of California, Berkeley
Astronomy Department
601 Campbell Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720

All age groups lack vitamin D in blood

 Vitamin D deficiency, common among the elderly, is also prevalent in younger people.

Sources: 

Bess Dawson-Hughes
Tufts University
U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrition Center
HNRC 711 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02155

Joel S. Finkelstein
Harvard Medical School
Department of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
55 Fruit Street
Boston, MA 02114

Robert D. Utiger
New England Journal of Medicine
10 Shattuck Street
Boston, MA 02115

 

Erratic signals transmitted from one laser directly to another via an optical fiber can be used to carry information.

Sources: 

Henry D.I. Abarbanel
Institute for Nonlinear Science
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0402

Alan V. Oppenheim
Room 36-615
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Masschusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

Rajarshi Roy
School of Physics
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332

Will petunias and poppies need sunscreen?

 A lab simulation of the effects of rising UV-B radiation reveals sluggishness in plant pollen.

Sources: 

Jeffrey K. Conner
Michigan State University
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology
Kellogg Biological Station
3700 East Gull Lake Drive
Hickory Corners, MI 49060

Javad Torabinejad
Utah State University
Department of Rangeland Resources
Logan, UT 84322-5230

 A rare stranding of Cuvier’s beaked whales on the Greek coast in 1996 took place at the same time as NATO tests of a sonar system.

Sources:

Alexandros Frantzis
University of Athens
Department of Biology
Zoological Laboratory
15784 Athens
Greece

Eating seeds shifts ant sex ratios

When ants feed on the seeds of woodland plants, the number of reproductive females in the ant colony increases.

Sources: 

E. Raymond Heithaus
Kenyon College
Biology Department
Gambier, OH 43022

 

The universe appears to be expanding at an ever-increasing rate.

Sources: 

Michael S. Turner
The University of Chicago
Astronomy and Astrophysics Center
5640 South Ellis Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637-1433

Near-Earth asteroid: A far miss

Improved calculations indicate that the near-Earth asteroid 1997 XF11 will not strike Earth when it passes closest to it 30 years from now.

Sources: 

Brian G. Marsden
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Mailstop 18
Cambridge, MA 02138

 

A Thai study indicating that AZT effectively limits mother-to-fetus transmission of HIV led U.S. and U.N. agencies to change study protocols.

Sources: 

Jack Killen
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
31 Center Drive MSC 2520
Bethesda, MD 20892-2520

Papillomavirus common in college women 

Though human papillomavirus occurs frequently among U.S. college women and has been linked with cancers, noninvasive monitoring may be the best course of action.

Sources: 

Robert D. Burk
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein Cancer Center
1300 Morris Park Avenue
Ullmann Building, Room 515
Bronx, NY 10461

 

Under ultraviolet light, surfaces coated with titanium dioxide can kill bacteria and destroy their toxins.

Sources: 

Akira Fujishima
University of Tokyo
Department of Applied Chemistry
Faculty of Engineering
7-3-1 Hongo
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113
Japan

When sewage is recycled for drinking 

Federal regulations may need to be strengthened to protect drinking water from contaminants introduced during sewage treatment.

Sources: 

National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20418

Drugged Waters
Does it matter that pharmaceuticals are turning up in water supplies?

People can excrete large portions of any medicine they take, sometimes leaving detectable drug residues in treated sewage, waterways, and drinking water.

Sources: 

Bent Halling-Serensen
Royal Danish School of Pharmacy
Institute of Analytical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Section of Environmental Chemistry
Universitetsparken 2
DK 2100 Copenhagen Ø
Denmark

Andreas Hartmann
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Department of Environmental Sciences
Institute for Hygiene and Applied Physiology
Clausiusstr. 25
CH-8092 Zuerich
Switzerland

Thomas Heberer
Technical University of Berlin
Institute of Food Chemistry
Gustav-Meyer-Alleee 25
D-13355 Berlin
Germany

Daniel C. Kearns
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (HFM-208)
1401 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852

Stuart Levy
Tufts medical School
Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance
136 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02111

James F. Pendergast
Environmental Protection Agency
NPDES Permit Division
MC 4203
402 M Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20460

Shane Snyder
Michigan State University
201 Pesticide Research Center
East Lansing, MI 48824

Thomas Steger-Hartmann
Experimental Toxicology
Scherling AG
D-13342 Berlin
Germany

Thomas Ternes
ESWE-Institute for Water Research and Water Technology
Soehnleinstr. 158
D-65201 Wiesbaden
Germany

 

A Model Walker
Fashioning a Tinkertoy® contraption that walks but can't stand

A novel mechanical model may provide insights into how people walk.

Sources: 

Michael J. Coleman
Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-7501

Arthur D. Kuo
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
University of Michigan
2350 Hayward Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125

Tad McGeer
The Insitu Group
MP11.48 R
Cook Underwood Road
Underwood, WA 98651

Louis Piscitelle
U.S. Army SSCOM
Research, Development, and Engineering Center
Kansas Street
Natick, MA 01760

Andy Ruina
Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-7501

John Rundgren
Department of Physics
Royal Institute of Technology
S-100 44 Stockholm
Sweden

References

Table of Contents - 3/21/98

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