Plagues at Sea

Cover: This green sea turtle in Hawaiian waters bears small fibropapilloma tumors, a noncancerous but debilitating disease. Research has begun linking toxic algae, climate, and pollution to such emerging and poorly understood marine epidemics. (Photo: Ursula Keuper-Bennett) <Full story>

Speech Insights Sound Off in the Brain

Southern twisters: Don't blame La Niña
Meteorologists say that record extreme weather this winter cannot be directly linked with La Niña

Tobacco plants enlisted in war on cancer
Tobacco plants infected by genetically treated viruses can quickly manufacture patient-specific cancer vaccines.

Do reshuffled genes cause autoimmunity?
Mice with an autoimmune condition have B cells that shuffle their genes in the abdomen, which lacks the quality-control mechanisms found in bone marrow, where such rearrangements usually take place.

Electromagnetic fields may damage hearts
Workplace exposure to high electromagnetic fields may predispose people to certain types of heart disease.

Catching a burst's visible glow
For the first time, astronomers have detected the visible glow of a gamma-ray burst.

Competing students' science skills sparkle
Judges named 40 top high school science students as finalists in the 1999 Intel Science Talent Search.

Who says only one sperm gets the prize?
People in at least 18 societies around the world believe that a child can have more than one biological father.

Biology

Night life discovered for bumblebees
Bumblebees may use odor cues and perhaps a magnetic compass so they don't bumble around in the dark.

Do parasites explain female promiscuity?
In bumblebee colonies allowed to forage in the wild, colonies with high genetic diversity among workers had fewer parasites and more offspring than did colonies of low genetic diversity.

Astronomy

Solar system planets: Freaks of nature?
The nearly circular orbits of most of the planets in the solar system may be the exception rather than the rule in the cosmos.

Heavy elements: Signposts of planets?
Stars that have a higher-than-normal abundance of heavy elements may be more likely to spawn planets.

New radio map of Milky Way's center
Astronomers have produced the sharpest and largest radio map of the center of our galaxy.

Sea Sickness
Marine epidemiology comes of age
Stress caused by human activities and climate change appears to play a significant role in diseases that afflict ocean wildlife.

A Little Mass Goes a Long Way
Fresh evidence for neutrino mass may open a new frontier in physics
Convinced that neutrinos may have mass after all, physicists have launched a campaign to probe the fundamental particle's secrets and potentially mount a serious challenge to the "standard model" of particle physics.

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