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Science Friday
October 6th, 2001
issue

  • Chemical Neutralizes Anthrax Toxin
    Scientists have created a synthetic compound that, when tested in rats, disables the toxin that makes anthrax lethal. (p. 212)
  • Molecules get microscopic bar code labels
    Researchers have created tiny, striped tags for labeling and tracking biologically important molecules. (p. 212)
  • Shrimps spew bubbles as hot as the sun
    With the snap of a claw, a pinkie-size ocean shrimp generates a collapsing air bubble that's hot enough to emit faint light. (p. 213)
  • Gene change speaks to language malady
    Researchers have identified a genetic mutation that may lie at the root of a severe speech and language disorder observed across four generations of a British family. (p. 213)
  • Aging cells may promote tumors nearby
    Cells that enter a state called senescence in older individuals may stimulate nearby cells to become tumors. (p. 214)
  • Poison birds copy 'don't touch' feathers
    A subspecies of one of New Guinea's poisonous pitohui birds may be mimicking a toxic neighbor, according to a new genetic analysis. (p. 214)
  • Faint body may be galaxy building block
    Using a cosmic zoom lens, astronomers may have found one of the first building blocks of a galaxy in the universe. (p. 215)
  • EMFs in home may limit night hormone
    A pair of studies suggests a link, at least in some women, between elevated residential exposure to electromagnetic fields and reduced production of the hormone melatonin. (p. 215)
  • For a change, infection stymies HIV
    A hepatitis-like virus that causes no known diseases seems to help people stave off the progression of HIV, the AIDS virus. (p. 216)
  • Oceans apart, but surgery succeeds
    A French group performed the first transatlantic operation when surgeons in New York controlled a robot in Strasbourg, France, which removed a woman's gall bladder. (p. 216)
  • Nervy chip may open window into brain
    Researchers have built a simple circuit that blends living neurons with silicon-based transistors. (p. 216)
  • Microjaws chomp cells to change them
    A tiny, new biomedical device operates on such a small scale that it can grab individual red blood corpuscles in its jaws. (p. 216)
  • Ill Winds
    Research suggests that the long-range movement of dust can sicken wildlife, crops—even humans—a continent away. (p. 218)
  • Path to new elements now looks steeper
    Making novel, superheavy elements is harder than was previously expected, according to a new experiment, but the findings may also help physicists better choose which atoms to smash into which. (p. 221)
  • Magnets, not magic, make gas bulbs bad
    Once as baffling as black magic, the random failures of glass bulbs used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) now appear to stem from unexpected magnetization of the glass. (p. 221)
  • Constant Changes
    Evidence from the early universe that one of the so-called constants of nature, known as alpha, was once slightly smaller than it is today hints that the laws of physics themselves may vary over time and space. (p. 222)
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