Science News / August 30th, 2008

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In This Issue

Sequencing the dead to save the living: Reviving ancient genomes of long-extinct creatures offers a window into past extinctions—and may help prevent future die outs
No gene is an island: Even as biologists catalog the discrete parts of life forms, an emerging picture reveals that life’s functions arise from interconnectedness
The decider: Informing the debate over the reality of ‘free will’ requires learning something about the lateral habenula
This week's table of contents

August 30th, 2008

Disaster Goes Global

The eruption in 1600 of a seemingly quiet volcano in Peru changed global climate and triggered famine as far away as Russia
Evolution's Ear

Recent changes in hearing-related genes may have influenced language development
Pop chirp bite crunch chew

The ultrasonic din of dying trees inspires a new kind of research to save forests from beetle attacks — and battle climate change
Building 'The Matrix'

Simulating new materials could help in building them — but only quantum simulators could fully model reality. A team reports a first step in realizing quantum simulation.
Dopamine could help the sleep-deprived still learn

Sleep loss impairs fruit flies’ ability to learn, just as it does in people. But boosting dopamine in the flies can erase these learning deficits. (p. 8)
Carbon tubes, but not nano

Trying to grow better, longer nanotubes, researchers accidentally discover a new type of carbon filament, colossal carbon tubes, which are tens of thousands of times thicker.
Fingerprints go high-tech

A new chemical technique shows promise in identifying traces of explosives, illicit drugs and perhaps even signs of disease.
Greeks followed a celestial Olympics

A Greek gadget discovered more than a century ago in a 2,100-year-old shipwreck not only tracked the motion of heavenly bodies and predicted eclipses, but also functioned as a sophisticated calendar and mapped the four-year cycle of the ancient Greek Olympics.
Saturn's moon may host an ocean

The Cassini spacecraft has found what may be the strongest evidence yet that Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus has an ocean beneath its icy surface.
Uncommon Earth

New computer model suggests Earth and its brethren are atypical.
Officially ice

Phoenix Mars Lander detects water, a landmark that, along with other successes, prompts NASA to extend the mission.
Soft tissue in fossils still mysterious

New research suggests modern biofilms could contaminate ancient fossils.
Smallest known snake

New species is thin as a spaghetti noodle but shorter.
Vegetarian spider

The first known spider with a predominantly meatless diet nibbles trees.
His master’s yawn

When humans open up for a jaw-stretcher, so do their best friends.
Making T cells tougher against HIV

Delivering small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs, to human immune cells in mice protects the cells from HIV and suggests future therapy for patients.
Invisibility within sight

Two new studies take steps toward practical materials that can bend light backward, which could lead to invisibility cloaks.

Blogs:

Science & the Public Is Your Fish Oil Polluted?
By Janet Raloff Nov 20th 2008

Columns:

Comment Debates over definition of planet continue and inspire
By Alan Stern Nov 21st 2008

Math Trek How to (really) trust a mathematical proof
By Julie Rehmeyer
Mathematicians develop computer proof-checking systems in order to realize century-old dreams of fully precise, accurate mathematics. Nov 14th 2008

Bulletin Board: