New evidence supports the view that people occupied a site in coastal Virginia at least 15,000 years ago. (p. 244)

An Institute of Medicine panel reported that dietary antioxidants such as vitamins A and E can limit cellular damage from free radicals but warned that studies in people have never adequately established a direct connection between antioxidant consumption and prevention of chronic disease. (p. 244)

Astronomers have identified a new solar mechanism that may explain some coronal mass ejections. (p. 245)

Up to 30 percent of a cell's proteins get recycled as soon as they roll off the cellular assembly line. (p. 245)

Tides may sometimes be strong enough to tug Earth into an ice age. (p. 246)

To rebuild northeastern U.S. populations of the spiny dogfish, the first fishing quotas on this species limit the harvest to roughly 10 percent of the 1998 haul. (p. 246)

DNA interactions that bend tiny diving boards, or cantilevers, may open the door to powering micromachines by means of molecular reactions. (p. 246)

The largest amphibian data set ever crunched—936 populations in 37 countries—confirms global declines. (p. 247)

Some breast cancer patients without a mutation in the BRCA1 gene nevertheless have an incapacitated gene, silenced by a process called hypermethylation of nearby DNA. (p. 247)

Can interrupting their treatment benefit HIV-infected people? (p. 248)

When birds trill and whales woo-oo, we call it singing. Are we serious? (p. 252)

The relatively rare brew known as white tea offers more caffeine than green tea—and perhaps more anticancer activity. (p. 251)

The extremely toxic and reactive chemical used to inflate airbags could cause risks to human health and wildlife if accidentally released into the environment. (p. 251)

Processing to erase the distinctive flavors and colors in cooking oils also removes or deactivates compounds that can defuse biologically damaging chemical reactions in the body. (p. 251)

The active ingredient in the anticancer drug taxol has turned up in hazelnuts and fungi. (p. 251)

Aroma chemists have discovered a carotenoid-processing enzyme that makes the chemicals that give rose oil its smell. (p. 255)

Scientists have discovered a gene in German cockroaches that may lead to a new type of insect control—contraception for male cockroaches. (p. 255)

Taste researchers have narrowed the search for the sweet tooth gene, at least in mice, to a 100-gene region. (p. 255)

A new way to produce mysterious quantum correlations among particles ups the record to four particles linked, or entangled, and opens the door to correlating many more particles on cue, a prerequisite for making quantum computers. (p. 255)

Physicist-author Freeman J. Dyson received the Templeton prize for originality in advancing religious understanding. (p. 255)