A test of what once seemed too obvious to test—whether ant colonies suffer after being raided by slavemaker ants—suggests that some of the raiding insects have been getting unfair press. (p. 116)

Canadian scientists have devised a way to vaccinate fetal lambs, which could spawn more research into in utero methods for preventing the spread of disease from mothers to their babies. (p. 116)

A new pulsar, the youngest discovered to date, unexpectedly exhibits properties of both regular pulsars and a recently explored class of supermagnetic pulsars, the magnetars. (p. 117)

A majority of women report no increase in psychological problems after having an abortion, although nearly one in five express dissatisfaction and regret 2 years later about their decision. (p. 117)

The outer layers of the skin may spring from cells in hair follicles. (p. 118)

A novel computer simulation of molecular behavior suggests that a minuscule squirt gun able to spit liquids a few hundred nanometers ought to work. (p. 118)

More than 2 years after scientists first described 120-million-year-old fossils of a feathered animal, a new analysis seems to bolster the view that the turkey-size species was a bird has-been and not a bird wanna-be. (p. 119)

Radio astronomers have for the first time probed ejected gas in the immediate surroundings of a distant star. (p. 119)

Novel products could lead to fewer dates with the drill. (p. 122)

Lessons from gene therapy promote viruses as cancer fighters. (p. 126)

Researchers find more endorsement of immanent justice, the belief that the natural world punishes human misdeeds, among college students than sixth-graders. (p. 120)

People judge others who have positive personality traits by more lenient physical criteria for attractiveness than they do those about whom they have no personality information. (p. 120)

Plausible information about how others react to jokes colors a college student's own perception of the humor value of the material. (p. 120)

The bacterium that causes cholera has nearly 4,000 genes on its two circular chromosomes. (p. 120)

Viruses and bacteria besides chlamydia may play a role in human heart disease through an immune reaction to a heartlike protein they produce. (p. 120)

In mice genetically engineered to develop an illness similar to Huntington's disease, the drug minocycline significantly delays the onset of symptoms and death. (p. 120)

Although the Internet's redundancy and diversity help it survive local node malfunctions despite its vast size and complexity, it is vulnerable to attacks aimed specifically at the most highly connected nodes. (p. 125)

A large network of powerful computers solved a 32-year-old optimization challenge known as the "nug30" quadratic assignment problem. (p. 125)

A novel digital compression scheme may make it practical to transmit detailed models of three-dimensional surfaces over the Internet. (p. 125)

The optimal way to pack long strings into small spaces is to coil them into helices—particularly the types of helices found in proteins and perhaps DNA. (p. 125)

A swirling soap film gives new clues to how turbulent flows, such as the circulation of Earth's atmosphere, squander their energy. (p. 125)