Science News / August 26th, 2006

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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 26th, 2006

Enlightened: Dark matter spotted after cosmic crash

In the aftermath of a cosmic crash between two galaxies, researchers say they've detected invisible dark matter for the first time. (p. 131)
Risky Legacy: African DNA linked to prostate cancer

The high rate of prostate cancer among African American men may result in large part from a newly identified stretch of DNA passed down from their African ancestors. (p. 131)
Fields Medals: Mathematicians win awards for geometry, physics, and probability

Fields Medals have been awarded to four mathematicians, including Grigori Perelman, who proved a famous conjecture about the shapes of higher-dimensional spheres. (p. 132)
Sweet Finding: Researchers propose candidate sour sensor

A protein on the surfaces of select tongue cells may play a pivotal role in detecting sour taste. (p. 132)
Underage Spiders: Males show unexpected interest in young mates

Male Australian redback spiders mate readily with females too young to have external openings to their reproductive tracts, a tactic that reduces the male's risk of getting cannibalized. (p. 133)
Lacy molecular order

A lacy honeycomb arrangement of molecules on copper suggests the possibility of creating useful nanoscale patterns on surfaces by fine-tuning intermolecular forces. (p. 133)
Pathogen Preference: Infected amoebas flourish in cooling towers

Cooling towers appear to be more effective than natural waters at fostering novel bacterial species that cause illnesses in people. (p. 133)
Mercury Rising: Natural wildfires release pollutant

Fires in high-latitude forests and peaty soils of the Northern Hemisphere may loft hundreds of tons of mercury into the atmosphere each year. (p. 134)
Mutant Maps

Struck by an analogy between genetic mutations and flaws in antique printed documents, a biologist has devised a method to analyze such flaws to pinpoint publication dates of rare, undated documents. (p. 136)
Bone Hunt

Science News reporter Sid Perkins recounts the trials and tribulations of digging for dinosaurs in central Montana. (p. 138)
Cosmic bigness

Astronomers have found the largest structures ever discovered in the universe. (p. 141)
Sauna use among dads linked to tumors in children

Men who expose themselves to excessive heat in the weeks before they conceive children may place their future offspring at unnecessary risk of brain cancer. (p. 141)
Protection from poisons

An Alzheimer's disease drug could be protective against the deadly effects of two nerve agents. (p. 141)
Stress rate revised for Vietnam vets

A reanalysis of data from a 1988 study of Vietnam veterans finds that 19 percent developed war-related post-traumatic stress disorder, a smaller proportion than had previously been estimated. (p. 141)
Unusual tumor is contagious in dogs

A type of cancer in dogs is transferred from animal to animal by exchange of cancer cells. (p. 142)
The ups and downs of routing fluids on chips

A new way to build microscale pipes in three dimensions boosts the sophistication of chips that manipulate fluids to perform chemical reactions and other tasks. (p. 142)
Placebo predictions

Giving patients placebo pills for a week before they begin to participate in trials of antidepressants can help clinicians gauge how well they will respond to the actual medication. (p. 142)
Breast milk may not be enough

Breast-fed infants need vitamin D supplements, at least in winter. (p. 142)
Letters from the August 26, 2006, issue of Science News

(p. 143)

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: