September 9th, 2000
issue

  • An 800-year-old Anasazi site in Colorado yields contested evidence of cannibalism. (p. 164)
  • A heavenly masquerade may shed light on the nature of astrophysical jets—the beams of material spewed by a wide variety of celestial objects. (p. 164)
  • The high incidence of premature breast development in Puerto Rican girls has been linked with phthalates, a family of ubiquitous pollutants found in plastics, lubricants, and solvents. (p. 165)
  • A decrease in acid rain seems to be responsible for newly reported reduced deterioration rates of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. (p. 165)
  • Evidence locked within the fossil teeth of some dinosaurs may help bolster the view that some of the animals were, at least to some degree, warm-blooded. (p. 166)
  • Scientists have devised a version of the poliovirus that can deliver genes to motor neurons without harming them, a step toward a gene therapy that reawakens idle neurons in people with spinal cord damage. (p. 166)
  • A gene carried by up to 85 percent of the people in the world increases susceptibility to diabetes by about 25 percent. (p. 167)
  • An otherwise rare system of sex determination has evolved independently at least six times in one genus of South American mice. (p. 167)
  • A celebrated anthropologist surprises and inspires his biographer. (p. 170)
  • A proposed universe of unseen material, where every ordinary particle has a shadowy counterpart, could explain several conundrums in cosmology. (p. 173)
  • Researchers have completed the most thorough census to date of brown dwarfs in stellar clusters and have confirmed earlier findings about these failed stars. (p. 168)
  • A $12.5 million grant will help build the world's largest telescope designed to search for radio broadcasts from alien civilizations. (p. 168)
  • Inner-city teenage girls may often experience a severe stress reaction that makes it more difficult for them to succeed in school. (p. 168)
  • A debate has broken out over whether neuroscientists should share the voluminous data that they generate in their experiments. (p. 168)
  • Researchers have simulated the conditions and ingredients found at hydrothermal vents to create pyruvic acid, an organic chemical vital for cellular metabolism. (p. 175)
  • Changes in snowfall observed in parts of southern Greenland between 1978 and 1988 appear to be normal if gauged against the variations recorded in ice cores over the past 400 years. (p. 175)
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