More Stories from the January 26, 2013 issue
- Life
Rare genetic tweaks may not be behind common diseases
Variants thought to be behind inherited conditions prove difficult to pin down.
- Life
Contender for world’s oldest dinosaur identified
An African specimen suggests the lineage may have arisen 15 million years earlier than thought.
- Health & Medicine
Drug breaks up Alzheimer’s-like deposits in mice
Recent failed trials of a similar approach in humans fuel skepticism that patients will benefit.
- Humans
Pots bear oldest signs of cheese making
Some of Europe’s first farmers created perforated vessels to separate curds from whey.
- Health & Medicine
Zinc may help treat box jellyfish stings
A zinc compound seems to counteract the deadly venom delivered by the sting of the Australian box jellyfish.
- Life
Early life forms may have been terrestrial
A controversial theory suggests that at least some of the earliest widespread complex life forms lived on land.
- Life
Heart telltale
Engineered cells that flash when they beat may offer a new way to test drugs for cardiac toxicity.
- Life
Pressure keeps cancer in check
In lab experiments, physically confining malignant cells prevents runaway growth.
- Health & Medicine
Twin towers dust tied to some cancers, not others
9/11 rescue and recovery workers have higher rates of prostate and thyroid cancers and multiple myeloma, a study shows.
- Chemistry
Repellent slime has material virtues
Threads isolated from hagfishes' defensive goo demonstrate superior strength and flexibility.
- Humans
Man the martial artist
The human hand evolved partly as a tool for fighting, researchers argue.
- Space
California meteorite a scientific gold mine
Sutter’s Mill rock preserves rare, fresh material from outer space.
- Life
Victorian zoological map redrawn
Species distribution patterns that inspired Darwin and Wallace get an update.
- Humans
Hitting streaks in baseball may be contagious
Teammates of a batter on a streak hit better than their average, a review of baseball records finds.
- Earth
West Antarctica warming fast
A reconstructed temperature record from a high-altitude station shows an unexpectedly rapid rise since 1958.
- Earth
Antarctic subglacial drilling effort suspended
A British-led team has called off this season’s campaign to penetrate Lake Ellsworth.
- Space
Planets and their sun grow together
Radio telescopes reveal how nascent bodies funnel gas to their parent star.
- Space
New Martian meteorite is one of a kind
Rock is water-rich and resembles observed regions of Red Planet’s crust.
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Through a glass, less darkly
After finishing his Ph.D. on glass formation, chemical physicist Patrick Charbonneau thought he’d never study the material again. But something kept nagging him: In some experiments, materials would unexpectedly morph into glass, solid as a rock but molecularly disordered like a liquid. The results didn’t match with glass-formation theory, but they were easy to dismiss […]
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Science Future for January 26, 2013
February 11–13 The University of Tennessee, Knoxville hosts lectures, films, a concert and even a cake contest to celebrate Charles Darwin’s birthday. See bit.ly/SFutdarwin February 18 Learn how the recently discovered “slow” earthquake differs from typical quakes with geophysicist Gregory Beroza at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. See bit.ly/SFslowquakes
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SN Online
LIFE The activity of just a few genes may be key to limb evolution. Read “Fins to limbs with flip of genetic switch.” NASA, NOAA Scientists analyze chemical forms in gorilla poop to reconstruct monthly shifts in the animals’ diets. See “Feces study gets the poop on gorillas’ diet.” EARTHNew satellite images dubbed “Black Marble” […]
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BOOK REVIEW: The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos (CBC Massey Lecture) by Neil Turok
Review by Alexandra Witze.
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David Douglas, a Naturalist at Work: An Illustrated Exploration Across Two Centuries in the Pacific Northwest by Jack Nisbet
Discover the natural history of the Pacific Northwest through the tale of a naturalist who explored the region 200 years ago. Sasquatch Books, 2012, 191 p., $27.95
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King of Poisons: A History of Arsenic by John Parascandola
This history of arsenic shows how the compound has been used, from candy to nefarious plots. Potomac Books, 2012, 197 p., $27.50
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Spectrums: Our Mind-boggling Universe from Infinitesimal to Infinity by David Blatner
Explore the wonders of six kinds of spectra — numbers, light, sound, size, heat and time — that define the universe. Walker & Co., 2012, 183 p., $25
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Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See by Bill Finch, Beth M. Young, Rhett Johnson and John C. Hall
A series of photographs enriches this tribute to disappearing longleaf pine forests, which once covered over 90 million acres of North America. Univ. of North Carolina, 2012, 176 p., $35
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The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix by James Watson; Alexander Gann and Jan Witkowski, eds.
Watson’s 1968 memoir of the discovery of DNA’s structure gets a stylish update, with an extra chapter and added photographs and documents. Simon & Schuster, 2012, 345 p., $30
- Physics
Heart of the Matter
Neutrinos’ shifty behavior might help explain why the universe has so much stuff in it.
- Health & Medicine
Little Mind Benders
Parasites that sneak into the brain may alter your behavior and health.
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Science Past from the issue of January 26, 1963
DOGS FOUND COLOR-BLIND — Some animals are able to distinguish colors but others are practically color-blind, Dr. Gerti Duecker, zoologist of the University of Muenster, West Germany, has determined by a series of tests. Dr. Duecker found cats and dogs to be color-blind, although there is some evidence that some dogs have a faint sense […]
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BOOK REVIEW: Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data by Charles Wheelan
Review by Tom Siegfried.
