More Stories from the February 14, 2009 issue
- Life
Capuchin monkeys choose the right tool for the nut
New field experiments indicate that wild capuchin monkeys choose the most effective stones for cracking nuts, suggesting deep evolutionary roots for the use of stone tools.
- Humans
Gamers crave control and competence, not carnage
Study turns belief commonly held by video game industry, gamers, on its head.
- Health & Medicine
Neural paths for borderline personality disorder
A new brain-imaging study indicates that unusual neural activity linked to emotion, attention and conflict-resolution systems underlies a common psychiatric condition known as borderline personality disorder.
- Health & Medicine
Epigenetics reveals unexpected, and some identical, results
One study finds tissue-specific methylation signatures in the genome; another a similarity between identical twins in DNA’s chemical tagging.
- Earth
Clearing some air over warming in Europe
A decline in fog and haze clears the air but also fuels 20 percent of the warming in Europe, a new study concludes.
- Earth
Antarctica is getting warmer too
Satellite data show most of the continent is following worldwide trend.
- Life
Everyday tree deaths have doubled
In past 50 years, apparently healthy forests have started losing trees faster, possibly because of climate change.
- Life
Carlsbad’s 8 million ‘lost’ bats likely never existed
Thermal imaging and algorithms challenge famous estimate of extreme bat number.
- Health & Medicine
Newborns pick up the beat
Electrical measurements of sleeping newborn babies’ brains indicate that the 2- to 3-day-olds automatically detect a regular beat in rhythmic sequences, possibly reflecting an early capacity for learning music.
- Humans
Young scientists clear hurdle in national competition
Intel Science Talent Search finalists announced.
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A Very Improbable Story by Edward Einhorn and Adam Gustavson
A cat named Odds plays games of probability with a young boy in this children’s book. Charlesbridge, 2008, 32 p., $16.95 A Very Improbable Story by Edward Einhorn and Adam Gustavson
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Receding glaciers erase records of climate history
For three decades, Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University has been monitoring the health of glaciers atop mountains from Peru to China . Skeptics initially doubted that he could retrieve meaningful data from these remote elevations. But he has, while also discovering that these millennia-old data-storage lockers are rapidly disappearing. Senior Editor Janet Raloff recently […]
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- Space
Whiff of Martian methane offers lively possibilities
The definitive discovery in Mars’ atmosphere of methane — often, but not always, a compound hinting at life — introduces the possibility of underground organisms.
- Life
A Most Private Evolution
The most dramatic examples of the power of evolutionary theory may come from the strange and ugly stuff — biology too dumb to have been designed.
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Letters
Reader letters : February 14, 2009.
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Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World by Stephanie J. Snow
An account of the early pain-dulling and sensation-killing drugs and their effects on society. Oxford, 2008, 226 p., $34.95. Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World by Stephanie J. Snow
