Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Statin snag
A gene variant explains why some people get muscle pains from cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins.
- Plants
Parasitic plant gets more than a meal
The parasitic vine known as dodder really sucks. It pierces the tissue of other plants — some of which are important crops — extracting water and nutrients needed for its own growth. But it also consumes molecules that scientists could manipulate to bring on the parasite’s demise.
- Plants
Parasite Godzilla
Parasites are small but have a big impact. An estuary study reveals that these little annoyances add up to a lot of biomass.
- Chemistry
Quantum physics makes water different
The length of bonds connecting water molecules could demonstrate quantum effects and help explain some of water’s weirdness.
- Health & Medicine
Viagra and women
Viagra eases some sexual problems for women taking antidepressants
- Earth
Seafloor chronicles
Survey of ocean floor reveals long history, from a geological fault to the wreckage of the Lusitania.
- Space
Makemake makes the list
The International Astronomical Union announces name of a fourth dwarf planet.
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Letters
From the August 2, 2008 issue of Science News.
- Life
Magnetic sense linked to molecule
Fruit fly experiments shed light on animals’ use of Earth’s magnetic field for orientation and navigation.
- Math
A building of bubbles
Math Trek: The National Aquatics Center in Beijing, newly built for the Olympics, is a glowing cube of bubbles. The mathematics behind it are built around Lord Kelvin's tetrakaidecahedra and the physics of foam.
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Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology
edited by Oren Harman and Michael R. Dietrich, Yale Univ. Press, 2008, 416 p., $40.
- Agriculture
Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa
by Robert Paarlberg, Harvard Univ. Press, 2008, 235 p., $24.95.
