Uncategorized
- Planetary Science
Cassini eyes youthful-looking Saturnian moon
On July 14, the Cassini spacecraft came within 175 kilometers of the south polar region of Saturn's bright, tiny moon Enceladus, revealing a tortured terrain of faults, folds, and ridges.
By Ron Cowen -
Fickle Finger’s Funny Feel: Digit illusion modifies touch perception
The brain rapidly adjusts its internal map of the body's skin surface, according to a new study of people who underwent laboratory procedures that induced illusions of finger growth or shrinkage.
By Bruce Bower -
Boning Up: Tissue for grafts grown inside the body
Scientists have discovered a new way to stimulate one part of an animal's body to grow extra bone tissue that can be transplanted elsewhere.
- Paleontology
Young and Helpless: Fossils suggest that dinosaur parents cared
Skeletal remains found in the fossilized eggs of an early dinosaur hint that adults of the species may have cared for their hatchlings.
By Sid Perkins - Animals
Wing Ding: Bird rubs feathers for cricketlike song
Scientists say that they have found the first vertebrate to make its courtship music in the same way as a cricket does.
By Susan Milius - Physics
Glints from Inner Space: Sensing Earth’s hidden radioactivity
Physicists have observed signatures of radioactivity deep within Earth, enabling measurement of planet-wide thorium and uranium quantities.
By Peter Weiss - Humans
Letters from the July 30, 2005, issue of Science News
Led astray The illustration of the solar system in “Roaming Giants: Did migrating planets shape the solar system?” (SN: 5/28/05, p. 340) does not represent the current orbit of the planets. Rather, it must be a frame from the computer simulation referred to in the article. William MeadowsDripping Springs, Texas Indeed, the image reflects the […]
By Science News - Astronomy
Planet potential
Observations with the Submillimeter Array on Hawaii's Mauna Kea reveal that, despite their bombardment by a stellar bully, the disks in Orion have enough material to form planets.
By Ron Cowen - Physics
Why isn’t the sky violet, Daddy?
A new analysis of why the sky looks blue reveals that the reason may be the combined effects of the atmosphere and of our eyes' color-sensing apparatus.
By Peter Weiss -
Bipolar kids harbor unique brain trait
Children and teenagers with bipolar disorder, a severe mental ailment that involves sharp mood swings, display unusually low tissue volume in a brain area involved in learning to regulate emotions.
By Bruce Bower - Physics
In search of the imperfect nanocrystal
Semiconductor nanocrystals can incorporate property-enhancing impurities into their growing structures as long as the crystals have facets onto which such atoms can strongly adhere.
By Peter Weiss - Earth
Weighty evidence on testicular cancer
New evidence supports a theory that men who were exposed to excess estrogenic hormones at an early stage of fetal development may face an elevated risk of testicular cancer.
By Ben Harder