All Stories by Janet Raloff
- Health & Medicine
Panel ups RDAs for some antioxidants
An Institute of Medicine panel reported that dietary antioxidants such as vitamins A and E can limit cellular damage from free radicals but warned that studies in people have never adequately established a direct connection between antioxidant consumption and prevention of chronic disease.
- Ecosystems
New protection for much-dogged shark
To rebuild northeastern U.S. populations of the spiny dogfish, the first fishing quotas on this species limit the harvest to roughly 10 percent of the 1998 haul.
- Chemistry
The power of caffeine and pale tea
The relatively rare brew known as white tea offers more caffeine than green tea—and perhaps more anticancer activity.
- Earth
A deadly threat in undeployed airbags
The extremely toxic and reactive chemical used to inflate airbags could cause risks to human health and wildlife if accidentally released into the environment.
- Chemistry
Unsung benefits of darker, tasty oils
Processing to erase the distinctive flavors and colors in cooking oils also removes or deactivates compounds that can defuse biologically damaging chemical reactions in the body.
- Chemistry
Nutty and fungi-ble taxol sources
The active ingredient in the anticancer drug taxol has turned up in hazelnuts and fungi.
- Health & Medicine
The New GI Tracts
For preventing heart disease, diets that control insulin are all the buzz.
- Earth
Gasoline additive’s going, but far from gone
As the federal government proposes phasing out the gasoline additive MTBE, scientists explore ways to remove this potential carcinogen from drinking-water supplies that it has tainted throughout the nation.
- Earth
More Waters Test Positive for Drugs
Traces of drugs, excreted by people and livestock, pollute surface and ground waters in the United States, as had already been confirmed in Europe.
- Agriculture
Toxic bugs taint large numbers of cattle
U.S. cattle have dramatically higher rates of infection with a virulent food-poisoning bacterium than had been realized, a factor that leads to widespread carcass contamination during slaughter.
- Health & Medicine
Chocolate Hearts
Preliminary studies indicate that moderate consumption of chocolate products may offer cardiovascular benefits.
- Earth
Plants seen as unpredictable carbon sponge
Changing land-use practices—especially in forests, croplands, and fallow areas—appear to play a far bigger role than anticipated in determining how much carbon gets removed from the air by vegetation.
