More Stories from the April 26, 2003 issue
- Animals
Chicks open wide, ultraviolet mouths
The first analysis of what the mouths of begging birds look like in the ultraviolet spectrum reveals a dramatic display that birds can see but people can't.
- Paleontology
Ancestors Go South
A group of new and previously excavated fossils in South Africa represents 4-million-year-old members of the human evolutionary family, according to an analysis of the sediment that covered the finds.
- Earth
Traces of lead cause outsize harm
Minute amounts of lead in blood are worse for children than had been realized.
- Health & Medicine
Little vessels react to magnetic switch
Magnets can act like vascular switches, increasing or decreasing blood flow to a region of the body.
- Earth
Prenatal nicotine: A role in SIDS?
New data suggest why exposure to nicotine in the womb can put an infant at greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome.
- Health & Medicine
Athletes develop whey-better muscles
Dietary supplements coupling whey and creatine promote the development of bigger, stronger muscles in experienced body builders.
- Health & Medicine
Teen taters, too
The epidemic of adolescent obesity may owe more to a paucity of exercise than to a growing intake of calories.
- Math
Spheres in Disguise: Solid proof offered for famous conjecture
A Russian mathematician has proposed a proof of the Poincaré conjecture, a question about the shapes of three-dimensional spaces.
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Fig-Wasp Upset: Classic partnership isn’t so tidy after all
Genetic analysis suggests that a textbook example of a tight buddy system in nature—fig species that supposedly each have their own pollinating wasp species—may need to be rewritten.
- Earth
Feel the Heat: Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world
During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones.
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Genetic Clue to Aging? Mutation causes early-aging syndrome
A gene defect that causes accelerated aging may provide insight into normal aging.
- Materials Science
Bone Fix: New material responds to growing tissue
A new scaffolding material stimulates bone regeneration.
- Materials Science
Blunt Answer: Cracking the puzzle of elastic solids’ toughness
Rubbery materials prove tougher than theory predicts because cracks trying to penetrate those stretchy materials grow blunt at their tips.
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Out of China: SARS virus’ genome hints at independent evolution
The newly identified SARS virus is the product of a long and private evolutionary history, clues from its genome suggest.
- Tech
Digital Cells
Researchers are gearing up to create cells with computer programs hardwired into the DNA.
- Earth
Eye of the Tiger
Recent research has upended a 130-year-old, previously unchallenged theory about how the semiprecious stone called tiger's-eye is formed.
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A Rocky Start
A new origin-of-life theory holds that life began within the confines of iron sulfide rocks surrounding hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom.
