More Stories from the August 31, 2002 issue
- Planetary Science
It’s only a sharper moon
Astronomers have taken what appears to be the sharpest image of the moon ever recorded from Earth.
- Health & Medicine
Processing corn boosts antioxidants
Cooking sweet corn increases its disease-fighting antioxidant activity, despite decreasing its vitamin C content.
- Health & Medicine
Lost and found
Researchers have shown that a drug may shepherd a mutated protein—gone astray in people with cystic fibrosis—into its proper place.
- Computing
Writing faster with your eyes
A new method for gaze-operated, hands-free text entry is faster and more accurate than using an on-screen keyboard.
- Astronomy
An image to relish
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a high-resolution image of an object that looks like a giant hamburger.
- Materials Science
What the mail must go through
Mail irradiation in Washington, D.C. is damaging valuable objects and documents intended for scientific study or archiving at the Smithsonian, the White House, and other government organizations.
- Chemistry
Down to the bone
A new method for making bone cement could simplify hip and knee replacements and improve the surgeries' outcomes.
- Planetary Science
Planetary Beginnings: Data reveal Earth’s quick gestation
Two new studies confirm that Earth's core formed in a hurry—during the first 30 million years after the solar system's birth.
- Health & Medicine
Flower Power: Corn lily compound stops cancer in mice
A new study in mice suggests that cyclopamine, a plant derivative that causes birth defects in animals, can inhibit medulloblastoma, a brain cancer in children.
- Plants
Time Capsules: Seeds sprout 120 years after going underground
An experiment designed by a botany professor to last longer than his own life has demonstrated that seeds of two common flowers still sprout and blossom despite more than a century in a bottle.
- Health & Medicine
You’re Feeling Sleepy . . . : Anesthetics activate brain’s sleep switch
Anesthesia's sedative effect may depend on activating sleep circuits in the brain.
- Animals
Getting a Grip: How gecko toes stick
Scientists have pinned down the molecular basis of the gecko's astonishing ability to scamper up polished walls and hang from ceilings, paving the way for a new type of synthetic dry adhesive.
- Tech
Electronics in the Round: Mixing plastic and silicon yields form-fitting circuitry
Investigators used ordinary integrated-circuit fabrication techniques to pattern arrays of silicon-based transistors onto a flat, deformable sheet of plastic.
- Chemistry
Germ Fighter: Lens coating may keep contacts in eye longer
A new antibacterial coating may allow contact lenses to remain in a person's eyes for up to 3 months.
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Rift of Gab: Speech insights spark statistical static
A controversial new study suggests that people use statistical regularities in language to recognize individual words but not to discern rules for word construction.
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria offer drug for organ recipients
Korean investigators have identified a compound that suppresses the immune system of animals.
- Health & Medicine
Inflammatory Ideas
Researchers are gathering evidence that inflammation precedes and predicts diabetes.
- Astronomy
Lonely Universe
In a universe dominated by a mysterious antigravity force, dubbed dark energy, distant galaxies will eventually recede from each other faster than the speed of light and observers in our Milky Way some 50 billion years from now will see only a handful of other galaxies in the sky.
