Vol. 166 No. #6
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More Stories from the August 7, 2004 issue

  1. Planetary Science

    A little bit of Mars on Earth

    Scouring an ice field in Antarctica, scientists have made the latest discovery of a chunk of rock that was blasted from Mars and fell to Earth.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Computers read mammograms to detect breast cancer

    Mammogram–scanning computers can help radiologists detect breast cancers that would otherwise escape diagnosis.

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  3. Astronomy

    Young star’s glow suggests planet find

    The X-ray outburst of a young, sunlike star might provide new insights about planet formation.

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  4. Humans

    Title IX: Women are catching up, but . . .

    Though a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in academic settings has fostered women's participation in science, they still lag behind men in salaries and research opportunities.

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  5. Tech

    Quantum dots light up cancer cells in mice

    Brightly fluorescent crystals known as quantum dots have the potential to seek out cancerous cells in the body, a trick that could lead to highly precise cancer screening.

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  6. Materials Science

    Charging gold with a single electron

    Dropping a single electron onto a gold atom with a scanning tunneling microscope converts gold from its neutral state to an ionic state.

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  7. Humans

    Where Ph.D.s pay off

    Salaries for full-time scientists and engineers in the United States have generally outpaced inflation, but academic researchers tend to earn substantially less than their counterparts in industry and government.

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  8. Earth

    Twin satellites track water’s rise and fall

    A pair of satellites launched in 2002 has detected small, regional changes in Earth's gravitational field that are caused by seasonal variations in rainfall and soil moisture.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Stopping Alzheimer’s: Antibody thwarts disease in mice

    Antibodies against amyloid protein, which gums up the brains of Alzheimer's patients, reverse a form of the disease in mice.

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  10. Astronomy

    Explosive News: Telescopes find signs of gentler gamma-ray bursts

    Astronomers appear to have discovered an unexpected population of low-energy gamma-ray bursts, and they could be 10 times more numerous than previously-known higher-energy bursts.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Gene Delivery: Mouse study shows new therapy may reverse muscular dystrophy

    A single defective gene causes muscular dystrophy, and researchers have now found a way to deliver a working copy of that gene to the entire muscular system in mice.

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  12. Tech

    Lighting the Way for Water: New strategy for steering drops with finesse

    Using a beam of ultraviolet light, researchers manipulate tiny drops of water on a surface—a demonstration that could lead to ultrafast and highly precise chemical reactions on a chip.

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  13. Animals

    Anybody know this fish?

    A 2-month marine-biodiversity survey of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge concluded this week, bringing home much data and some novel specimens.

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  14. Health & Medicine

    Swallowed a Fly: Insects may spread foodborne microbe to chickens

    Flies sucked through the ventilation ports of industrial chicken coops may spread the pathogen Campylobacter jejuni, which can ultimately sicken people who eat undercooked chicken.

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  15. Paleontology

    Bird Brain? Cranial scan of fossil hints at flight capability

    Detailed computerized tomography scans of the fossilized braincase of an Archaeopteryx show that several flight-related regions of the feathered creature's brain were highly developed.

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  16. Ecosystems

    Corals without Boarders

    The last decade has been a great era for discovering corals in the deep ocean, but a United Nations report warns that these cold, dark reefs urgently need protection.

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  17. Physics

    Starting from Square One

    Physicists appear to have wedded the arcane theory of quarks to cutting-edge computer science, giving themselves tools for precisely predicting properties of subatomic matter and possibly observing new physical phenomena.

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  18. Humans

    Letters from the August 7, 2004, issue of Science News

    Pot shots Regarding “Pot on the Spot: Marijuana’s risks become blurrier” (SN: 5/22/04, p. 323: Pot on the Spot: Marijuana’s risks become blurrier), it seems to me that the stronger the social pressure against using marijuana in a culture, the more likely it will be that those who use it will be troubled, antisocial, or […]

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