Vol. 166 No. #24
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More Stories from the December 11, 2004 issue

  1. Health & Medicine

    Up and down make different workouts

    An unusual study conducted on an Alpine mountainside suggests that climbing a steep slope improves the body's ability to process certain fats, while descending such a slope enhances metabolism of a key sugar.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Sleeve worn on heart fights failure

    A new mesh wrap can be placed around an expanded and weakened heart to restore the organ to an efficient, elliptical form.

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  3. Astronomy

    Gamma view of a big blast

    Astronomers have for the first time used extremely high-energy gamma rays to image a celestial body.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    TB vaccine gets a needed boost

    An experimental vaccine against tuberculosis imparts significant immunity, but only in people who have previously received the existing bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine for TB.

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  5. Mice smell a mate’s immune system

    By sniffing molecules present in urine, mice gain insight into each other's immune systems.

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  6. Archaeology

    China’s Fermented Past: Pottery yields signs of oldest known wine

    Analyses of ancient pottery have yielded evidence the people living in northern China 9,000 years ago concocted a fermented, winelike drink from rice, honey, and fruit.

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  7. Cloning Milestone: Monkey embryos urged to stem cell stage

    Researchers have coaxed cloned rhesus macaque embryos to grow to the blastocyst stage, the furthest point yet reached in cloning a nonhuman primate.

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  8. Astronomy

    Disks of Dust: Planet-stuff surrounds other sunlike stars

    Two orbiting observatories for the first time are homing in on planetary debris circling sunlike stars.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Smog Clogs Arteries: Pollution does lasting harm to blood vessels

    Air pollution does long-term damage to people's arteries, leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke, a Los Angeles study confirms.

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  10. Physics

    Swift Lift: Birds may get a rise out of swirling air

    The wings of airborne birds may generate whirlpools of air to produce lift for flying, just as insects do.

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  11. Materials Science

    Color Collective: Polymer self-assembles into light-emitting film

    Stacks of sheets of light-emitting organic molecules that assemble into nanoscale structures could be more efficient and luminescent than existing display materials based on organic substances.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Stemming Incontinence: Injected muscle cells restore urinary control

    Stem cells removed from healthy muscle, grown in a lab, and inserted back into women with urinary incontinence can rebuild a muscle needed to control urine flow.

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  13. Chemistry

    Recipe for Roman cosmetic revealed

    British chemists have found that a white material inside a small tin canister excavated from a 2000-year-old Roman temple is an ancient cosmetic face cream.

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  14. Anthropology

    Remnants of the Past

    Sophisticated analyses suggest that some prehistoric peoples were highly skilled weavers.

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  15. Astronomy

    Explosive Tales

    Four hundred years after the explosion of the Kepler supernova, the last such stellar eruption in our galaxy, astronomers have examined the supernova's remnant with state-of-the-art telescopes that view it in infrared, optical, and X-ray light.

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  16. Humans

    Letters from the December 11, 2004, issue of Science News

    Mover Earth I would have thought that it is more likely that Earth’s hum creates the weather patterns (“Humming Along: Ocean waves may cause global seismic noise,” SN: 10/2/04, p. 212: Humming Along: Ocean waves may cause global seismic noise) than the other way around. Judy AngelGlasgow, Scotland Nuclear fallout “Hurrying a nuclear identity switch” […]

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