More Stories from the December 18, 2010 issue
-
Health & MedicineAlcohol heart benefits show up even after bypass surgery
Having two to three drinks a day was associated with decreased heart problems in men during the three years after the operation, researchers from Italy report.
-
Humans
Ancient hominid butchers get trampled
Bone marks advanced as evidence of stone-tool use to butcher animals 3.4 million years ago may actually have resulted from animal trampling, scientists say.
-
Health & Medicine
Drug helps in mild heart failure
Already prescribed for severe cases, eplerenone cuts death and hospitalization rates in patients with less severe but chronic forms of the condition, a new study finds.
-
Health & Medicine
Fish oil fails to hold off heart arrhythmia
Atrial fibrillation patients who took capsules rich in omega-3 fatty acids had about as many episodes as those getting a placebo, a study finds.
-
Health & Medicine
Mining fat tissue for cardiac repair
Stem cells that are abundant in adipose tissue seem to boost the recovery of heart tissues in people who survive the big one, early research shows.
-
Health & Medicine
New drug bumps up good cholesterol
Anacetrapib raises beneficial HDL while lowering harmful LDL, a medical trial finds, suggesting it may be a powerful new weapon against cardiovascular disease.
-
Physics
Antimatter, here to stay
Physicists trap antihydrogen for long enough to study the elusive material.
-
Space
It came from another galaxy
Extrasolar planet traces its origin outside the Milky Way to an ancient neighboring galaxy.
-
Paleontology
Ancient trumpets played eerie notes
Acoustic scientists re-create and analyze sounds from 3,000-year-old shell instruments for insight into pre-Inca civilization.
-
-
Psychology
Shared talking styles herald new and lasting romance
Verbally in-sync conversations may help to start and maintain dating relationships.
-
Animals
Island orangs descend from small group
Bornean apes went through a genetic bottleneck when isolated during an ancient glaciation.
-
Humans
Visor might protect troops from blasts
Computer simulations show that the current military helmet lets explosive forces into the head through the face.
-
Health & Medicine
Antiretroviral drugs may prevent HIV infection
Gay and bisexual men who don’t have the AIDS virus can reduce their risk of getting it by taking a drug combination, a new study finds.
-
Life
Big reveals for genome of tiny animal
Tunicates’ scrambled gene order suggests that arrangement may not matter for vertebrate body plan and hints at the origins of mysterious DNA chunks called introns.
-
Space
How to use a pulsar to find Starbucks
Using stars as celestial beacons could be a backup if GPS ground stations failed.
-
Earth
Shuttle images reveal Egypt’s lost great lake
Radar studies of desert drainage patterns point to ancient oases in the Sahara.
-
Space
Cosmic rebirth
Circular patterns in the universe's pervasive background radiation suggest that the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe, but only the latest of its incarnations.
-
-
Humans
World could heat up 4 degrees C in 50 years
Immediate and substantial action to reduce emissions would be needed to meet climate negotiators' goal of holding warming to a 2 degree Celsius increase, a new package of scientific papers concludes.
-
Science Future for December 18, 2010
December 26 Schenectady Museum in New York explores why bikes stand up. See www.schenectadymuseum.org December 27 Author John Monahan signs copies of They Called Me Mad at the National Air and Space Museum. See www.nasm.si.edu January 10 Deadline to submit original wake-up music for NASA’s final space shuttle mission. Go to https://songcontest.nasa.gov
-
Cooking for Geeks by Jeff Potter
Learn the science behind sautéing and other cooking techniques in this combination recipe book and introduction to food chemistry. COOKING FOR GEEKS BY JEFF POTTER O’Reilly Media, 2010, 432 p., $34.99.
-
Pluto by Barrie W. Jones
An astronomer explores the demoted planet and shows how it has contributed to scientists’ knowledge of the solar system. PLUTO BY BARRIE W. JONES Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010, 231 p., $35.99.
-
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog
In his lively book on human-animal interactions, Herzog denies rumors that he feeds kittens to snakes. For a while, however, his academic research did focus on snake behavior, and his son did have a pet boa. Whispers circulated, but Herzog says the little snake could barely tackle a mouse. OME WE LOVE, SOME WE HATE, […]
-
A year on the job, she takes pride in disaster response
When she took over in November 2009 as the first female director of the U.S. Geological Survey, geophysicist Marcia McNutt already had her work cut out for her in streamlining and modernizing a historic scientific agency. That was before a string of natural disasters—earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, a volcanic eruption in Iceland and the […]
-
Genetic Dark Matter
Standing over Darwin’s grave in Westminster Abbey, Andrew Feinberg had a realization. Scientists search for the still unknown heritable components that account for much of human diversity in traits and disease susceptibility. Photos: W. Goldswain/Shutterstock ADDING UP Most variation in human height is genetic, but studies looking at common changes in DNA have failed to […]
-
Continental Hearts
When Viennese geologist Leopold Kober gave geology a new word — kratogen, soon shortened to craton — for the flat, stony interiors of continents, he thought such places to be among the duller places for geological study. For him, the more flexible expanses of crust he called orogens, full of rising mountains and earthquake faults, […]
-
Black Holes in the Bathtub
If you stuck your hand inside a black hole recently created in a Canadian laboratory, you wouldn’t get sucked in like a string of spaghetti. You’d just get wet. By creating event horizons in labs here on Earth, researchers are demonstrating an astrophysical phenomenon called Hawking radiation. Nicolle Rager Fuller A BLACK HOLE ESCAPEE Particle-antiparticle […]
-
Letters
Receipt of BPA risk news Thank you so much for your recent article (“Receipts a large and little-known source of BPA,” SN: 8/28/10, p. 5) on the possible dangers of touching cash register receipts! One group you may have overlooked as being at risk was accountants and bookkeepers. I own a small tax and accounting […]
-
Science Past from the issue of December 17, 1960
HEAVY SHIELD UNNECESSARY — Heavy shielding as protection for an astronaut against space radiations may not be necessary, at least for trips of less than 50 hours and at distances not greater than 618 miles from earth…. [B]iological specimens were encased in different types of metal to test their effectiveness as shielding materials. Some specimens […]
-
The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages by Nancy Marie Brown
The story of Pope Sylvester II, who introduced Islamic math and science to the West. THE ABACUS AND THE CROSS: THE STORY OF THE POPE WHO BROUGHT THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE TO THE DARK AGES BY NANCY MARIE BROWN Basic Books, 2010, 328 p., $27.95.