More Stories from the December 20, 2008 issue
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LifeSchools make fish smarter
A study of consensus decision making shows that sticklebacks make wider choices in groups of three or more.
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Animals
Forensics’ next tool: Hair-collecting caterpillars
First human DNA extraction from hair bits in moth larval case.
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Health & Medicine
Ginkgo biloba fails drug test
The herbal supplement Ginkgo biloba fails to prevent Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia, a large trial finds.
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Health & Medicine
Sleep makes room for memories
Sleep erases old memories to make way for new learning
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Physics
Superconductivity does the twist
Electron fluctuations could explain why exotic material conducts without resistance.
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Space
Water-ice deposits found beneath Martian hills
Using radar from an orbiting spacecraft to penetrate the hidden recesses of Mars, planetary prospectors have uncovered vast reserves of water-ice buried beneath rocky debris.
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Physics
Standard model gets right answer for proton, neutron masses
Correct calculation strengthens theory of quark-gluon interactions in nuclear particles.
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Health & Medicine
Many drug trials never see publication
Results of most drug trials are unreported, inaccessible to clinicians and patients, a new study confirms.
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Humans
Baby boys may show spatial supremacy
Two new studies suggest that, at 3 to 5 months of age, boys already outperform girls on mental rotation tasks.
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Earth
Antidepressants make for sad fish
Fish may suffer substantially from even brief encounters with antidepressants, which wastewater releases into river water.
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Health & Medicine
Honeybee CSI: Why dead bodies can’t be found
Virus could explain one symptom of colony collapse.
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Earth
The Hunt for Habitable Planets
For years, planet hunters have been preoccupied with hot Jupiters—giant, gaseous planets that tightly hug their sunlike parent stars. These massive, close-in planets, not yet directly seen, are the easiest to find because they induce the largest wobble in the motion of the stars they orbit. But now astronomers are following a rockier road—seeking rocky, […]
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Physics
Physicists Hot for Ultracold
Physicists have recently coaxed molecules into ultracold states in which motion is nearly gone.
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Health & Medicine
Imagination Medicine
Placebos are supposed to be nothing. They’re sugar pills, shots of saline, fake creams; they’re given to the comparison group in drug trials so doctors can see whether a new treatment is better than no treatment. THE NON-PILL | Brain imaging reveals the substance of placebos. Expectation alone triggers the same neural circuits and chemicals as real […]
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Letters
NASA’s source In “Cooling climate ‘consensus’ of 1970s never was” (SN: 10/25/08, p. 5), Science News includes a graph, attributed to NASA, that shows temperature deviations from the year 1880. The data clearly indicate a distinct warming trend throughout the period. Why is it that over the past two years I have very painstakingly researched […]
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