More Stories from the February 21, 2004 issue
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Neural Aging Walks Tall: Aerobic activity fuels elderly brains, minds
Moderate amounts of regular walking improve brain function and attention in formerly sedentary seniors.
- Ecosystems
Bird Dilemma: More seabirds killed when boats discard fewer fish
A long-term study of great skuas shows that when fishing fleets discard less fish, birds that scavenge for waste make up for the loss by increasing attacks on other seabirds.
- Earth
Catching Waves: Ocean-surface changes may mark tsunamis
A new theoretical model that describes a tsunami's interaction with winds may explain enigmatic observations associated with the waves and could lead to a technique for spotting them long before they hit shore.
- Earth
Nanosponges: Plastic particles pick up pollutants
Nanometer-scale polymer particles can extract pollutants from contaminated soil.
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Monkey Love: Male marmosets think highly of sex
A new brain-imaging study in marmosets suggests that males sexually aroused by the scent of females may be thinking carefully before they mate, opposing the notion that nonhuman male mammals act purely upon a primal urge.
- Health & Medicine
Drug Racing: Gene tied to HIV-drug response
A genetic mutation more common in blacks than in whites increases the odds that people taking a common HIV medicine will suffer side effects that lead them to halt treatment.
- Health & Medicine
Pill Puzzle: Do antibiotics increase breast cancer risk?
A new study links antibiotic use to breast cancer, although it's not clear the drugs cause the disease.
- Tech
The rat in the hat
A compact positron-emission tomography (PET) brain scanner may make possible studies of awake rats that link brain functions and behaviors.
- Planetary Science
A view of Mars, European style
Although the Mars lander Beagle 2 is presumed dead, its mother craft, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, has transmitted its first data from a polar orbit about the Red Planet.
- Health & Medicine
Some T cells may be a fetus’ best friend
While pregnant, mice overproduce a kind of T cell that reins in other immune cells that might target the fetus.
- Physics
New supergas debuts
A cloud of ultracold potassium atoms, manipulated by means of a magnetic field, has coalesced into a new super form of matter called a fermionic condensate.
- Health & Medicine
Putting the brakes on toxic shock
Scientists have discovered the cascade of molecular events that underpins many cases of toxic shock syndrome.
- Physics
Nuclear pudding—to go
Moving at nearly the speed of light, atomic nuclei hurtling through a huge particle collider may become mostly dense, flattened puddings of nuclear particles known as gluons.
- Chemistry
Radical molecule could produce plastic magnets
A team of chemists has synthesized an unusual organic molecule that could lead to cheaper and lighter magnets.
- Astronomy
Finding the star that was
Sifting through archival images, astronomers have identified the star whose explosive demise was recorded by telescopes last year.
- Astronomy
Bare-Naked Galaxies
A decade's worth of observations is spotlighting how the vast sea of gas surrounding a cluster of galaxies can alter the shape of a galaxy plowing through it.
- Math
Computation’s New Leaf
Plants in which large numbers of simple units interact with one another appear to compute how to coordinate the actions of their cells effectively.
- Humans
Letters from the Feb. 21, 2004, issue of Science News
Thin skin I find the language of “Thin Skin” (SN: 1/3/04, p.11: Thin Skin) to be judgmental and unscientific. For example, “desert pavement and their biota are wounded by human activity” is neither artistic nor scientific. Such narrow, biased views of ecology have no place in a scientific journal. Boone MoraGarden Valley, Calif. Out with […]
