Vol. 166 No. #2
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More Stories from the July 10, 2004 issue

  1. Astronomy

    Controlling the speed of solar eruptions

    The billion-ton blobs of magnetized gas that the sun sporadically hurls into space can't reach Earth in less than half a day.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Caloric threats from sugarfree drinks?

    Regularly downing sweet drinks or sugar substitutes may foster overeating by reprogramming an individual's ability to judge a snack's caloric impact.

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  3. Materials Science

    DNA coordinates assembly of glassy nanoscale structures

    Chemists use DNA as a scaffold to construct miniature rings and rods out of silica.

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  4. Earth

    Warmer climate, decreased rice yield

    Agricultural data gathered over a dozen years at a Philippines rice paddy suggest that climate changes brought about by global warming could significantly diminish rice yields.

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  5. Archaeology

    Rat DNA points to Pacific migrations

    An analysis of mitochondrial DNA from Pacific rats supports a theory that ancestors of today's Polynesians migrated from Southeast Asia to a string of South Pacific islands in at least two separate dispersals.

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  6. Watching the biological clock

    Biologists now have a way to predict when a woman will start menopause.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Protective enzyme has a downside: Asthma

    The abnormal production of a parasite-fighting enzyme contributes to asthma.

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  8. Archaeology

    Mexican murals store magnetic data

    Tiny magnetic particles in the pigments of some Mexican murals recorded the direction of Earth's magnetic field when the paint dried.

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  9. Clearing Up Blurry Vision: Scientists gaze toward causes of myopia

    Scientists are beginning to unravel the genetic mechanism that causes nearsightedness.

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  10. Physics

    Grainy Geyser: Tall squirts reveal sand’s liquid ways

    Dropping a steel ball into fine, loosely packed sand produces towering jets of grains.

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  11. Earth

    Just a Tad Is Too Much: Less is worse for tadpoles exposed to chemicals

    The herbicide atrazine is more likely to kill developing amphibians when it is highly diluted than when it's much more concentrated in aquatic environments.

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  12. Anthropology

    Living Long in the Tooth: Grandparents may have rocked late Stone Age

    A new analysis of fossil teeth indicates that the number of people surviving long enough to become grandparents dramatically increased about 30,000 years ago.

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  13. Agriculture

    Plastic vs. Plants: Mulch method changes tomato’s gene activity

    A suite of at least 10 genes in a tomato plant behaves differently depending on the farmer's mulch-and-fertilizer routine.

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  14. Earth

    City Heat: Urban areas’ warmth affects plant growth

    Satellite observations of eastern North America show that plants in and around urban areas bud earlier in the spring and retain their foliage later in the fall than do plants in nearby rural settings.

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  15. Planetary Science

    Titanic Images, Groovy Shots: Cassini arrives at Saturn

    After a 7-year, 3.5-billion-mile journey, the Cassini spacecraft last week slipped through a gap between two of the icy rings circling Saturn and became the first spacecraft to orbit the distant planet.

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  16. Astronomy

    Heavenly Passage

    On June 8, the black dot of Venus passed across the face of the sun, the first time it did so in 122 years.

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  17. Dying before Their Time

    Genetically engineered mice that get prematurely old give hints to the causes of aging.

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  18. Humans

    Letters from the July 10, 2004, issue of Science News

    Language of music The study by Hyde and Peretz about people inept at all things musical (“Brain roots of music depreciation,” SN: 5/8/04, p. 302: Brain roots of music depreciation) made me think of my spouse of 20 years. In addition to a lifetime of utter tone deafness, he also nearly didn’t receive his graduate […]

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