More Stories from the July 20, 2002 issue
- Health & Medicine
Melanoma gene quickly reeled in
Biologists have discovered a gene that may contribute to many cases of deadly skin cancer.
- Tech
Software bugs cost big bucks
An epidemic of software errors in industrial computer programs is costing the United States $60 billion per year.
- Health & Medicine
Method could boost diabetes therapy
Allowing insulin-producing islets to grow in close contact with each other during cell culture may increase the chance of successful transplant into diabetic people.
- Earth
Study links cancer to Vatican Radio
Broadcast transmissions from a forest of antennas owned by Vatican Radio, outside Rome, appear to have boosted leukemia incidence in neighboring communities.
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- Health & Medicine
Study fails to link vasectomy to cancer
Researchers have found that men with prostate cancer are no more likely to have had a vasectomy than healthy men are.
- Health & Medicine
Antioxidants for greyhounds? Not a good bet
Antioxidant vitamins that greyhound racers have been giving their animals to boost performance actually slow down the dogs.
- Health & Medicine
Gender differences in weight loss
Men and women gain weight differently and may lose it differently, too.
- Paleontology
Skimming the Surface: Flying reptile may have scooped its meals
Fossils unearthed in Brazil strengthen the idea that some species of ancient flying reptiles snatched their meals on the fly, snapping up fish as they swooped low over the water's surface.
- Health & Medicine
Disabled Defense: HIV protein counters immune-cell gene
Immune cells contain a protein that can inhibit HIV replication if the AIDS virus lacks a key protein.
- Health & Medicine
More than Skin Deep? Beauty products may damage fetal development
A new report shows that many cosmetics contain phthalates—a class of chemicals known to cause developmental deformities in animals.
- Health & Medicine
Mixed Blessing: Unusual gene helps heart, hurts immunity
People carrying a variant of a gene that encodes an immune protein called toll-like receptor 4 have a weaker defense against infections but appear to be less prone to heart disease.
- Physics
Heavy Suspicion: Elemental discoveries trace to fake data
A prominent physicist has lost his job following allegations that he fabricated the evidence underpinning his team's now-discredited discovery of elements 116 and 118.
- Health & Medicine
Sleepy Heads: Low fuel may drive brain’s need to sleep
A new study supports the hypothesis that dwindling energy stores in the waking brain induce sleep.
- Archaeology
The Original Cocoa Treat: Chemistry pushes back first use of the drink
Analysis of residues from ancient Maya vessels has revealed that the pots held cocoa almost 1,000 years before its previously known earliest use.
- Astronomy
Dying star illuminates its own shroud
Images of a planetary nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 but only recently assembled as a color composite, show a shroud of material cast off and ionized by the dying, sunlike star Henize 3-401.
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- Earth
Crisis on Tap?
Because people are becoming ever more dependent on underground aquifers as sources of water, scientists are striving to understand better how groundwater systems interact with the water that flows across Earth's surface.
