More Stories from the June 15, 2002 issue
- Health & Medicine
Shuttling medicines via blood cells
Researchers have developed a way of encapsulating drugs in red blood cells, which can be used to deliver low doses of anti-inflammatory drugs to cystic fibrosis patients.
- Animals
Bay leaves may make rat nests nicer
Wood rats may be fumigating their nests with bits of California bay leaves, sprigs that killed flea larvae in lab tests.
- Health & Medicine
Chemical stops allergic reaction in tests
Researchers have developed a protein that short-circuits allergic reactions in mice and in tissue cultures of human cells.
- Humans
Small lab animals exempted from law
The new farm bill explicitly exempts rats, mice, and birds from coverage under the federal Animal Welfare Act.
- Earth
Mangled microfossils may mark impact sites
Scientists studying sediment cores drilled in eastern Virginia say they’ve possibly identified a new clue to the locations of ancient, hidden impact craters: Just look for broken or twisted microbial fossils.
- Earth
Famed undersea vent may be lost
When scientists last month tried to revisit an undersea hydrothermal vent first discovered nearly a quarter of a century ago, they found the site desolate, possibly paved by a fresh volcanic eruption.
- Physics
Voyager spacecraft still buffeted by sun
Even though the two Voyager probes launched in 1977 passed the outermost planets in our solar system more than a decade ago, their sensors show that they can't yet outrun the influence of solar flares.
- Health & Medicine
Smart Drugs: Leukemia treatments nearing prime time
Three new drugs stop acute myeloid leukemia in mice, suggesting the treatments will work in people with this deadly blood cancer.
- Astronomy
Outlier Planet: Extrasolar places that are like home
A team of veteran hunters of planets outside the solar system has come up with a landmark finding: a Jupiterlike planet orbiting a Sunlike star at a Jupiterlike distance.
- Plants
Mirror Image: Flowers with opposite styles have a fling
Scientists have discovered a gene that controls whether flowers lean to the left or the right.
- Materials Science
Wiregate: Metallic picket fence flips magnetic bits
Rather than relegate magnetic fields to the usual backup role of data storage for computers, a new microcircuit exploits those fields for computation, possibly leading to cheaper, lower-power chips than traditional electronic ones.
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Evolution’s Death Row: Groups surviving mass extinction still go bust
Groups of species may persist through major extinction events only to die off in the aftermath.
- Health & Medicine
Hemispheric Cross Talk: Brains show two sides of language function
Some people coordinate language use with both sides of their brains, allowing them to retain verbal skills after damage to one side or the other.
- Animals
Marine Mules: Near-sterile hyrids boost coral diversity
Reef corals that spawn in great mixed-up soups of many species may be maintaining their diversity because their hybrids are sterile mules.
- Health & Medicine
Standing Up to Gravity
Studies in space can help physicians better understand a disorder in which patients get faint or dizzy while standing.
- Earth
Presto, Change-o!
Compared with the snail's-pace processes that normally shape Earth's surface, the impacts of extraterrestrial objects change our planet's geology in a flash.
