More Stories from the March 31, 2007 issue
- Health & Medicine
Working in a cotton mill has bright side
People who work amid bales of raw cotton are less likely to get lung cancer than are people in the general population, a study of Chinese women indicates. While past research has shown that workers in a cotton mill tend to develop shortness of breath, chronic cough, and other health problems, some scientists also noted […]
- Plants
Old plants were lost in the grass
An obscure family of plants long thought to be relatives of grasses turns out to represent one of the most ancient surviving lineages of flowering plants.
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How smart are amoebas?
Amoebas seem to possess a rudimentary form of memory that keeps them from walking around in circles.
- Math
Big prize for unlikely research
A New York University mathematician has won one of the highest prizes in mathematics for figuring out the likelihood of unlikely events.
- Planetary Science
Radar probes frozen water at Martian pole
If all the frozen water stored near the south pole of Mars suddenly melted, it would make a planetwide ocean 11 meters deep.
- Paleontology
Birds’ ancestors had small genomes too
Among mammals, reptiles, and related animals, today's birds have the smallest genomes, and the dinosaurs that gave rise to birds had small genomes as well.
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- Humans
Chasing money for science
Stagnant funding for the National Institutes of Health is forcing scientists to downsize their labs and abandon some of their most promising work.
- Health & Medicine
Asthma Zap: Heated scope reduces attacks
A new tool cools asthma by heating lung tissue to kill overgrown smooth muscle in airways, a hallmark of the disease.
- Astronomy
Late Bloomer: Hubble studies once-dormant galaxy
A wispy dwarf galaxy called Leo A has the potential to change the way astronomers build theoretical models of galaxy evolution.
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Bipolar Surprise: Mood disorder endures antidepressant setback
Severe depression in patients with bipolar disorder responds no better to a combination of antidepressants and mood-stabilizing drugs than to mood stabilizers alone.
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Family Feud: Genetic arms race between parents benefits male offspring in a surprising way
A gene in mice that benefits the father at the mother's expense appears to help offspring of both sexes.
- Animals
Too Few Jaws: Shark declines let rays overgraze scallops
A shortage of big sharks on the U.S. East Coast is letting their prey flourish, and that prey is going hog wild, demolishing bay scallop populations.
- Tech
Is Your Phone Out of Juice? Biological fuel cell turns drinks into power
A new type of fuel cell uses natural enzymes to produce small amounts of electricity from sugar.
- Earth
Pollution Fallout: Are unattractive males Great-gram’s fault?
Pollutant exposures in rodents can have behavioral repercussions that persist generation after generation.
- Animals
Honey, I Ate the Kids
Some of the most devoted parents in the animal kingdom routinely devour some of their own children.
- Earth
Fits and Starts
New data identify some factors that influence the highly variable flow rates of ice streams, the megaglaciers that carry most of Antarctica's ice to the sea.
- Humans
Letters from the March 31, 2007, issue of Science News
On the hoof Do cows and other domestic-herd animals really emit more methane than bison and other wild-herd animals emitted before people came along? Do grass, alfalfa, and other pasture plants remove less carbon dioxide than do forests? There were open grasslands before pastures replaced some forests. I hope the people who are researching these […]
