More Stories from the May 12, 2001 issue
- Health & Medicine
New anthrax treatment works in rats
By distorting a protein in the toxin that makes the anthrax bacterium deadly, scientists have discovered a promising way to treat the disease and possibly even to prevent it with a vaccine.
- Health & Medicine
Gene therapy cures blindness in dogs
Gene therapy to replace a defective RPE65 gene succeeds in bringing sight to three blind dogs, suggesting such therapy might reverse Leber congenital amauosis, a rare condition in which children are blind from birth.
- Health & Medicine
Death of a theory
Three separate analyses of oral polio vaccine used in the 1950s in Africa deflate the theory that such a vaccine could have ignited the AIDS epidemic by containing virus-infected chimpanzee cells.
- Physics
Maybe this watched pot already boiled
Researchers smashing nuclei in hopes of producing a primordial state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma may have already made the stuff without realizing it.
- Physics
Lead blocks may catch nuclear killer
New measurements of neutron bursts from blocks of lead may help researchers solve a decades-old cosmic whodunit.
- Earth
Pacific Northwest stirred, not shaken
Residents of the Pacific Northwest escaped the wrath of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the summer of 1999 because the ground movement of 20 centimeters along a deep fault occurred over a period of 6 to 15 days, not all at once.
- Earth
Pump up a plateau to make a monsoon
Computer models show that the onset and strengthening of Asian monsoons over the past 8 million to 9 million years are strongly linked to various stages in the uplift of the Tibetan plateau.
- Health & Medicine
Virulent bacterium’s DNA is sequenced
The completed genome sequence of Staphylococcus aureus reveals transfers from other organisms of many of the antibiotic-resistance and virulence genes.
- Health & Medicine
Fat may spur heart cells on to suicide
Fat in the heart may kill cells and eventually lead to heart failure.
- Earth
Lead Therapy Won’t Help Most Kids
Removing lead from the blood fails to spare even moderately exposed children from cognitive impairments.
- Health & Medicine
Memory may draw addicts back to cocaine
The hippocampus may be the seat of powerful cravings for cocaine in rats and play a key role in drug-addiction relapse.
- Ecosystems
Hurricanes’ full havoc yet to be felt
When Hurricanes Dennis, Floyd, and Irene pummelled North Carolina in the fall of 1999, they delivered a three-punch sequence that may, for years to come, disrupt fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.
- Astronomy
Astronomers get the spin on black holes
Recording the X-ray flashes emitted by matter as it plunges into one of these gravitational beasts, astronomers last week reported strong evidence that black holes spin like whirling dervishes, dragging space-time along with them.
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Domesticated goats show unique gene mix
A genetic analysis finds a surprising amount of genetic unity in goats living in Europe, Africa, and Asia, supporting the theory that goats were widely transported and traded throughout human history.
- Health & Medicine
Gene stifled in some lung, breast cancers
The silencing of a gene called RASSF1A appears to increase the risk of cancer, studies of lung and breast tumors show.
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Outcry saves National Zoo’s research site
In the final hours, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small withdrew his proposal to close the National Zoo's research center in Front Royal, Virginia.
- Physics
Device shifts molecules into slow motion
Unlike other particle accelerators, which manipulate the speed and energy of charged particles, a new device accelerates neutral molecules such as ammonia.
- Earth
Big Bergs Ahoy!
Although the break-up of Antarctica's northernmost ice shelves has been linked to warmer temperatures in the area, the cause of the unusual number of large icebergs calving from the continent's southern ice shelves last year was likely not global warming.
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