More Stories from the May 13, 2006 issue
- Astronomy
Crust on a star
By analyzing X rays generated by the rumblings of a neutron star 40,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers have estimated the thickness of the dense star's crust.
- Health & Medicine
An aging protein?
The defective protein that, when defective, causes a premature-aging disease may also play a role in normal aging.
- Anthropology
Ancient islanders get a leg up
A new analysis of bones from a tiny evolutionary cousin of people found on a Pacific island indicates that these late Stone Age individuals carried a lot of weight on short frames and had extremely strong legs.
- Anthropology
Neandertals take out their small blades
Excavations of Neandertal artifacts have yielded a trove of thin, double-edged stone blades that researchers usually regard as the work of Stone Age people who lived much later.
- Anthropology
Digging up debate in a French cave
A scientific debate has broken out over whether a French cave excavated more than 50 years ago contains evidence of separate Stone Age occupations by Neandertals and modern humans.
- Anthropology
Making sacrifices in Stone Age societies
A half-dozen burials at sites in Europe and western Asia dating to between 27,000 and 23,000 years ago provide clues to possible human sacrifices.
- Humans
Legal Debate: Assumptions on medical malpractice called into question
The notion that many medical-practice lawsuits are frivolous and intended to generate undeserved riches for their plaintiffs and lawyers isn't borne out in a new study.
- Tech
Speed Bump: Tip’s tricks sort DNA, write at nanoscale
An atomic-force microscope tip has been transformed into a microinstrument for sorting DNA and depositing nanostructures by means of cleverly applied voltages that propel molecules along the tip's surface.
-
Sharing the Health: Cells from unusual mice make others cancerfree
Immune-cell transplants from an extraordinary strain of mice that resists cancer can pass this trait to mice that aren't as lucky.
- Earth
Blast Survivors: Fragments of asteroid found in ancient crater
Pieces of an asteroid that blasted a 70-kilometer-wide crater in southern Africa millions of years ago may have been found intact inside the thick layer of once-molten rock that the impact left behind.
- Health & Medicine
Sleight of Herb: Black cohosh mislabeled in medicinal products
A sizable fraction of the herbal supplements marketed as preparations of black cohosh contains none of that North American plant.
- Planetary Science
Hubble eyes Jupiter’s second red spot
Hubble Space Telescope images are providing astronomers with the sharpest views yet of a new red spot on Jupiter.
- Animals
Monkey Business: Specimen of new species shakes up family tree
The new monkey species found in Tanzania last year may be unusual enough to need a new genus, the first one created for monkeys in nearly 80 years.
- Anthropology
Cattle’s Call of the Wild: Domestication may hold complex genetic tale
A new investigation of DNA that was obtained from modern cattle and from fossils of their ancient, wild ancestors challenges the idea that herding and farming groups in the Near East domesticated cattle about 11,000 years ago.
- Health & Medicine
Predicting Parkinson’s
Scientists are searching for ways to detect the earliest signs in the brain of Parkinson's disease.
- Plants
Nectar: The First Soft Drink
Plants have long competed with one another to lure animals in for a sip of their sweet formulations.
- Humans
Letters from the May 13, 2006, issue of Science News
Now hear this Unless the writer is deliberately implying an archaic theory of evolution in “Can you hear me now? Frogs in roaring streams use ultrasonic calls” (SN: 3/18/06 p. 165), the statement “Ultrasonic perception may have developed as the frogs (Amolops tormotus) struggled to hear each other . . .” cannot be true. That’s […]
