More Stories from the November 10, 2007 issue
- Tech
Hooking up
Cleverly designed molecules can self-assemble into networks and stay robustly connected.
- Health & Medicine
Earache microbe shows resistance
A strain of bacterium that causes middle ear infection is resistant to all antibiotics currently approved for the ailment.
- Earth
Groundwater use adds CO2 to the air
Pumping out groundwater for crop irrigation or industrial purposes releases planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- Health & Medicine
Salmonella seeks sweets
A sugarlike substance in the roots of lettuce may attract food-poisoning bacteria.
- Humans
Burdens of knowledge
Greater understanding of the role of genetics in human diseases presents scientists with ethical dilemmas.
- Health & Medicine
Nongene DNA boosts AIDS risk
People with a newly discovered genetic variation are more vulnerable to HIV infection.
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Doing the DNA shuffle
DNA near the ends of people's chromosomes shows surprisingly large differences from the corresponding DNA in other great apes.
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Smarty Gene: Breast-fed kids show DNA-aided IQ boost
Breast-feeding substantially boosts children's intelligence, but only if the youngsters possess a specific version of a gene involved in processing mothers' milk.
- Astronomy
Ray Tracing: Energetic cosmic rays linked to giant black holes
New observations suggest that ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays originate in the cores of nearby galaxies harboring supermassive black holes.
- Agriculture
Silencing Pests: Altered plants make RNA that keeps insects at bay
Engineered plants make genetic material that disables critical genes in insects that eat the plants, offering a possible new strategy for agricultural-pest control.
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Not Like Clockwork: High-fat diet disrupts daily routines of mice
Fatty diets disrupt the sleep and metabolic cycles of mice by changing the activity of genes.
- Earth
Yellowstone Rising: Magma floods into chamber beneath park
Some parts of the terrain in Yellowstone National Park have been rising as much as 7 centimeters per year as molten rock wells up beneath the park.
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Ladies First: Genes skew sex ratios in evolutionary struggle
A gene in fruit flies favors the birth of females, until another gene comes along to restore balance between the sexes.
- Animals
Mr. Not Wrong: Not my species? Not a problem
Female toads that accept mates of another species in tough times may be looking after their own interest.
- Health & Medicine
Mother Knows All
Fragments of a fetus' genetic material that leak into a pregnant woman's bloodstream reveal details of early fetal development.
- Ecosystems
Tortoise Genes and Island Beings
Geneticists and conservation biologists are joining forces to untangle the evolutionary history of giant Galápagos tortoises and to safeguard the animals' future.
- Humans
Letters from the November 10, 2007, issue of Science News
Thinking it through Bjorn Merker says that “the tacit consensus concerning the cerebral cortex as the ‘organ of consciousness’ … may in fact be seriously in error” (“Consciousness in the Raw,” SN: 9/15/07, p. 170). But the real tacit consensus is that the cerebral cortex is the organ of conceptual consciousness, of thinking and reasoning, […]
