Vol. 164 No. #17
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More Stories from the October 25, 2003 issue

  1. Health & Medicine

    Cocoa puffs up insulin in blood

    Eating foods flavored with cocoa powder as opposed to other flavorings stimulates surplus production of the sugar-processing hormone insulin, but the metabolic implications of the finding aren’t yet known.

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  2. Earth

    Flame retardants take a vacation

    The lifetime in blood of flame- retarding diphenyl ethers, now-ubiquitous pollutants, ranges from 2 weeks to 2 years, Swedish researchers find.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Balance benefits from noisy insoles

    Sending subliminal vibrations to nerves on the bottoms of feet helps people, especially the elderly, keep their balance.

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  4. Earth

    Gulf War vets face elevated ALS risk

    Two studies suggest that veterans of the 1991 Gulf War are at elevated risk of developing the fatal neurodegenerative condition amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared with other military personnel and with the general population.

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  5. Tech

    Sweet-toothed microbe tapped for power

    Using a newly discovered bacterium that both frees electrons from sugars and injects those charges straight into electric circuits, scientists have created a fuel cell that converts carbohydrates to electricity with extraordinary efficiency.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Treatment helps newborns avoid HIV

    Giving healthy newborns whose mothers are infected with HIV a combination of anti-HIV drugs shortly after birth makes the infants less likely to contract the virus through breastfeeding.

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  7. Astronomy

    Extrasolar planet gets heavier

    An extrasolar planet that tightly orbits its parent star is heavier than astronomers had thought.

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  8. Astronomy

    Vanishing planet

    An object orbiting a distant star is too heavy to be a planet, researchers have concluded.

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  9. IQ Yo-Yo: Test changes alter retardation diagnoses

    Mental retardation placements in U.S. schools rose dramatically in the first five years after a commonly used IQ test was revised, raising concerns about how IQ scores are used to diagnose mental retardation.

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  10. Earth

    Chicken Little? Study cites arsenic in poultry

    Most chicken eaten in the United States contains 3 to 4 times as much arsenic as is present in other kinds of meat and poultry.

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  11. Tech

    Timing Is Everything: Implantable polymer chip delivers meds on schedule

    A polymer microchip implanted under the skin could deliver multiple doses of medications at programmed intervals, eliminating the need for pills and injections.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    First Viruses, Now Tumors: AIDS drug shows promise against brain cancers

    A potential AIDS drug may also slow the growth of deadly brain tumors.

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  13. Bad for the Bones: Thwarted hormone leads to skeletal decay

    Thyroid-stimulating hormone plays an unexpected role in bone remodeling.

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  14. Astronomy

    When really big winds collide

    A newly released image shows dramatic details of the Crescent nebula, a giant gaseous shell created by outbursts of a massive star about to explode as a supernova.

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  15. Paleontology

    Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along: Dinosaur buoyancy may explain odd tracks

    New lab experiments and computer analyses may explain how some of the heftiest four-legged dinosaurs ever to walk on Earth could have left trackways that include the imprints of only their front feet.

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  16. Physics

    Super Spinner: Seven-atom speck acts like superfluid

    Scientists have for the first time directly observed the onset in liquid helium of superfluidity—a quantum-mechanical state in which liquids flow without friction—as helium atoms accumulated one by one to form a droplet of liquid around a gas molecule.

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  17. Humans

    Letters

    Letters from the Oct. 25, 2003, issue of Science News.

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  18. Chemistry

    The Nature of Things

    An earth scientist's proposed alternative periodic table of elements is emblematic of the growing desire among scientists to recast this 130-year-old chart.

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  19. Earth

    New PCBs?

    New studies have begun linking toxic risks with a ubiquitous family of flame retardants.

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