Vol. 158 No. #15
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More Stories from the October 7, 2000 issue

  1. Astronomy

    New Images: They Might Be Planets

    Astronomers have for the first time obtained images of as many as 18 objects beyond our solar system that, based on their mass alone, could qualify as planets.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Drug spares eggs from early death

    A newly discovered drug that prevents radiation from hastening egg cell death in mice might also prevent some human cancer patients from suffering sterility and premature menopause.

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  3. Animals

    Beetle fights bass in mouthwash duel

    A whirligig beetle duels with a hungry fish by dribbling out a repulsive chemical while the fish tries to rinse it off.

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  4. Earth

    Even Nunavut gets plenty of dioxin

    Within a few weeks, some of the dioxin generated by industrial activities in the United States and Mexico falls out in the high Arctic.

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  5. Teams implicate new gene in prostate cancer

    A newly discovered gene may, in rare cases, cause prostate cancer or, more commonly, raise a man's risk of developing the disease.

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  6. Earth

    Two microbes team up to munch methane

    Aggregates of two different microorganisms in methane-bearing ocean sediments collected off the Oregon coast appear to collaborate to consume methane despite a lack of oxygen.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Some psychoactive drugs ease harsh PMS

    Drugs such as widely prescribed Prozac can relieve a severe form of premenstrual syndrome.

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  8. Math

    Global contest nets encryption standard

    A data-scrambling scheme called Rijndael was selected to become the federal government's new formula for protecting sensitive, unclassified information.

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  9. Astronomy

    Stellar motions provide hole-y data

    Measuring for the first time the acceleration of stars near the dense core of our galaxy, astronomers have obtained more precise information on the location and density of the black hole that lurks there.

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  10. Astronomy

    Gang of four: Debut of a big telescope

    In the desert of northern Chile, a fourth 8.2-meter telescope opened for business, completing a quartet known as the Very Large Telescope.

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  11. Kookaburra sibling rivalry gets rough

    The youngest kookaburra in the nest doesn't have a lot to laugh about.

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  12. Whatever that is, it’s scary

    Tammar wallabies that have lived away from mammalian predators for more than 9,000 years still seem to recognize the appearance of danger.

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  13. Health & Medicine

    Drugs slow aging in worms

    Drugs that defuse so-called free radicals lengthen a worm's life span by more than 50 percent.

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  14. Health & Medicine

    Viruses depend on shocking proteins

    To replicate within a cell, a bird virus must force the cell to make certain proteins.

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  15. Physics

    Breaking the Law

    Can quantum mechanics + thermodynamics = perpetual motion?

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  16. Human, Mouse, Rat . . . What’s Next?

    Scientists lobby for a chimpanzee genome project.

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