More Stories from the September 21, 2013 issue
- Earth
Magma can speed to the surface, powering volcanoes
Fast ascent of molten rock could help scientists predict eruptions.
- Neuroscience
Caffeine shakes up growing mouse brains
When pregnant mice consumed caffeine, their offspring had altered neurons and faulty memory.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine protects against malaria in early test
A series of shots enables volunteers to fend off a live infection by the disease-causing parasite.
- Humans
DNA reveals details of the peopling of the Americas
Migrants came in three distinct waves that interbred once in the New World.
- Health & Medicine
Racial homogeneity in early childhood may affect brain
In lab study, kids who lived in single-race orphanages have difficulty interpreting emotions on faces with foreign features.
- Psychology
Mental disorder seen as ‘badness, not sickness’
Health workers tend to consider borderline personality disorder a tag for patients who are difficult or impossible to treat.
- Animals
Antarctic waters may shelter wrecks from shipworms
Ocean currents and polar front form 'moat' that keeps destructive mollusks at bay.
- Health & Medicine
Clues emerge to explain allergic asthma
Tests in mice reveal that allergens can trigger inflammation by cleaving a clotting protein.
- Psychology
Highlights from the American Sociological Association annual meeting
Research on social media's reluctant users, marital ideals and single parenthood and intimate victims of cybernastiness presented August 10-13 in New York City.
- Planetary Science
NASA gives up on fixing Kepler
Space telescope’s days as a premier planet hunter are over.
- Materials Science
Toylike blocks make lightweight, strong structures
Bucking trend toward reducing numbers of parts, MIT engineers suggest building planes from thousands of identical pieces.
- Life
Years or decades later, flu exposure still prompts immunity
New forms of influenza viruses can spur production of antibodies to past pandemics in people who lived through them.
- Health & Medicine
Power of sugar may come from the mind
Only people who believe exertion zaps willpower get a boost from glucose.
- Ecosystems
Aging European forests full to the brim with carbon
Trees' capacity to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is dwindling.
- Psychology
Blood marker may predict suicide
People who killed themselves had higher levels of a gene involved in cell death.
- Animals
Birds know road speed limits
Crows, house sparrows and other species judge when to flee the asphalt by average traffic rates rather than an oncoming car's speed.
- Earth
Millions in China at risk of exposure to arsenic-tainted water
Simulation shows possibly contaminated areas and predicts populations at risk.
- Earth
Breakups maintain barchan dune fields, somehow
Two new theories try to explain how the crescent-shaped sand mountains persist.
- Life
Bats can carry MERS
DNA of a deadly respiratory virus has been found in a Saudi Arabian mammal.
- Life
Tiny human almost-brains made in lab
Stem cells arrange themselves into a version of the most complex human organ.
- Health & Medicine
Don’t stand so close to me
Personal space has a measurable boundary, a study suggests.
- Animals
Seeking the loneliest whale
An enigmatic whale roams the North Pacific, and next year Bruce Mate will lead a monthlong expedition to find it.
- Science & Society
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist
Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII by Jack El-Hai.
- Animals
Collision Course
The tales of two ornithologists trying to prevent birds colliding with windows highlight the obstacles facing applied biology.
- Humans
The Tune Wreckers
People who can’t carry a tune, or can but think they can’t, are a rich resource for researchers studying musical ability.
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- Environment
Grain alcohol in gasoline?
An excerpt from the September 21, 1963, issue of Science News Letter.
- Psychology
Behind the Shock Machine
The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments by Gina Perry.
