January 1999 Archives

29 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Chip Off the Old Bladder

by Robert Adler

For the first time, researchers have created working artificial bladders in dogs. Experts say that the success, described in the February issue of Nature Biotechnology, has significantly advanced the prospect...

29 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

British Government Unveils Plan for Food Safety Agency

by Helen Gavaghan

HEBDEN BRIDGE, U.K.--In a bill sent to Parliament on Wednesday, the British government revealed its long-awaited plan to establish an independent Food Standards Agency (FSA), charged with guarding food safety....

29 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Fishing for Toxic Chemicals

by Jocelyn Kaiser

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--Many toxicologists can remember being dogged at some point by people opposed to chemical tests on animals, especially mammals. Now one researcher has moved a step closer to easing...

29 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

"Urban Heat Island" Debate Cools Down

by Robert Irion

The hot concrete canyons in cities around the world don't skew the records of gradual warming this century, scientists have found. A new analysis of temperature stations worldwide shows that...

28 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Magnetic Cells: Stuff of Legend?

by Melissa Mertl

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--Scientists have come a step closer to unraveling what appears to be an amazing ability of birds, bees, and fish to use Earth's magnetic fields to navigate. At the...

28 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Grammar's Secret Skeleton

by Kathryn S. Brown

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--It's been more than 3 decades since scientist-dissident Noam Chomsky offered a controversial theory: that babies learn how to speak so easily because they're born with a sense of...

28 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Early Cesarean Saves Infants From HIV

by Michael Hagmann

A large study has clearly shown that a cesarean section, if performed soon enough, can drastically reduce the risk of transmitting the AIDS virus from a mother to her newborn....

28 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Is the Human Genome Going Downhill?

by Menno Schilthuizen

For millions of years, our genomes have been collecting mutations at an alarming rate, researchers write in today's issue of Nature. That begs an intriguing riddle: If our DNA is...

27 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Elements Were His Element

by Science News Staff

Victor Goldschmidt, the father of modern geochemistry, was born on this day in 1888. A Swiss-born Norwegian chemist, Goldschmidt was fascinated by the elements, their origins, and their relationships in...

27 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Ultimate Laser

by Ivan Amato

Physicists have taken a major step toward the creation of the ultimate "light": a laser beam made of gamma rays. In last week's Physical Review Letters, researchers report that bombarding...

27 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Self-Destructing T Cells Show Their Good Side

by Elizabeth Finkel

The immune system protects us from scores of invaders, but it can also turn against us when white blood cells called autoimmune T cells attack the body's own tissue. But...

27 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Harvard to Sink Fortune in Science

by David Malakoff

Harvard University will spend up to $200 million over the next 5 years in a bid to stay at the forefront of several hot areas of academic research. The school...

26 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Start of the Nuclear Era

by Science News Staff

Today marks the 60th anniversary of one of the most remarkable--and certainly one of the most fateful--scientific achievements of the 20th century: nuclear fission. Renowned physicist Niels Bohr announced at...

26 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Looking Down on Hurricane Georges

by Meher Antia

Any sailor worth her salt knows how to tie a bowline, with the trailing edge of the rope tucked underneath to make a knot. Healthy cells, it seems, perform a...

26 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Stem Cell Switcharoo

by Eliot Marshall

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) now says he won't hurry to lift the controversial ban on federal funding of human embryo research. In an attempt to accelerate promising studies of human...

26 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Model Warns of Worsening TB Epidemic

by Dana Mackenzie

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--The death toll from tuberculosis, a scourge making a comeback across the globe, may skyrocket if doctors fail to start screening patients for multidrug-resistant strains, scientists reported here on...

25 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Gamma Ray Burst May Have a Sequel

by Govert Schilling

Missed the latest gamma ray burst? Never mind: There's about to be a replay, or so astronomers hope. Last Saturday, one of the brightest of these mysterious blasts of gamma...

25 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Supreme Court Nixes Census Sampling Plan

by Constance Holden

The Supreme Court today issued its long-awaited ruling on the ongoing debate over the use of statistical sampling in the 2000 census to compensate for the undercounting of poor people...

25 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

More Support Urged for Minority Cancer Studies

by Bruce Agnew

Cancer researchers should pay more attention to minorities and the "medically underserved," according to a report issued last week by a panel of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in Washington,...

25 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Gore Offers $366 Million for Computing

by Robert F. Service and David Malakoff

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--The field of computing is chock-full of acronyms, from RAM to Y2K. Yesterday the Clinton Administration coined another one: IT2, to describe its plan to boost basic research in...

22 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Pioneer of Drug Development

by Science News Staff

Tomorrow is the 81st birthday of Gertrude Belle Elion, a biochemist who discovered several new drugs that saved thousands of lives and whose research revolutionized drug discovery. Despite sex discrimination...

22 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Clinton Prepares for Bio- and Cyber-Terrorism

by Eliot Marshall

President Clinton intends to ask Congress for a big chunk of cash--about $2.85 billion--to fight terrorist threats to the U.S. civilian population. The plan, revealed today at the National Academy...

22 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

British Lords OK Transgenic Crops

by Helen Gavaghan

HEBDEN BRIDGE, U.K.--A new legislative report from the United Kingdom says that the possible benefits of transgenic crops outweigh the drawbacks. But the report, released yesterday by a committee of...

22 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Breath of a Dinosaur

by Bernice Wuethrich

Respiratory physiologist John Ruben has cast a whole new light on the controversy over whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Using ultraviolet (UV) light from an ordinary UV lamp, Ruben was able...

21 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Morphine Drives Immune Cells to Suicide

by Michael Hagmann

Opioids such as morphine, which have been used as painkillers for centuries, have long been known to tune down the immune system. In today's issue of Nature, immunologists explain how...

21 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Looking for a Wink From ET

by Robert Irion

After years of cocking their ears for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, astronomers are now turning their eyes skyward. Private funding for three new low-cost "optical SETI" (Search for Extraterrestrial...

21 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

German Government Boosts Science Spending

by Robert Koenig

BONN--Germany's research and higher education budget is headed for a real increase for the first time in several years, with special emphasis on bolstering academic research. On Wednesday the German...

21 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Brain Stem Cells Show Their Potential

by Evelyn Strauss

Brain cells already do a lot, from memorizing equations to providing the information needed to navigate a crowded room. But a report in this week's issue of Science suggests that...

20 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Man of Backbone

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of Vladimir Mikhaylovich Bekhterev, a Russian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist born in 1857 who helped elucidate the structure and diseases of the central nervous system. Bekhterev is...

20 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Clinton Vows to Boost Computer Research

by David Malakoff

Science made it into President Clinton's State of the Union address last night--but just barely. Although most of the 77-minute speech aired White House plans for saving the Social Security...

20 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Space Observatory Launch Delayed--Again

by David Malakoff

Astronomers will have to cool their heels awhile longer for the debut of a long-anticipated space observatory. Newly discovered flaws in key circuit boards will hold up the space shuttle...

20 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Cannibals and Witches Have Scientists Gnashing Their Teeth

by Josh Fischman

Grisly human remains litter the American Southwest. Broken, burned skulls and shattered bones with crude cut marks--as if the flesh had been scraped away--have been found at sites inhabited by...

19 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

NSF Hopes for Presidential Pat on the Back

by David Malakoff

One of the nation's leading science bureaucrats will be a guest of honor tonight at President Clinton's State of the Union address to Congress. The White House has invited National...

19 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Pressure Doesn't Get Nanotubes Down

by David Kestenbaum

Scientists knew that nanotubes combine the strength of a weightlifter with the flexibility of a contortionist. But these tiny carbon hoses may also be near-perfect springs. In a recent issue...

19 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Ruling May Free NIH to Fund Stem Cell Studies

by Eliot Marshall

Scientists eager to begin studies on human stem cells got some good news today. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that, contrary to what many had feared, U.S. law...

19 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Heaviest Element Lumbers Into View

by Richard Stone

The race to capture one of the biggest prizes in nuclear physics--an exceptionally long-lived superheavy element--appears to be over. In a cautiously worded e-mail to a close-knit group vying for...

15 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

New CJD Test Scores High Marks

by Michael Balter

The United Kingdom may soon have an answer to a question that has been harrowing the country since 1996: Are the 34 cases of a fatal brain disease that is...

15 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

JAMA Editor Gets the Boot

by Constance Holden

The longtime editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), George Lundberg, was fired today for publishing a report detailing a survey of college students' attitudes about sex,...

15 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Friend of Africa's Gorillas

by Science News Staff

Tomorrow is the birthday of Dian Fossey, whose observations of mountain gorillas have led to a deeper understanding of their habits, communication, and social structure. After a trip to East...

15 January 1999 | ScienceNOW

Skies Near Tucson to Stay Dark

by Mark Muro

TUCSON, ARIZONA--The skies outside this rapidly growing Southwestern city will remain dark for astronomers, at least for the time being, after county officials rejected plans for a $900 million residential...

January 1999 Archives

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