February 1999 Archives

26 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Discoveries by Induction

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of Dominique François Jean Arago, a French astronomer and physicist born in 1786. Arago is best known for his discovery of the chromosphere--the sun's lower atmosphere--which...

26 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Chemistry Pioneer Glenn Seaborg Dies

by Robert F. Service

Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg died at his home last night. Seaborg pioneered the creation of heavy elements and had a hand in the discovery of plutonium, element 106--which now bears...

26 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Foul Weather Friend

by Robert Irion

Satellites that detect subtle geological ripples in the landscape also can espy patches of water vapor in the air that might unleash storms, a new study shows. The radar technique,...

26 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Panel Backs Next-Generation Synchrotron

by Robert F. Service

GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND--A key federal panel meeting here yesterday gave the green light for continued research toward a "fourth-generation" synchrotron, a machine capable of creating x-ray pulses billions of times more...

26 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Medicine Woman Counsels the House

by Constance Holden

Alternative medicine got a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill this week, during a hearing held by Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) to explore how to integrate homeopathy, herbal treatments, and other...

25 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Infertility and Testicle Cancer Linked

by Christie Aschwanden

Men who are less fertile than normal also have an increased risk of testicular cancer, according to a study published today in the British Medical Journal. But some researchers dispute...

25 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Chlamydia Protein Linked to Heart Disease

by Science News Staff

Researchers have found a strong piece of new evidence for the theory that infections can cause heart disease. In tomorrow's Science, they report that the Chlamydia pathogen makes a peptide...

25 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Small Leap for Tiny Accelerators

by David Kestenbaum

Early particle accelerators were the size of trash cans. Today they sprawl over an area as big as some golf courses. Tomorrow, will they girdle the globe? Physicists hope not....

25 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

International Biosafety Talks Fail

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Talks in Colombia to hammer out an international agreement controlling trade of bioengineered organisms broke down earlier this week, putting the protocol on hold with a goal of reaching an...

25 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Morbid Fascination

by Science News Staff

The founder of morbid anatomy was born on this day in 1682. Giovanni Battista Morgagni, an Italian anatomist and pathologist, is credited with making pathological anatomy an exact science. He...

24 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Discovery to Dye For

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of Carl Graebe, a German organic chemist born in 1841 whose work helped create the synthetic dye industry. Graebe and co-worker C. Liebermann discovered that a...

24 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Marsupial Pouch Trick

by Constance Holden

Scientists have discovered a mouselike Australian marsupial that, early in life, breathes through its skin instead of its lungs. The finding, which appears in tomorrow's Nature, has surprised zoologists, who...

24 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Singing of Health

by Dana Mackenzie

For some female birds, the best mate is one with a big vocabulary. At first blush this may seem like an odd way to pick a partner. After all, a...

24 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Making Memories Unforgettable

by Christie Aschwanden

While it's easy to forget what was on last Sunday night's dinner menu, some events, like your own wedding or a close encounter with a grizzly bear, become permanently engraved...

23 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Pill to Prevent Liver Cancer?

by Michael Hagmann

A timeworn drug once used to fight a kind of worm infection may find itself called back into service against a new foe--liver cancer. According to a report in the...

23 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Call for Ceasefire in British Food Fight

by Daniel Clery

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--Fed up with the ongoing media feeding frenzy surrounding genetically modified food, 19 of Britain's most eminent scientists, all Fellows of the Royal Society, are calling for a time-out....

23 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Yucca Panel Says DOE Lacks Data

by Richard A. Kerr

With just 2 years to go before deciding whether Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada should be a permanent home for spent fuel from the country's nuclear power plants, the U.S....

23 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Tasting the Bitter and the Sweet

by Kevin Boyd

Scientists have found two proteins on the tongue that appear to help us taste the difference between bitter or sweet. The findings, reported in the latest issue of Cell, may...

22 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Catching Waves

by Science News Staff

German physicist Heinrich Hertz, a pioneer of radio communication, was born on 22 February 1857. Hertz demonstrated for the first time that electric waves are essentially the same as light...

22 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Kennewick Man Goes on the Table

by Constance Holden

Examinations will begin this week to decide, once and for all, whether a 9000-year-old skeleton qualifies as a Native American. Scientists are happy that Kennewick Man, found on the banks...

22 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Physicists Create Trio of Entangled Particles

by Andrew Watson

One of the strangest claims of quantum mechanics is that two particles can be "entangled"--inextricably linked at birth, even though the pair may have traveled to opposite sides of the...

19 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Mammalian Historian

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of William Matthew, a Canadian-American paleontologist born in 1871, known for his contributions to the field of mammalian evolution. While working for the American Museum of...

19 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Science of Faith Healing

by Dana Mackenzie

Can prayer heal a sick patient? Though polls show that most Americans believe so, scientists remain sharply divided on the question. In tomorrow's issue of The Lancet, three psychiatrists critique...

19 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Stem Cell Battle Heats Up

by Eliot Marshall

Biomedical and scientific groups have begun an intense lobbying effort to persuade Congress to resist a conservative campaign aimed at blocking federal support for human stem cell research. Both sides...

19 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Gene That Scrambles Your Heart

by Michael Hagmann

Scientists think they have found the gene that causes DiGeorge syndrome, the second most common form of congenital heart disease. The findings are published in today's issue of Science. In...

18 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Current Discoveries

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist born in 1745 who discovered how to produce electric current. It was known that muscles in dead frogs contract when...

18 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Why Some Terminally Ill Choose Suicide

by Dan Ferber

A detailed analysis of the first year's experience with Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law suggests that the worst fears of some of the law's opponents haven't been borne out. Terminally ill...

18 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Slowness of Light

by Robert Irion

Physicists have used a clever apparatus to slow the speed of light to a startling 17 meters per second--about the pace of a Volkswagen bus chugging uphill. This optical tour...

18 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

HIV Experiments on Chimps Stir Debate

by Jon Cohen

Eleven prominent AIDS researchers, primatologists, and animal conservationists are urging vaccine developers not to inject chimpanzees with strains of HIV that can cause AIDS-like disease in the animals. In a...

17 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Second Life for Amsterdam Accelerator

by Alexander Hellemans

The dismantling of a cherished scientific instrument can be a painful experience for researchers who have experimented with it for years. But particle physicists in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, can take...

17 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Sounds That Make the Head Spin

by Michael Hagmann

Loud noises can cause a strange type of vertigo through an abnormal hole within the skull, scientists have found. A study of almost 1000 skulls, reported today at the Association...

17 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Martian Rivers and Volcanoes Go With the Flow

by Robert Irion

New pictures of Mars suggest that water gushed from within the red planet billions of years ago and lingered on the surface for some time. The images also indicate that...

16 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Darwin's Disciple

by Science News Staff

Today is the birthday of Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist and evolutionist born in 1834 who was a proponent and popularizer of Darwinian evolution. Haeckel studied the one-celled protozoan group...

16 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Settlement Ends Misconduct Saga

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Molecular physiologist Kimon Angelides last week ended a long battle against his former employer, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, which had found him guilty of fabricating data and...

16 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Neandertals Left Speechless?

by Constance Holden

Could Neandertals have chatted about the weather or the mammoth that got away? Last year, scientists at Duke University proposed that these heavyset hominids, who vanished about 35,000 years ago,...

12 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Evolution's Revolution

by Science News Staff

Charles Robert Darwin, the father of evolution and modern genetics, was born on this day in 1809. In 1831, Darwin left for an epic 5-year voyage on the HMS Beagle...

12 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Underwater Gold Mine

by Dana Mackenzie

Geologists have struck gold near an ancient collapsed volcano, some 400 kilometers south of Tokyo. But prospectors better know how to use a submersible, because this deposit is under nearly...

12 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Transgenic Potato Row Explodes in London

by Martin Enserink

The controversy in Britain over genetically modified food reached a new high today, after 21 European and American scientists released a memorandum supporting a scientist who was suspended last year...

12 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

Turtles Leap Up the Family Tree

by Kevin Boyd

You'd never expect a turtle to jump from one branch to another, but a paper in today's Science has them leaping to a new section of the reptile evolutionary tree....

11 February 1999 | ScienceNOW

National Academy Reelects Alberts

by Jeffrey Mervis

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Biochemist Bruce Alberts has been reelected to a second 6-year term as president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The 60-year-old Alberts, formerly at the University of California,...

February 1999 Archives

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