June 1999 Archives

30 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Scent of a Carcass

by Mari N. Jensen

When some scavengers follow their nose to their next meal, it's not the complexities of the carrion scent that draws them, but the simple lure of a good strong whiff....

30 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Flicker Found in Cosmological 'Candles'

by James Glanz

Astronomers say they have found slight variations among the exploding stars called type Ia supernovae. These explosions, thought to flare up to roughly the same brightness each time, have served...

30 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

EMF Researcher Faked Data

by Dan Vergano

In a blow to a research area hungry for credible findings, the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) reported last week that a biochemist "engaged in scientific misconduct ... by...

29 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

On 27 June 1970, U.S. virologist David Baltimore published a breakthrough paper in Nature describing reverse transcription. The process enables some viruses to insert their genetic material into the DNA...

29 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Bioethics Panel Backs Embryo Research

by Eliot Marshall

A presidential ethics panel is ready to endorse a tolerant federal policy on the use of human cells extracted from an embryo or aborted fetus. Yesterday, the National Bioethics Advisory...

29 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Pint-Sized DNA Champ

by Elizabeth Pennisi

MADISON, WISCONSIN--Larger bodies may come with larger brains, but size means little when it comes to how much DNA an organism can pack in each cell. Researchers have discovered the...

28 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Good SNP Is Hard to Find

by Michael Hagmann

Hoping to home in on genes underlying common diseases such as atherosclerosis or cancer, scientists working on the Human Genome Project have been randomly collecting DNA variations that may serve...

28 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Ozone Prophet

by Science News Staff

Frank Sherwood Rowland, who helped explain how synthetic chemicals degrade the atmosphere's ozone layer, was born on this day in 1927. Rowland, a chemist at the University of California, Irvine,...

28 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Dark Side of Gravity

by David Appell

Is gravity on Earth affected by a solar eclipse? Old observations of strange behavior from a Foucault pendulum have convinced NASA scientists to test the notion during the total solar...

25 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

British Cloning Research on Hold

by Helen Gavaghan

The British government has ignored the advice of two scientific panels and refused to permit research on embryos aimed at finding treatments for damaged tissue and degenerative diseases. Instead, it...

25 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Warming Climate Made a Buzz

by Liese Greensfelder

An ancient global warming lasting 3 million years triggered an onslaught of insect attacks on plants, according to a report in today's Science. Experts laud the study, based on thousands...

25 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Steady Body Clocks Don't Run Down

by Dana Mackenzie

Computers, rats, and gila monsters all require precise internal clocks to function properly. Now, it appears, so do people. Researchers report in today's Science that our internal clock, or circadian...

24 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Better Forecasts for Solar Storms?

by Govert Schilling

Solar physicists have found an ingenious way to look at the far side of the sun. The discovery, announced in Paris on Tuesday at a meeting of astrophysicists, could lead...

24 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Skeptic Gets Her Just Desserts

by Science News Staff

Would you call the cops if Ed McMahon rolled up to your door in his prize truck? What about if the MacArthur Foundation called you a genius? When a publicist...

24 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Pick a Species, Any Species

by Mari N. Jensen

COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND--Carefully selecting certain species to protect may not be the most efficient way to preserve biodiversity. An analysis of species distributions in North America, unveiled here on 18...

23 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

First Computer Whiz

by Science News Staff

Alan Turing, an English mathematician who was a trailblazer in computer theory, was born on this day in 1912. Turing is best known for a classic paper he published in...

23 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Space Junk Threatens Telecommunications

by Govert Schilling

The night sky may look like a pristine black void, but it's littered with everything from paint flakes to burnt-out rocket stages--some 3000 metric tons of space junk. Far from...

23 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Beauty in the Hormones of the Beholder

by Gretchen Vogel

What makes a guy handsome? That depends on a woman's period, researchers report in tomorrow's issue of Nature. During days of the month when they are likely to conceive, women...

22 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Bionic Rats on Tap

by Michael Hagmann

By wiring into brain neurons, scientists have enabled rats to control a mechanical arm without lifting a paw. The feat, reported in the July Nature Neuroscience, may pave the way...

22 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Enriching Debate

by Robert Koenig

An expert panel has presented the German government with some choices for a controversial new reactor near Munich that's designed to produce neutrons for materials science and other research. The...

22 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Mind Deceived by the Past

by Alka Agrawal

Besides forgetting their spouses' birthdays or where they left their car keys, some amnesiacs confabulate--that is, they invent stories that they believe are true. In this month's issue of Nature...

21 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Panel Discounts Breast Implant Disease Risk

by Jocelyn Kaiser

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A blue-ribbon panel has concluded that silicone breast implants do not increase the risk of diseases such as lupus or cancer, rejecting a theory invoked in countless claims against...

21 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

e-Print Archive Forced to Pause

by David Malakoff

Like java junkies with an empty coffee pot, physicists are facing a few days without their primary source of news about research discoveries. A round-the-clock online physics journal that has...

21 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

A Puma Is a Cougar Is a Panther

by Elizabeth Pennisi

STATE COLLEGE, PENNSYLVANIA--Pumas are known by many names--panther, jaguar, and cougar among them. Indeed, experts on the animals thought they were so genetically diverse as to constitute a menagerie of...

18 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

High-Powered Chemist

by Science News Staff

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, a British physical chemist who shed light on how chemicals react, was born 102 years ago tomorrow. Hinshelwood, a professor at Oxford University, studied the decomposition...

18 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Biology Societies to Bring Journals Online

by David Malakoff

Biologists and librarians are joining forces to make a bevy of biology journals available on the Web at low cost. The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) will announce Monday...

18 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Stress Hormone Puts Memory on Hold

by Maggie Villiger

High levels of the stress hormone cortisol can temporarily impair memory, according to research published in the current issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. The study suggests parts of...

18 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Einstein's Brain Power

by Michael Hagmann

The world has never stopped thinking about Albert Einstein, arguably one of the century's greatest minds. Now, scientists who have reexamined his brain have come up with a theory of...

17 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Mutant Fruit Flies Respond to Lorenzo's Oil

by Marcia Barinaga

Scientists have created a mutant fruit fly that suffers from symptoms resembling adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare, fatal hereditary brain disease made famous by the 1993 movie Lorenzo's Oil. In that...

17 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Legal Fight Over Patents on Life

by Eliot Marshall

Biologist Stuart Newman of the New York Medical College in Valhalla is trying to get a patent on a "humanzee"--a chimeric animal made from human and chimpanzee embryos. Not because...

17 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Ancient Chemists Had a Ball

by Erik Stokstad

When 16th century Spanish clerics came to the New World, they were enthralled by a fast-paced and sometimes bloody sport. Apart from the occasional postgame human sacrifice, what most astonished...

16 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Jumping Genes

by Science News Staff

American geneticist Barbara McClintock, who challenged the prevailing theory that genes were stable components of chromosomes with her discovery of "jumping genes," was born on this day in 1902. McClintock...

16 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Famous Prostate Cancer Survivors Lobby Congress

by Eliot Marshall

Using tactics that paid off earlier for AIDS patients and breast cancer survivors, a trio of famous men who have had prostate cancer appeared on Capitol Hill today to lobby...

16 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Archimedes Comes to America

by Science News Staff

One of the major science historical discoveries of this century, a 1000-year-old palimpsest containing copies of seven treatises by Archimedes, will go on public display for the first time this...

16 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Fine Art of Chimpanzee Culture

by Gretchen Vogel

When they talk about culture, most people mean human things like art, music, and clothing styles. But in tomorrow's Nature, a group of researchers who have spend years observing chimpanzees...

15 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Bleach May Kill Brain Cells in Alzheimer's

by Kate O'Rourke

Scientists have fingered a new suspect in the brain cell deaths that underlie Alzheimer's disease. According to test-tube findings reported in today's issue of Biochemistry, protein plaques that riddle victims'...

15 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

The Best Clock on Earth

by Mark Sincell

Physicists have created a 1-meter-high fountain of cold cesium atoms that could be used to build the most precise timepiece ever known. Described in the 7 June issue of Physical...

15 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Astrocytes Are Stars of Brain Regeneration

by Elizabeth Pennisi

A kind of star-shaped brain cell that helps support surrounding nerve cells plays a much more pivotal role in maintaining the brain's vitality than researchers had thought. According to a...

14 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Reflections of a Healthy Limb

by Christie Aschwanden

Magicians have long exploited a mirror's knack for tricking the mind's eye. Now researchers are getting in on the act. In the current issue of The Lancet, a team from...

14 June 1999 | ScienceNOW

Pusztai Fights Back With Royal Approval

by Helen Gavaghan

Arpad Pusztai, the British scientist whose controversial studies triggered a furious debate over the safety of transgenic food but were criticized by a Royal Society committee, is fighting to save...

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