Vol. 162 No. #9 Archives

More Stories from the August 31, 2002 issue

  1. Planetary Science

    It’s only a sharper moon

    Astronomers have taken what appears to be the sharpest image of the moon ever recorded from Earth.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Processing corn boosts antioxidants

    Cooking sweet corn increases its disease-fighting antioxidant activity, despite decreasing its vitamin C content.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Lost and found

    Researchers have shown that a drug may shepherd a mutated protein—gone astray in people with cystic fibrosis—into its proper place.

  4. Computing

    Writing faster with your eyes

    A new method for gaze-operated, hands-free text entry is faster and more accurate than using an on-screen keyboard.

  5. Astronomy

    An image to relish

    The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a high-resolution image of an object that looks like a giant hamburger.

  6. Materials Science

    What the mail must go through

    Mail irradiation in Washington, D.C. is damaging valuable objects and documents intended for scientific study or archiving at the Smithsonian, the White House, and other government organizations.

  7. Chemistry

    Down to the bone

    A new method for making bone cement could simplify hip and knee replacements and improve the surgeries' outcomes.

  8. Planetary Science

    Planetary Beginnings: Data reveal Earth’s quick gestation

    Two new studies confirm that Earth's core formed in a hurry—during the first 30 million years after the solar system's birth.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Flower Power: Corn lily compound stops cancer in mice

    A new study in mice suggests that cyclopamine, a plant derivative that causes birth defects in animals, can inhibit medulloblastoma, a brain cancer in children.

  10. Plants

    Time Capsules: Seeds sprout 120 years after going underground

    An experiment designed by a botany professor to last longer than his own life has demonstrated that seeds of two common flowers still sprout and blossom despite more than a century in a bottle.

  11. Health & Medicine

    You’re Feeling Sleepy . . . : Anesthetics activate brain’s sleep switch

    Anesthesia's sedative effect may depend on activating sleep circuits in the brain.

  12. Animals

    Getting a Grip: How gecko toes stick

    Scientists have pinned down the molecular basis of the gecko's astonishing ability to scamper up polished walls and hang from ceilings, paving the way for a new type of synthetic dry adhesive.

  13. Tech

    Electronics in the Round: Mixing plastic and silicon yields form-fitting circuitry

    Investigators used ordinary integrated-circuit fabrication techniques to pattern arrays of silicon-based transistors onto a flat, deformable sheet of plastic.

  14. Chemistry

    Germ Fighter: Lens coating may keep contacts in eye longer

    A new antibacterial coating may allow contact lenses to remain in a person's eyes for up to 3 months.

  15. Rift of Gab: Speech insights spark statistical static

    A controversial new study suggests that people use statistical regularities in language to recognize individual words but not to discern rules for word construction.

  16. Health & Medicine

    Bacteria offer drug for organ recipients

    Korean investigators have identified a compound that suppresses the immune system of animals.

  17. Health & Medicine

    Inflammatory Ideas

    Researchers are gathering evidence that inflammation precedes and predicts diabetes.

  18. Astronomy

    Lonely Universe

    In a universe dominated by a mysterious antigravity force, dubbed dark energy, distant galaxies will eventually recede from each other faster than the speed of light and observers in our Milky Way some 50 billion years from now will see only a handful of other galaxies in the sky.