News Briefs 22-07-2005

After attempting to fix my computer for 14 hours straight, 7 hours of shopping, and an all-nighter searching for - and reading - the news, I now wish to most sincerely thank "Sinton's", whoever they are, for their luscious chocolate milk, which keeps me almost sane.

• Medication triggered madness of King George.
• Two nuclear historians say U.S. nuked Japan to kick-start the cold war, not end WWII. From newscientist.com, not rense.
• In Iran, over 500 Iron Age steles form a wall of men and women with no mouths.
• Scientists discover a whole family of one-atom-thick materials with properties they had never thought possible, and which promise a new industrial revolution.
• New nano valve can trap and release molecules on cue.
• Microfabrication: Angels limber up for pinhead dance.
• Neutrino researcher says, if necessary, he'll chase them into the next dimension.
• Study challenges theory of random DNA changes.
• Aussie finds stem cells in uterus, which can be used to grow extra bone, muscle, fat and cartilage.
• Molecular biologists are the real newsmakers.
• Indecent exposure: Chemical pollutants are a part of our everyday life, and linked to diseases such as Parkinson's. So why isn't the government acting?
• Leptin, the hormone that controls hunger pangs, may also boost memory.
• Geologic revelations: Research suggests crushing pressures in Earth's lower mantle force electrons of iron to pair-up in orbits, which could explain seismic wave anomalies.
• Does lightning get its spark from outer space?
• NASA sets Discovery launch for Tuesday.
• Beyond NASA: The push to privatize spaceflight.
• Martian meteorites imply there's been a four-billion-year chill on Mars.
• Cosmic catastrophe may have struck sun-like star.
• How long does it take electrons to hop between atoms?
• In Hawaii, there's a flesh-eating caterpillar that thinks it's a spider.
• Three biologists challenge claim by a bird expert of seeing an ivory-billed woodpecker.
• Study clarifies the nature of the link between weight and diabetes.
• Chronic fatigue syndrome linked to abnormal gene behavior in white blood cells.
• Do we really want our debt and data literally at our fingertips? Japanese scientists think so.
• Australian parrots are an enigma to researchers.
• A follow-up on why the sky is blue: studying ultraviolet waves in space, and what flowers (example) look like to bumblebees.
• The M Word: Corrupted images quite easily crash IE in potentially exploitable ways. Thank god somebody finally told me, so I could turn them off.
• New study says people just can't help eavesdropping on others' conversations - and body language reveals when they're doing it.
• Musical hallucination, a condition in which the brain hears phantom music, can be brought on by constant exposure to music in everyday life.
• 'Sasquatch hair' might be from a bison, but the sample is now on its way to an Alberta scientist who offered to do DNA analysis.
• Another searcher takes a stab at the question, Atlantis: Myth or Reality?
• A hero for our time: the continuing allure of magic and fantasy.
• UFOs sighted in the sky over Crown Wood.
• Big Brother Was Watching: Newly released files show that George Orwell was the subject of repeated special branch reports.
• Kapital gain: Why is Karl Marx Britain's most revered philosopher?
• Inside truths: The traditional approach to understanding - using basic physical laws to explain the world - isn't working so well.
• The reality of 'absolute' truth: science is being battered by differing agendas about what matters most.
• Earth needs a climate of change.
• Life's profound problems are often resolved by dreams that come just before death, says author of Dreaming Beyond Death. Amazon US & UK.

Quote of the Day:

I wish I had a dollar for every editor I've worked with who has told me that science is just not interesting to readers -- that they already did their science story this month.

David Ewing Duncan
Author of The Geneticist Who Played Hoops With My DNA ... and other masterminds from the frontiers of biotech. Amazon US & UK.