With the possible exception of time and the universe, and you can get arguments on these as well, everything that has a beginning also must have an end. So it is with this column. The first Science Forum article appeared in the Bangor Daily News… Read More
Many chemical elements occur in different physical forms called allotropes. For years carbon was thought to have two allotropes, graphite and diamond. Then, in the mid-1980s, a third appeared on the scene in the shape of a tiny sphere containing 60 carbon atoms. The new allotrope was named… Read More
Early risers a week ago today were treated to a spectacular celestial display as a derelict Soviet rocket body, launched in 1975, burned up in the atmosphere. None of the material reached the ground, which was not the case with the Russian Mir space station, whose descent into… Read More
Many of us likely took a moment this past Sunday to admire the full moon. Diana Brueton, in her delightful 1991 book “Many Moons,” tells of the grip our nearest celestial neighbor has held on our imaginations throughout the ages. She says the earliest written… Read More
Navigators have known for centuries that there is a discrepancy between geographic, or true, north and the magnetic north pole. On many navigational charts, this discrepancy, known as declination, is clearly marked in degrees. For example, one chart shows Washington, D.C., having a magnetic declination… Read More
In 1984, an obscure Australian doctor named Barry Marshall drank a broth laced with the bacterium H. pylori and then waited for the results. They were not long in coming. Within two weeks Marshall was exhibiting all the classic symptoms of gastritis, the first step toward ulcers and… Read More
The July 26 edition of the Bangor Daily News carried an AP story by Alexander Higgins to the effect that the United States was withdrawing from talks designed to ratify a protocol for the 1972 United Nations Biological Weapons Convention of which this nation was a signatory. Negotiations… Read More
Twenty-five years ago last month, the Viking 1 space probe landed on Mars and spent the next 61/2 years sending back data about the Red Planet. Viking 1 stopped transmitting in 1982 while its sister probe, Viking 2, which landed in September 1976, fell silent after three years. Read More
As this is being written, George W. Bush is trying to decide whether federal funds should be used for stem cell research. It could prove to be the thorniest issue of his presidency. Stem cells were an unknown quantity to most medical researchers until a… Read More
Today’s weapons in the war against cancer are surgery, radiation and chemotherapy; researchers, however, hope that a fourth will soon be added to the arsenal. It is one that could scarcely have been imagined a few decades ago and, as John Bonner writes in the… Read More
Dolores Piperno, an archaeobotanist with the Smithsonian Tropical Institute, wrote in the June 22 issue of Science that the search for the origins of agriculture is equivalent to the fabled quest for the Holy Grail. Most of us take the vegetables on supermarket shelves for granted and never… Read More
Some readers will remember the 1970s television show “The Six Million Dollar Man,” whose hero, Col. Steve Austin, had amazing powers of strength, agility, hearing and sight because of having been rebuilt with artificial parts after an accident. Prostheses are devices used to replace a… Read More
When shaking hands with someone, you have to reach across the body to take their right hand with your own. In other words, the left hand of a person facing you is on the same side as your right. This is the same relationship that exists between you… Read More
The June 15 issue of the Bangor Daily News carried an article by Michael O’D. Moore to the effect that Maine’s Certificate of Need Unit was recommending to Commissioner Kevin Concannon of the Department of Human Services that the state obtain two mobile PET scanners while denying Eastern… Read More
Ever since the ancients discovered that the endless cyclical parade of celestial events, such as the motion of planets and phases of the moon, are tied to changes of season here on Earth, humans have been interested in measuring the passage of time. Early attempts,… Read More
Question: How can a lake the size of Lake Ontario go unreported until 1996? The lake in question is 124 miles long, more than 30 miles wide, 1,500 feet deep and is listed by Richard Monastersky in the June 29, 1996, issue of Science News as covering an… Read More
As recently as a dozen years ago, writes Richard Monastersky in the March 29, 1997, issue of Science News, life was considered to inhabit only the Earth’s atmosphere and waters along with a thin veneer of its crust. The Russian biogeologist Vladimir Vernadsky used the term “biosphere” in… Read More
Most science texts will tell you that matter exists in three states: solid, liquid and gas. Pressure plays a role in determining the state in which matter is found, but temperature is usually the deciding factor. The conversions of solid ice to liquid water at… Read More
The history of the AIDS epidemic has been one of continuous controversy over points such as who first discovered its viral roots, how the infection made the transition from Africa to North America, and why did it spring, apparently from nowhere, 30 to 40 years ago. Read More
Maine environmental groups voiced concern last week that the Bath Iron Works’ new dry dock, recently arrived from China, might harbor species of snails and algae that could invade Maine’s waters. To do so, they would have had to survive a nearly 16,000-mile trip through waters with salinities… Read More
What do a species explosion, global warming and a possible partial solution to the energy crisis have in common? The answer is a crystal resembling ice, but with many different properties. Placed on a desktop, it fizzes and disappears within minutes leaving a puddle of water behind. Touch… Read More
Last week’s column ended with the 1977 release of the McGovern Commission’s report urging all Americans to drastically reduce intake of dietary fat. The report became an immediate controversy among various agencies and interest groups lining up pro or con on the evils of dietary fat. Read More
Fats, particularly highly saturated animal varieties, are bad for us. We all know this even as we guiltily order a double cheeseburger at a fast-food restaurant or place a well-marbled steak on the backyard barbecue. But how do we know they are bad for us?… Read More
“It is the Rodney Dangerfield of pharmaceutical research,” joked John Magnani of Maryland’s GlycoTech. “It gets no respect.” In fact, it did not even have a name until 1988, when Raymond Dwek of Oxford University coined the term “glycobiology” for the role carbohydrates play in biology and, more… Read More
The ability to replace defective genes with healthy ones within the human body has long been a goal of genetic therapists. The concept is a simple one, in principle, involving piggybacking a healthy gene onto a virus that then carries it into the cell’s nucleus where it becomes… Read More
If all goes according to plan, the Russian space station Mir will fall to a fiery end in the Pacific Ocean about 2,500 miles east of Australia today. According to Eugenie Samuel, in the March 10 issue of New Scientist, the Russians have taken every precaution to avoid… Read More
The Department of Defense began to deploy the global positioning system known as Navstar GPS in the 1980s. Its purpose was to keep track of troops and equipment and to provide precise positioning for weapons targeting. In order to keep unfriendly nations from having access to its full… Read More
The recently deciphered human genome contains 24 chromosomes, about 30,000 genes, and more than 3 billion base pairs that must be placed in proper sequence in order to understand what makes us “tick.” At the very least, this task is going to bury researchers in a mountain of… Read More
The Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 issues of Nature and Science, respectively, contain detailed maps of the human genome, the genetic blueprint for constructing a human being, contained in the 6 feet of DNA coiled within the nucleus of every cell. The determination of the genetic code is… Read More
The latest bombing of Iraq brings back vivid memories of the Gulf War now 10 years in the past. While the war may be long over, its effects linger in what is known as Gulf War syndrome. Martin Enserink reports on this mysterious ailment in the Feb. 2… Read More
What color is the letter F? What does a musical note taste like? What color is a stubbed toe? These questions may seem nonsensical to you, but they make perfect sense to as many as one out of every few thousand of your fellow citizens. Read More
Last July 14, the sun spewed a billion-ton cloud of high-energy particles, traveling at nearly 4 million mph, toward Earth. This was not a unique event; it has been known for years that the sun undergoes a periodic increase and decrease in activity after an 11-year cycle. Read More
When the topic of book banning comes up, one normally thinks of graphic sex, violence, racism or the like. But the scientific community has also had its share of calls for the banning of maverick scientists’ books. Around 1950, a group of scientists threatened to… Read More
In 1940, the life expectancy of American males of all races was 60.8 years, while females lived 65.2 years on the average. By 1996, these figures had increased to 73 years and 79 years, respectively. The primary cause for this increase in life expectancy since WWII is unarguably… Read More
In 1987, a trio of University of California at Berkeley biochemists, led by the late Allan Wilson, captured worldwide attention by saying that they had found the biological “Eve.” The researchers used small bodies in the cell called mitochondria that are the source of the cell’s energy. These… Read More
The Gulf War, now a decade in the past, made Americans suddenly aware of the threat from biological weapons when reports surfaced that Iraq had targeted Israel with scud missiles carrying warheads loaded with anthrax. If true, the threat never materialized and many complacently believe that it vanished… Read More
In spite of high-profile stories on the International Space Station, global warming and erratic weather patterns, the past year has to be dubbed “the year of the biologist.” The top science news story for the year 2000 is an easy call. It has to be… Read More