“Long before it’s in the papers”
January 30, 2006
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Explaining “stolen” memories
Are all your memories really yours? Researchers are exploring why you can’t necessarily count on it.

Skepticism greets claim of possible alien microbes
A paper to appear in a scientific journal is raising eyebrows, claiming a strange red rain may have recently brought cells from space to Earth.

Study traces Egyptians’ stone-age roots
A researcher says that using ancient teeth, he has learned who the Egyptians may have been before history.

Two types of paranoia found: “Poor Me” and “Bad Me”
Some paranoid people think they actually deserve their imagined persecution, researchers have found.

Galaxies may have spit out monster black hole
Two crashing galaxies may have shot out a “supermassive” black hole that’s soaring through space, some astronomers say.

Common pollutant might raise suicide risk, researchers say
There is a hint, they add, that the chemical—whose rotten-egg smell is familiar to many people—may boost rates of child neglect and abuse.

Dolphin games may be more than child’s play
Researchers say the frolics show surprising complexity, and may reveal links between playing, evolution and culture.

Violent dreams could answer evolutionary questions, researchers say
A bizarre disorder in which sleepers act out dreams of combat might help explain how dreaming evolved.

Rembrandt, brain scientist?
The great Dutch painter’s portraits may both reflect and shed light on some very modern principles of brain research, two psychologists claim.

Craving for amputation: more complex than once thought, researchers say
Doctors are having increasing difficulty explaining why some people want to have limbs amputated.

Tiniest dino eggs possibly found
The eggs combine features typical of dinosaur and bird eggs, researchers say, and may have come from a creature not much bigger than a goldfinch.

How gifted brains work
Highly intelligent people use slightly different brain circuitry to solve IQ test problems than the less gifted do, some new studies have found.

Species that “learn” their way into existence
New twists on evolutionary theory give creatures a tiny bit of say in their own evolution.

Did life begin in  ice?
New findings back a theory that the first self-replicating molecules arose in ice, some researchers say.

Rats seem to sigh with relief, researchers find
When an expected shock to the tail doesn’t come, rats take a deep breath, a study has found.

When wealth and poverty began
Social inequality dates to the Stone Age, some archaeologists say—challenging a popular view that it’s merely a disease of civilization.

Fear of death: worst for the somewhat religious?
When it comes to fear of death, being either a religious zealot or a total nonbeliever go furthest to soothe the anxiety, studies suggest.

Researchers explore whether parrot has concept of zero
Scientists are investigating whether a bird—possibly during a tantrum—hit on a concept that mathematicians failed to grasp for centuries.

Did egg-sitting failure doom the dinosaurs?
Some scientists say the huge number of unhatched dinosaur eggs is a mystery calling for an explanation. 

Death by garbage
New studies back up a theory that garbage is a key cause of aging and death—molecular garbage, that is.

Smashup could end universe, physicists say
Growing numbers of cosmologists support a theory that doomsday might come when the universe we know crashes into a separate region of space and time.

Is my red your red?
Does society determine the way you see a rainbow? New findings are re-igniting an old controversy.

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Can you “catch” obesity?
If some researchers are right, you may soon be hearing a surprising piece of advice to avoid obesity: wash your hands.

Vaccine gives “100%” bird flu protection in animal study
Mass vaccinations of livestock could help stop the avian flu that is causing global concern, scientists suggest.

Searching for extra dimensions
A new detector of elusive particles called neutrinos might provide evidence for extra dimensions, researchers say.

New lakes found beneath Antarctic ice
Scientists report finding the second and third largest known of nearly 150 lakes locked under Antarctic ice.

Many “Earths” out there, scientists say after planet find
A discovery is raising astronomers’ hopes that an Earth-like planet will turn up before long.

Newfound Roman tomb said to predate empire
A tomb found beneath the Roman Forum could pre-date the ancient empire by hundreds of years.

Love and madness not that different?
Research over the past several years has clarified what happens in the brain when we fall in love.

Pluto mission launched
The spacecraft would rendezvous with the ice planet in 2015.

Volcano plumes found to well from unsuspected depths
The liquid rock spewed by volcanoes originates much deeper than previously thought, geologists say.

Brain scans betray our joy in others’ suffering
The satisfaction we sometimes feel if someone we dislike suffers has an evolutionary role, some biologists argue.

Divorce shreds wealth, study finds
A slide in wealth starts four years before divorce becomes official, on average, according to research.

Smoking in pregnancy may deform fingers, toes, researchers find
The effect, while uncommon, can occur even before a woman knows she’s pregnant, doctors say.

Capsule brings comet dust to Earth
Astronomers hope the dust will reveal facts about the origin of our Solar System.

Study: eating less may delay human aging
Scientists report the first evidence that a phenomenon long noted in some animals may be true of humans.

Penguins’ wide stride tapped for movement improvement
The comical waddling motion of penguins may help humans and robots walk better, a researcher says.

Global warming sowing disease, extinction, researchers say
Climate change is promoting diseases that have killed off dozens of amphibian species, and such illnesses could affect humans, findings suggest.

Ants teach each other to find food, study finds
Scientists say they may have the first documented case of teaching among non-humans.

Songbirds remember dad’s tunes
Researchers say they have learned which brain area zebra finches use to remember what their fathers sang.

Dogs can detect lung, breast cancer early: study
Canines could help fight the leading killers among cancers worldwide, researchers say.

Thriving under our noses, stealthily: coyotes
Major U.S. cities are full of coyotes and the people don’t even know it, researchers say. The beasts may even be quietly helping us.

A molecule that won’t sit still
Chemists say they have finally figured out the shape of a molecule whose furious jiggling thwarted past attempts to study it.

Galaxy’s spiral arm found to be closer than thought
Astronomers have recalculated the distance to a nearby arm of our Milky Way galaxy.

The Orion Nebula A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope, its sharpest view yet into a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars form, 1,500 light-years away. Colors are enhanced somewhat, the astronomers say: some objects that emit light normally invisible to the eye are shown as red, the closest visible color to the wavelength (energy) of their light. Thus it's somewhat redder than it would really look overall. (Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto [STScI/ESA], HST Orion Treasury Project Team.)

* Previous image: A red head means top place in the pecking order for Gouldian finches, one of Australia's most endangered birds. Red-heads dominate their black-headed and yellow-headed peers by physical aggression and by the mere fact of being red-headed. (Image © Sarah Pryke) Check out other beautiful images available as framed prints in the World Science Store.

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News alerts
* Pfizer inhaled insulin wins US approval (Reuters)
* Rescuers say Thames whale's death may save others (Reuters)
* Taiwan breeds green-glowing pigs (BBC)
* New music-search system would do the "listening" for you
* First baby reported born from frozen commercial egg bank

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