NEW SCIENTIST PRESS RELEASE
EMBARGO: NOT FOR PUBLICATION BEFORE
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1997
ORDER #1: BLOW YOUR MIND
Brain scans of drug users have yielded the first direct evidence that ecstasy can trigger long-lasting changes in the human brain. Several studies have suggested that the drug can cause memory impairment and depression. Page 7
ORDER #2: WHEN THE HEAD RULES THE HEART
Some heart attacks may be all in your head. Scientists in Canada have found a region in the brain that may control the activity of the heart and blood vesssels. They say that abnormalities in this region could account for the hundreds of thousands of otherwise unexplained cardiac arrests that occur every year. Page 6
ORDER #3: ANOTHER REASON TO DIET
Cutting the calories may ward off cancer, and now biologists are starting to understand why. A team in North Carolina has identified a blood protein found in large quantities in well-fed rodents which increases the growth of bladder tumours. Page 15
ORDER #4: DEPRIVED PUPS
Young rat pups that are separated from their mothers for just 24 hours suffer an increased loss of neurons in the brain, say US researchers. This could help to explain why maternal deprivation can affect the behaviour of animals and humans in adulthood. Page 7
ORDER #5: TWO SIDES TO THE SOUND OF SPEECH
English speakers pick up pitch in the right hemispheres of their brains, but speakers of certain other languages percieve it on the left as well. It all depends on what you want to learn from pitch, says a researcher at the Indiana School of Medicine. Page 6
ORDER #6: WILL RABIES BITE BACK?
Scientists warn that the eradication of rabies from Europe will not be possible unless vaccination programmes are maintained at full strength for some time. Alarmingly, governments seem to believe that the war against the disease has been won and are losing interest and threatening to stop funding. Pages 24-25
ORDER #7: UNWASHED IN SPACE
Filthy conditions on Mir have caused its occupants to suffer food poisoning and other infections, says an Italian microbiologist who has been working with Russian scientists monitoring hygiene on the ageing space station. Page 18
ORDER #8: WEIGHTY MATTERS
Normal variation in brain weight could be due largely to a single gene. Researchers in Tennessee say that although factors such as age, body weight and sex can all have an effect, they probably account for only a third of the variation. Page 7
ORDER #9: YOU'RE THE DIRTY RASCAL
Most oil spills or illegal discharges into the ocean by tankers go unreported. But at British Columbia's University of Victoria, a biogeochemist has developed a technique that will allow oil tankers' cargoes to be fingerprinted, using isotopes present in the oil. Page 23
ORDER #10: ALL STRESSED OUT
Like humans, steel beams can only take so much stress before they snap - often with dangerous consequences. Previously, the only way of determining when a beam had outlived its useful life was to look for cracks, but now a team of physicists from Illinois have discovered a way to measure a beam's fatigue through magnetism. Page 11
ORDER #11: MEAN STREETS
Poor people are much more likely to be knocked over on the roads than people living in affluent areas, according to research from Edinburgh's Napier University. The study is the first analysis of the link between road accidents and social deprivation. Page 26
ORDER #12: ONE LAW TO RULE THEM ALL
Physicists have discovered that seemingly unrelated phenomena are all governed by a single universal law. The new theory of "Universality" means that the behaviour of traffic jams, earthquakes and even business can all be described in the same way. Pages 30-35
ORDER #13: COOKING UP A STORM
Who or what killed Australia's equivalent of mammoths, giant elk and great
bison? Nobody knows, but the discovery of the remains of a meal eaten some
30,000 years ago may provide the answer. Pages 36-40
ORDER #14: YOUR FLEXIBLE FRIEND
A new class of magnets made of organic materials will soon be used in everything from smartcards to optical computers. These magnets are more like plastic than metal and can be flexible, lightweight and even transparent. Pages 42-45
ORDER #15: MY GENES MADE ME DO IT
Subtle variations in a single gene could be enough to make the difference between good and bad behaviour, say scientists. Armed with this information, researchers are attempting to turn normally faithful prairie voles into promiscuous creatures. Could the same ever be done with humans? Pages 46-50
- ENDS -
November 5, 1997
Issue cover date: November 8, 1997
For fax copies of full stories or to arrange an interview, please contact Barbara Thurlow at [email protected] or on 202 452 1178. In Europe please contact Lucy Banwell, IPC Press Office Tel: (0171) 261 6415 or e-mail: [email protected]
Please remember to mention New Scientist as your source for any resulting stories. Thanks.
New Scientist Planet Science provides Internet users with news, features, reviews and comment drawn weekly from the pages of New Scientist magazine, as well as extra material exclusive to the web site. The site can be found at http://www.newscientist.com
RSS