NEW SCIENTIST PRESS RELEASE
EMBARGO: NOT FOR PUBLICATION BEFORE
1900 HOURS GMT WEDNESDAY, 7 JANUARY 1998
ORDER #1: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
We may be ignoring the calls of alien civilizations, say astronomers in Washington DC. They believe that clumpiness in the gas between the stars could explain why none of the hundreds of radio signals picked up in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence have ever been repeated. Page 19
ORDER #2: FOOD BUG'S LATIN LINK
Deadly strains of the food poisoning bacterium E.coli may have originated from South America. Researchers have found that the killer bacterium E.coli 0157 and its close cousins, are abundant in meat and human stool samples from Chile and Argentina, making these the ideal countries to study the disease. Page 12
ORDER #3: NERVES OF THE PHARAOHS
3500 year-old nerves in Egyptian mummies still contain the chemicals that their cells used to communicate, says an international team of neuroscientists. Researchers hope that further studies of these neurotransmitters may tell us more about the kinds of diseases that afflicted our ancestors. Page 22
ORDER #4: LITTLE CHOCOHOLICS
Harmless moulds that gobble glucose and breathe out carbon dioxide may be responsible for 'explosions' in chocolate confectionery. A researcher at Sheffield Hallam University has found Chrysosporium moulds in several chocolate products.They could be responsible for reports of fractured Easter eggs. Page 10
ORDER #5: THIS WON'T HURT A BIT
The horror of a trip to the dentist is about to disappear, with the development by a Swedish company of a new red gel. Dentists could cast aside their drills in favour of this new gel, which will painlessly dissolve any decayed dentine and result in less damage to healthy tissue and less bleeding from the gums. Page 14
ORDER #6: DARWIN'S PARADISE AWASH
Wierd weather in the Galnpagos Islands brought on by the current El Nino in the Pacific is threatening to alter forever the ecosysytems that support the archipelagons unique plants and animals. Biologists fear that current high temperatures and rainfall could cause population crashes of native species, which might never recover. Page 4
ORDER #7: WHERE AM I?
A Russian device that can reportedly jam Global Positioning System (GPS) signals over a 200-kilometre radius could provide terrorists with a cheap and simple means to befuddle aircraft navigation systems. Page 5
ORDER #8: PUTT IT THIS WAY
Television viewers have little idea just how difficult a golfer's shot can be. A new Australian multimedia company has developed an animation system that gives people watching TV at home exactly the same view of the problem as the golfer. Page 6
ORDER #9: STETSON HAT TRICKS
If you want to get ahead on the golf course, get a hat. An Australian has found that by wearing a wide-brimmed hat rimmed with heavy lead wire, the golfer can improve his or her swing. Page 11
ORDER #10: IS THAT YOU MOTHER?
A team at the University of San Diego has found that by transplanting a certain part of a quail's brain into a chick, the chick grows up thinking that a quail's call is the sound of its mother. Page 23
ORDER #11: LET ME OUT
The mechanism that a fetus uses to order its mum to give birth has been uncovered by a team of fetal physiologists in Australia. The discovery confirms that the fetus decides when it's time to be born and the mother is powerless to intervene. Pages 24-28
ORDER #12: INNER VISIONS
When a south London artist was struck down with a virus that robbed him of his language and memory, his salvation was to recreate his condition on canvas. Pages 30-33
ORDER #13: SEE HOW THEY GLOW
Creepy crawlies containing the genes of humans, jellyfish and caterpillars are producing the anticancer drug interleukin-2. Pages 38-40
ORDER #14: ON WINGS OF LIGHT
A spacecraft that flies at the tip of a shaft of laser light has taken to the skies for the first time in America. The flight, which reached a height of only 15 metres and lasted 5.5 seconds, could herald a new age of cleaner, cheaper spaceflight, say the engineers who built it. Pages 34-37
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- ENDS -
January 7, 1998
Issue cover date: 10 January, 1998
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