Science News

Editor's Note: The main text of this article, originally published in the March 1998 issue of Scientific American, is being made available in light of the recent nomination of one of the authors, Carl Wieman, as associate director for science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Both authors won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for their discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate. ( Wolfgang Ketterle also shared the prize that year for his contributions.) The issue containing the full article with all artwork is available for purchase (PDF).

By Quirin Schiermeier

The pitch-black lakes hidden beneath Antarctica's ice sheet will finally start to release their secrets next year. [More]

MIAMI (Reuters) - At least 431 manatees have died in Florida waters so far this year, exceeding in less than three months the total for any full calendar year on record, authorities said on Tuesday.

A preliminary report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission attributed most of the deaths of the marine mammals to "cold stress syndrome" during this year's unusually harsh winter.

By Meredith Wadman

The historic health-care bill that passed the U.S. [More]

Taking the stairs, taking a hike, taking a yoga class, or any other moderate physical activity recently helped thousands of healthy women maintain their weight for 13 years without cutting calories, a new study reports. The only catch is that it only worked for women with a normal body mass index (BMI) who exercised for an hour daily. [More]

The most expensive wine ever sold in the U.S. was a Montrachet 1978 from Domaine de la Romanee-Cont, according to a report by Forbes.com. Following a bidding war between two avid collectors, the seven-bottle lot sold for a whopping $167,500 (almost $24,000 per bottle) in a 2001 auction at New York City's Sotheby's. [More]

The triennial meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is still underway in Doha, Qatar, this week, but so far news coming out of the conference is a mixed bag. Some trees have been protected, tigers gained a few friends, and a rare salamander got some attention, but all hopes to save the critically endangered bluefin tuna were sunk in a secret ballot that put commerce ahead of science and conservation. [More]

Nobody lives in the global average climate. Nor are the massive grid cells favored by climate models run on today's supercomputers as useful as they could be for planning purposes, given that they can encompass 10,000 square kilometers. Now the National Science Foundation (NSF), along with the U.S. Energy and Agriculture departments are teaming up to financially support the development of new computer models aimed at revealing the anticipated effects of climate change at the regional level. [More]

LAGO DE SAN IGNACIO, Baja California - The season of migration has come again to the warm blue waters off the coast of Mexico. Mother gray whales are nursing their newborn calves, plumping them up for the 6,000-mile trip next month to summer feeding grounds in the Arctic.