Science News

Saturn is perhaps best known for its intricate ring system, but the giant planet also boasts a collection of moons, numbering in the dozens, that is nothing to sniff at. The largest, Titan , has helped draw a bit more attention to the Saturnian satellites in recent days, following an announcement that various chemical abundances on Titan were consistent with but not necessarily indicative of the presence of methane-dwelling, hydrogen-breathing life. [More]

PITTSBURGH -- Chuck Wichrowski remembers the first car he ever worked on, when he was just a college graduate and knew nothing about cars: His wife's 1970 Chevy Nova.

The second? A 1964 Studebaker Wagonaire.

Bubbles. Big ones entertain children and tiny ones tickle champagne aficionados. Even witches appreciate what they bring to a boiling cauldron. If you, too, are a bubble lover, then you’ll enjoy the latest bubble study published in the journal Nature . In it, scientists show that a bursting bubble can leave in its wake a ring of smaller bubbles, a finding that could have implications for disease transmission. [James Bird et al., http://bit.ly/c9dEFy ] [More]

A sting from a tiny bee triggers a long chain of events. In addition to promoting inflammation and inhibiting coagulation, the molecular hodge-podge that is bee venom can actually cause cells to split open. The toxin responsible for this effect is melittin, and in high enough concentrations, it can be deadly.

When toxins, bacteria and viruses enter the body, they're eventually met by antibodies uniquely designed to recognize and remove intruders. At least they should be. In some instances antibodies are produced slowly or not at all, leaving foreign invaders free to circulate in the blood unchecked, spreading infection and leaving host cells open to attack.

By Michael Szabo

The Selmunett lizard ( Podarcis filfolensis ssp. kieselbachi ) of Malta has been extinct since 2005, contrary to a government report that claims it still exists, the Nature Trust (Malta) announced this week. The lizard existed only on Selmunett Island, part of the archipelago that makes up the nation of Malta. Despite research that says the species is extinct, the lizard still appears on the Malta Environment & Planning Authority's (MEPA) most recent "State of the Environment" report, published in March.

Naturalist Arnold Sciberras blames the decline and disappearance of the Selmunett lizard on invasive rats, which have grown in number on the island in the past two decades. Sciberras and his brother Jeffrey have studied the once-common lizards for years and noticed that the population began crashing in the mid-1990s. The last time they saw the lizards was in 2003, when they were able to find just 30 of the animals. "MEPA doesn't want to acknowledge that its conservation attempts have failed in some cases," Sciberras told MaltaToday .

Premature infants have a known higher risk for poor neurological development, often leading to developmental and educational issues. However, these babies, born before 37 weeks, make up a small number of any generation, and new research shows that the 40 percent of babies born any more than a week before a full 40-week term are also at higher risk for having special education needs during childhood. [More]

In fall 1976 the first recorded Ebola outbreak ravaged a small village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). The virus, named for the river valley where it was found, causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever. It spread quickly via contact with blood and contaminated needles killing nearly 90 percent of the 318 villagers it infected. Since then about 2,300 human cases have been reported, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , 85 percent of which were fatal.

After identifying a new strain called " Ebola-Reston " during a 1989 outbreak scare in Reston, Va., (and earning a central role in Richard Preston's book, The Hot Zone ) Thomas Geisbert had tried everything to quash the virus, which continues to threaten civilians and medical aid providers in Africa as well as scientists who work in the highest level biocontainment facilities around the world. Vaccines have protected monkeys, and therefore might protect humans from the ensuing fever when given prophylactically (before exposure), but such treatments offer little hope for those already exposed to the virus.

For the past two decades archaeologist João Zilhão of the University of Bristol in England has been studying our closest cousins, the Neandertals, who occupied Eurasia for more than 200,000 years before mysteriously disappearing some 28,000 years ago. Experts in this field have long debated just how similar Neandertal cognition was to our own. Occupying center stage in this controversy are a handful of Neandertal sites that contain cultural remains indicative of symbol use--including jewelry--a defining element of modern human behavior. Zilhão and others argue that Neandertals invented these symbolic traditions on their own, before anatomically modern humans arrived in Europe around 40,000 years ago. Critics, however, believe the items originated with moderns.

But this past January, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA , Zilhão and his colleagues reported on finds that could settle the dispute: pigment-stained seashells from two sites in Spain dated to nearly 50,000 years ago--10,000 years before anatomically modern humans made their way to Europe. Zilhão recently discussed the implications of his team’s new discoveries with Scientific American staff editor Kate Wong. An edited version of their conversation follows.

By Heleen Van Geest

ZELENGA, Russia (Reuters) - As glum Russian fishermen haul in their net, just two small sturgeon are splashing about among the daily catch.