SCIENCE
NEWS
Of the year
Skin-allergy plasticity Low doses of one
of the most commonly used softeners in
plastics aggravated dust-mite allergy in test
animals (170: 174).
Lavender revolution Two plant extracts
that are common ingredients in hair- and
skin-care products act like a female-sex
hormone, and they caused abnormal breast
development in a small group of boys, their
doctor reported (170: 6).
Polar bear problem Research linked persistent pollutants with reproductive impairment in polar bears (170: 173).
Holy smoke Incense and candles release
substantial quantities of pollutants that
may harm health, air sampling in a
church indicated (170: 116*).
Methane rising Field studies suggested
that Siberian lakes release far more
atmospheric methane than had been previously recognized (170: 165). A wide variety of plants also appeared to routinely
produce methane in significant quantities (169: 19*).
BAD BEAUTIES
Discarded aquarium fish appeared to be
the source of an alien population of red
lionfish that’s breeding in the Atlantic
Ocean and could threaten economically
important fish (170: 168*).
Food & Nutrition
Longevity juice A constituent of grape
juice and red wines increased the life spans
and well-being of mice that had been fed
fatty diets (170: 293*).
Fat chance Cutting fat intake after
menopause offered women little if any pro-
COFFEE CHASER
Cups of coffee may provide heavy drinkers
with some protection against cirrhosis, a
liver-scarring disease common in alcoholics
(169: 397).
tection against breast cancer, colorectal cancer, or heart disease, a massive, 8-year trial
found (169: 85).
Food for thought Senior citizens who eat
a Mediterranean-style diet—rich in plant
matter and fish, low in saturated fat—were
less likely than their peers were to develop
Alzheimer’s disease (169: 245).
Antibiotic vitamin Because vitamin D
turns on a major germ killer in the body, a
deficiency in the nutrient may leave people
especially vulnerable to infections (170:
312*).
Satiety buster A protein that’s more abundant in the blood of obese people inactivated leptin, a hormone that controls
hunger (169: 252).
Grapefruit’s culprit Researchers found the
natural compounds in grapefruit juice that
are responsible for its unwanted chemical
interaction with many drugs (169: 317).
Snack center Gene activity in mouse
brains led researchers to a body clock that
appears to be regulated by food (170: 109).
Safe seeds Scientists engineered cotton
plants whose seeds lack a toxin that had
previously made them inedible (170: 339*).
Low-protein therapy A diet low in protein improved the effectiveness of drug therapy and abbreviated the most debilitating
symptoms suffered by Parkinson’s disease
patients (169: 158).
Prion latency A rare but deadly human
illness spread by cannibalism has an incubation period in some individuals of about
4 decades, researchers in New Guinea discovered (170: 45).
Mathematics &
Computers
All square Mathematicians nailed down
when it is possible to express numbers as the
sums of squares (169: 152*).
Chaotic bites A new, physics-based
approach to analyzing simple games, such
as Chomp and Nim, revealed changing geometric patterns reminiscent of crystal
growth (170: 58*).
Medal work Fields Medals were awarded
to four mathematicians, including Grigori
Perelman, who proved a famous conjecture
about the shapes of higher-dimensional
spheres (170: 132).
Messy packing Physicists found that, in
high dimensions, disorderly spheres pack
together more densely than orderly
arranged spheres do (170: 244*).
Hairy calculations New algorithms
improved the rendering of blond hair in
computer-generated animations (170:
68*).
Phone drain In a new type of cyberattack,
assailants using computers connected to
A remarkable geometric shape made up of a
sequence of triangles led to a host of novel
forms and mobile structures (170: 266*).
Mathematical models helped explain how
group behavior is more than the sum of its
parts (170: 347*).
