Psychologists trying to figure out why many criminals although good at cooking up schemes were unable to fill in simple forms found that a majority -52% and amongst drug and alcoholic criminals -90% were dyslexic and unable to read . Amazingly when they were taught to read by special methods , not one went on to reoffend. We may soon be able to empty prisons by insisting prisoners learn to read and get good grades before being allowed out.
Short term stress good
While chronic stress is harmful , scientists have found that short term stress - getting away from a lion , crossing a river on a rope bridge etc. boosts the immune system raising IG A levels. We may have a built in need for such stress.
Dinosaur trees for sale
Last year a living fossil - a tree species thought to have been extinct for millions of years was found in a remote forest in Australia. Next month its saplings will go on sale in nurseries worldwide. You can grow in your garden a tree 144 millions years old whose leaves the dinosaurs used to munch. We may even be able to recreate the dinosaurs by enabling certain genes in birds which are direct descendants of the dinosaurs and if that happens they will at least have a ready food supply.
Gold discovered by radar
Using high resolution radar archaeologists have discovered underground tombs in Colombia with vast amounts of gold ornaments - one tomb has as many as 500 kilos of it ! It may be possible to use this kind of radar to uncover South Asian treasure sites as well.
Eat Fat and stay Slim
By knocking out a gene calle R2beta in mice scientists have fed them high fat diets without the mice getting fat . It alters the metabolic rate of brown fat. Another gene makes a hormone called leptin which induces hunger and trials are going on to see if leptin injections will keep people slim. 80% of twins even brought up separately end up with about the same weight - obese etc. so fatness is mostly genetically determined and will need drug treatment. Dexfenfluramine sold as Adifax raises brain serotonin levels and cuts appetite. It appears that food addiction may be like any other addiciton and many of these respond to serotonin raising as well. It would appear that physical activity might raise serotonin levels as well which is why excercise reduces appetitie and leads to wight loss.
This article contains a summary (plus other info) of one by Anjana Ahuja the outstanding Science writer of the Times and the full one can be read from the link on the front page.
Oceans of water on Europa !
The Galileo probe has detected ice sheets 5km thick floating on what is thought to be a 50 km ( compare with just 10km on Earth ) deep ocean of water on Europa , a moon of Jupiter the size of our moon. The ice sheets are separated by channels 5 miles wide and hundreds of miles long . Jupiters gravity causes friction in the crust of Europa . With water and oxygen detected in the atmosphere it likely that weird life forms - maybe even big animals will be present in the oceans under the ice. It probably will look like earth animals since parallel evolution on earth for eg on Australia and Africa has shown that animals tend to evolve to similar shapes.
Life from another world !
After 2 years of careful studies NASA has announced that it has discovered what looks like evidence of life forms from Mars. Tiny tubelike bacteria fossils 4 billion years old where found deep inside a rock from Mars . The rock had been blown from the Martian surface 13 million years ago by a comet impact and after flying around in space had fallen in Antarctica 13000 years ago. It was picked up 10 years ago .
The rock is from Mars because the trapped air pockets inside it have oxygen isotopes found only on Mars and bacteria did not contaminate it from Earth because the concentration of these fossils is higher towards the inside of the rock (contamination would be outside. Compounds which living things produce - aromatic ring shaped carbon ones were also found near the bacteria fossils. the next stage would be to look at cell structure , maybe even DNA.
Two Mars explorers are already on their way to Mars and President Clinton has promised a conference where a manned trip will be discussed. The fact that life can appear on two planers next to each other may mean it is fairly common in the solar system and the Universe. Even the moon which has a lot of water at the poles and has been bombarded with comets containing carbon may have life forms in deep caves heated by radioactivity. The moon is 1,000 times nearer than Mars and when men go in caves it would not be surprising if they were met by rock throwing moonsters !
Jupiters moons and other moons are also likely to harbour life deep in the oceans on their surfaces.