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Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
BELTSVILLE, Md., April 23 — What is happening to the bees?
More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.
As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.
( Read More )
‘Night Shining’ Noctilucent clouds seen from the International Space Station, left, and from the ground, right. They are now being observed as far south as Colorado.
First Mission to Explore Those Wisps in the Night Sky
By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
Two hundred seventy thousand feet above the ground, higher than 99.9 percent of the earth’s air, clouds still float around — thin, iridescent wisps of electric blue.
NASA is launching a small satellite to take a closer look at these clouds at the edge of outer space and to try to understand why, in recent years, they are appearing more often over more parts of the world. They are also becoming brighter.
The clouds are called noctilucent or “night shining,” because from the ground they can be seen only at night as they float about 50 miles above the surface, illuminated by light from a Sun that has already set below the horizon. (That is essentially the same effect that makes moonlight.)
( Read More )
Breast Cancer Not Linked to Abortion, Study Says
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
There is no association between abortion and an increased risk for breast cancer, scientists reported yesterday in a large study.
There has been considerable debate over whether abortion, induced or spontaneous, is linked to breast cancer — a debate that may intensify with last week’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, which suggested that an abortion procedure could be banned if it posed a risk to a woman’s health.
( Read More )
Cases: Wiping Out a Parasite, Not a Spirit of Adventure
By CLAIRE PANOSIAN DUNAVAN, M.D., The New York Times, April 24, 2007
Keith Aronowitz first noticed the crater on his elbow after returning from Bolivia. For a week or two, he simply ignored it. Then his friends began to worry.
“A buddy saw the hole in my arm,” recalled Mr. Aronowitz, a photographer and video editor, “and said: ‘Hey, you better see a doctor. That doesn’t look right.’ ”
O.K., he decided, I’ll see a dermatologist, and maybe I’ll even help her with the diagnosis. At the back of his mind, he was thinking of a recent National Geographic article. In it, the author also contracted a weird skin infection in South America. And it all started, the writer stated, with the bite of a sand fly.
( Read More )
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
BELTSVILLE, Md., April 23 — What is happening to the bees?
More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.
As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.
( Read More )
‘Night Shining’ Noctilucent clouds seen from the International Space Station, left, and from the ground, right. They are now being observed as far south as Colorado.
First Mission to Explore Those Wisps in the Night Sky
By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
Two hundred seventy thousand feet above the ground, higher than 99.9 percent of the earth’s air, clouds still float around — thin, iridescent wisps of electric blue.
NASA is launching a small satellite to take a closer look at these clouds at the edge of outer space and to try to understand why, in recent years, they are appearing more often over more parts of the world. They are also becoming brighter.
The clouds are called noctilucent or “night shining,” because from the ground they can be seen only at night as they float about 50 miles above the surface, illuminated by light from a Sun that has already set below the horizon. (That is essentially the same effect that makes moonlight.)
( Read More )
Breast Cancer Not Linked to Abortion, Study Says
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
There is no association between abortion and an increased risk for breast cancer, scientists reported yesterday in a large study.
There has been considerable debate over whether abortion, induced or spontaneous, is linked to breast cancer — a debate that may intensify with last week’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, which suggested that an abortion procedure could be banned if it posed a risk to a woman’s health.
( Read More )
Cases: Wiping Out a Parasite, Not a Spirit of Adventure
By CLAIRE PANOSIAN DUNAVAN, M.D., The New York Times, April 24, 2007
Keith Aronowitz first noticed the crater on his elbow after returning from Bolivia. For a week or two, he simply ignored it. Then his friends began to worry.
“A buddy saw the hole in my arm,” recalled Mr. Aronowitz, a photographer and video editor, “and said: ‘Hey, you better see a doctor. That doesn’t look right.’ ”
O.K., he decided, I’ll see a dermatologist, and maybe I’ll even help her with the diagnosis. At the back of his mind, he was thinking of a recent National Geographic article. In it, the author also contracted a weird skin infection in South America. And it all started, the writer stated, with the bite of a sand fly.
( Read More )
