





SAMPLINGS


Photos: Unenen excavation team |

Many Whales AgoA 3,000-year-old carved walrus tusk bears two scenes of men pursuing whales in multipassenger vessels, with lines connecting the vessels to the whales, evidence the early Arctic communities were indeed whaling.

A Whiff of DNAScientists can tell whether bullfrogs are at hand by examining just a tablespoon of pondwater.

Bugs Smell FunnyInsects dispense with many of the in-cell reactions that other animals rely on to smell.
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Poison ControlSome bacteria not only resist antibioticsthey eat the drugs for breakfast.

Clouds and MirrorsThe Milky Ways central black hole was once radiant with X-rays.

Sea of StripesThe worlds' oceans are banded with mysterious, slow-moving currents.

Brain FreezesThe mind starts to wander up to half a minute before the body errs.

The Petal EffectTexture lets rose petals hang on to water droplets.

The Warming Earth

Six-Legged Agents of ChangeAn explosion of beetles is making British Colombian forests net producersrather than absorbersof carbon dioxide.
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SCIENCE CENTER NOTES

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The K-1 Attacka true flex fuel/plug-in hybrid
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West Philly Hybrid X Team Interviewed by Teens
from the Saint Louis Science Center YES Program

On March 20, 2008, the competition began for the 10-million-dollar Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. The goal of the prize is to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change. Seventy-three teams have already entered the competition. In this group, one team stands out: the West Philly Hybrid X Team: they are the only high school group in the competition. Courtney Brooks and Kevin Griffin, two teenagers from the Youth Exploring Science (YES) program at the Saint Louis Science Center, heard about those teens in Philadelphia and began a dialogue.

Members of any of Natural Historys Museum Partners receive the magazine as a benefit of membership. Our Partnersnatural history museums and science centersregularly contribute notes from the field, research reports, and other features to their editions of the magazine. Click the link above to read about the Saint Louis Science Center's contact with the West Philly Hybrid X Team. View the list of our Museum Partners and links to their Web sites. See also a selection of other Partner articles.

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BOOKSHELF

By Laurence A. Marschall

Strange things have been happening in the graviton laboratory of physicist Yariko Miyakara, and you just know that she, two fellow scientists, a security guard and a German shepherd, will enter the graviton chamber andboom!find themselves translocated into the age of dinosaurs. In his annual roundup of science-laced fiction for beach reading, Laurence A. Marschall rates Cretaceous Dawn as engaging as Jules Verne. Another adventurous tale is Final Theory, about the Unified Field Theory. What if Einstein actually had solved the quest, and what if, many years later, someone learned of Einstein's secret and set about to extract it from the few surviving confidantsby whatever means necessary? Also reviewed are: a three-part story that resolves into a meditation on how humans relate to each other and to the natural world; a mystery set in 1887 Istanbul; and the companion book to the 2007 animated movie Flatland.
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