BOOZE TESTS TELL ALL ABOUT OUR DRINKINGA new set of tests on blood, urine and hair can reveal how much alcohol someone has been drinking " not only in the past days, but also in the past weeks and months. The multinational team developing the tests say they could be used by doctors to give a comprehensive picture of someone's drinking habits. The tests are also likely to attract the attention of the police to prove someone had been drinking many days after an accident. NEWS Page 14
LIES, DAMNED LIES AND PHONE CONVERSATIONSThe first study to compare honesty across a range of communications media has found that people are twice as likely to tell lies in phone conversations as they are in emails. Researchers from New York reason that the fact that a conversation via email is recorded and could be re-read could make it harder to lie. They also found that many lies are spontaneous responses to a demand made in face-to-face exchanges. NEWS Page 23
DUMPED!We human beings are intricately wired to suffer terribly when rejected by a loved one. And according to anthropologist, Helen Fisher, there are good evolutionary reasons why. First, jilted lovers enter a protest phase to try and win back the beloved. Next, the brain activates the panic and stress systems. And then love turns quickly to hate. We have evolved love and hate circuits in the brain that are intertwined " maybe to enable jilted lovers to start again or to fight to get the best for their offspring. Finally, the resignation and despair kicks in, possibly evolved millions of years ago as a sign to request support. FEATURE Pages 41-43
COURT RULES 'ANCIENT ONE' CAN BE STUDIEDLast week, a federal appeals court granted scientists the right to study the 9200-year-old bones of Kennewick Man, against the wishes of native American tribes who wished to rebury them. However, the bones are unlikely to be of any use to anthropologists as the site where they were unearthed has been destroyed, and other potentially more important skeletons of the same age have been found since. NEWS Pages 10-11
LIFE COULD BE TOUGH ON ACID EUROPAThe general perception of Jupiter's moon Europa is of a frozen crust of water ice with a salty ocean below. However, researchers studying the measurements from the spacecraft Galileo, say that Europa may be a corrosive hotbed of acid and peroxide. But they are not sure if this is just a surface covering or whether the chemicals come from the ocean below. NEWS Page 12
UNHAPPY DAYSA survey of the herbal antidepressant St John's wort shows that the concentration of hypericin, the active ingredient, is not always as stated on the label. A team in Taiwan found that concentrations of hypericin varied from 2.9 per cent of what is stated on the label to as much as 114 per cent. And sometimes the active ingredient wasn't even hypericin at all. NEWS Page 4
VEIL LIFTS ON HIDDEN FORESTS OF THE PEAKSPristine forests which are permanently shrouded in fog are under threat. The first global survey to cover cloud forests in any detail has revealed they cover an area a lot smaller than previous estimates. And the UK researchers who carried out the study warn that their figure may itself be an overestimate. NEWS Page 13
SHOW ANCIENT BONES THE PROPER RESPECTThe Natural History Museum in London is home to some 20,000 items of human remains gathered from around the world. Most were stolen from graves and traditional burial sites during the days of the empire. Despite pleas from indigenous peoples to return these remains to the land to which they belong, British law forbids it. In this week's New Scientist, Rodney Dillon, chairman of the Culture, Rights and Justice Board Committee of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, writes an open letter to the UK culture secretary, requesting that legal barriers to repatriation are lifted. COMMENT Pages 18-19
SHORT STORY " GIVE THEM A BIG HANDSetting up surround-sound systems to get the best from every loudspeaker can be a tricky business. But a new system developed by JVC in Japan does the job for you. The user sits in his or her favourite listening chair, presses a set-up button and claps a few times. The speakers pick up the sound and make all necessary adjustments for optimal sound. NEWS Page 22
DO FRUIT FLIES DREAM OF ELECTRIC BANANAS?When fruit flies think something is important enough to pay attention to, neuroscientists get excited. By studying the brain of a fly to see what they focus their attention on, researchers believe they are getting a very simplified version of the attentiveness response in the human mind. And once they have mapped attention centres in the brain, they hope to learn something about human consciousness. FEATURE Pages 32-35
COSMIC BIRTH RITEWhy is the universe dominated mostly by mysterious "dark matter" of an unknown form, and even more abundant "dark energy" ? The clues lie in the creation of ordinary matter just after the big bang. And the results of the composition of ordinary matter from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) are proving surprisingly useful in the study of the stuff that makes up the rest of universe. FEATURE Pages 37-39
ROBOT, MAKE THYSELFMass-produced 3D micromachines are an engineer's dream. Such devices with complex working parts and their own circuitry could one day be used as nanobots that could be sent into the human body delivering medicine, or as tiny "smart dust" surveillance motes. But it is the self assembly of the tiny parts that really excites researchers, explains Celeste Biever.FEATURE Pages 26-29
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