MAGAZINE ISSUE DATE: 13 MARCH 2004 (Vol. 181 No 2438)
NEWS:-
BITE-MARK EVIDENCE CAN LEAVE A FALSE IMPRESSIONMiscarriages of justice may be all too common where convictions are secured on forensic evidence that matches a suspect's teeth with bite marks left on a victim's skin. Experts in forensic odontology have in the past told a jury in a murder trial that for bite marks "a match is 100 per cent" . And now two Californian dentists have conducted a study which they claim validates the technique. But critics are far from convinced, arguing that the technique is subjective and that the study does not reflect real-life scenarios. Pages 6-7
POST-MORTEM DRUG TEST ERRORS ARE INCREASINGInnocent people are being put in jail because of a technique used to infer how much of a drug is in a deceased person's body. The technique, which is approximate at best in the living, is being incorrectly applied to corpses in a bid to establish how much of a drug a dead person took, or was given, before death. As cells die off any drug would be released back into the bloodstream - so drug levels shoot up. Experts plan to spread the word about this error. Page 7
BREAKING THE RULES ON ARTIFICIAL BLOODNumerous attempts to find a suitable blood substitute have failed because doctors have got the physical characteristics of artificial blood wrong, claim a handful of researchers. This week an American company announced that a blood substitute based on their alternative theories is looking promising in early trials. Page 8
I'M WORKING LATE"¦AT THE CIRCUS (SHORT STORY)Ever wanted some background noise to disguise where you are while answering a call on your cellphone? A Romanian company has software that comes with nine background sounds ready to be your alibi. So, when you're late for work and your boss calls you " just switch your phone to "traffic jam" and pretend you're stuck in traffic. Page 22
PLUGGING INTO SEWAGE POWERResearchers at Pennsylvania State University are the first team to specifically design an electricity generator fuelled by processing human waste. The device also breaks down the harmful organic matter as it generates electricity, doing the job of a sewage-treatment plant at the same time. Page 21
BISON FACE GRIDLOCKAmerica's great mammals are being hemmed in by the building of houses, farms, energy plants and pipelines. Bison, elk and antelope are being cut off from their traditional migratory routes used by animals for the past 5,800 years. Page 4
PARAPSYCHOLOGY SPECIAL
Are psychic phenomena fact or fantasy? Failure to replicate the results of paranormal experiments is enough for sceptics to argue that psychic powers do not deserve scientific credibility. And yet believers claim that you cannot possibly hope to pin down the paranormal in laboratory conditions. So where do we go from here? INTRO Page 32
THE POWER OF BELIEFThere is a genuine belief that the results of an experiment depend on the beliefs of the person running it. Believers tend to get positive results. Sceptics don't. But in a joint study, a believer and a doubter are participating in a head-to-head showdown to nail down whether belief alters results. The results from their trials will be available later in the year. Pages 34-37
OPPOSITES ATTRACTResearchers from respected institutions have produced impressive evidence for the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP), and the results have also been replicated. And yet most scientists still refuse to believe the findings, maintaining that ESP does not exist. Sceptics believe the positive findings to be the result of flawed experiments, slip-ups or fraud. But then surely the same holds true for all scientific findings? Pages 39-41
OTHER FEATURES:-
CRABS IN SPACENASA has recruited the help of the horseshoe crab " one of Earth's oldest creatures " to keep the solar system free of earthly microbes. It has already been proved that the immune response from this primitive crab can work in space. So NASA plans to use the crab's blood as the basis of a test to help sterilise the next generation of Martian probes. Pages 42-43
THE WACKY RACESThis weekend, a bunch of 20 selected self-guiding vehicles will race across the Mojave desert from LA to Las Vegas to win the title of fastest autonomous vehicle in the world. The vehicles will receive no human intervention and the route is being kept strictly secret until 2 hours before start of the race. The motivation is for the US military to find ideas on which to base military models. Pages 26-29- ENDS -
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