EMBARGO: NOT FOR PUBLICATION BEFORE 1400 HOURS (EST)
WEDNESDAY, 19 JANUARY 2000
ORDER #1: SEEDS OF LIFE
Did interstellar clouds give a chemical kick-start to evolution? Astrochemists in India claim the building blocks of DNA could have formed in space before Earth was born, providing a starter kit of genetic material for life to evolve rapidly on Earth. Their model also suggests that comets are packed with the building blocks of life, backing up the idea that comets seed evolution when they smash into planets. Page 4
ORDER #2: STRAIGHT TO THE HEART
The fashion for snorting cocaine may be causing a wave of heart disease among young people. Researchers in Michigan have discovered that the drug activates part of the immune system to destroy cells in healthy cardiac tissue. Page 14
ORDER #3: A LESSER EVIL
The possibility that millions of people in Britain will fall victim to the human form of BSE is looking increasingly remote. A team of epidemiologists in Oxford have produced a model describing the likely course of Britain's epidemic of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Page 5
ORDER #4: YOU'RE GROUNDED
Nearly half the light aircraft in Australia have been grounded because of an additive that the oil company Mobil put into one type of aviation fuel late last year. The additive appears to have reacted with carbon dioxide in aircraft fuel tanks and with copper or brass components in their engines to form sticky deposits that can clog them causing them to run roughly and even cut out. Page 7
ORDER #5: GLIDING INTO ORBIT
Scientists in Illinois have developed new trajectory planning software that will enable orbiting space probes to fly into and out of a planet's atmosphere without burning up. Spacecraft will dip into a planet's atmosphere, harness aerodynamic forces to fly like an aeroplane, then zip back into space having steered into a new trajectory thereby saving precious fuel. Page 12
ORDER #6: TRACKING THE TRUANTS (Short item)
Electronic fingerprinting has replaced the traditional daily register in a few schools in Japan. The system has been introduced to track students and prevent them skipping school and sending friends in their place. Page 13
ORDER #7: REBELS WITH A CAUSE
It looks as though parents now have an excuse to treat their teenagers as if they are not yet grown up. As if teenagers haven't got enough on their minds with spots and raging hormones, some neuroscientists believe that their brains still have a few changes to make. Pages 22-27
ORDER #8: QUANTUM CLOCKWORK
In the new world of quantum ratchet you can build electronics without any wires. This weird new piece of electronic machinery could be the key to computing's future. Pages 29-31
ORDER #9: KILLS ALL KNOWN GERMS
Why do some birds pick up ants and groom themselves with them and others collect bits of greenery to furnish their nest? It seems that both are ways of help the birds fight off infections. Pages 36-39
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Issue cover date:- 22 JANUARY 2000
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