Новости науки и техники в "Scientific American"

MUSICAL TRAINING AIDS MEMORY

People who learn to play an instrument may reap benefits that aren't musical in nature, new findings suggest. The results of a recent study indicate that children with training in music have better verbal memory skills than do their peers who haven't received musical instruction.

SATELLITES SHOW CFC BAN SLOWED OZONE DESTRUCTION

It seems there's finally some good news for the ozone layer. According to a new report, the rate at which ozone is disappearing in the upper stratosphere is slowing. The findings highlight the success of a worldwide reduction in harmful chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

BOOKSTORE: FROM BRAINS TO CONSCIOUSNESS? ESSAYS ON THE NEW SCIENCES OF THE MIND Edited by Steven Rose

"The vast sweep of advances in biological knowledge of the past half century has made the brain, and its ambiguous relationship to mind, science's last frontier," Rose writes. "Questions which for most of humanity's existence have been the province of philosophy and religion are now the stuff of day-to-day laboratory experiment." Rose, as director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University in England, was asked to organize a symposium on "Minds, Brains and Consciousness" at the 1996 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He did that and then went a step further, inviting the participants to rewrite their talks, in a way accessible to a general audience, as chapters for this book. The authors treat such intriguing subjects as memory, schizophrenia, consciousness and the aging of the brain. The work they describe has great portent for humanity. As Rose puts it: "To uncover the secrets of brain function offers the prospect of treating brain dysfunction, from the seemingly irreversible mental decline of Huntington's or Alzheimer's disease to the existential despair of schizophrenia. And if these conditions yield to molecular explanation, why should not also an even greater swath of problems in which there seems to be an uneasy fit between the individual mind and the society in which it is embedded?"

FORGOTTEN FLAMES

It's wildfire season again and in the Great Basin an invasive weed called cheatgrass has turned what was once a vibrant ecosystem into a tinderbox covering an estimated 25 million acres. But researchers are only just beginning to understand the complex relationship between fire, invasive weeds, and native plants in the region, and it may be years before there is a well-defined plan to heal America's big sky country.

NEW TECHNIQUE CONFIRMS HIROSHIMA RADIATION LEVELS

It's been nearly 58 years since an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima near the end of World War II. Now, on the eve of the blast's anniversary, the uncertainty surrounding radiation levels inflicted on survivors may finally be settled. Recent findings confirm earlier radiation results, thereby increasing confidence in estimates of cancer risk that are based on the data.

NOVEL THYROID HORMONE TREATMENT COULD HELP SHED POUNDS

Some 31 million Americans are currently considered obese. Despite increasing public awareness of the problem, the number of people suffering from obesity is on the rise and scientists continue to search for safe and effective pharmaceutical treatments. To that end, the results of a new study could help. Researchers report the discovery of a chemical that selectively stimulates a thyroid hormone in animals without the deleterious side effects that similar therapies have.

ASK THE EXPERTS: WHY CAN'T A PERSON TICKLE HIMSELF?

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, explains.