Big-brained primates develop more slowly.
Some primates have evolved big brains because their extra brainpower helps them live and reproduce longer, an advantage that outweighs the demands of extra years of growth and development they spend reaching adulthood, anthropologists from Switzerland's University of Zurich have concluded. The investigators compared key benchmarks in...

Texas ACEI Holds Study Conference.
BRANCHES IN ACTION The Texas-ACEI Annual Study Conference was held February 25-26, 2000, in Houston, Texas. We began with a reception on Friday evening that featured entertainment by the Prairie View A&M University Classical Dance Ensemble. The dancers performed interpretive dances choreographed to African music. ...

$30-M Marcos fund found in New York.
The government has unearthed some $30-million worth of Marcos assets deposited with Merrill Lynch in New York under the name of Panama firm Arelma, Inc., Malacanang said yesterday. In an official statement, President Estrada said these newly uncovered assets are now under the "effective control" of the...

Atom hauler: molecular rig snags multi-atom loads.
A molecule with a knack for picking up and delivering atoms may prove a useful tool for atomic-scale construction. Scientists in France and Germany who created and tested the molecule say that it and similar custom-made structures might aid tasks such as building molecular-scale circuitry, depositing arrays...

Prying into prions; a twisted tail of an ordinary protein causing extraordinary neurological disorders.
When Stanley B. Prusiner coined the word "prion" for a new kind of infectious agent (SN: 12/5/81, p.359; 2/27/82, p.135), he unwittingly borrowed a term from ornithology. Nevertheless, his prions have proved as elusive to scientists as the seabirds of the same name are to bird-watchers. In...

New Era of Networks Acquires German SAP Firm SLI.
New Era of Networks Inc has agreed to acquire German SAP R/3 consultants SLI International AG for $22m in cash and stock, plus an extra $3m if financial targets are achieved. SLI, which has 170 staff and 150 customers in the retail, pharmaceutical and high-technology industries, will give Neon...

Ballooning-out gets mostly good marks.
Ballooning-out gets mostly good marks Results from the longest follow-upstudy of patients treated with balloon angioplasty--which opens blocked blood vessels in the heart--indicate that patients still benefit years after the procedure. However, in more than 30 percent of the patients, renarrowing occurs within seven years, necessitating repeat angioplasty...

Sizing up atoms with electron holograms.
In their ongoing quest to see the all-but-invisible, physicists have developed a method for using patterns of scattered electrons to observe the three-dimensional atomic textures of materials. In this emerging technology, called electron holography, investigators exploit the wave-like properties of electrons to make their observations (SN: 10/15/88, p.252). ...

New heights in superconductivity.
New heights in superconductivity For years, but with very little success,researchers have been trying to find materials that become superconductors at higher temperatures. Until recently, the best they could do were certain metal alloys that abruptly lose their electrical resistance at temperatures below 24|K, barely above absolute zero...

New fossils push back primate origins.
New Fossils Push Back Primate Origins The discovery of four skulls belonging to mouse-sized, saucer-eyed primates that lived in North America 50 million years ago has dramatically pushed back estimates of when early primate groups first evolved. Anatomical features of the nearly complete fossil skulls indicate...