Depending on where you live, many of your favorite restaurants may soon add another type of choice to their menus: high-calorie or low. New York City will even require certain restaurants to put nutrition information on their menus. The city will also ban heart-damaging trans fats from restaurants and bakeries.

How many calories are there in this cheeseburger meal?

iStockphoto.com

It’s a controversial move that nutritionists, doctors’ groups, and some politicians have supported for years. Now, cities and states around the United States are considering similar regulations.

If and when menu-labeling rules show up in a restaurant near you, you may be surprised to learn that a BK Double Whopper with Cheese has 990 calories. An Arby’s Broccoli & Cheese Baked Potato has 536 calories. And a medium chocolate malt at Dairy Queen has 760 calories. Most adults and teenagers need about 2,000 calories a day, depending on body size and activity level.

Nutrition advocates hope that being able to see calorie counts will change what diners decide to eat or, better yet, what not to eat.

“This would provide people with a tool that could lead to huge decreases in calorie intake,” says Margo Wootan. She’s nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in Washington, D.C.

Obesity epidemic

People in the United States now eat restaurant food twice as often as they did in the 1970s, Wootan says. In fact, kids and adults get about a third of their calories from eating out.

Fried potatoes add fat to any meal.

Photo by Scott Bauer, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

All that soda slurping and french fry chomping are showing up on the nation’s waistline, according to a report published last year by the U.S Food and Drug Administration. The report found that people who eat out more often devour more calories but less healthy stuff, such as fruits, vegetables, and milk, than people who usually eat at home.

A 1999 study found that women who ate out more than five times a week chowed down about 300 more calories a day than women who ate at home more often.

In the United States, two-thirds of adults and 15 percent of 6-to-19-year-olds are overweight or obese. Weighing too much makes people more likely to develop diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems (see “Packing Fat”).

One common practice of today’s restaurants—supersizing—is a real diet buster, says Barbara Rolls. She’s a nutrition scientist at Penn State University in University Park. In one of her most recent studies, people ate more and more as researchers increased portion sizes over 11 days.

“They just keep overeating,” Rolls says. “That’s pretty bad news. You can’t rely on other people to serve the right amount of food, and you can’t rely on your body to tell you when to stop.”

Restaurant meals

Restaurant meals tend to be calorie dense. This means that a bite of a restaurant meal contains more calories than a bite of a home-cooked meal does. By adding water, fruit, and vegetables to recipes, Rolls has found, people can eat just as much food but with 25 percent fewer calories. And they still feel full.

If people added more fruits and vegetables to their meals, they could eat just as much food as before but consume fewer calories and still feel full.

Photo by Stephen Ausmus, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

No one wants to eat unhealthy, fattening foods. But good intentions alone don’t necessarily lead to healthier choices. People tend to guess that unhealthy restaurant meals have half as many calories and grams of fat as they actually do, according to a 2006 study by researchers at the University of Arkansas and Villanova University. Even dietitians underestimated fast-food meals by up to 600 calories in a 1997 study by CSPI and New York University.

The only way to make sure people know what they’re eating is to supply obvious, easy-to-understand labels, nutrition advocates say. People are often surprised to learn, for example, that roast beef has fewer calories than tuna salad, or that baby back ribs can be healthier than fried chicken fingers.

Labeling can change how people eat, Rolls says. Studies show that people choose healthier options with fewer calories when given nutrition facts.

“So much marketing goes into selling foods that are not optimal for our health,” Rolls says. “We need more emphasis on marketing healthy, reduced-calorie foods presented in reasonable portions.”

Nutrition information

New York City’s new labeling rules will apply only to restaurants that already offer nutrition information on Web sites, posters, or elsewhere. For now, that includes about half of the nation’s fast-food chains, Wootan says, such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Starbucks.

If nutrition information were available on menus, would people make more-healthful meal choices?

Photo by Peggy Greb, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

New York City’s health department is also one of the leaders in targeting trans fats.

Trans fats can be found in many types of cookies, crackers, baked goods, fried foods, and margarine. As an ingredient, trans fat is useful because its molecules hold together in the same shape for a long time. Thus means that trans fat–filled foods taste the same and have the same texture, even after they’ve been sitting on the shelf for months or years.

That’s good for sales, but not for people. To make trans fats, manufacturers add hydrogen to vegetable oil, turning liquid oil into solid fat. Eating even small amounts of trans fats raises levels of a fatty substance called cholesterol in our bodies. High levels of cholesterol lead to heart disease and other health woes.

Not everyone supports the changes, including the restaurant industry. For one thing, says National Restaurant Association spokesperson Sue Hensley, it’s impossible to come up with accurate calorie counts because customers make special requests, and individual chefs vary ingredients and portion sizes.

Restaurants may also be discouraged from offering nutrition information, she adds, if they know they’ll have to redesign their menus.

Nutrition advocates suspect that the Restaurant Association is resisting the move for fear that diners will start demanding healthier options once they see the facts. Restaurants will then have to do more than just redesign their menus—they’ll have to change their recipes. Many businesses are already scrambling to replace trans fats.

Baked goods, such as muffins, may contain trans fats.

Photo by Scott Bauer, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

As communities around the country consider following New York City’s lead, you might want to educate yourself before your growling stomach takes control of your brain. Many restaurant chains already offer nutrition information online. You can also learn basic facts about food preparation. Grilled items, for example, are healthier than fried.

Plan ahead for a long, healthy, and delicious life.

Going Deeper:

Additional Information

Questions about the Article

Word Find: Eating Out

New evidence suggests that dinosaurs may have beaten the Wright Brothers to the punch in coming up with a biplane design.

A fossil of a gliding dinosaur known as Microraptor gui. The inset is an enlarged view of the animal’s leg feathers.

PNAS

Four years ago, paleontologists described a species of dinosaur from China called Microraptor gui. These dinos were about 3 feet long and feathered. They even had feathers on their legs and feet.

The leg feathers puzzled scientists. Some researchers proposed that the dinosaurs opened their legs into a split when they flew, creating a second set of wings behind the first. None of M. gui‘s closest relatives, however, had hips that were flexible enough to stretch out that far.

Now, two scientists have a new theory of how these creatures glided. Their model proposes that M. gui dangled its legs underneath its body while in the air. This would have created two sets of wings, one below and slightly behind the other. Biplanes that do aerobatic stunts have a similar design.

This drawing shows what the dinosaur might have looked like. The second set of wings (arrows in main image) created when this dinosaur dangled its feathered legs and feet below its body would have provided flight surfaces like those of a modern biplane. T

PNAS

The 19-centimeter-long feathers near the bottom of the animal’s legs support this theory, the scientists say. Their design would have helped keep the feathers from twisting as the dinosaur generated lift.

Based on this model, the scientists say that M. gui probably could not have survived a vertical fall from a tall tree. However, computer flight simulations show that, if the animal took a strong horizontal leap from a branch, its biplane wings could have carried it to other trees at least 40 meters (130 feet) away.

The technique would have made M. gui efficient in the air, but the dinosaurs were probably not very graceful on land. They did not have strong chest muscles, suggesting that they could not take off from the ground. And with such long leg feathers, the animals probably would have tripped all over themselves while walking.—E. Sohn

Going Deeper:

Perkins, Sid. 2007. Ancient glider: Dinosaur took to the air in biplane style. Science News 171(Jan. 27):53. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070127/fob6.asp .

Rehmeyer, J. 2006. Flying on wings and legs. Science News for Kids (Sept. 27). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060927/Note3.asp .

LabZone
Wing It!

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050914/LZActivity.asp

Design a Paper Glider

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040728/LZActivity.asp

ScienceFairZone
Angle of Attack and Lift

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040505/ScienceFairZone.asp

New research shows that penguins are attracted to this rotten-egg smell and probably use it when foraging for food in the ocean. The study is one of the first to show that penguins have a functioning sense of smell.

An African penguin. Although penguins can be smelly, they aren’t known for a keen sense of smell. New research suggests that they might be able to detect certain odors to locate food.

Courtesy of Gregory Cunningham

The rotten-egg smell is caused by a gas known as dimethyl sulfide. Scientists already knew that some seabirds, such as albatrosses and petrels, use this smell to locate areas where tiny sea creatures called phytoplankton live. Phytoplankton produce the chemical, fish eat the phytoplankton, and the birds, in turn, swoop down to eat the fish.

Even though penguins don’t fly, they do swim along the surface of the water and dive to catch fish. So biologist Gregory Cunningham of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania wondered if penguins might use the same trick.

“Seabirds like petrels and penguins have to solve the same problems, so it seemed likely that they would utilize the same techniques for solving those problems,” Cunningham says.

To test this, Cunningham built a Y-shaped structure. One branch contained the smell, while the other branch was odorless. A penguin sanctuary in Cape Town, South Africa provided the participants: African penguins recovering from being caught in oil spills. Cunningham plopped the penguins down in front of the structure one by one and watched in which direction they went. The penguins made a beeline for the smell.

Next, Cunningham visited a colony of wild African penguins living on Robben Island, located off the coast of Cape Town.

A colony of African penguins.

Courtesy of Gregory Cunningham

“Penguins have this really cool system where they build nests anywhere they can,” Cunningham says. “All the nests have walkways down to the beach that form penguin highways.”

Cunningham doused various places along these penguin highways with the rotten-egg smell and observed the birds’ behavior as they passed by. He predicted that the penguins would be attracted to these spots in the morning when they were hungry.

Actually, the opposite happened. The penguins ignored the smell in the morning, but stopped to check it out on their way back to their nests in the evening.

Cunningham says he doesn’t know why the birds disregarded the smell at sunrise. But, he hopes that future research will uncover the answer, as well as shed more light on how penguins use smell in other aspects of their lives.—M. Price

Going Deeper:

To learn more about a penguin’s sense of smell, go to www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/penguin/senses.htm (SeaWorld), www.gma.org/surfing/antarctica/penguin.html (Gulf of Maine Aquarium), and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin (Wikipedia).

Lock, Carrie. 2004. Are propellers fin-ished? Science News for Kids (Sept. 15). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040915/Feature1.asp .

Sohn, Emily. 2005. Out in the cold. Science News for Kids (Dec. 21). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20051221/Feature1.asp .

In a very big earthquake, your whole house could collapse.

To get a better idea of what might happen to an ordinary house during an earthquake, engineers did an experiment—a big one. In one corner of a building the size of an airplane hangar, they built a townhouse. Then, they shook the house with the force of a large earthquake.

This wooden townhouse, which is similar to many homes in California, was specially built to see how it would survive the sort of shaking that it could suffer in an earthquake.

University at Buffalo

The house, a full-scale model of an 1,800-square-foot townhouse like many found in California, is the largest wooden structure ever tested in a simulated earthquake, says Andre Filiatrault. He’s a civil engineer at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where the test was conducted last November.

So, why did researchers spend several weeks building a full-size townhouse, and then try to destroy it in seconds?

First, tests of small models often don’t provide accurate answers because the models are stiffer than full-size structures.

Second, the researchers wanted to see how the townhouse moved and flexed as it experienced the strong vibrations.

“Scientists don’t really understand how wood-frame buildings perform in an earthquake,” says Filiatrault. Usually, researchers get to look at buildings only after an earthquake has knocked them down, he notes.

Finally, the researchers wanted to see what happened to furniture and other bulky items inside the home while the simulated earthquake rocked the house.

In the dining room of the model house, the table was set, complete with dishes, silverware, and a pitcher of water. Outside the window, civil engineer Andre Filiatrault conducts a tour for a cameraman.

University at Buffalo

With the help of Filiatrault’s wife and children, the engineers decorated the house. They put dishes, silverware, a flower arrangement, and a pitcher of water on the dining room table. They furnished one bedroom like a college dorm room, one like a master bedroom, and one like a child’s room. They even put a car in the garage.

Then, during the test, they watched the action through eight webcams that they’d placed at various points throughout the house.

Model home

The townhouse tested in Buffalo, like 90 percent of the houses and apartment buildings built in the United States, has a wooden frame. This means the skeleton inside the walls of the building is made of lumber, usually a type of board called a two-by-four.

This illustration shows, layer by layer, how the test house was constructed. The house rested on a concrete slab (blue). The slab was bolted to two shake tables (gray), which could move back and forth.

University at Buffalo

The test home’s inside walls were covered with drywall, and its outside walls were covered with large sheets of chipped wood that was glued together. The outside surfaces were coated with three layers of stucco, and then painted.

The house even had windows and sliding-glass patio doors.

The researchers installed hundreds of sensors in the home, including 75 sensors to monitor the accelerations caused by the shaking and 125 to measure how far various parts of the structure moved back and forth.

Sensors mounted inside and outside the home gave scientists information about how much the house moved and flexed during the simulated earthquake.

University at Buffalo

The test home didn’t have plumbing or very much electrical wiring, says John van de Lindt, a civil engineer at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. However, these items don’t add much structural strength to a house, so the simulated earthquake test should provide accurate results, he notes.

Test quake

The model townhouse rested on a concrete slab that was bolted to two platforms called shake tables. Computer-controlled equipment moved the tables back and forth.

Before the scientists conducted the big earthquake simulation, they did dozens of small tests. They did some of the tests after the wooden skeleton was built, and others after the sheets of drywall had been attached. Yet other tests were done after the stucco had been added.

By comparing the results of these tests, engineers can figure out which individual parts of a home make it strong, van de Lindt explains.

In this photo taken during the test, the house looks blurred because it’s shaking.

University at Buffalo

In the big test, the researchers simulated ground motions recorded during a magnitude-6.7 earthquake that struck Northridge, Calif., in January 1994. That quake, or temblor, killed 57 people. Sixteen of them died in a single, wood-frame apartment building. The earthquake caused about $10 billion in damage.

Despite the intense shaking during the test, the model house didn’t collapse. The windows didn’t even break. But furnishings were tossed about, drywall cracked, and stucco fractured. (To see webcam videos of the shaking, go to nees.buffalo.edu/projects/NEESWood/video.asp . For more details, go to www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061223/bob11.asp and nees.buffalo.edu/projects/NEESWood/ .)

Even though walls around the garage door were reinforced, the simulated earthquake caused severe damage to the walls.

University at Buffalo

The researchers made several important findings. Early analyses show that drywall on the inside surfaces of outside walls adds to a house’s strength. The tests also settled a long-standing debate about whether stucco can provide structural support for a building. The answer is yes, says Filiatrault.

What’s next?

For the next 2 years, Filiatrault, van de Lindt, and the other members of their team will use the data they gathered during their tests to improve computer programs that engineers use to design and analyze wooden structures.

They’ll also use information that they discovered when they disassembled the house after the tests. They know now, for example, which pieces of wood crack and where they break apart.

In 2009, the engineers will put their new computer software to the test. That’s when they’ll design, construct, and test a six-story wood-frame building in Japan, on the world’s largest shake table.

Beyond improving design-and-analysis techniques, the test results may help engineers when they update building codes. A building code provides rules that builders must follow when putting up a house. The result could be safer houses.

“More than 100,000 people lost their lives in earthquakes in the 20th century,” Filiatrault says. “Maybe this test will save some lives in the future.”

Going Deeper:

News Detective: Watching a House Rock

Additional Information

Questions about the Article

Word Find: Earthquake Engineering

Among the animals that went extinct were several species of kangaroos and wombats and some other creatures found nowhere else. Known as marsupials, these animals had pouches but filled ecological niches populated elsewhere by lions, hyenas, hippos, tapirs, and other large animals.

Although Australia still has plenty of kangaroos (like the one shown), certain types of kangaroos, along with many other large mammals, disappeared after people arrived on the island continent.

iStockphoto.com

This illuminating new look into the past comes from a group of caves in southeastern Australia. Fossils fill the caves, which lie 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Adelaide.

Researchers led by a paleontologist at the Western Australian Museum in Perth collected, identified, and dated fossils that covered some 500,000 years of history. The bones that they found belonged to 62 species of mammals that didn’t fly. Most of these creatures fell into the caves through sinkholes in the ground. Owls brought in others.

Previously, scientists had used icicle-like rock formations, called stalactites, to piece together a history of climate change in the area. When the weather was wet, water dripped down the stalactites, making them grow. During dry times, stalactite growth stopped.

Over the past 500,000 years, the Perth scientists found, the number and types of mammals in the caves decreased only during long dry spells. The animals came back when the rains returned.

Between 50,000 and 45,000 years ago, however, many of Australia’s creatures that were cat-sized or larger disappeared, even though there was no major climate shift. The next ice age wouldn’t begin for another 25,000 years.

“The climate was stable then, and mammals really shouldn’t have been going extinct,” says Richard G. Roberts, a geochemist at the University of Wollongong in Australia.

“The only thing that’s new during that period,” he adds, “is people.”

Scientists aren’t yet sure how people might have caused the wave of extinction among large animals in Australia. People often burned much of the landscape, and some experts argue that animals died as fire destroyed their habitats. It’s also possible that large species dwindled gradually as people hunted and ate them faster than they could reproduce.

Whatever the explanation, the data are clear. People had a more profound effect on the lives (and deaths) of Australian animals than climate change did.—E. Sohn

Going Deeper:

Perkins, Sid. 2007. Going under down under: Early people at fault in Australian extinctions. Science News 171(Jan. 20):38. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070120/fob6.asp .

A team of scientists from Scotland says yes. They’ve engineered special chickens that lay eggs with disease-treating drugs inside.

These eggs come from chickens that have been engineered to produce certain drugs inside their egg whites.

Roslin Institute

These drugs are made of molecules called proteins. Animals make thousands of proteins—they’re the main ingredient in skin, hair, milk, and meat. Since animals can make proteins easily, they’re good candidates for making protein drugs.

Researchers have already made cows, sheep, and goats that pump out protein drugs in their milk. But chickens are cheaper to take care of, need less room, and grow faster than these other animals. Those qualities could make chickens a better choice to become living drug factories, says Simon Lillico of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland.

Lillico and a team of researchers changed chickens’ DNA—the code that tells cells how to make proteins—so that the birds’ cells made two protein drugs. One drug can treat skin cancer, and the other treats a nerve disease called multiple sclerosis.

The scientists altered the chickens’ DNA so that the birds made these drugs only in their egg whites. This protects the chickens’ bodies from the drugs’ possible harmful effects and makes it easy for scientists to collect the drugs.

This special type of chicken produces eggs that contain useful drugs.

Roslin Institute

These special chickens can pass on their drug-laying abilities to their chicks. So far, the Scottish researchers have bred five generations of drug-producing birds.

The scientists need to improve these chickens before they roost in drug companies’ labs. The birds don’t make enough drugs to treat people yet. But once the researchers perfect their technique, you might eventually take your medicine sunny-side up.—C. Brownlee

Going Deeper:

Brownlee, Christen. 2007. Golden eggs: Engineered hens lay drugs. Science News 171(Jan. 20):35. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070120/fob1.asp .

You can learn more about putting drugs into chicken eggs at www.ri.bbsrc.ac.uk/newsEvents/16-01-07.php (Roslin Institute).

A Science Project Idea from Science Buddies
Is it possible to manipulate bacteria to become protein production factories?
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_ideas/BioChem_p013.shtml

These stories ran 3 years ago, and we’re still hearing about them, almost weekly. In particular, those of you who enjoy killing people on screen disagree with research suggesting that your game-playing habits inspire you to act out.

“I have played the most violent games available on the market today,” writes Matteo, 15. “I don’t go killing people or stealing cars because I see it in a game. My parents say that, as long as I remember it’s a game, I can play whatever I want.”

Dylan, 14, agrees. “I love violent games,” he writes. “And I haven’t been in a fight since I was 12 years old.”

Akemi, now 22, says that he’s experienced no long-term effects in 14 years of gaming. “I have been playing the games since I was at least 7,” he writes. “I have no criminal record. I have good grades and have often been caught playing well into the night (that is, 4 hours or more).”

Despite what these readers say, many scientific studies clearly show that violent video games make kids more likely to yell, push, and punch, says Brad Bushman. He’s a psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Bushman and his colleagues recently reviewed more than 300 studies of video media effects. Across the board, he says, the message is clear.

“We included every single study we could find on the topic,” Bushman says. “Regardless of what kids say, violent video games are harmful.”

TV watching

TV has been around a lot longer than video games, so researchers have more data on the long-term effects of violent TV shows on people than they do on the effects of violent video games.

In one study, scientists at the University of Michigan recorded the TV-watching habits of hundreds of first and third graders in 1977. Fifteen years later, the researchers looked at what kind of adults these kids had become.

By the time they were in their early twenties, women who had watched violent shows as kids were four times as likely to have punched, choked, or beaten other people as were women who didn’t watch such programs as kids. Boys who watched violent TV grew up to be three times as likely to commit crimes as boys who didn’t watch such programs.

But that doesn’t mean that everyone who watched violent programs ended up being violent themselves. It was just more likely to happen for some people.

In action

Violent playing is even more powerful than violent watching, Bushman says. Maneuvering through a game requires kids to take action, identify with a character, and respond to rewards for rough behavior. Engaging in such activities reinforces effective learning, researchers say.

In the game Carmageddon, for example, players get extra points for plowing over elderly or pregnant pedestrians in creative ways. Players hear screams and squishing sounds.

“In a video game, you naturally identify with the violent character, and identification with violent characters increases aggression,” Bushman says. “You’re the person who pulls the trigger, who stabs, who shoots, who kicks. You must identify with the aggressor because you are the aggressor.”

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: Maybe people who are already violent to begin with are the ones who seek out violent media.

“Video games may have an influence on human behavior or mentality, but I believe that whoever plays the game already has . . . a violent intent or nature within,” writes Jason, 16. “I strongly doubt a nun whom you could somehow get to play Mortal Kombat for a while would eventually gain a violent personality or behave as such.”

Jake, 15, says, “I think it depends on how the kids were raised more than anything, and if people try to play life like a game then they are IDIOTS.”

But the University of Michigan study of TV watching found that people who were more aggressive as kids didn’t necessarily watch more violent shows as adults. This finding suggests that watching violence leads to acting violently, not the other way around.

Inflicting punishment

In some of Bushman’s studies, kids are randomly assigned to play either a violent video game, such as Killzone or Doom 3, or an exciting, but nonviolent, game, such as MarioKart or a Tony Hawk skateboarding game, for about 20 minutes.

Then, each participant competes with a kid in another room on a task that challenges both players to press a button as quickly as possible. The winner gets to punish the loser with a blast of noise through a pair of headphones. The winner decides how long the noise will last and how loud it will be on a scale from 1 to 10.

In one of these studies, players were told that blasting their partners at level 8 or above would cause permanent hearing damage. (For safety reasons, the invisible competitor in this study was imaginary, but the setup made participants believe that they actually had the power to make another person suffer a hearing loss.)

The results showed that kids who played violent games first, then went to the task, delivered louder noises to their competitors than did kids who played nonviolent games first. Kids who played violent games and felt strongly connected to their on-screen characters sometimes delivered enough noise to make their invisible partners go deaf.

Because kids in these studies don’t get to choose which games they play, it seems clear that playing violent games directly causes aggressive behavior, Bushman concludes.

And that aggressive behavior may appear not as criminal activity or physical violence but in more subtle ways in the ways people react to or interact with other people in everyday life.

Brain studies

Some scientists are looking at kids’ brains to see how video games might affect their behavior. In one recent study, researchers from the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine in Indianapolis assigned 22 teenagers to play a violent game for 30 minutes. Another 22 kids played a nonviolent, exciting game.

Brains scans show that the brains of teens playing nonviolent games (left) and those of teens playing violent games (right) have different patterns of activity. Those who played violent games showed greater activity in a region of the brain associated wit

Indiana University School of Medicine

Then, participants entered a special scanner that measured activity in their brains. For the next hour or so, the teens had to react to mind-bending tasks, such as pressing the “3″ button when presented with three pictures of the number “1,” or pressing the “blue” button when presented with the word “red” written in blue letters.

The results showed that a part of the brain called the amygdala was especially active in players in the violent-game group, especially when follow-up tasks required them to respond to loaded words, such as “hit” and “kill.” The amygdala prepares the body to fight or flee in high-stress situations.

Moreover, among players in the violent-game group, a part of the brain called the frontal lobe was less active. The frontal lobe helps us stop ourselves from hitting, kicking, and performing other aggressive acts.

Frame of mind

Findings such as these don’t mean that every kid who plays Grand Theft Auto will end up in jail, researchers say. Nor do they suggest that video games are the single cause of violence in our society. From the brain’s point of view, however, playing a violent game puts a kid in a fighting frame of mind.

“Maybe [kids have] figured out ways to control this but maybe they haven’t,” says IU radiologist Vincent Matthews, who led the brain-scan study.

“If they look at their behavior more closely, they may be more impulsive after they play these games,” he adds. “There’s a lot of denial in people about what their behavior is like.”

Matthews now wants to see how long these brain changes last and whether it’s possible to change the brain to its original state.

Brain-scan studies at Michigan State University showed that playing violent video games leads to brain activity associated with aggressive thoughts.

Courtesy of Michigan State University

Danger zone

It’s important that kids understand the risks of violent media, Bushman says. Studies show that virtual fighting is just as likely to make a kid act aggressively as is drug abuse, a troubled home life, or poverty.

“The link between violent media and aggression is stronger than the link between doing homework and getting good grades,” Bushman says. “These games are not good for society.”

Government agencies and medical organizations have been warning parents and kids about the dangers of violent media for decades. Like smoking and fast food, Bushman says, violent games are a danger we would all be better off without.

We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Comments:

It took me a long time to go through all your responses to our last video game story (“The Violent Side of Video Games”), and I learned a lot. Many of you, for example, pointed out correctly that I should have played the games I wrote about first, or at least researched the details. I apologize for making mistakes in the way I described certain games. In retrospect, I wish I had been able to give them a try.

What interested us most about your comments was how long, thoughtful, and even emotional they were. The subject obviously struck a nerve. Lots of you pointed out that video games come with ratings, like movies do. You said that parents should take responsibility for keeping their young children away from M-rated games. Many of you argued that kids can and should be able to tell the difference between real life and make-believe. An overwhelming number of respondents found it hard to believe that there is a link between video games and violent behavior because they themselves are not violent people.

Carefully designed research studies are the best way to distinguish between personal opinion and scientifically solid facts. I tried to address both in this next story, and I’m sure you’ll let me know how well I did. In the meantime, here are some of your thoughts from the last time we covered this topic. (I touched up spelling and grammar errors, but left your thoughts intact.)

I’m eager to hear what you have to say next.—Emily

Yes, video games desensitize people, but so do movies and television shows. Blaming children being violent on games and such isn’t right. Parents who are too busy living their own lives to pay attention to their kids are to blame more than games, because that’s all they are—games. Soon, someone will say that playing cowboys and Indians, or playing with toy soldiers, is bad for young children.—Akemi, 22

I have been playing video games for a large majority of my life. I (as with many of my friends) do not like these violent video games because they are violent, but because they create a great form of competition between my friends and me.—Curtis, 17

I think that while, yes, video games may contribute to violence, there are many other factors for the kids to allow the violence to affect them.—Heather, 16

www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html: go there and read it. Video games don’t cause violence, society does.—Bob, 16

OMG you were so wrong about GTA3. You only do what they tell you, you earn money and pass missions. But I do admit that these games make me more violent!—Stacey, 14

People in the Middle Ages were chopping each other’s heads off and they didn’t have any TV. They didn’t play Mario.—Jhamal, 16

After reading this article, I too have to express my opinion in that the choices for the video games were bad choices in conducting this experiment! If you are looking for violent video games, try Doom 3, God of War, or Mortal Kombat. They have . . . blood and gore present and produce more of a challenge. Simply having stylized action fighting doesn’t necessarily make it violent.—Matt, 19

I’ve experienced a lot of violence during video games because of repetitiveness rather than the actual gore itself. I’m so used to [first person shooter] games that I can play the game, killing people, without any sort of violence whatsoever. . . . It’s when you repeat the game for 2 yrs. straight that short bursts of aggression are visible.—David, 15

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Rafflesia plants present a similar puzzle. They boast the world’s largest known flowers. With buds the size of basketballs and blooms that stretch 3 feet across, they can weigh up to 15 pounds. They’re also among the stinkiest flowers in existence.

The rafflesia plant shown above ranks as the species with the largest known individual bloom. Smelling of rotten flesh, the yard-wide flower attracts carrion-loving insects for pollination.

Jeremy Holden

For nearly 200 years, botanists have debated which plants are most closely related to rafflesias. Now, researchers from Harvard University have used DNA to put the plants in their place. Analyses of eight genes suggest that these megaflowers belong in the same family as poinsettias and castor beans.

The discovery is a surprise because poinsettias and many of their relatives in the Euphorbiaceae family have tiny flowers. (Poinsettias may look big and flowery, but their bulk actually comes from large, red, leaflike structures, not flowers.)

Rafflesia plants may be relatives of the poinsettia (shown above).

Scott Bauer, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

In fact, the species of Euphorbiaceae that are most closely related to rafflesias, according to the new study, have flowers that are just a tiny fraction of the size of rafflesia blooms. They measure just a few millimeters across. Some quirk in evolution during the last 46 million years led to the mega-boost in size, scientists say.

Raffesias also evolved into parasites. They have no true roots or leaves. They live off of a plant in the grapevine family.

Rafflesia plants, with their giant blooms, are parasites. With no true roots or leaves of their own, they live off of a plant in the grapevine family. One flower may weigh up to 15 pounds.

Jeremy Holden

Some experts are surprised by the new conclusions. The rafflesia plant’s flowers seem too different in structure from those of poinsettias and castor beans to be related to them.

Even in the plant world, family trees can be confusing.—E. Sohn

Going Deeper:

Milius, Susan. 2007. Biggest bloom: Superflower changes branch on family tree. Science News 171(Jan. 13):21. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070113/fob5.asp .

You can learn more about rafflesia plants at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafflesia (Wikipedia), www.wwfmalaysia.org/Features/Beautybeast/rafflesia.htm (World Wildlife Federation Malaysia), and homepages.wmich.edu/~tbarkman/rafflesia/Rafflesia.html (Western Michigan University).

This tiny European mysid shrimp, about a half-inch long, could spell big problems for the Great Lakes, where it’s just been spotted.

Steven Pothoven, NOAA, Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory

These crustaceans, called mysid shrimp, normally live in rivers near the western coast of the Caspian Sea in eastern Europe. In November, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found invading mysid shrimp in a channel in Lake Michigan. Now, NOAA reports that large numbers of the animal, called Hemimysis anomala, are living in southeastern Lake Ontario.

“I predict it will be a highly disruptive species,” says Anthony Ricciardi of McGill University in Montreal.

Mysid shrimp devour microscopic animals, which many young fish in the Great Lakes also eat. A heavy dose of new competition for food may harm fish populations.

The invasion is not a total surprise. From the 1970s through the 1990s, many creatures from the same area of eastern Europe entered the Great Lakes in ships that carry seawater to help keep them stable. This water is called ballast water. It’s often dumped as ships load and unload cargo wherever they happen to be.

In 1998, Ricciardi and a colleague came up with a list of 17 more European species that would probably arrive next. Hemimysis was on this list.

Although most European ships entering the Great Lakes now dump nearly all the water (and the critters living in it) from their ballast tanks before leaving Europe, a small amount still remains on board. That’s still enough water to harbor species such as Hemimysis anomala. This water can end up in the Great Lakes while ships unload and take on cargo.

New guidelines recommend that ships flush their tanks with saltwater before entering the Great Lakes. This “swish and spit” technique should be enough to kill any freshwater species that have come along for the ride.

It’s not yet clear how Hemimysis will affect Great Lakes ecosystems. Larger fish might find the shrimp appetizing, but these fish could then become more toxic to people. Mysid shrimp are fatty, so they can collect high doses of pollutants in their bodies. These pollutants then work their way up the food chain.

H. anomala look small and innocent, but don’t underestimate their ability to shake things up. “This is not,” Ricciardi says, “a species to ignore.”—E. Sohn

Going Deeper:

Raloff, Janet. 2007. Alien alert: Shrimpy invader raises big concerns. Science News 171(Jan. 13):20. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070113/fob3.asp .

You can learn more about the mysid shrimp known as Hemimysis anomala at www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/photogallery/Hemimysis.html (NOAA) and www.grid.unep.ch/bsein/redbook/txt/hemimysa.htm (United National Environment Programme).

Sohn, Emily. 2005. Smelly traps for lampreys. Science News for Kids (Nov. 16). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20051116/Note2.asp .

______. 2004. Alien invasions. Science News for Kids (May 12). Available at http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040512/Feature1.asp .

ScienceFairZone
Regrowth after Wildfires

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070103/ScienceFairZone.asp

Invading Bark Beetles

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060920/ScienceFairZone.asp

Eradicating the Giant Cane Plant

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20051116/ScienceFairZone.asp

Combating Daylily Rust

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050309/ScienceFairZone.asp

Effects of Fires on Saltcedar Growth

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20040428/ScienceFairZone.asp

But these scientists also keep finding exceptions to their rules. In our planetary neighborhood, Neptune is one of the more delinquent objects.

This image of Neptune was captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989.

NASA

The eighth planet in our solar system is about 2.7 billion miles from the sun and very cold. Yet some mysterious source of energy powers winds that gust up to 1,000 miles per hour. Neptune’s moon Triton, which spouts geysers of ice, orbits the planet at a weird angle. And unlike the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, Neptune and its neighbor Uranus are heavy and made of ice and rock.

These and other unusual features have puzzled scientists for decades. “Neptune is peculiar,” says Craig Agnor, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Recent discoveries have added to the intrigue. “The outer solar system is where we’re making discoveries right now that are changing our fundamental understanding of the solar system,” Agnor says.

Although there’s nothing in the works yet, two teams of researchers recently developed proposals for a possible mission to Neptune.

Crazy moons

Our only close look at Neptune and Triton came in 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft took pictures of both objects. In the meantime, astronomers have observed the blue planet with telescopes on Earth and in space.

Triton is the largest of Neptune’s 13 known moons, or satellites. Several of them were discovered in just the past few years. And these moons are particularly quirky, Agnor says.

This artist’s illustration shows three moons of Neptune discovered in 2002.

David A. Aguilar, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Most satellites fit into one of two categories. Satellites that orbit close to a planet, like Earth’s moon, follow a roughly circular path around the planet’s equator, moving in the same direction in which the planet spins. More distant satellites tend to have strange, tilted orbits. Compared with the spin of their planets, they sometimes orbit in the opposite direction.

Many of Neptune’s moons, including Triton, break these rules. Triton has a tilted orbit and travels in a direction opposite to Neptune’s spin, even though it’s fairly close to the planet.

It’s possible, Agnor suggests, that Triton used to be part of the Kuiper belt, a wide band of icy bodies beyond Neptune’s orbit. What’s more, Triton might once have had a satellite of its own.

Agnor’s theory builds on recent studies showing that about 10 percent of Kuiper belt bodies, including Pluto, have satellites. When Triton and its buddy passed by Neptune, the planet’s gravity could have pulled them apart, slowing Triton down and capturing it as a moon.

Craig Agnor created this image to show Triton and its companion approaching Neptune. This encounter led to the capture of Triton, which entered an unusual orbit around Neptune.

Craig Agnor, University of California, Santa Cruz

If true, Agnor’s model gives insight into the early days of our solar system, says Dave Atkinson of the University of Idaho in Moscow. Atkinson was a member of one of the Neptune mission proposal teams.

Mission to Neptune

Sending a mission to uncover Neptune’s secrets would be useful, Atkinson says, but it’s easier said than done. Neptune is so far away that it would take between 6 and 14 years to get there, he says, depending on the technology used.

Once there, a spacecraft would face frigid temperatures and powerful windstorms. Some scientists speculate that there’s liquid water deep inside Neptune’s core, but no technology exists that would allow a probe to survive the high pressures inside the planet’s depths. It would also be impossible to send signals back to Earth from such an environment.

Neptune’s Great Dark Spot is a giant storm in the planet’s atmosphere.

NASA

Ideally, a Neptune mission would also carry a lander to investigate Triton’s icy geysers. The problem with this plan is that the moon’s atmosphere is too thin to support a parachute like the ones that have delivered landers to the surface of Mars.

Instead, a Triton lander would have to use rockets to slow itself down. This would require extra fuel and equipment, which are both heavy and expensive to transport.

“Given the cost and complexity . . . of getting a lander to the surface of Triton, is it worth it for the amount of science we would get back?” Atkinson wonders. “That’s the question I don’t know if we can answer.”

Moving outward

Whether a probe lands on Triton or a spacecraft simply flies by, visiting Neptune would give scientists insight into more than just our own planetary neighborhood. Scientists continue to discover Neptunelike planets around other stars. And understanding how our own solar system fits together is the first step toward understanding how others work.

This illustration, which shows what the view from Triton toward Neptune might be like, also gives an idea of how much Triton’s orbit is tilted.

NASA

“We study giant planets to look inside at ourselves and to look far away,” Atkinson says. “They’re a connecting point between us and the universe out there.”

In a move toward exploration of the outer planets, scientists are working on building lighter, smaller probes. They’re also developing new technologies that could operate in extreme environments.

The earliest a spacecraft could arrive at Neptune would be 2033, and getting there that soon is unlikely. By then, many of the scientists working on the project now will be long retired, and you could be taking their place.

Researchers such as Atkinson hope you will.

“I still feel like a kid when I do this stuff because it’s so cool,” Atkinson says. “We’re like kids on Christmas Day. People get so excited, even when [a Neptune mission] might be . . . years away.”

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