GOOD AS NEW: You've broken your wrist and you face surgery and pins to hold the bones in place. Stanford doctors may have an alternative. Several are using injectable, quick-setting cement to "paste" bones back together. The short procedure is often performed under local anesthesia and offers significant pain relief in little time. One product even allows the body to gradually replace the cement with new bone.
SHAKING UP GEOLOGISTS: Move over, San Andreas. There's a new fault on the block. Stanford scientists have found evidence that the Mojave Desert is home to some puzzling seismic activity. The researchers had expected earthquakes only along the established east-west and north-west lines of mapped faults. Instead they found ruptures along both old faults and new, previously unrecognized faults that run north-south and north-east.
DEFROSTING E.T.: If life exists elsewhere in our solar system, it may be found on Jupiter's moon, Europa, where scientists think a layer of ice covers an ocean of liquid water. But some have wondered whether a frozen moon can produce energy, too. Stanford researchers argue that Europa contains plenty of biological fuels, thanks to billions of charged particles raining down from neighboring Jupiter. This "should produce organic and oxidant molecules sufficient to fuel a substantial Europan biosphere," says one scientist.
DYSLEXIA INSIGHT: Forget gray matter. Stanford researchers report that some reading problems are tied to a defect in the white matter of the brain. They found that a group of dyslexic adults had white matter that slowed message transmission to the brain's language processing areas. The research could lead to early help for dyslexic children.
