It is embedded in fine-grained rock taken from northeastern China's Liaoning Province. Ji Quang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History led a team that announced the findings in the April 27 Science. The Liaoning beds have yielded a trove of remarkable fossils, preserving a wide variety of animals that appear to have virtually dropped dead, probably killed by clouds of poison gas from nearby volcanoes, then been gently cloaked in a blanket of volcanic ash. Molecular Transistors Created IBM scientists have developed a controlled method of creating large transistor arrays from tiny carbon molecules called nanotubes, a significant step in efforts to put these microscopic devices at the service of computer technology.
Nanotubes are tiny carbon pipes only a few atoms wide.
Harnessing these properties to use them in ever smaller computer chips has been difficult, however, because no one had devised a way to separate one type of nanotube from the other. Results were reported in the April 27 Science. Sleep Has Role in Brain Growth One of the great mysteries of science is why we sleep. A new study has produced direct evidence that sleep plays a role in brain development early in life. Kittens that were allowed to sleep for six hours developed more changes in the part of their brains involved in vision than kittens that were either kept awake in the dark or kept awake in the light.