C M Y KID NAME: Nxxx,2006-01-31,F,001,Bs-4C,E1 YELO MAG CYAN BLK 3 7 15 25 50 75 85 93 97

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2006

There’ll Be a QuizA rare science seminar for lawmakers

draws a standing-room crowd.

By Cornelia Dean Page 3

Music of the SpheresEssay: What Mozart and Einstein had

in common (besides genius).

By Arthur I. Miller Page 3

Personal Health: ChildhoodHow does sex in the media affect the

young? No one seems to know.

By Jane E. Brody Page 7

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

While remodeling the central plaza in Campe-che, a Mexican port city that dates back to co-lonial times, a construction crew stumbled on theruins of an old church and its burial grounds. Re-searchers who were called in discovered theskeletal remains of at least 180 people, and fourof those studied so far bear telling chemicaltraces that are in effect birth certificates.

The particular mix of strontium in the teeth ofthe four, the researchers concluded, showed thatthey were born and spent their early years inWest Africa. Some of their teeth were filed andchipped to sharp edges in a decorative practicecharacteristic of Africa.

Because other evidence indicated that thecemetery was in use starting around 1550, the ar-chaeologists believe they have found the earliestremains of African slaves brought to the NewWorld.

In a report to be published in The AmericanJournal of Physical Anthropology, the archaeolo-

gy team led by T. Douglas Price of the Universi-ty of Wisconsin concluded, “Thus these individ-uals are likely to be among the earliest repre-sentatives of the African diaspora in the Ameri-cas, substantially earlier than the subsequent, in-tensive slave trade in the 18th century.”

Dr. Price said last week that a more precisedating would be attempted soon with radiocar-bon analysis of the excavated bones. Maps andother records of Campeche, on the Yucatán Pen-insula, indicate that the burial ground was usedfrom the mid-16th century into the 17th. Apre-1550 medallion was found in a grave.

Other archaeologists and historians who werenot involved in the research said they knew of no

Continued on Page 4

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

A LINK OF ENAMEL Mutilated teeth from aYucatán burial site suggest African origin.

At Burial Site,Teeth Tell TaleOf Slavery

By RONI RABIN

Candace Talmadge was determined to get throughmenopause without using hormones, and she tried justabout every alternative treatment she could find, like soytablets, herbs and acupuncture, a chiropractor and evenan anti-anxiety medication.

Two months ago, Ms. Talmadge’s doctor suggested thatshe consider hormone therapy, and she relented.

“There are always risks to any medication you take,whether it’s traditional or nontraditional,” said Ms. Tal-madge, 51, an author from Lancaster, Tex. “But I’ve beengoing through hell. I think my doctor’s attitude was, ‘Dothe benefits for you, right now, outweigh the risks?’ ”

Three and a half years after a landmark study stunned

physicians by finding that hormone therapy had seriousrisks and did not prevent heart disease in postmenopaus-al women, many women continue to turn to hormones forrelief. Many gynecologists continue to prescribe them asa first-line therapy for severe menopausal symptoms.

Debates over the study’s findings remain heated, withdoctors divided between those who believe in the power ofhormone therapy to protect the heart and relieve meno-pausal symptoms and those who think that any heartbenefits have been discredited.

Some researchers are testing a new theory, that hor-mone therapy is beneficial for the heart when it is initiat-ed early, during a narrow “window of opportunity”around the time of menopause and before women developan excessive buildup of atherosclerotic plaque.

A chief criticism of the hormone study, part of the na-

tional Women’s Health Initiative,was that it included womenmuch older than the averagehormone user, who typically ini-

tiates therapy around the time ofmenopause. The average age of the participants in thestudy was 64. The average age of menopause is 51.4, andsome studies suggest that women who initiate hormonetherapy later may miss the chance to benefit from thetreatment.

This month, a paper in The Journal of Women’s Healthadded credence to that idea. It reported that women whostarted therapy soon after menopause reduced the risk ofcoronary heart disease 30 percent, but that the benefit ap-

Continued on Page 6

Rethinking Hormones, Again

European Pressphoto Agency

By DAVID E. SANGERand WILLIAM J. BROAD

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — In March 2004, thescience and technology directorate of the Cen-tral Intelligence Agency called a secret meetingof hundreds of the government’s top experts innuclear intelligence to address a problem thathad bedeviled Washington for decades: how toknow, with precision, when a country is about tocross the line and gain the ability to build anatomic bomb.

The aim of the two-day conference was to rein-vigorate the nation’s atomic espionage efforts,not with spies on the ground or satellites in spacebut with a new generation of advanced technolo-gies meant to detect the faintest clues of nuclearactivity.

The meeting, said an official who attended,“was to galvanize people to say, ‘We recognize

this is a big problem and we need to get every-body thinking about it.’ ”

“There was a hope that, out of this, promisingnew approaches might be identified,” the officialcontinued.

The experts discussed a range of potentialtools, including new ways to monitor electricpower lines for the signature of high-speed cen-trifuges as they purify uranium and lasers thatcan track radioactive dust. Also on the agendawere more fanciful items, like robotic butterfliesthat can monitor an atomic site while appearingto flutter by innocuously.

Nearly two years later, federal officials andscientists say that meeting and other secret ac-tions have accelerated the government’s effortsto develop new atomic espionage technologies.The research focuses on better detection of fourbasic, but inconspicuous, signatures that covertnuclear facilities and materials can emit: dis-tinctive chemicals, sounds, electromagneticwaves and isotopes, or forms of the same ele-

How to ListenFor the SoundOf Plutonium

Intelligence mistakes in Iraq

spur an increase in research

on nuclear espionage.

Continued on Page 2

The

criticism:

women in

the study

may have

been too

old.

The landmark

finding in 2002:

significant

cancer risks,

and no heart

benefits.

The new

theory:

therapy

may need

to start

early in

menopause.

Polly Becker