New Class of Black Holes Discovered. A new class
of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun,
has been discovered in a distant galaxy approximately 290
million light years from Earth. (STFC)
Stanford Discovery Pinpoints New Connection Between Cancer
Cells, Stem Cells.
A molecule called telomerase, best known for enabling
unlimited cell division of stem cells and cancer cells,
has a surprising additional role in the expression of
genes in an important stem cell regulatory pathway, say
researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The unexpected finding may lead to new anticancer
therapies and a greater understanding of how adult and
embryonic stem cells divide and specialize. (Stanford SM)
July 1
Plants Put Limit on Ice Ages. When glaciers
advanced over much of the Earth’s surface during the last
ice age, what kept the planet from freezing over entirely?
This has been a puzzle to climate scientists because
leading models have indicated that over the past 24
million years geological conditions should have caused
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to plummet,
possibly leading to runaway “icehouse” conditions. Now
researchers writing in the July 2, 2009, Nature report on
the missing piece of the puzzle – plants. (Carnegie I.)
Research Offers New Insights, and a New Angle, on
High-Temperature Superconductivity.
A Princeton-led research team has revealed surprising
information about how electron behavior influences the
conduction of electricity in a class of high-temperature
superconductors. An increased understanding of this
mechanism could one day transform a number of
technologies, including the transmission of electrical
power. (BNL)
June 29
Study of Flower Color Shows Evolution in Action.
Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have zeroed in on the genes
responsible for changing flower color, an area of research
that began with Gregor Mendel's studies of the garden pea
in the 1850's. (UCSB)
June 24
Streaming Sand Grains Help Define Essence of a Liquid.
Water forms droplets because attractive interactions
between molecules produce surface tension. If macroscopic
objects—say, grains of sand—replace the molecules, the
relative strength of this attraction would dramatically
drop. What vestiges of liquid behavior remain in such
ultra-low surface tension limit? (U. Chicago)
Sleep Helps Build Long-term Memories. Experts have
long suspected that part of the process of turning
fleeting short-term memories into lasting long-term
memories occurs during sleep. Now, researchers at the
RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics of MIT's
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown that
mice prevented from "replaying" their waking experiences
while asleep do not remember them as well as mice who are
able to perform this function. (MIT)
Cosmic Blobs Point to Key Stage in Galaxy Evolution.
Cosmic "blobs" have helped pinpoint a crucial stage in
galaxy and black hole evolution, according to research led
by Durham University and funded by STFC. (STFC)
A Mystery Solved: Space Shuttle Shows 1908 Tunguska
Explosion Was Caused by Comet.
The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830
square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly
caused by a comet entering Earth's atmosphere, says new
Cornell research. The conclusion is supported by an
unlikely source: the exhaust plume from the NASA space
shuttle launched a century later. (Cornell U.)
June 23
'Morning People' and 'Night Owls' Show Different Brain
Function . Are you an "early bird" or a "night
owl?" Scientists at the University of Alberta have found
there are significant differences in the way our brains
function depending on whether we're early risers or night
owls. (U Alberta.)
Baboons, Humans Adapted Similarly to Malaria.
Evolutionarily speaking, baboons may be our more distant
cousins among primates. But when it comes to our
experiences with malaria over the course of time, it seems
the stories of our two species have followed very similar
plots. (Duke U.)
June 22
54-million-year-old Skull Reveals Early Evolution of
Primate Brains. Researchers at the University of
Florida and the University of Winnipeg have developed the
first detailed images of a primitive primate brain,
unexpectedly revealing that cousins of our earliest
ancestors relied on smell more than sight. (U. Florida)
Beyond CO2: Study Reveals Growing Importance of HFCs in
Climate Warming.
Some of the substances that are helping to avert the
destruction of the ozone layer could increasingly
contribute to climate warming, according to scientists
from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and their
colleagues in a new study published today in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (NOAA)
June 19
Mechanics: Nano Meets Quantum.
At the quantum level, the atoms that make up matter and
the photons that make up light behave in a number of
seemingly bizarre ways. Particles can exist in
"superposition," in more than one state at the same time
(as long as we don't look), a situation that permitted
Schrödinger's famed cat to be simultaneously alive and
dead; matter can be "entangled"—Albert Einstein called it
"spooky action at a distance"—such that one thing
influences another thing, regardless of how far apart the
two are. (Caltech)
June 18
New Mass Spectrometric Method. Researchers at the
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena and
their colleagues from the Czech Academy of Sciences in
Prague have developed a new method to quickly and reliably
detect metabolites, such as sugars, fatty acids, amino
acids and other organic substances from plant or animal
tissue samples. One drop of blood - less than one micro
liter - is sufficient to identify certain blood related
metabolites. The new technique, called MAILD, is based on
classical mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS) and enables
researchers to measure a large number of metabolites in
biological samples, opening doors for targeted and
high-throughput metabolomics. (MPG)
Nanoparticles May Damage Lungs.
Researchers in China have identified how nanoparticles--
ployamidoamine dendrimers or PAMAMs - used in medicine can
cause lung cancer. (CAS)
June 17
Sands of Gobi Desert Yield New Species of Nut-cracking
Dinosaur. Plants or meat: That's about all that
fossils ever tell paleontologists about a dinosaur's diet.
But the skull characteristics of a new species of
parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones
indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds. These
characteristics present the first solid evidence of
nut-eating in any dinosaur. (U. Chicago)
CU Researchers Find First Definitive Evidence for Ancient
Lake on Mars.
A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has
discovered the first definitive evidence of shorelines on
Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a
finding with implications for the discovery of past life
on the Red Planet. (UCB)
June 16
The Earth's Magnetic Field Remains a Charged Mystery.
Four hundred years of discussion, and we’re still not sure
what creates the Earth’s magnetic field, and thus the
magnetosphere, despite the importance of the latter as the
only buffer between us and deadly solar wind of charged
particles (made up of electrons and protons). New research
raises question marks about the forces behind the magnetic
field and the structure of Earth itself. (Northwestern U.)
June 15
New Study Closes in on Geologic History of Earth’s Deep
Interior.
By using a super-computer to virtually squeeze and heat
iron-bearing minerals under conditions that would have
existed when the Earth crystallized from an ocean of magma
to its solid form 4.5 billion years ago, two UC Davis
geochemists have produced the first picture of how
different isotopes of iron were initially distributed in
the solid Earth. (UC Davis)
June 11
Maple Seeds and Animals Exploit the Same Trick to Fly.
The twirling seeds of maple trees spin like miniature
helicopters as they fall to the ground. Because the seeds
descend slowly as they swirl, they can be carried aloft by
the wind and dispersed over great distances. Just how the
seeds manage to fall so slowly, however, has mystified
scientists. (Caltech)
June 10
Social Moms Make Better Moms, at Least in Baboons.
Female baboons who have strong social relationships with
other females give birth to offspring who are much more
likely to survive to adulthood than baboons reared by less
social mothers, according to a new study by researchers at
the University of Pennsylvania, the University of
California, Los Angeles, and others. The results support a
growing body of research on humans — especially women —
indicating that strong social networks are crucially
important to health and reduced stress. (U. Penn)
Cancer: The Cost of Being Smarter Than Chimps? Are
the cognitively superior brains of humans, in part,
responsible for our higher rates of cancer? That’s a
question that has nagged at John McDonald, chair of
Georgia Tech’s School of Biology and chief research
scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, for a while.
Now, after an initial study, it seems that McDonald is on
to something. (GIT)
Climate Change Could Drive Vast Human Migrations.
By mid-century, people may be fleeing rising seas,
droughts, floods and other effects of changing climate, in
migrations that could vastly exceed the scope of anything
before, says a major new report. (Columbia U.)
June 9
Red Giant Star Betelgeuse Mysteriously Shrinking.
The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, the bright reddish
star in the constellation Orion, has steadily shrunk over
the past 15 years, according to University of California,
Berkeley, researchers. (UC Berkeley)
Mathematicians Take Aim at 'Phantom' Traffic Jams.
Countless hours are lost in traffic jams every year. Most
frustrating of all are those jams with no apparent cause
-- no accident, no stalled vehicle, no lanes closed for
construction. (MIT)
June 7
Bioelectricity Promises More ‘Miles Per Acre’ Than Ethanol.
Biofuels such as ethanol offer an alternative to petroleum
for powering our cars, but growing energy crops to produce
them can compete with food crops for farmland, and
clearing forests to expand farmland will aggravate the
climate change problem. How can we maximize our "miles per
acre" from biomass? Researchers writing in the online
edition of the May 7 Science magazine say the best bet is
to convert the biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol. (Carnegie
I.)
June 2
UF Study Finds Ancient Mammals Shifted Diets as Climate
Changed.
A new University of Florida study shows mammals change
their dietary niches based on climate-driven environmental
changes, contradicting a common assumption that species
maintain their niches despite global warming. (U. Florida)
June 1
CU-Boulder Study Shows 53-Million-Year-Old High Arctic
Mammals Wintered in Darkness
. Ancestors of tapirs and ancient cousins of
rhinos living above the Arctic Circle 53 million years ago
endured six months of darkness each year in a far milder
climate than today that featured lush, swampy forests,
according to a new study led by the University of Colorado
at Boulder. (CU Boulder)
May 28
Half of Your Friends Lost in Seven Years. Had a
good chat with someone recently? Has a good friend just
helped you to do up your home? Then you will be lucky if
that person still does that in seven years time.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst investigated how the
context in which we meet people influences our social
network. One of his conclusions: you lose about half of
your close network members every seven years.
(NWO)
Astronomy
Team Probes Edge of Supermassive Black Hole.
A supermassive black hole lurking deep in the heart of a
distant active galaxy has been probed more closely than
ever before by a team of astronomers that includes Penn
State Professor of Astronomy Niel Brandt. Using new X-ray
data from the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton
satellite, the team observed the galaxy — known as
1H0707-495 — for four 48-hour-long periods, revealing the
innermost depths of the galaxy.
(PSU)
May 27
Rare Radio Supernova is Nearest Supernova in Five Years.
The chance discovery last month of a rare radio supernova
- an exploding star seen only at radio wavelengths and
undetected by optical or X-ray telescopes - underscores
the promise of new, more sensitive radio surveys to find
supernovas hidden by gas and dust.
(UC Berkeley)
Geographic Isolation Drives the Evolution of a Hot Springs
Microbe. Sulfolobus islandicus, a microbe that can
live in boiling acid, is offering up its secrets to
researchers hardy enough to capture it from the volcanic
hot springs where it thrives. In a new study, researchers
report that populations of S. islandicus are more diverse
than previously thought, and that their diversity is
driven largely by geographic isolation.
(UIUC)
Pressure to
Look Attractive Linked to Fear of Rejection in Men and
Women. People who feel pressure to look attractive
are more fearful of being rejected because of their
appearance than are their peers, according to a new study
by researchers at the University at Buffalo and the
University of Kent.
(U. Buffalo)
University of Alberta Sets Alarm for Incoming Space Storms.
A team of researchers at the University of Alberta in
Edmonton has broken new ground in outer space by
pinpointing the impact epicentre of an Earthbound space
storm as it crashes into the atmosphere and giving an
advance warning that it's on the way.
(U. Alberta)
May 22
Better Supernovae Measurements Aim To Improve
Understanding of Dark Energy. A new technique for
measuring the distances to supernovae more accurately than
ever before has been developed by a team of scientists
from Yale University, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory and a consortium of French laboratories.
(Yale U.)
‘Invasive Aliens’ Threaten Global Biodiversity.
While the implications of climate change for biodiversity
have been widely recognised, the insidious effect of
invasive alien species (IAS) on global biodiversity stays
under the radar.
(CSIRO)
May 20
Exposure to Two Languages Carries Far-Reaching Benefits.
People who can speak two languages are more adept at
learning a new foreign language than their monolingual
counterparts, according to research conducted at
Northwestern University. And their bilingual advantage
persists even when the new language they study is
completely different from the languages they already know.
(Northwestern U.)
Earth's Bombardment by Asteroids 3.9 Billion Years Ago May
Have Enhanced Early Life. The bombardment of Earth
nearly 4 billion years ago by asteroids as large as Kansas
would not have had the firepower to extinguish potential
early life on the planet and may even have given it a
boost, says a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
(U. Colorado)
A New Way of Treating the Flu. What happens if the
next big influenza mutation proves resistant to the
available anti-viral drugs? This question is presenting
itself right now to scientists and health officials this
week at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland,
as they continue to do battle with H1N1, the so-called
swine flu, and prepare for the next iteration of the
ever-changing flu virus.
(RPI)
Faithful Males Do Not Bring Flowers. Fairy-wrens
are notorious for their infidelity: despite living in
seemingly harmonious monogamous pairs, females produce
mostly illegitimate young, and males spend more time
courting other females than their own partner.
(MPG)
Spiral Swimmers May Be New Workhorses.
Harvard researchers have created a new type of microscopic
swimmer: a magnetized spiral that corkscrews through
liquids and is able to deliver chemicals and push loads
larger than itself.
(Harvard U.)
May 13
Ocean Circulation Doesn't Work As Expected.
The familiar model of Atlantic ocean currents that shows a
discrete "conveyor belt" of deep, cold water flowing
southward from the Labrador Sea is probably all wet.
(Duke U.)
More 'Star Trek' Than 'Snuggie': NC State Student Design
to Protect Lunar Outpost from Dangerous Radiation.
Alien creatures are the least of NASA's worries when it
comes to moon travel. There are several potential threats
to future missions – with space radiation at the top of
the list. Now, a group of students at North Carolina State
University has developed a "blanket" of sorts that covers
lunar outposts – the astronauts' living quarters – to
provide astronauts protection against radiation while also
generating and storing power.
(NCU)
New Tissue Scaffold Regrows Cartilage and Bone.
MIT engineers have built a new tissue scaffold that can
stimulate bone and cartilage growth when transplanted into
the knees and other joints.
(MIT)
New Nanocrystals Show Potential for Cheap Lasers, New
Lighting.
For more than a decade, scientists have been frustrated in
their attempts to create continuously emitting light
sources from individual molecules because of an optical
quirk called "blinking," but now scientists at the
University of Rochester have uncovered the basic physics
behind the phenomenon, and along with researchers at the
Eastman Kodak Company, created a nanocrystal that
constantly emits light.
(U. Rochester)
May 6
Babies Brainier Than Many Imagine. A new study
from Northwestern University shows what many mothers
already know: their babies are a lot smarter than others
may realize.
(Northwestern U.)
Star Crust 10 Billion Times Stronger than Steel.
Research by a theoretical physicist at Indiana University
shows that the crusts of neutron stars are 10 billion
times stronger than steel or any other of the earth's
strongest metal alloys.
(Indiana U.)
Ocean Carbon: A Dent in the Iron Hypothesis.
Oceanographers Jim Bishop and Todd Wood of the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory have measured the fate of carbon particles
originating in plankton blooms in the Southern Ocean,
using data that deep-diving Carbon Explorer floats
collected around the clock for well over a year. Their
study reveals that most of the carbon from lush plankton
blooms never reaches the deep ocean.
(LBNL)
May 4
Scientists
Determine the Structure of Light-harvesting Molecules.
An international team of scientists has determined the
structure of the chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria
that are responsible for harvesting light energy. The
team's results one day could be used to build artificial
photosynthetic systems, such as those that convert solar
energy to electrical energy.
(PSU)
Galactic X-ray Emissions Originate from Stars.
A 25-year old astronomical mystery has been solved: Most
of the diffuse X-ray emissions in the Milky Way do not
originate from one single source but from so-called white
dwarfs and from stars with active outer gas layers.
Mikhail Revnivtsev from the Excellence Cluster Universe at
the TU Munich and his colleagues at the Max Planck
Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, the Space Research
Institute in Moscow and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge have now succeeded in proving
this.
(MPG)
May 1
'Smart Turbine Blades' to Improve Wind Power.
Researchers have developed a technique that uses sensors
and computational software to constantly monitor forces
exerted on wind turbine blades, a step toward improving
efficiency by adjusting for rapidly changing wind
conditions.
(Pudue U.)
Discovering the Genetic Roots of Humanity.
A Dartmouth Medical School researcher is part of the team
that has determined that Africans are descended from 14
ancestral populations.
(Darmouth C.)
April 27
Missing Planets Attest to Destructive Power of Stars'
Tides. During the last two decades, astronomers
have found hundreds of planets orbiting stars outside our
solar system. New research indicates they might have found
even more except for one thing -- some planets have fallen
into their stars and simply no longer exist.
(U. Washington)
New Blow for Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Theory. The
enduringly popular theory that the Chicxulub crater holds
the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some
65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, is
challenged in a paper to be published in the Journal of
the Geological Society on April 27, 2009.
(NSF)
Electronic Mosquito. A skin patch could one day
provide a less-invasive alternative for diabetics who need
to take regular samples of their own blood to keep glucose
levels in check. The common method of drawing blood from
fingertips and using glucose testing strips and metres can
be painful, inconvenient and time-consuming.
(U. Calgary)
Power thrust for Spider Silk.
Spiderman would definitely have an easier time of things
with this spider silk - for example, if he had to stop a
getaway car moving off at 100 kilometres per hour. A
five-millimetre-thick thread would do the job from a
distance of 20 metres - assuming it had been treated by a
team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of
Microstructure Physics. The same task would require a
finger-thick thread of untreated spider silk and a steel
rod as thick as a forearm. The Max Planck scientists
strengthen the natural material by infiltrating it with
metal ions. It may also be possible to strengthen other
natural and synthetic fibres in this way.
(MPG)
April 23
Personality Traits Contribute to "Placebo Effect".
Researchers at McGill University have found for the first
time that novelty seeking personality types enjoy a
stronger “placebo response,” or pain relief caused by the
administration of a sham treatment, than people with
reserved personalities. The study hypothesizes that the
anticipation of pain relief, in this case triggered by the
administration of a placebo, is a special case of reward
anticipation. Since dopamine is a key neurotransmitter in
reward processing, personality traits linked to dopamine,
such as novelty seeking, were studied.
(McGill U.)
April 22
Mysterious Space Blob Discovered at Cosmic Dawn.
Using information from a suite of telescopes, astronomers
have discovered a mysterious, giant object that existed at
a time when the universe was only about 800 million years
old. Objects such as this one are dubbed extended
Lyman-Alpha blobs; they are huge bodies of gas that may be
precursors to galaxies. This blob was named Himiko for a
legendary, mysterious Japanese queen. It stretches for 55
thousand light years, a record for that early point in
time. That length is comparable to the radius of the Milky
Way’s disk.
(Carnegie I.)
Discovery of an Unexpected Boost for Solar Water-Splitting
Cells.
A research team from Northeastern University and the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has
discovered, serendipitously, that a residue of a process
used to build arrays of titania nanotubes—a residue that
wasn’t even noticed before this — plays an important role
in improving the performance of the nanotubes in solar
cells that produce hydrogen gas from water.
(BNL)
April 21
Water Levels Dropping in Some Major Rivers as Global
Climate Changes. Rivers in some of the world's
most populous regions are losing water, according to a new
comprehensive study of global stream flow. The study, led
by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR), suggests that in many cases the reduced
flows are associated with climate change. The process
could potentially threaten future supplies of food and
water.
(NCAR)
"You Will Give Birth in Pain": Neanderthals Too.
Researchers from the University of California at Davis
(USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) present a virtual
reconstruction of a female Neanderthal pelvis from Tabun
(Israel). Although the size of Tabun’s reconstructed birth
canal shows that Neanderthal childbirth was about as
difficult as in present-day humans, the shape indicates
that Neanderthals retained a more primitive birth
mechanism than modern humans. The virtual reconstruction
of the pelvis from Tabun is going to be the first of its
kind to be available for download on the internet for
everyone interested in the evolution of humankind.
(MPG)
More Evidence that Humans Continue to Upset Nature.
Dartmouth researchers have determined that the presence of
the rare element osmium is on the rise globally. They
trace this increase to the consumption of refined
platinum, the primary ingredient in catalytic converters,
the equipment commonly installed in cars to reduce smog. A
volatile form of osmium is generated during platinum
refinement and also during the normal operation of cars,
and it gets dispersed globally through the atmosphere.
(Darmouth C.)
April 20
Grouping Muscles to Make Controlling Limbs Easier.
With more than 30 muscles in your arm, controlling
movement -- whether it’s grasping a glass or throwing a
baseball -- is a complex task that potentially takes into
account thousands of variables.
(Northwestern U.)
Self-assembled Nanowires Could Make Chips Smaller and
Faster.
Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a new
way to make transistors smaller and faster. The technique
uses self-assembled, self-aligned, and defect-free
nanowire channels made of gallium arsenide.
(UIUC)
April 19
Clouds: Lighter than Air but Laden with Lead.
By sampling clouds - and making their own - researchers
have shown for the first time a direct relation between
lead in the sky and the formation of ice crystals that
foster clouds. The results suggest that lead generated by
human activities causes clouds to form at warmer
temperatures and with less water. This could alter the
pattern of both rain and snow in a warmer world.
(PNNL)
April 15
Honeybees not Fooled by Cheating Flowers.
Flowers that want to cheat pollinators by not paying them
for their services shouldn’t try to lure them in using
floral scents, scientists at Newcastle University have
shown.
(Newcastle U.)
April 14
Creating Diamonds in Space. Do you know that there
are countless diamonds in space? Loads of tiny diamonds,
each measuring less than one micrometer (much less than
the width of a human hair) are located in the material
that surrounds some stars--their circumstellar disks.
(Subaru T.)
Findings Show Insulin - not Genes - Linked to Obesity.
Researchers have uncovered new evidence suggesting factors
other than genes could cause obesity, finding that
genetically identical cells store widely differing amounts
of fat depending on subtle variations in how cells process
insulin.
(Purdue U.)
Global Warming: Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Would
Save Arctic Ice, Reduce Sea Level Rise.
The threat of global warming can still be greatly
diminished if nations cut emissions of heat-trapping
greenhouse gases by 70 percent this century, according to
a new analysis. While global temperatures would rise, the
most dangerous potential aspects of climate change,
including massive losses of Arctic sea ice and permafrost
and significant sea level rise, could be partially avoided.
(NCAR)
April 12
DNA "Tricked" to Act as Nano-building Blocks.
McGill researchers have succeeded in finding a new way to
manufacture nanotubes, one of the important building
blocks of the nanotechnology of the future..
(McGill U.)
April 9
New Laser Technique Advances Nanofabrication Process.
The ability to create tiny patterns is essential to the
fabrication of computer chips and many other current and
potential applications of nanotechnology. Yet, creating
ever smaller features, through a widely-used process
called photolithography, has required the use of
ultraviolet light, which is difficult and expensive to
work with.
(U. Maryland)
Study Shows Waist Size Predictor of Heart Failure in Men
and Women.
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size
is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by
investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
(BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is
associated with increased risk of heart failure in
middle-aged and older populations of men and women.
(Harvard U.)
April 8
Meat for Sex in Wild Chimpanzees.
Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with
males who share meat with them over long periods of time,
according to a study led by researchers from the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany,
published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS
ONE April 8th 2009.
(MPG)
April 7
Scientists Discover Pentagonal Ice. Water usually
crystallises as hexagonal rings but scientist at the
University of Liverpool have discovered a five-sided ice
chain that breaks the usual rules.
(U. Liverpool)
Cool Stars Have Different Mix of Life-Forming Chemicals.
Life on Earth is thought to have arisen from a hot soup of
chemicals. Does this same soup exist on planets around
other stars? Led by a Johns Hopkins University researcher,
a new study from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope hints that
planets around stars cooler than our sun might possess a
different mix of potentially life-forming, or "prebiotic,"
chemicals.
(JHU)
April 6
New Satellite Data Shows Arctic Literally on Thin Ice.
The latest data from NASA and the University of Colorado
at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center show the
continuation of a decade-long trend of shrinking sea ice
extent in the Arctic, including new evidence for thinning
ice as well.
(UCB)
Researchers Develop New Way to See Single RNA Molecules in
Live Cells. Biomedical engineers have developed a
new type of probe that allows them to visualize single
ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules within live cells more
easily than existing methods. The tool will help
scientists learn more about how RNA operates within living
cells.
(GIT)
Mechanism Identified that Directs Stem Cells to
Destination.
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have for
the first time identified in mice a cellular mechanism
that directs stem cells to their ultimate destination in
the body.
(Harvard U..)
April 1
Breakthrough Made in Energy Efficiency, Use of Waste Heat.
Engineers at Oregon State University have made a major new
advance in taking waste heat and using it to run a cooling
system – a technology that can improve the energy
efficiency of diesel engines, and perhaps some day will
appear in automobiles, homes and industry.
(Oregon S.U.)
Light Reveals Breast Tumor Oxygen Status.
Light directed at a breast tumor through a needle can tell
pathologists how much oxygen the tumor is consuming, and
help oncologists choose treatment options that would be
most effective for an individual patient.
(Duke U.)
Humanoid Robot Helps Scientists to Understand Intelligence.
The College’s Departments of Computing and Electrical and
Electronic Engineering believe that iCub, about the size
of a three year old child, will further their research
into cognition, the process of knowing that includes
awareness, perception, reasoning and judgement.
(ICL)
March 30
New Possibilities for Hydrogen-Producing Algae.
Photosynthesis produces the food that we eat and the
oxygen that we breathe ― could it also help satisfy our
future energy needs by producing clean-burning hydrogen?
Researchers studying a hydrogen-producing, single-celled
green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, have unmasked a
previously unknown fermentation pathway that may open up
possibilities for increasing hydrogen production.
(Carnegie I.)
March 25
UK Astronomers Observe Asteroid Before it Crashes into
Earth. UK astronomers, using the Science and
Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) William Herschel
Telescope on La Palma, observed a rare asteroid as it was
hurtling towards our planet and have captured the only
spectrum of it before it exploded in our atmosphere. This
is the very first time that an asteroid that hit the Earth
has been studied before entering our atmosphere, allowing
the scientists to predict whether it would explode and
break up in the atmosphere or reach the ground – which
determines whether an asteroid poses any threat.
(STFC)
Scientists Patent Corrosion-Resistant Nano-Coating for
Metals.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven
National Laboratory have developed a method for coating
metal surfaces with an ultrathin film containing
nanoparticles — particles measuring billionths of a meter
— which renders the metal resistant to corrosion and
eliminates the use of toxic chromium for this purpose.
(BNL)
March 24
Deep Sea
Rocks Point to Early Oxygen on Earth.
Red jasper cored from layers 3.46 billion years old
suggests that not only did the oceans contain abundant
oxygen then, but that the atmosphere was as oxygen rich as
it is today, according to geologists.
(PSU)
March 23
Wild Grass Became Maize Crop More Than 8,700 Years Ago.
The earliest physical evidence for domesticated maize,
what some cultures call corn, dates to at least 8,700
calendar years ago, and it was probably domesticated by
indigenous peoples in the lowland areas of southwestern
Mexico, not the highland areas..
(NSF)
Brain Wave Patterns Can Predict Blunders. From
spilling a cup of coffee to failing to notice a stop sign,
everyone makes an occasional error due to lack of
attention. Now a team led by a researcher at the
University of California, Davis, in collaboration with the
Donders Institute in the Netherlands, has found a distinct
electric signature in the brain which predicts that such
an error is about to be made.
(UC Davis)
Synthesizing the Most Natural of All Skin Creams.
Even after nine months soaking in the womb, a newborn’s
skin is smooth – unlike an adult’s in the bath. While
occupying a watery, warm environment, the newborn manages
to develop a skin fully equipped to protect it in a cold,
dry and bacteria-infected world.
(ESRF)
Caltech Biologists Find Optimistic Worms Are Ready for
Rapid Recovery. For the tiny soil-dwelling
nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, life is usually a
situation of feast or famine. Researchers at the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found
that this worm has evolved a surprisingly optimistic
genetic strategy to cope with these disparate
conditions--one that could eventually point the way to new
treatments for a host of human diseases caused by
parasitic worms.
(Caltech)
Turning Sunlight into Liquid Fuels.
For millions of years, green plants have employed
photosynthesis to capture energy from sunlight and convert
it into electrochemical energy. A goal of scientists has
been to develop an artificial version of photosynthesis
that can be used to produce liquid fuels from carbon
dioxide and water. Researchers with the U.S. Department of
Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley
Lab) have now taken a critical step towards this goal with
the discovery that nano-sized crystals of cobalt oxide can
effectively carry out the critical photosynthetic reaction
of splitting water molecules.
(LBNL)
March 9
Rice Psychologist Explores Perception of Fear in Human
Sweat. When threatened, many animals release
chemicals as a warning signal to members of their own
species, who in turn react to the signals and take action.
Research by Rice University psychologist Denise Chen
suggests a similar phenomenon occurs in humans. Given that
more than one sense is typically involved when humans
perceive information, Chen studied whether the smell of
fear facilitates humans' other stronger senses.
(Rice U.)
A Water Splitter with a Double Role.
There is a lot of hope invested in hydrogen, but it also
presents some problems. It is energy-rich, clean and, as a
constituent of water, of almost unlimited availability.
However, so far it has been difficult to access it.
Scientists at the Max Planck In-stitute of Colloids and
Interfaces have now found a simple, low-cost way to
produce hydrogen. They extract this energy source from
water by irradiating it with sunlight and using a carbon
nitride as an inexpensive photo catalyst. Up to now this
reaction has required organometal compounds and inorganic
semiconductors combined with expensive precious metals,
such as platinum.
(MPG)
March 5
Watching Evolution in Real Time.
In 1831, the young Charles Darwin set off on the H.M.S.
Beagle, a Royal Navy sloop bound for detailed surveys of
South America. He took with him the first volume of the
massive trilogy “Principles of Geology” by Scottish
geologist Charles Lyell.
(Harvard U.)
March 4
Older Adults Control Emotions More Easily than Young
Adults. With age comes the ability to better
regulate emotions to avoid disrupting performance on
memory-intensive tasks, according to a study published in
the March issue of the journal Psychology and Aging.
(GIT)
Algae Could Fuel Cars and Jobs.
The production of biodiesel from algae could reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, help to address future fuel
shortages and create jobs in rural Australia.
(CSIRO)
March 3
Scientists Discover the First Fossil Brain.
A 300-million-year-old brain of a relative of sharks and
ratfish has been revealed by French and American
scientists using synchrotron holotomography at the
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). It is the
first time that the soft tissue of such an old fossil
brain has ever been found.
(ESRF)