December 29

December 26

  • Georgia Tech Team Helps Decode Newly Sequenced Strawberry Genome. An international research consortium has sequenced the genome of the woodland strawberry, according to a study published in the Dec. 26 advance online edition of the journal Nature Genetics. The development is expected to unlock possibilities for breeding tastier, hardier varieties of the berry and other crops in its family. (GIT)

December 22

  • Genome of Extinct Siberian Cave-dweller Linked to Modern-day Humans. Researchers have discovered evidence of a distinct group of "archaic" humans existing outside of Africa more than 30,000 years ago at a time when Neanderthals are thought to have dominated Europe and Asia. But genetic testing shows that members of this new group were not Neanderthals, and they interbred with the ancestors of some modern humans who are alive today. (NSF)
  • Harvesting Energy from Passing Trains. Innowattech the Israeli company that made news last year when it unveiled a method for harvesting electricity from roads is at it again. This time, the company co-founded by Technion Professor Haim Abramovich is testing its piezoelectric technology on railroad tracks. (ATS)

December 21

  • Yes Virginia, People Who Eat Healthier Really Do Live Longer. Medical and dietary experts have long recommended healthy eating habits. Now, on the eve of one of our most calorically indulgent holidays, a new study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that those with healthy diets really do to live longer and feel better. (U. Maryland)

December 20

  • What Makes a Face Look Alive? Study Says It’s in the Eyes. The face of a doll is clearly not human; the face of a human clearly is. Telling the difference allows us to pay attention to faces that belong to living things, which are capable of interacting with us. But where is the line at which a face appears to be alive? A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that a face has to be quite similar to a human face in order to appear alive, and that the cues are mainly in the eyes. (APS)

December 17

  • Earth’s Final Growth Spurt. What led to water on the interior of the Moon or the formation of the Borealis basin that covers 40 percent of the surface of Mars? And what caused at least some of Earth’s tilt — without which there would be no change of seasons? (MIT)

December 15

  • The Brain: Light-controlled Neo-neuron. Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in association with the CNRS have just shown, in an experimental model, that newly formed neurons in the adult brain can be stimulated by light. (CNRS)
  • Meteorite just One Piece of an Unknown Celestial Body. Scientists from all over the world are taking a second, more expansive, look at the car-sized asteroid that exploded over Sudan's Nubian Desert in 2008. Initial research was focused on classifying the meteorite fragments that were collected two to five months after they were strewn across the desert and tracked by NASA's Near Earth Object astronomical network. Now in a series of 20 papers for a special double issue of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, published on December 15, researchers have expanded their work to demonstrate the diversity of these fragments, with major implications for the meteorite's origin. (Carnegie I.)

December 14

  • Sipping Green Tea Regularly Can Alter How We Oerceive Flavor. While trying to figure out what makes certain beverages cloudy, Cornell researchers made the startling discovery that certain chemicals in green tea -- and perhaps red wine -- react with saliva in ways that can alter how we perceive flavors. (Cornell U.)
  • Zebrafish Provide New Hope for Cancer Treatment. The imaging of tumour growth in zebrafish has revealed for the first time how cancer cells have the capacity to co-opt the immune system into spreading disease, leading the way for investigations into potential therapies for eliminating early-stage cancer in humans. (Bristol U.)
  • One Tale Told is Two Tails Gained. Anolis lizards first entered ASU biologist Kenro Kusumi’s life in 1980 when, as a member of a junior curator program, he recorded in his field notebook that he had found an Anolis egg on a field trip. Kusumi still has those notes, along with other memorabilia that document the influence that both his early life and more recent experiences have had on his current pursuits in developmental biology. (ASU)

December 13

December 8

December 7

  • New Blood Test Could Detect Heart Disease in People with no Symptoms. A more sensitive version of a blood test typically used to confirm that someone is having a heart attack could indicate whether a seemingly healthy, middle-aged person has unrecognized heart disease and an increased risk of dying, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. (UTSMC)

December 6

  • Rice Physicists Help Unravel Mystery of Repetitive DNA Segments. With new tools that can grab individual strands of DNA and stretch them like rubber bands, Rice University scientists are working to unravel a mystery of modern genomics. Their latest findings, which appear in Physical Review Letters, offer new clues about the physical makeup of odd segments of DNA that have just one DNA base, adenine, repeated dozens of times in a row. (Rice U.)

December 2

  • Blacker Than Black. Black is black, right? Not so, according to a team of NASA engineers now developing a blacker-than pitch material that will help scientists gather hard-to-obtain scientific measurements or observe currently unseen astronomical objects, like Earth-sized planets in orbit around other stars. (GSFC)
  • A Step Toward Fusion Power. The long-sought goal of a practical fusion-power reactor has inched closer to reality with new experiments from MIT’s experimental Alcator C-Mod reactor, the highest-performance university-based fusion device in the world. (MIT)

December 1

  • GPS Not Working? A Shoe Radar May Help You Find Your Way. The prevalence of global positioning system (GPS) devices in everything from cars to cell phones has almost made getting lost a thing of the past. But what do you do when your GPS isn’t working? Researchers from North Carolina State University and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed a shoe-embedded radar system that may help you find your way. (NCSU)
  • Evolutionary Psychology: Why Daughters Don’t Call Their Dads. Previous research has shown that when women are in their most fertile phase they become more attracted to certain qualities such as manly faces, masculine voices and competitive abilities. A new study by University of Miami (UM) psychologist Debra Lieberman and her collaborators offers new insight into female sexuality by showing that women also avoid certain traits when they are fertile. (APS)

November 30

  • Making 3D Avatars the Easy Way. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a user-friendly method for creating realistic three-dimensional avatars (graphical representations of computer users) from any digital image. (ATS)

November 28

November 26

  • End to Chronic Pain. Patients with constant pain symptoms and extreme fear of this pain can be treated effectively by repeatedly exposing them to 'scary' situations. This is the conclusion of Dutch researcher Jeroen de Jong. Patients with pain conditions such as post-traumatic dystrophy, which can affect all tissues and functions of the limbs, can benefit from this in-vivo exposure therapy. (NWO)

November 24

  • Engineer Provides New Insight into Pterodactyl Flight. Infestation by bacteria and other pathogens result in global crop losses of over $500 billion annually. A research team led by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology developed a novel trick for identifying how pathogens hijack plant nutrients to take over the organism. (Carnegie I.)
  • Engineer Provides New Insight into Pterodactyl Flight. Giant pterosaurs – ancient reptiles that flew over the heads of dinosaurs – were at their best in gentle tropical breezes, soaring over hillsides and coastlines or floating over land and sea on thermally driven air currents. (Bristol U.)

November 22

  • Astronomers Find 'Rosetta Stone' for T-dwarf Stars. An international team of astronomers have discovered a unique and exotic star system with a very cool methane-rich (or T-) dwarf star and a 'dying' white dwarf stellar remnant in orbit around each other. The system is a 'Rosetta Stone' for T-dwarf stars, giving scientists the first good handle on their mass and age. (RAS)
  • Simple, Efficient Wing-Flapping Motion Proposed for Tiny Air Machines. In the future, tiny air vehicles may be able to fly through cracks in concrete to search for earthquake victims, explore a contaminated building or conduct surveillance missions for the military. But today, designing the best flying mechanism for these miniature aerial machines is still a challenging task. (GIT)
  • Global CO2 Emissions May Set a Record this Year. Global carbon dioxide emissions contributing to atmospheric warming show no sign of abating and may reach record levels in 2010, according to the Global Carbon Project (GCP), supported by CSIRO’s Marine and Atmospheric Research Division. (CSIRO)

November 21

  • Researchers First to Turn Normal Skin Cells into Three-dimensional Cancers in Tissue Culture Dishes. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have successfully transformed normal human tissue into three-dimensional cancers in a tissue culture dish for the first time. Watching how the cells behave as they divide and invade surrounding tissue will help physicians better understand how human cancers act in the body. The new technique also provides a way to quickly and cheaply test anti-cancer drugs without requiring laboratory animals. (Stanford U.)

November 17

November 16

  • A New Read on DNA Sequencing. The twisting, ladder-like form of the DNA molecule – the architectural floor plan of life – contains a universe of information critical to human health. Enormous effort has been invested in deciphering the genetic code, including, most famously, the Human Genome Project. Nevertheless, the process of reading some 3 billion nucleotide "letters" to reveal an individual's full genome remains a costly and complex undertaking. (ASU)
  • Your View of Personal Goals Can Affect Your Relationships. How you think about your goals—whether it’s to improve yourself or to do better than others—can affect whether you reach those goals. Different kinds of goals can also have distinct effects on your relationships with people around you, according to the authors of a paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. (APS)

November 15

  • How Do Neural Stem Cells Decide What to Be -- and When. Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore have uncovered a novel feedback mechanism that controls the delicate balance of brain stem cells. (Duke M.)
  • Mastermind Steroid Found in Plants. Scientists have known for some time how important plant steroids called brassinosteroids are for regulating plant growth and development. But until now, they did not know how extensive their reach is. Now researchers, including Yu Sun and Zhi-Yong Wang at Carnegie’s Department of Plant Biology, have identified about a thousand brassinosteroid target genes, which reveal molecular links between the steroid and numerous cellular functions and other hormonal and light-activated chain reactions. (Carnegie I.)

November 12

November 10

  • Stem Cell Transplants in Mice Produce Lifelong Enhancement of Muscle Mass. A University of Colorado at Boulder-led study shows that specific types of stem cells transplanted into the leg muscles of mice prevented the loss of muscle function and mass that normally occurs with aging, a finding with potential uses in treating humans with chronic, degenerative muscle diseases. (UCB)

November 9

  • Depression Linked To Altered Activity Of Circadian Rhythm Gene. Depression appears to be associated with a molecular-level disturbance in the body’s 24-hour clock, new research suggests. (OSU)
  • Nanogenerators Grow Powerful Enough to Drive Conventional Electronics. Blinking numbers on a liquid-crystal display (LCD) often indicate that a device's clock needs resetting. But in the laboratory of Zhong Lin Wang at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the blinking number on a small LCD signals the success of a five-year effort to power conventional electronic devices with nanoscale generators that harvest mechanical energy from the environment using an array of tiny nanowires. (GIT)
  • ‘Russian Doll’ Galaxy Reveals Black Holes’ True Power. Following a study of what is in effect a miniature galaxy buried inside a normal-sized one – like a Russian doll – astronomers using a CSIRO telescope have concluded that massive black holes are more powerful than we thought. (CSIRO)
  • Skeletons from the 18th Century Reveal Typhus Epidemic from Spain. By studying the dental pulp of skeletons buried in Douai (northern France), researchers from CNRS and the Université de la Méditerranée have identified the pathogenic agents responsible for trench fever and typhus. Published in the journal PLoS ONE, this work reveals for the first time the presence of typhus in Europe at the start of the 18th century and lends weight to the hypothesis that this disease could have been imported into Europe by Spanish conquistadors returning from the Americas. (CNRS)

November 8

  • Astronomers Find Evidence of Cosmic Climate Change. A team of astronomers has found evidence that the universe may have gone through a warming trend early in its history. They measured the temperature of the gas that lies in between galaxies, and found a clear indication that it had increased steadily over the period from when the universe was one tenth to one quarter of its current age. This cosmic climate change is most likely caused by the huge amount of energy output from young, active galaxies during this epoch. (RAS)
  • Fat Cells Reach their Limit and Trigger Changes Linked to Type 2 Diabetes. Scientists have found that the fat cells and tissues of morbidly obese people and animals can reach a limit in their ability to store fat appropriately. Beyond this limit several biological processes conspire to prevent further expansion of fat tissue and in the process may trigger other health problems. (BBSRC)

November 4

November 3

  • Water Flowing Through Ice Sheets Accelerates Warming, Could Speed Up Ice Flow. Melt water flowing through ice sheets via crevasses, fractures and large drains called moulins can carry warmth into ice sheet interiors, greatly accelerating the thermal response of an ice sheet to climate change, according to a new study involving the University of Colorado at Boulder. (U. Colorado)
  • Men and Women Lose Bone Strength as They Age, but for Different Reasons. Everyone loses bone strength as they get older, but the structural changes at work appear to differ between men and women, according to studies published in the journals Bone and the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. (U. Calgary)
  • Volcanoes Have Shifted Asian Rainfall. Scientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and cool the air. Some suspect that extended “volcanic winters” from gigantic blowups helped kill off dinosaurs and Neanderthals. (EICU)
  • Astronomers Discover Most Massive Neutron Star Yet Known. A new propulsion method for metallic micro- and nano-objects has been developed by researchers from the Institute of Molecular Sciences (Institut des sciences moléculaires, CNRS/ENSCBP/Universités Bordeaux 1 and 4). The process is based on the novel concept of bipolar electrochemistry: under the influence of an electric field, one end of a metallic object grows while the other end dissolves. Thanks to this permanent self-regeneration, objects can move at speeds of the order of a hundred micrometers per second. (CNRS)

November 2

October 27

  • Astronomers Discover Most Massive Neutron Star Yet Known. Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered the most massive neutron star yet found, a discovery with strong and wide-ranging impacts across several fields of physics and astrophysics. (NRAO)
  • From Touchpad to Thought-pad? Move over, touchpad screens: New research funded in part by the National Institutes of Health shows that it is possible to manipulate complex visual images on a computer screen using only the mind. (Bristol U.)
  • A Speed Gun for the Earth's Insides. Researchers at the University of Bristol reveal today in the journal Nature that they have developed a seismological ‘speed gun’ for the inside of the Earth. (Bristol U.)

October 26

October 25

  • Balloon Filled with Ground Coffee Makes Ideal Robotic Gripper. The human hand is an amazing machine that can pick up, move and place objects easily, but for a robot, this "gripping" mechanism is a vexing challenge. Opting for simple elegance, researchers from Cornell, the University of Chicago and iRobot Corp. have created a versatile gripper using everyday ground coffee and a latex party balloon, bypassing traditional designs based on the human hand and fingers. (Cornell U.)

October 22

  • Malarial Mosquitoes are Evolving into New Species. Two strains of the type of mosquito responsible for the majority of malaria transmission in Africa have evolved such substantial genetic differences that they are becoming different species, according to researchers behind two new studies published in the journal Science. (ICL)

October 20

October 19

  • Insulin Sensitivity May Explain Link Between Obesity, Memory Problems. Because of impairments in their insulin sensitivity, obese individuals demonstrate different brain responses than their normal-weight peers while completing a challenging cognitive task, according to new research by psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin. (UTA)
  • First Direct Evidence that Response to Alcohol Depends on Genes. Many studies have suggested that genetic differences make some individuals more susceptible to the addictive effects of alcohol and other drugs. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory provide the first experimental evidence to directly support this idea in a study in mice reported in the October 19, 2010, issue of Alcoholism Clinical Experimental Research. (BNL)

October 15

October 13

October 12

October 11

  • Too Much Light At Night At Night May Lead To Obesity. Persistent exposure to light at night may lead to weight gain, even without changing physical activity or eating more food, according to new research in mice. (OSU)
  • Dogs May Be Pessimistic Too. A study has gained new insight into the minds of dogs, discovering that those that are anxious when left alone also tend to show ‘pessimistic’ like behaviour. (Bristol U.)

October 10

October 6

  • Microbes for Biofuel: a Cleaner Way to Unlock their Energy. Algae and photosynthetic bacteria hold a hidden treasure – fat molecules known as lipids – which can be converted to renewable biofuels. Such microorganisms offer an attractive alternative to the unsustainable use of petroleum-based fossil fuels, as well as biofuel sources requiring arable cropland. (ASU)
  • Number of Synapses Shown to Vary between Night and Day in Study of Zebrafish. With the help of tiny, see-through fish, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers are homing in on what happens in the brain while you sleep. In a new study, they show how the circadian clock and sleep affect the scope of neuron-to-neuron connections in a particular region of the brain, and they identified a gene that appears to regulate the number of these connections, called synapses. (Stanford U.)

October 5

October 4

  • Ancient Colorado River Flowed Backwards. Geologists have found evidence that some 55 million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. Writing in the October issue of the journal Geology, they have named this ancient northeastward-flowing river the California River, after its inferred source in the Mojave region of southern California. (Carnegie I.)

October 1

  • Loud Grunts May Give Tennis Players a Competitive Edge. You’ve heard them at tennis matches – loud, emphatic grunts with each player’s stroke. A new study by University of British Columbia and University of Hawaii researchers suggest these grunts may hinder opponents’ ability to accurately perceive and respond to the ball. (UBC)

September 30

  • Brain Chemical Finding Could Open Door to New Schizophrenia Drugs. New research has linked psychosis with an abnormal relationship between two signalling chemicals in the brain. The findings, published in tomorrow’s edition of the journal Biological Psychiatry, suggest a new approach to preventing psychotic symptoms, which could lead to better drugs for schizophrenia. (ICL)

September 29

  • Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered. Astronomers have found a new, potentially habitable Earth-sized planet. It is one of two new planets discovered around the star Gliese 581, some 20 light years away. The planet, Gliese 581g, is located in a “habitable zone”—a distance from the star where the planet receives just the right amount of stellar energy to maintain liquid water at or near the planet’s surface. (Carnegie I.)
  • A Link between Dementia, High Blood Pressure and Blood Flow in the Brain? Blood flow through the brain is essential for the delivery of nutrients such as glucose and oxygen that are needed for nerve cells to function. During the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients can suffer from high blood pressure and blood flow through the brain is reduced: the greater the reduction, the worse patients' dementia becomes. (Bristol U.)

September 27

  • Semiconductor Could Turn Heat Into Computing Power. Computers might one day recycle part of their own waste heat, using a material being studied by researchers at Ohio State University. (OSU)
  • 'Gold' Fish Thrive, Cancers Die. Rice University physicist Dmitri Lapotko has demonstrated that plasmonic nanobubbles, generated around gold nanoparticles with a laser pulse, can detect and destroy cancer cells in vivo by creating tiny, shiny vapor bubbles that reveal the cells and selectively explode them. (Rice U.)

September 26

  • Quantum Signals Converted to Telecommunications Wavelengths. Using optically dense, ultra-cold clouds of rubidium atoms, researchers have made advances in three key elements needed for quantum information systems -- including a technique for converting photons carrying quantum data to wavelengths that can be transmitted long distances on optical fiber telecom networks. (GIT)

September 24

  • Scientists Recreate Extreme Conditions Deep in Earth’s Interior. Scientists have wondered for some time why certain seismic waves travel more quickly through the core-mantle boundary, a thin layer of the Earth’s interior that lies between about 1675 and 1800 miles below the surface. Now a new study by Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley sheds light on the mystery by showing how this region behaves under the extreme conditions found so deep in the Earth. (Yale U.)

September 23

September 21

  • Parting the Waters: Computer Modeling Applies Physics to Red Sea Escape Route. The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters. (UCAR)
  • Robots Could Improve Everyday Life at Home or Work. They're mundane, yet daunting tasks: Tidying a messy room. Assembling a bookshelf from a kit of parts. Fetching a hairbrush for someone who can't do it herself. What if a robot could do it for you? (Cornell U.)

September 20

  • Nano Antenna Concentrates Light. Everybody who's ever used a TV, radio or cell phone knows what an antenna does: It captures the aerial signals that make those devices practical. A lab at Rice University has built an antenna that captures light in the same way, at a small scale that has big potential. (Rice U.)
  • Genomic ‘Haircut’ Makes World’s Tiniest Genome even Smaller. The world’s tiniest nuclear genome appears to have “snipped off the ends” of its chromosomes and evolved into a lean, mean, genome machine that infects human cells, according to research published today by University of British Columbia scientists. (UBC)

September 19

September 17

  • Long-term Use of Osteoporosis Drugs Associated with Unusual Fractures. Most hip fractures due to osteoporosis follow a pattern: the patient falls, and the bones around the hip joint shatter into pieces. But 2 to 3 years ago, orthopedic surgeons began seeing an increase in unusual breaks that snapped the thighbone in two, often with no warning. (CUMC)

September 15

  • Electron Switch Between Molecules Points Way To New High-Powered Organic Batteries. The development of new organic batteries — lightweight energy storage devices that work without the need for toxic heavy metals — has a brighter future now that chemists have discovered a new way to pass electrons back and forth between two molecules. (UTA)
  • Perception of Emotion Is Culture-Specific. Want to know how a Japanese person is feeling? Pay attention to the tone of his voice, not his face. That’s what other Japanese people would do, anyway. A new study examines how Dutch and Japanese people assess others’ emotions and finds that Dutch people pay attention to the facial expression more than Japanese people do. (APS)

September 14

  • Making Bees Less Busy: Social Environment Changes Internal Clocks. Honey bees removed from their usual roles in the hive quickly and drastically changed their biological rhythms, according to a study in the Sept. 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The changes were evident in both the bees’ behavior and in their internal clocks. These findings indicate that social environment has a significant effect on the physiology and behavior of animals. In people, disturbances to the biological clock are known to cause problems for shift workers and new parents and for contributing to mood disorders. (SfN)

September 13

  • Tick, Tock: Rods Help Set Internal Clocks, Johns Hopkins Biologist Says. We run our modern lives largely by the clock, from the alarms that startle us out of our slumbers and herald each new workday to the watches and clocks that remind us when it’s time for meals, after-school pick-up and the like. (JHU)
  • Solar Funnel. Solar cells are usually grouped in large arrays, often on rooftops, because each cell can generate only a limited amount of power. However, not every building has enough space for a huge expanse of solar panels. (MIT)

September 9

  • Random Numbers Game with Quantum Dice. Behind every coincidence lies a plan - in the world of classical physics, at least. In principle, every event, including the fall of dice or the outcome of a game of roulette, can be explained in mathematical terms. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen have constructed a device that works on the principle of true randomness. (MPG)

September 8

  • Why the Biological Clock? Penn Study Says Aging Reduces Centromere Cohesion, Disrupts Reproduction. University of Pennsylvania biologists studying human reproduction have identified what is likely the major contributing factor to the maternal age-associated increase in aneuploidy, the term for an abnormal number of chromosomes during reproductive cell division. (U. Penn)
  • Study Adds New Clue to How Last Ice Age Ended. As the last ice age was ending, about 13,000 years ago, a final blast of cold hit Europe, and for a thousand years or more, it felt like the ice age had returned. But oddly, despite bitter cold winters in the north, Antarctica was heating up. For the two decades since ice core records revealed that Europe was cooling at the same time Antarctica was warming over this thousand-year period, scientists have looked for an explanation. (LDEO)
  • Elephants, Unfazed by Dynamite, Seek to Avoid Humans. Elephants are not bothered by dynamite explosions, but nearby human activity prompts them to dramatically change their behavior, reports a Cornell study that used automated listening devices to monitor elephant behavior in Gabon. (Cornell U.)
  • Ants Found to Use Multiple Antibiotics as Weed Killers. Research led by Dr Matt Hutchings at the University of East Anglia and involving The Genome Analysis Centre and the John Innes Centre, both BBSRC Institutes, shows that ants use the antibiotics to inhibit the growth of unwanted fungi and bacteria in their fungus cultures which they use to feed their larvae and queen. (BBSRC)

September 7

September 3

  • Water in Earth’s Mantle Key to Survival of Oldest Continents. Earth today is one of the most active planets in the Solar System, and was probably even more so during the early stages of its life. Thanks to the plate tectonics that continue to shape our planet’s surface, remnants of crust from Earth’s formative years are rare, but not impossible to find. A paper published in Nature Sept. 2 examines how some ancient rocks have resisted being recycled into Earth’s convecting interior. (ASU)

September 2

September 1

  • Researchers Discover How to Conduct First Test of ‘Untestable’ String Theory. String theory was originally developed to describe the fundamental particles and forces that make up our universe. The new research, led by a team from Imperial College London, describes the unexpected discovery that string theory also seems to predict the behaviour of entangled quantum particles. As this prediction can be tested in the laboratory, researchers can now test string theory. (ICL)
  • Evolution Rewritten, Again and Again. Palaeontologists are forever claiming that their latest fossil discovery will 'rewrite evolutionary history'. Is this just boasting or is our 'knowledge' of evolution so feeble that it changes every time we find a new fossil? (Bristol U.)

August 31

  • Silicon Oxide Circuits Break Barrier. Rice University scientists have created the first two-terminal memory chips that use only silicon, one of the most common substances on the planet, in a way that should be easily adaptable to nanoelectronic manufacturing techniques and promises to extend the limits of miniaturization subject to Moore's Law. (Rice U.)

August 30

August 25

  • Tiny, New, Pea-Sized Frog is Old World's Smallest. The smallest frog in the Old World (Asia, Africa and Europe) and one of the world's tiniest was discovered inside and around pitcher plants in the heath forests of the Southeast Asian island of Borneo. The pea-sized amphibian is a species of microhylid, which, as the name suggests, is composed of miniature frogs under 15 millimeters. (Conservation I.)

August 24

  • Genetic Structure of First Animal to Show Evolutionary Response to Climate Change Determined. Scientists at the University of Oregon have determined the fine-scale genetic structure of the first animal to show an evolutionary response to rapid climate change. (NSF)
  • Solar System May Be 2 Million Years Older than We Thought. Timescales of early Solar System processes rely on precise, accurate and consistent ages obtained with radiometric dating. However, recent advances in instrumentation now allow scientists to make more precise measurements, some of which are revealing inconsistencies in the ages of samples. Seeking better constraints on the age of the Solar System, Arizona State University researchers Audrey Bouvier and Meenakshi Wadhwa analyzed meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 2364 and found that the age of the Solar System predates previous estimates by up to 1.9 million years. (ASU)
  • New Architectures for Nano Brushes. Just as cilia lining the lungs help keep passages clear by moving particles along the tips of the tiny hair-structures, man-made miniscule bristles known as nano-brushes can help reduce friction along surfaces at the molecular level, among other things. (Duke U.)

August 23

  • Good Vibrations: New Atom-scale Products on Horizon. The generation of an electric field by the compression and expansion of solid materials is known as the piezoelectric effect, and it has a wide range of applications ranging from everyday items such as watches, motion sensors and precise positioning systems. Researchers at McGill University's Department of Chemistry have now discovered how to control this effect in nanoscale semiconductors called "quantum dots," enabling the development of incredibly tiny new products. (McGill U.)

August 22

  • Peregrine’s 'Soliton' Observed at Last. An old mathematical solution proposed as a prototype of the infamous ocean rogue waves responsible for many maritime catastrophes has been observed in a continuous physical system for the first time. (Bristol U.)

August 19

  • Astronomers Use Galactic Magnifying Lens to Probe Elusive Dark Energy. A team of astronomers has used a massive galaxy cluster as a cosmic magnifying lens to study the nature of dark energy for the first time. When combined with existing techniques, their results significantly improve current measurements of the mass and energy content of the universe. The findings appear in the August 20 issue of the journal Science. (Yale U.)

August 17

  • Discovery of Possible Earliest Animal Life Pushes Back Fossil Record. Scientists may have discovered in Australia the oldest fossils of animal bodies. These findings push back the clock on the scientific world's thinking regarding when animal life appeared on Earth. The results suggest that primitive sponge-like creatures lived in ocean reefs about 650 million years ago. (NSF)
  • Evolution May Have Pushed Humans Toward Greater Risk for Type-1 Diabetes. Gene variants associated with an increased risk for type-1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis may confer previously unknown benefits to their human carriers, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As a result, the human race may have been evolving in the recent past to be more susceptible, rather than less, to some complex diseases, they conclude. (Stanford U.)

August 16

  • Resolving the Paradox of the Antarctic Sea Ice. While Arctic sea ice has been diminishing in recent decades, the Antarctic sea ice extent has been increasing slightly. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology provide an explanation for the seeming paradox of increasing Antarctic sea ice in a warming climate. (GIT)
  • Berkeley Study Shows Ozone and Nicotine a Bad Combination for Asthma. Another reason for including asthma on the list of potential health risks posed by secondhand tobacco smoke, especially for non-smokers, has been uncovered. Furthermore, the practice of using ozone to remove the smell of tobacco smoke from indoor environments, including hotel rooms and the interiors of vehicles, is probably a bad idea. (LBNL)

August 13

  • Scientists Call for a Global Nuclear Renaissance in New Study. Scientists outline a 20-year master plan for the global renaissance of nuclear energy that could see nuclear reactors with replaceable parts, portable mini-reactors, and ship-borne reactors supplying countries with clean energy, in research published today in the journal Science. (ICL)
  • Discovery Points to Ancestor 'Lucy' Use of Stone Tools, Meat Consumption. Two Arizona State University researchers conducting zooarchaeological and archaeometric analyses of four fossilized animal bone fragments found by the Dikika Research Project in northeastern Ethiopia – within walking distance of the discovery of the hominin skeleton “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis) – confirm that unusual marks on the bones were inflicted by stone tools. Their conclusion weighs in on findings reported in the Aug. 12 journal Nature, that A. afarensis used sharp-edged stones and a strong striking force to cleave flesh and marrow from large-sized animal carcasses some 3.4 million years ago. (Arizona S. U.)

August 12

  • New Evidence that Matter and Antimatter May Behave Differently. Neutrinos, elementary particles generated by nuclear reactions in the sun, suffer from an identity crisis as they cross the universe, morphing between three different “flavors.” Their antimatter counterparts (which are identical in mass but opposite in charge and spin) do the same thing. (MIT)

August 10

  • Measuring the Speed of Thought. If the eyes are the window to the soul, psychologists hoping to solve the mystery of why our neural impulses do not always trigger an immediate response could find the answer in the flick of the eye. (Bristol U.)
  • Dogs' Wide Range of Physical Traits Controlled by Small Number of Genetic Regions. Sure, dogs are special. You might not be aware, however, that studying their genomes can lead to advances in human health. So next time you gaze soulfully into a dog’s eyes or scratch behind its ears, take note of the length of his nose or the size of his body. Although such attributes can vary wildly among different breeds, a team of investigators co-led by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, Cornell University and the National Human Genome Research Institute have found that they are determined by only a few genetic regions. (Stanford U.)

August 9

August 5

  • Mimicking the Moon’s Surface in the Basement. A team of scientists used an ion beam in a basement room at Los Alamos National Laboratory to simulate solar winds on the surface of the Moon. The table-top simulation helped confirm that the Moon is inherently dry. (LANL)

August 4

  • Coastal Creatures May Have Reduced Ability to Fight off Infections in Acidified Oceans. Human impact is causing lower oxygen and higher carbon dioxide levels in coastal water bodies. Increased levels of carbon dioxide cause the water to become more acidic, having dramatic effects on the lifestyles of the wildlife that call these regions home. The problems are expected to worsen if steps aren’t taken to reduce greenhouse emissions and minimize nutrient-rich run-off from developed areas along our coastlines. (APS)
  • Emotions Help Animals to Make Choices. To understand how animals experience the world and how they should be treated, people need to better understand their emotional lives. (Bristol U.)

August 2

  • Gain and Loss in Optimistic Versus Pessimistic Brains. Our belief as to whether we will likely succeed or fail at a given task—and the consequences of winning or losing—directly affects the levels of neural effort put forth in movement-planning circuits in the human cortex, according to a new brain-imaging study by neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology. (Caltech)
  • Culture Wires the Brain. Where you grow up can have a big impact on the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and even how your brain works. In a report in a special section on Culture and Psychology in the July Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Denise C. Park from the University of Texas at Dallas and Chih-Mao Huang from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discuss ways in which brain structure and function may be influenced by culture. (APS)

July 31

July 30

  • Protein Helps Prevent Damaged DNA in Yeast. Like a scout that runs ahead to spot signs of damage or danger, a protein in yeast safeguards the yeast cells' genome during replication -- a process vulnerable to errors when DNA is copied -- according to new Cornell research. (Cornell U.)

July 29

  • If Spiders and Worms Can Do It, Why Can't We? Future research could spin up new medical and materials breakthroughs based on silk, but obstacles remain in quest to replicate natural silk production, scientists say in this week's edition of Science. (NSF)
  • CSIRO Develops New Oil Detection Technique. CSIRO scientists have developed a revolutionary technique for the rapid on-site detection and quantification of petroleum hydrocarbons (commonly derived from crude oil) in soil, silt, sediment, or rock. (CSIRO)

July  28

  • Nanomaterials Poised for Big Impact in Construction. Nanomaterials are poised for widespread use in the construction industry, where they can offer significant advantages for a variety of applications ranging from making more durable concrete to self-cleaning windows. But widespread use in building materials comes with potential environmental and health risks when those materials are thrown away.. (Rice U.)
  • In the 'Neck' of Time: Scientists Unravel Key Evolutionary Trait Leading to Better Brain Power. By deciphering the genetics in humans and fish, scientists now believe that the neck -- that little body part between your head and shoulders -- gave humans so much freedom of movement that it played a surprising and major role in the evolution of the human brain. (Cornell U.)

July  26

  • Converging Weather Patterns Caused Last Winter's Huge Snows. The memory of last winter’s blizzards may be fading in this summer’s searing heat, but scientists studying them have detected a perfect storm of converging weather patterns that had little relation to climate change. The extraordinarily cold, snowy weather that hit parts of the U.S. East Coast and Europe was the result of a collision of two periodic weather patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds. (LDEO)

July  22

  • Breakdown of Bone Keeps Blood Sugar in Check. Researchers led by Columbia University Medical Center have discovered that the skeleton plays an important role in regulating blood sugar and have further illuminated how bone controls this process. The finding, published in Cell, is important because it may lead to more targeted drugs for type 2 diabetes. (CUMC)

July  21

  • Bursting a Bubble? Understanding the processes that cause volcanic eruptions can help scientists predict how often and how violently a volcano will erupt. Although scientists have a general idea of how these processes work — the melting of magma below the volcano causes liquid magma and gases to force their way to Earth’s surface — eruptions happen so rarely, and often with little warning, that it can be difficult to study them in detail. (MIT)
  • Caltech Team Finds Evidence of Water in Moon Minerals. That dry, dusty moon overhead? Seems it isn't quite as dry as it's long been thought to be. Although you won't find oceans, lakes, or even a shallow puddle on its surface, a team of geologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working with colleagues at the University of Tennessee, has found structurally bound hydroxyl groups (i.e., water) in a mineral in a lunar rock returned to Earth by the Apollo program. (Caltech)

July  20

July  19

  • Laughter is not Just Funny. Everybody enjoys a laugh but new research from an international team shows it's not as simple as you might think. (Newcastle U.)
  • Global Model Confirms: Cool Roofs Can Offset Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Mitigate Global Warming. Can light-colored rooftops and roads really curb carbon emissions and combat global climate change? The idea has been around for years, but now, a new study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that is the first to use a global model to study the question has found that implementing cool roofs and cool pavements in cities around the world can not only help cities stay cooler, they can also cool the world, with the potential of canceling the heating effect of up to two years of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. (LBNL)
  • Frog Killer Caught in the Act. A killer has been caught in the act: the first before-and-after view of an infectious disease that led to an amphibian die-off has been released by the scientists who tracked it. (NSF)

July  16

  • Scientists Identify Nature's Insect Repellents. In the battle between insect predators and their prey, chemical signals called kairomones serve as an early-warning system. Pervasively emitted by the predators, the compounds are detected by their prey, and can even trigger adaptations, such a change in body size or armor, that help protect the prey. But as widespread as kairomones are in the insect world, their chemical identity has remained largely unknown. (Rockefeller U.)

July  14

  • Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span. It's nearly impossible to pay attention to one thing for a long time. A new study looks at whether Buddhist meditation can improve a person's ability to be attentive and finds that meditation training helps people do better at focusing for a long time on a task that requires them to distinguish small differences between things they see. (APS)

July  13

July  12

  • Fibers that Can Hear and Sing. For centuries, "man-made fibers" meant the raw stuff of clothes and ropes; in the information age, it's come to mean the filaments of glass that carry data in communications networks. But to Yoel Fink, an associate professor of materials science and principal investigator at MIT's Research Lab of Electronics, the threads used in textiles and even optical fibers are much too passive. For the past decade, his lab has been working to develop fibers with ever more sophisticated properties, to enable fabrics that can interact with their environment. (MIT)
  • The Brain of the Fly - a High-speed Computer. What would be the point of holding a soccer world championship if we couldn't distinguish the ball from its background? Simply unthinkable! But then again, wouldn't it be fantastic if your favourite team's striker could see the movements of the ball in slow motion! Unfortunately, this advantage only belongs to flies. (MPG)
  • Personalized Approach to Smoking Cessation May Be Reality in Three to Five Years. A personalized approach to smoking cessation therapy is quickly taking shape. New evidence from Duke University Medical Center and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) suggests that combining information about a smoker’s genetic makeup with his or her smoking habits can accurately predict which nicotine replacement therapy will work best. (DUMC)

July  8

  • Geoscientists Find Clues to Why First Sumatran Earthquake Was Deadlier Than Second. An international team of geoscientists has uncovered geological differences between two segments of an earthquake fault that may explain why the 2004 Sumatra Boxing Day Tsunami was so much more devastating than a second earthquake generated tsunami three months later. This could help solve what was a lingering mystery for earthquake researchers. (UTA)

July  7

  • Ethanol-fueled Racecar Engines Outpower Lead-fueled Engines. A group of automotive researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and industry have shown that a fuel-injected racing car engine fueled by E-85, an ethanol-based fuel, outperforms the same engine with a carburetor and leaded racing fuel. (ANL)
  • Pinpoint Precision: Nanowires Deliver Biochemical Payloads to One Cell Among Many. Imagine being able to drop a toothpick on the head of one particular person standing among 100,000 people in a sports stadium. It sounds impossible, yet this degree of precision at the cellular level has been demonstrated by researchers affiliated with The Johns Hopkins University Institute for NanoBioTechnology. (Johns Hopkins U.)

July  6

July  1

  • Recognition at First Glance. We meet a multitude of people on a daily basis: the nice waitress in the coffee shop around the corner, the bus driver or the colleagues at the office. Without the ability to recognize faces at first glance we would not be able to distinguish between people. Monkeys also possess the remarkable ability to differentiate faces of group members and to extract the relevant information about the individual directly from the face. With the help of the so called Thatcher illusion, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, have examined how people and macaque monkeys recognize faces and process the information in the brain. They found out that both species perceive the faces of their kin immediately, while the faces of the other species are processed in a different way. (MPG)

June  30

  • Electrons are Late Starters. When physicists search for new semiconductors for chips or lasers, they have been able to rely on sophisticated computer programs - until now. However, it is possible that the models these programs have used to predict the electronic properties of a material oversimplify reality. An international team that includes researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics has now determined this from measurements with extremely short laser pulses. The physicists have concluded from this that electrons which a laser pulse knock out of an atom are catapulted from the particle with a delay of several tens of attoseconds. (MPG)
  • Caltech Researchers Show How Active Immune Tolerance Makes Pregnancy Possible. The concept of pregnancy makes no sense—at least not from an immunological point of view. After all, a fetus, carrying half of its father's genome, is biologically distinct from its mother. The fetus is thus made of cells and tissues that are very much not "self"—and not-self is precisely what the immune system is meant to search out and destroy. (Caltech)

June  29

June  28

  • Science Historian Cracks "the Plato code". A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked “The Plato Code” – the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher’s writings. (Manchester U.)

June  24

  • In a First, Astronomers Detect Strong Winds on an Exoplanet. Since the first exoplanet — a planet outside our solar system — was discovered in 1995, more than 460 others have been found. While astronomers have been able to measure the size, orbital characteristics, and even some of the molecules that make up the atmospheres of some exoplanets, many mysteries about their formation and evolution remain. (MIT)
  • How Touch Can Influence Judgments. Psychologists report in the journal Science that interpersonal interactions can be shaped, profoundly yet unconsciously, by the physical attributes of incidental objects: Resumes reviewed on a heavy clipboard are judged to be more substantive, while a negotiator seated in a soft chair is less likely to drive a hard bargain. (Harvard U.)

June  22

  • Ancient Egypt : First Absolute Chronology of Dynastic Egypt Established. Carbon 14 dating has recently enabled an international team of researchers to establish an absolute chronology of Dynastic Egypt (approximately 1100-2700 years BC) for the first time. The analysis of short-lived organic samples archeologically attributed to a specific reign or period of Egyptian history, has confirmed previous chronological estimates, but has also called other estimates into question. (CNRS)

June  21

  • Oceans Stem the Tide of Evolution. Toxic seas may have been responsible for delaying the evolution of life on Earth by 1 billion years, experts at Newcastle University have revealed. (Newcastle U.)

June  18

  • Like Fireflies, Earthquakes May Fire in Synchrony. In nature, random signals often fall mysteriously in step. Fireflies flashing sporadically in early evening soon flash together, and the same harmonic behavior can be seen in chirping crickets, firing neurons, swinging clock pendulums and now, it turns out, rupturing earthquake faults. (EICU)
  • Enzyme Trio for Biosynthesis of Hydrocarbon Fuels. If concerns for global climate change and ever-increasing costs weren’t enough, the disastrous Gulf oil spill makes an even more compelling case for the development of transportation fuels that are renewable, can be produced in a sustainable fashion, and do not put the environment at risk. Liquid fuels derived from plant biomass have the potential to be used as direct replacements for gasoline, diesel and jet fuels if cost-effective means of commercial production can be found. (LBNL)

June  17

  • New Research Shows Malaria Threat is as Old as Humanity. New research published today by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) shows that malaria is tens of thousands of years older than previously thought. An international team, led by researchers at Imperial College London, have found that the potentially deadly tropical disease evolved alongside anatomically modern humans and moved with our ancestors as they migrated out of Africa around 60-80,000 years ago. (BBSRC)

June  16

  • Hay Fever Relief May Be in Your Fridge. Hay fever sufferers will learn if the answer to their annual summer discomfort could already be available on supermarket shelves or even lurking in their fridge. (BBSRC)

June  15

  • Images from Space Reveal Ground-level Flood Threat. Satellite imagery captured hundreds of miles from the Earth’s surface is being used to analyse the flood risks of some of the world’s largest regions, using data that researchers hope could become freely available in efforts to provide a more immediate response to natural disasters. (Bristol U.)

June  14

  • Moon Whets Appetite for Water. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues, have discovered a much higher water content in the Moon’s interior than previous studies. Their research suggests that the water, which is a component of the lunar rocks, was preserved from the hot magma that was present when the Moon began to form some 4.5 billion years ago, and that it is likely widespread in the Moon’s interior. (Carnegie I.)

June  11

  • New Method Offers Platform for Brain Treatment. The ability to diagnose and treat brain dysfunction without surgery may rely on a new method of non-invasive brain stimulation using pulsed ultrasound developed by a team of scientists, led by William “Jamie” Tyler, a neuroscientist at Arizona State University. (ASU)

June  10

  • Stretching Single Molecules Allows Precision Studies of Interacting Electrons. Scientists everywhere are trying to study the electrical properties of single molecules. With controlled stretching of such molecules, Cornell researchers have demonstrated that single-molecule devices can serve as powerful new tools for fundamental science experiments. Their work has resulted in detailed tests of long-existing theories on how electrons interact at the nanoscale. (Cornell U.)

June  8

  • Getting a Grip on Stroke Treatment. When someone suffers a stroke, time is critical--more than a million brain cells die each minute, starved of nourishment due to critical damage in a cerebral blood vessel. (NSF)

June  7

  • How the Brain Recognizes Objects. A new computational model sheds light on the workings of the human visual system and could help advance artificial-intelligence research, too. (MIT)
  • Amount of Dust, Pollen Matters for Precipitation in Clouds, Climate Change. Large numbers of dust and pollen particles in the atmosphere may make your nose twitch, but when lifted to the heights where clouds form they can lead directly to greater precipitation in some clouds, Colorado State University atmospheric scientists have discovered. (Colorado SU)
  • East African Human Ancestors Lived in Hot Environments. East Africa's Turkana Basin has been a hot savanna region for at least the past 4 million years—including the period of time during which early hominids evolved in this area—says a team of researchers led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). These findings may shed light on the evolutionary pressures that led humans to walk upright, lose most of our body hair, develop a more slender physique, and sweat more copiously than other animals. (Caltech)
  • Study Looks at Potential Effects of Multi-touch Devices. The evolution of computer systems has freed us from keyboards and now is focusing on multi-touch systems, those finger-flicking, intuitive and easy-to-learn computer manipulations that speed the use of any electronic device from cell phones to iPads. But little is known about the long-term stresses on our bodies through the use of these systems. (ASU)

June  4

  • The Wuest for the Modern Day Methuselahs. An international research team has for the first time gathered a database of the oldest people in the world - those who lived beyond their 110th birthday. While searching for these "supercentenarians" and trying to find accurate documentation of their age, the researchers not only collected data for scientific purposes, but also documented the personal histories and wisdom of those who lived more than a century. (MPG)

June  3

  • The Dilemma of Plants Fighting Infections. Scientists from Tübingen reveal an evolutionary dilemma: plants that are more resistant to disease grow more slowly and are less competitive than susceptible relatives when enemies are rare. (MPG)

June  2

  • More is Less. Complex computer models can involve thousands of variables. But paradoxically, adding more variables can sometimes make them easier to work with. (MIT)
  • Discrepant Features Found in Cosmic Ray Energy Spectra. In May a University of Maryland-led team of scientists reported some previously unknown features in the energy spectra of cosmic ray nuclei, which have been studied for almost 100 years. Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 with an electroscope carried on a manned hot air balloon. (U. Maryland)
  • First Images of Heavy Electrons in Action. Using a microscope designed to image the arrangement and interactions of electrons in crystals, scientists have captured the first images of electrons that appear to take on extraordinary mass under certain extreme conditions.  (BNL)

June  1

  • New Discovery into Causes of Tremor. Mild tremor is a feature of daily life in healthy individuals – we have all experienced it, especially when nervous, tired or hungry. But more severe tremors are a symptom of nervous diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and Essential Tremor. Essential tremor is common in old age, but younger people can also be affected, and in severe cases it can leave patients unable to walk unaided. (Newcastle U.)

May  31

  • Particle Chameleon Caught in the Act of Changing. Researchers on the OPERA experiment at the INFN’s Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy today announced the first direct observation of a tau particle in a muon neutrino beam sent through the Earth from CERN2, 730km away. This is a significant result, providing the final missing piece of a puzzle that has been challenging science since the 1960s, and giving tantalizing hints of new physics to come. (CERN)

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