November 30

  • Researchers Brewing Energy From Sweet Potatoes. Sweet potatoes, a staple on holiday dinner tables, are being re-engineered by North Carolina State University scientists as source of ethanol to help the U.S. reduce its dependence on imported oil – and ease the biofuel industry’s troublesome reliance on corn. (NCSU)
  • Pulselike and Cracklike Ruptures in Earthquake Experiments. Lab experiments that mimic the way the ground moves during destructive earthquakes require some sophisticated equipment, and they yield valuable insights. Caltech scientists studying how sliding motion spreads along a fault interface conducted a series of experiments involving ultrafast digital cameras and high-speed laser velocimeters to replicate a range of realistic fault conditions. (Caltech)

November 29

  • Recipe for a Storm: The Ingredients for More Powerful Atlantic Hurricanes. As the world warms, the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean and atmosphere may be the recipe for stronger, more frequent hurricanes. (UWM)
  • Astronomers Find Stellar Cradle Where Planets Form. Astronomers at the University of Illinois have found the first clear evidence for a cradle in space where planets and moons form. The cradle, revealed in photographs taken with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, consists of a flattened envelope of gas and dust surrounding a young protostar. (UIUC)
  • Helium Isotopes Point to New Sources of Geothermal Energy. In a survey of the northern Basin and Range province of the western United States, geochemists Mack Kennedy of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Matthijs van Soest of Arizona State University have discovered a new tool for identifying potential geothermal energy resources. (LBNL)

November 28

November 27

November 26

November 23

  • New T-ray Source Could Improve Airport Security, Cancer Detection. Going through airport security can be such a hassle. Shoes, laptops, toothpastes, watches and belts all get taken off, taken out, scanned, examined, handled and repacked. But "T-rays", a completely safe form of electromagnetic radiation, may reshape not only airport screening procedures but also medical imaging practices. (ANL)

November 22

  • Transporting Gold Across Physical Boundaries. Achieving the desired effect is often only a question of the right place and the right moment - and this also applies to drugs. In order to be transported in the bloodstream, they need to be water-soluble. However, in order to get past cell membranes, they have to be fat-soluble. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces have now developed a method with which they can channel nanoparticles originating from gold atoms from a water solution into an oil. (MPG)
  • Rising Tides Intensify Non-volcanic Tremor in Earth's Crust. For more than a decade geoscientists have detected what amount to ultra-slow-motion earthquakes under Western Washington and British Columbia on a regular basis, about every 14 months. Such episodic tremor-and-slip events typically last two to three weeks and can release as much energy as a large earthquake, though they are not felt and cause no damage. (U. Washington)
  • Tiny DNA Molecules Show Liquid Crystal Phases, Pointing To New Scenario For First Life On Earth. A team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Milan has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth. (BNL)

November 21

  • Genetic Underpinnings of Wood Digestion by Termite Gut Microbes Revealed. When termites are chewing on your home, your immediate thought probably isn't "I wonder how they digest that stuff?" But biologists have been gnawing on the question for more than a century. The key is not just the termite, but what lives in its gut. A multitude of genes from the microbes populating the hindgut of a termite have been sequenced and analyzed, and the findings reported today in the journal Nature. (Caltech)
  • Vitamin E Could Help 40% of Diabetics Ward Off Heart Attacks. Vitamin E supplements can significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks and related deaths for diabetics who carry a particular version of a gene, according to researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Clalit Health Services in Israel. (Technion)
  • Mars' Molten Past. Mars was covered in an ocean of molten rock for about 100 million years after the planet formed, researchers from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, UC Davis, and NASA's Johnson Space Center have found. (UC Davis)
  • Astronomers May Have Found Another Way that Stars Evolve. Astronomers have discovered white dwarf stars with pure carbon atmospheres. These stars possibly evolved in a sequence astronomers didn't know before. (U. Arizona)
  • Giant Fossil Sea Scorpion Bigger than a Man. The discovery of a giant fossilised claw from an ancient sea scorpion indicates that when alive it would have been about two-and-a-half meters long, much taller than the average man. (Bristol U.)

November 20

  • Research Sheds Light on Behavior of Iron in Earth's Lower Mantle. New research by an international team of scientists from seven different institutions including Northwestern University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, The University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory reveals unusual changes in the state of iron under high pressures and temperatures, which correspond to conditions deep in Earth's lower mantle. (Northwestern U.)
  • Thermoelectric Materials are One Key to Energy Savings. Breathing new life into an old idea, MIT Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus and co-workers are developing innovative materials for controlling temperatures that could lead to substantial energy savings by allowing more efficient car engines, photovoltaic cells and electronic devices. (MIT)
  • Bees are the New Silkworms. Moths and butterflies, particularly silkworms, are well known producers of silk. And we all know spiders use it for their webs. But they are not the only invertebrates who make use of the strength and versatility of silk. (CSIRO)
  • Living Cancer Cells Photographed in 3-D. Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have captured three-dimensional images revealing microscopic changes to the inner workings of cells that occur at the earliest stages of cancer, suggesting a possible new method of disease detection. (Duke U.)

November 19

  • Discovery of Hydrogen-7, the Most Exotic Nuclear System Ever Observed. A European team, among whose members are physicists at GANIL (the French Large Heavy-ion Accelerator IN2P3/CNRS/CEA), has succeeded in characterizing the most neutron-rich isotope ever observed, hydrogen-7. (CNRS)
  • New Technique Captures Chemical Reactions in a Single Living Cell for the First Time. Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered a technique that for the first time enables the detection of biomolecules' dynamic reactions in a single living cell. (UC Berkeley)
  • Researchers Find Memory Can Be Manipulated By Photos. The camera may not lie, but doctored photos do according to new research into digitally altered photos and how they influence our memories and attitudes toward public events. (UCI)
  • Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-Species Study. A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms. (NYU)
  • Bee Strategy Helps Servers Run More Sweetly. Honeybees somehow manage to efficiently collect a lot of nectar with limited resources and no central command — after all, the queen bee is too busy laying eggs to oversee something as mundane as where the best nectar can be found on any given morning. According to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the swarm intelligence of these amazingly organized bees can also be used to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges. (GIT)
  • How Do We Make Sense of What We See? Lines in Escher's drawings can seem to be part of either of two different shapes. How does our brain decide which of those shapes to "see?" In a situation where the visual information provided is ambiguous — whether we are looking at Escher's art or looking at, say, a forest — how do our brains settle on just one interpretation? (JHU)
  • Cerebral Cortex Thicker in People with Migraines. People who suffer from migraine headaches have differences in an area of the brain that helps process sensory information, including pain, according to a study published in the November 20, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. (Harvard U.)

November 16

  • Molecular Chords. Max Planck researchers have for the first time analyzed the frequency of molecular resonance, in the same way as musicians analyze the notes of a chord. Their results have even been made audible. (MPG)

November 15

November 14

November 13

  • Scientists Reveal Secrets of Ancient Ocean in New Book. Call it the ocean that time forgot. About 400 million years ago, the Rheic Ocean played a big role in Earth’s history. When this massive body of water closed, the Appalachians were lifted to Himalayan heights and the planet’s continents slammed together to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Dinosaurs and early mammals evolved to traverse the large swath of land, spreading life to every corner of the globe. (Ohio U.)
  • A Protein Converts Immune Cells to Tumor Killers. Tumor cells are masters at evading detection. But new research from Rockefeller University shows how they can be exposed. By harnessing the immune system of patients with a rare neurological disorder, scientists have figured out how to transform immune cells that barely detect the presence of breast and ovarian tumors into ones that obliterate them. (Rockefeller U.)
  • Researchers Double Cell Phone Memory Through Software Alone. Cell phones are increasingly sophisticated -- sporting such features as cameras, music players, games, video clips, Internet access and, lest we forget, the capability to phone someone -- but these features come at a price: memory. (Northwestern U.)
  • Ancient Retroviruses Spurred Evolution of Gene Regulatory Networks in Primates. When ancient retroviruses slipped bits of their DNA into the primate genome millions of years ago, they successfully preserved their own genetic legacy. (UCSC)
  • Chocolate Drinks - Probably Fermented Ones - Popular Long Before Previously Thought. Mesoamerican menus featured cacao beverages - probably fermented ones - at least as early as 1100 B.C., some 500 years earlier than previously documented anywhere, according to new research published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (UC Berkeley)
  • Citrus Juice, Vitamin C Give Staying Power to Green Tea Antioxidants. A study found that citrus juices enable more of green tea's unique antioxidants to remain after simulated digestion, making the pairing even healthier than previously thought. (Purdue U.)
  • “Time-sharing” Birds Key to Evolutionary Mystery. Whereas most birds are sole proprietors of their nests, some tropical species “time share” together – a discovery that helps clear up a 150-year-old evolutionary mystery, says Biology professor Vicki Friesen. (Queen's U.)
  • CU Satellite Indicates Regional Warming Variations From Sun During Solar Cycle. A NASA satellite designed, built and controlled by the University of Colorado at Boulder is expected to help scientists resolve wide-ranging predictions about the coming solar cycle peak in 2012 and its influence on Earth's warming climate, according to the chief scientist on the project. (CUB)

November 12

November 11

November 9

  • Certain Home Shapes and Roofs Hold Up Best in Hurricane. A few days ago, the remnants of Hurricane Noel traveled northward to New York and New England with wind speeds approaching 80 miles per hour in Massachusetts. The storm caused significant damages, especially there. (NJIT)
  • Researchers Successfully Simulate Photosynthesis and Design a Better Leaf. University of Illinois researchers have built a better plant, one that produces more leaves and fruit without needing extra fertilizer. The researchers accomplished the feat using a computer model that mimics the process of evolution. Theirs is the first model to simulate every step of the photosynthetic process. (UIUC)
  • Distant Black Holes May Be Source of High-energy Cosmic Rays. Breakthrough astrophysics research may have established the hitherto mysterious source of exceptionally high-energy cosmic ray emissions, according to recently published research that culminates a project developed by a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. (ANL)

November 8

  • Maya Politics Likely Played Role in Ancient Large-game Decline. A University of Florida study is the first to document ancient hunting effects on large-game species in the Maya lowlands of Central America, and shows political and social demands near important cities likely contributed to their population decline, especially white-tailed deer. (U. Florida)
  • The World's Smallest Double Slit Experiment: Breaking up the Hydrogen Molecule. The big world of classical physics mostly seems sensible: waves are waves and particles are particles, and the moon rises whether anyone watches or not. The tiny quantum world is different: particles are waves (and vice versa), and quantum systems remain in a state of multiple possibilities until they are measured — which amounts to an intrusion by an observer from the big world — and forced to choose: the exact position or momentum of an electron, say. (LBNL)
  • Seaweed Transformed Into Stem Cell Technology. Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have transformed a polymer found in common brown seaweed into a device that can support the growth and release of stem cells at the sight of a bodily injury or at the source of a disease. (RPI)

November 7

  • Scientists Compare Twelve Fruit Fly Genomes. An international research consortium of scientists, supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced publications comparing the genome sequences of 12 closely related fruit fly species, 10 of which were sequenced for the first time. (NHGRI)
  • Why Dinosaurs Had Fowl Breath. Scientists have discovered how dinosaurs used to breathe in what provides clues to how they evolved and how they might have lived. (U. Manchester)
  • Lush or Lightweight? Some fruit flies can drink others under the table. Now, scientists at North Carolina State University have a few more genetic clues behind why some flies are more sensitive to alcohol than others. And the results might lead to more knowledge about alcoholism in humans. (NCSU)
  • When Animals Evolve on Islands, Size Doesn't Matter, A theory explaining the evolution of giant rodents, miniature elephants, and even miniature humans on islands has been called into question by new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. (ICL)

November 6

November 5

  • A Giant Step Toward Infinitesimal Machinery, What are the ultimate limits to miniaturization? How small can machinery--with internal workings that move, turn, and vibrate--be produced? What is the smallest scale on which computers can be built? (Caltech)

November 2

  • Heavier Hydrogen on the Atomic Scale Reduces Friction, Scientists may be one step closer to understanding the atomic forces that cause friction, thanks to a recently published study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Houston and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. (ANL)

November 1

  • Vacation Photos Create 3D Models of World Landmarks, More than 10 million members of the photo-sharing Web site Flickr snap pictures of their surroundings and then post those photos on the Internet. One group at the University of Washington is doing the reverse--downloading thousands of photos from Flickr and using them to recreate the original scenes. (U. Washington)
  • Flying Lemurs Are the Closest Relatives of Primates, While the human species is unquestionably a member of the primate group, the identity of the next closest group to primates within the entire class of living mammals has been hotly debated. Now, new molecular and genomic data gathered by a team including Webb Miller, a professor of biology and computer science and engineering at Penn State, has shown that the colugos -- nicknamed the flying lemurs -- is the closest group to the primates. (PSU)
  • Physicists Show How Electrons 'Gain Weight' in Metal Compounds Near Absolute Zero Temperature, Rutgers University physicists have performed computer simulations that show how electrons become one thousand times more massive in certain metal compounds when cooled to temperatures near absolute zero – the point where all motion ceases. The models may provide new clues as to how superconductivity works and how new superconducting materials could be fabricated. (Rutgers)
  • Radio Waves Fire Up Nanotubes Embedded in Tumors, Destroy Liver Cancer, Cancer cells treated with carbon nanotubes can be destroyed by noninvasive radio waves that heat up the nanotubes while sparing untreated tissue, a research team from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University found in preclinical experiments. (Rice U.)
  • MIT Works Toward 'Smart' Optical Microchips, A new theory developed at MIT could lead to "smart" optical microchips that adapt to different wavelengths of light, potentially advancing telecommunications, spectroscopy and remote sensing. (MIT)

October 31

  • Study Confirms Supermassive Black Holes Produce Powerful Galaxy-Shaping Winds, Supermassive black holes can produce powerful winds that shape a galaxy and determine their own growth, confirms a group of scientists from Rochester Institute of Technology. (RIT)
  • Scientists Discover New Way to Make Water, In a familiar high-school chemistry demonstration, an instructor first uses electricity to split liquid water into its constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen. Then, by combining the two gases and igniting them with a spark, the instructor changes the gases back into water with a loud pop. Scientists at the University of Illinois have discovered a new way to make water, and without the pop. Not only can they make water from unlikely starting materials, such as alcohols, their work could also lead to better catalysts and less expensive fuel cells. (UIUC)
  • Fowl Play as Scientists Make Power from Chicken Droppings, Researchers at The University of Manchester have started work on a project to produce power from chicken droppings. (U. Manchester)
  • U.S. Fires Release Large Amounts of Carbon Dioxide, Large-scale fires in a western or southeastern state can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a few weeks as the state's entire motor vehicle traffic does in a year, according to newly published research by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder. (UCAR)

October 30

  • Massive Black Hole Smashes Record, Using two NASA satellites, astronomers have discovered a black hole that obliterates a record announced just two weeks ago. The new black hole, with a mass 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, is the heftiest known black hole that orbits another star. (CfA)
  • New Brain Cells Listen Before They Talk, Newly created neurons in adults rely on signals from distant brain regions to regulate their maturation and survival before they can communicate with existing neighboring cells—a finding that has important implications for the use of adult neural stem cells to replace brain cells lost by trauma or neurodegeneration, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in The Journal of Neuroscience. (Yale U.)
  • Fighting Cancer With Light-activated Antibodies, Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a cancer fighting technology which uses ultra-violet light to activate antibodies which very specifically attack tumours. (U. Newcastle)
  • Western Canada's Glaciers Hit 7000-Year Low, Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming. (GSA)
  • Berkeley Researchers Create First Fully Functional Nanotube Radio, Make way for the real nanopod and make room in the Guinness World Records. A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have created the first fully functional radio from a single carbon nanotube, which makes it by several orders of magnitude the smallest radio ever made. (LBNL)
  • Fossil Record Reveals Jellyfish More than 500 Million Years Old, Scientists have described the oldest definitive jellyfish ever found, using recently discovered "fossil snapshots" found in rocks more than 500 million years old. (NSF)
  • Researchers Identify the Brain Circuits that Control Hunger, Researchers at UCLA have identified the brain circuits involved in hunger that are influenced by the hormone leptin, the signaling molecule produced by fat cells. In clinical trials, leptin supplementation has produced moderate weight loss in some obese patients by inhibiting hunger and promoting feelings of satiety. The new findings suggest possible new therapeutic targets for obesity, an increasing problem in both adults and children. (UCLA)
  • Stem Cells Can Improve Memory After Brain Injury, New UC Irvine research is among the first to demonstrate that neural stem cells may help to restore memory after brain damage. (UCI)
  • Could 'Hairy Roots' Become Biofactories? Rice University bioengineers have reported an advance in tapping the immense potential of "hairy roots" as natural factories to produce medicines, food flavorings and other commercial products. (Rice U.)
  • Nanoengineers Mine Tiny Diamonds for Drug Delivery. Northwestern University researchers have shown that nanodiamonds -- much like the carbon structure as that of a sparkling 14 karat diamond but on a much smaller scale -- are very effective at delivering chemotherapy drugs to cells without the negative effects associated with current drug delivery agents. (Northwestern U.)
  • Scientists Discover Fluorescence in Key Marine Creature. Fluorescent proteins found in nature have been employed in a variety of scientific research purposes, from markers for tracing molecules in biomedicine to probes for testing environmental quality. Until now, such proteins have been identified mostly in jellyfish and corals, leading to the belief that the capacity for fluorescence in animals is exclusive to such primitive creatures. (Scripps IO)
  • MIT's 'Electronic Nose' Could Detect Hazards. A tiny "electronic nose" that MIT researchers have engineered with a novel inkjet printing method could be used to detect hazards including carbon monoxide, harmful industrial solvents and explosives. (MIT)
  • Evolution in the Nanoworld. This week, scientists publish images resolving molecules which have organized themselves into patterns according to size. (MPG)
  • Plants, from Pennycress to Willow, Have Potential to Clean Up Polluted Soils. The ground beneath our towns and cities harbors a legacy of contaminated soils that threatens to endure for decades, if not centuries. In many places, the soil has high concentrations of organic toxins and heavy metals from smelting, manufacturing and other industrial processes as well as the burning of fossil fuels. In several states groundwater fills thousands of abandoned mines, creating toxic soups that endanger whole watersheds. And much farmland is contaminated from the application of phosphate fertilizers and sewage sludge. (Cornell U.)

October 29

  • Odd Protein Interaction Guides Development of Olfactory System, Scientists have discovered a strange mechanism for the development of the fruit fly antennal lobe, an intricate structure that converts the chaotic stew of odors in the environment into discrete signals in the brain. (UIUC)
  • Scientist Brings 50 Million Year Old Spider 'Back to Life', A 50-million-year-old fossilised spider has been brought back to life in stunning 3D by a scientist at The University of Manchester. (U. Manchester)
  • Evidence of “Memory” Seen in Cells & Molecules. Research reported October 29 in the online version of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides evidence that some molecular interactions on cell surfaces may have a “memory” that affects their future interactions. The report could lead to a re-examination of results from certain single-molecule research. (GIT)
  • Ancient Amphibians Left Full-Body Imprints. Unprecedented fossilized body imprints of amphibians have been discovered in 330 million-year-old rocks from Pennsylvania. The imprints show the unmistakably webbed feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs. (GSA)
  • Dinosaur Deaths Outsourced to India? A series of monumental volcanic eruptions in India may have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, not a meteor impact in the Gulf of Mexico. The eruptions, which created the gigantic Deccan Traps lava beds of India, are now the prime suspect in the most famous and persistent paleontological murder mystery, say scientists who have conducted a slew of new investigations honing down eruption timing. (GSA)
  • Sight, Sound Processed Together and Earlier than Previously Thought, The area of the brain that processes sounds entering the ears also appears to process stimulus entering the eyes, providing a novel explanation for why many viewers believe that ventriloquists have thrown their voices to the mouths of their dummies. (DUMC)
  • New Type of Retinal Cell Discovered in Primates, Scientists are one step closer to understanding how the retinas of humans and primates turn incoming light into coded messages communicated to the brain. (NSF)
  • Dead Clams Tell Many Tales. Inventories of living and dead organisms could serve as a relatively fast, simple and inexpensive preliminary means of assessing human impact on ecosystemsy. (U. Chicago)
  • Powerful Molecular Motor Permits Speedy Assembly of Viruses. A team of physicists at the University of California, San Diego and biologists at Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. has shown that a tiny viral motor generates twice as much power, relative to its size, as an automobile engine. The finding explains why even very large viruses can self-assemble so rapidly. (UCSD)
  • Staph-Killing Properties of Clay Investigated by UB Researchers. FWhat makes some clays such powerful antimicrobial agents capable of killing MRSA and other virulent bacteria? It's a question that University at Buffalo researchers have been studying for several years. (U. Buffalo)
  • Cask from the Past. For the first time, researchers have identified DNA from inside ceramic containers in an ancient shipwreck on the seafloor, making it possible to determine what the ship's cargo was even though there was no visible trace of it. (MIT)
  • New Magnetic Separation Tecnhique Might Detect Multiple Pathogens At Once. A magnetic separation technique developed by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Purdue University makes it relatively simple to sort through beads hundreds of times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. (Duke U.)

October 26

  • Time to Overhaul Newton's Theory of Gravitation? For almost 75 years, astronomers have believed that the Universe has a large amount of unseen or ‘dark’ matter, thought to make up about five-sixths of the matter in the cosmos. With the conventional theory of gravitation, based on Newton’s ideas and refined by Einstein 92 years ago, dark matter helps to explain the motion of galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, on the largest scales. (RAS)
  • Researchers Find Origin of "Breathable" Atmosphere Half A Billion Years Ago, Ohio State University geologists and their colleagues have uncovered evidence of when Earth may have first supported an oxygen-rich atmosphere similar to the one we breathe today. (OSU)
  • High-tech Textiles Pave the Way for Glowing Garments, As clocks go back university unveils textile technology that could improve safety of cyclists, joggers and pedestrians on dark winter days. (U. Manchester)
  • Mars With Ice, Shaken, Not Stirred. Mars, like Earth, is a climate-fickle water planet. The main difference, of course, is that water on the frigid Red Planet is rarely liquid, preferring to spend almost all of its time traveling the world as a gas or churning up the surface as ice. That's the global picture literally and figuratively coming into much sharper focus as various Mars-orbiting cameras send back tomes of unprecedented super high-resolution imagery of ever vaster tracts of the planet's surface. (GSA)
  • Researchers View Swimming Tactics of Tiny Aquatic Predators, By applying state-of-the-art holographic microscopy to a major marine biology challenge, researchers have identified the swimming and attack patterns of two tiny but deadly microbes linked to fish kills in the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways. (NSF)
  • Video Shows Buckyballs Form by 'Shrink Wrapping'. The birth secret of buckyballs -- hollow spheres of carbon no wider than a strand of DNA -- has been caught on tape by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and Rice University. An electron microscope video and computer simulations show that "shrink-wrapping" is the key; buckyballs start life as distorted, unstable sheets of graphite, shedding loosely connected threads and chains until only the perfectly spherical buckyballs remain. (Rice U.)

October 25

October 24

October 23

October 22

  • Sleep Loss Linked to Psychiatric Disorders. In the first neural investigation into what happens to your emotions when you don't sleep, results from a UC Berkeley brain imaging study suggest that while a good night's rest can regulate your mood and help you cope with the next day's emotional challenges, sleep deprivation excessively boosts the part of the brain most closely connected to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. (UC Berkeley)
  • Secret Lives of Two Elements Uncovered by Sandia Researchers. Unexpected differences recently discovered between the elements niobium and tantalum may lead to more optimized electronic materials and photocatalysts. (Sandia Labs.)
  • Can You Feel the Heat? Your Cilia Can. Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have found a previously unrecognized role for tiny hair-like cell structures known as cilia: They help form our sense of touch. (JHU)
  • Scientists Discover How Gold Eases Pain of Arthritis. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center may have solved the mystery surrounding the healing properties of gold – a discovery they say may renew interest in gold salts as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. (DUMC)
  • Fossil Record Supports Evidence of Impending Mass Extinction. Global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries may trigger a new ‘mass extinction event’, where over 50 per cent of animal and plant species would be wiped out, warn scientists at the Universities of York and Leeds. (U. York)
  • Researchers Discover Natural Herbicide Released By Grass. Certain varieties of common fescue lawn grass come equipped with their own natural broad-spectrum herbicide that inhibits the growth of weeds and other plants around them. (Cornell U.)

October 21

  • Gel Changes Color On Demand. MIT researchers have created a new structured gel that can rapidly change color in response to a variety of stimuli, including temperature, pressure, salt concentration and humidity. (MIT)

October 18

  • Scientists Find How Amber Becomes Death Trap for Watery Creatures. Shiny amber jewelry and a mucky Florida swamp have given scientists a window into an ancient ecosystem that could be anywhere from 15 million to 130 million years old. (U. Florida)
  • Maize Mini-chromosomes Can Add Stacks of Functional Genes to Plants. A new method of constructing artificial plant chromosomes from small rings of naturally occurring plant DNA can be used to transport multiple genes at once into embryonic plants where they are expressed, duplicated as plant cells divide, and passed on to the next generation -- a long-term goal for those interested in improving agricultural productivity. (U. Chicago)

October 17

  • Researchers Give Computers “Common Sense”. Using a little-known Google Labs widget, computer scientists from UC San Diego and UCLA have brought common sense to an automated image labeling system. This common sense is the ability to use context to help identify objects in photographs. (UCSD)
  • ASU Team Detects Earliest Modern Humans. Evidence of early humans living on the coast in South Africa 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented, is being reported in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature. (ASU)
  • 'Bionic' Nerve to Bring Damanged Limbs and Organs Back to Life. University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells — and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life. (U. Manchester)
  • Researchers Confirm the Power of Altruism in Wikipedia. The beauty of open-source applications is that they are continually improved and updated by those who use them and care about them. Dartmouth researchers looked at the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to determine if the anonymous, infrequent contributors, the Good Samaritans, are as reliable as the people who update constantly and have a reputation to maintain. (Darmouth C.)

October 16

  • Researchers Measure Carbon Nanotube Interaction. Carbon nanotubes have been employed for a variety of uses including composite materials, biosensors, nano-electronic circuits and membranes. (LLNL)
  • How Schizophrenia Develops: Major Clues Discovered. Schizophrenia may occur, in part, because of a problem in an intermittent on/off switch for a gene involved in making a key chemical messenger in the brain, scientists have found in a study of human brain tissue. (NIH)
  • Earliest Evolution of Vision Genes Discovered. By peering deep into evolutionary history, scientists have discovered the origins of photosensitivity in animals: vision genes called opsins that first appeared in the aquatic animal species Hydra magnipapillata. (NSF)
  • Aswan Obelisk Quarry More than Meets the Eye. The unfinished Obelisk Quarry in Aswan, Egypt, has a canal that may have connected to the Nile and allowed the large stone monuments to float to their permanent locations, according to an international team of researchers. This canal, however, may be allowing salts from ground water to seep into what has been the best preserved example of obelisk quarrying in Egypt. (PSU)
  • Blood May Help Us Think. MIT scientists propose that blood may help us think, in addition to its well-known role as the conveyor of fuel and oxygen to brain cells. (MIT)

October 15

  • Expecting an Afternoon Nap Can Reduce Blood Pressure. Where does the benefit lie in an afternoon nap? Is it in the nap itself--or in the anticipation of taking a snooze? Researchers in the United Kingdom have found that the time just before you fall asleep is where beneficial cardiovascular changes take place. (APS)
  • Enhanced DNA Repair Mechanism Can Cause Breast Cancer. Although defects in the "breast cancer gene," BRCA1, have been known for years to increase the risk for breast cancer, exactly how it can lead to tumor growth has remained a mystery. In the October 15, 2007, issue of the journal Cancer Research, scientists from the University of Chicago and Kyoto University, Japan, suggest that a mechanism that normally repairs damaged DNA may function abnormally in BRCA1 carriers leading to one type of poor-prognosis breast cancer. (U. Chicago)
  • In Human Grid, We are the Cogs. Before you can post a comment to most blogs, you have to type in a series of distorted letters and numbers (a CAPTCHA) to prove that you are a person and not a computer attempting to add comment spam to the blog. (UCSD)

October 14

  • Genes that Both Extend Life and Protect Against Cancer Identified. IA person is 100 times more likely to get cancer at age 65 than at age 35. But new research reported today in the journal "Nature Genetics" identifies naturally occurring processes that allow many genes to both slow aging and protect against cancer in the much-studied C. elegans roundworm. (UCSF)

October 13

  • Asteroid Is 'Practice Case' for Potential Hazards. In research that could aid decisions about future asteroids on a collision course with Earth, MIT scientists have for the first time determined the composition of a near-Earth asteroid that has a very slight possibility of someday hitting our planet. (MIT)

October 12

October 11

  • Study of Bacterial Communities May Provide Climate-change Clues. As part of the world carbon cycle, bacterial communities in freshwater lakes break down carbon in decaying organic matter, converting it into carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. (UWM)
  • Stem Cell Nuclei Are Soft 'Hard Drives,' Penn Study Finds. Biophysicists at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that the nuclei of human stem cells are particularly soft and flexible, rather than hard, making it easier for stem cells to migrate through the body and to adopt different shapes, but ultimately to put human genes in the correct nuclear "sector" for proper access and expression. (U. Penn)
  • New Membrane Strips Carbon Dioxide From Natural Gas Faster and Better. A modified plastic material greatly improves the ability to separate global warming-linked carbon dioxide from natural gas as the gas is prepared for use, according to engineers at The University of Texas at Austin who have analyzed the new plastic's performance. (UTA)
  • Radio Telescope Array Dedicated to Astronomy, SETI. A new-concept radio telescope devoted equally to galactic astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence will be dedicated today (Thursday, Oct. 11) by the University of California, Berkeley, and the SETI Institute at a ceremony in northern California. (UC Berkeley)
  • New Force-fluorescence Device Measures Motion Previously Undetectable. A hybrid device combining force and fluorescence developed by researchers at the University of Illinois has made possible the accurate detection of nanometer-scale motion of biomolecules caused by pico-newton forces. (UIUC)
  • A Tiny Pinch from a 'Z-Ring' Helps Bacteria Cells Divide. In process that is shrouded in mystery, rod-shaped bacteria reproduce by splitting themselves in two. By applying advanced mathematics to laboratory data, a team led by Johns Hopkins researchers has solved a small but important part of this reproductive puzzle. (JHU)

October 10

  • A Gene Divided Reveals Details of Natural Selection. In a molecular tour de force, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have provided an exquisitely detailed picture of natural selection as it occurs at the genetic level. (UWM)
  • Rejection Sets Off Alarms for Folks with Low Self-esteem. Few can tolerate such romantic or professional rebuffs as "It's not you, it's me" and "we regret to inform you that your application was not successful." But while a healthy dose of self-esteem can absorb the shock of rejection, poor self-esteem can trigger the primal fight-or-flight response, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley. (UC Berkeley)
  • MIT Finds New Hearing Mechanism. MIT researchers have discovered a hearing mechanism that fundamentally changes the current understanding of inner ear function. This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds. Its discovery could eventually lead to improved systems for restoring hearing. (MIT)
  • Most Powerful Supernova Ever. Astronomer Robert Quimby has again found the most luminous supernova. (UTA)
  • New Study Shows How Ants Use Chemical Footprints to Keep Ready Supply of Aphids Nearby. Chemicals on ants' feet tranquilise and subdue colonies of aphids, keeping them close-by as a ready source of food, says new research published today (10 October). The study throws new light on the complex relationship between ants and the colonies of aphids whose sugary secretions the ants eat. (ICL)
  • Harvard Scientists Predict the Future of the Past Tense. Verbs evolve and homogenize at a rate inversely proportional to their prevalence in the English language, according to a formula developed by Harvard University mathematicians who've invoked evolutionary principles to study our language over the past 1,200 years, from "Beowulf" to "Canterbury Tales" to "Harry Potter."  (Harvard U.)
  • Why it is Impossible for Some to ‘Just Say No’. Drug abuse, crime and obesity are but a few of the problems our nation faces, but they all have one thing in common--people’s failure to control their behavior in the face of temptation. While the ability to control and restrain our impulses is one of the defining features of the human animal, its failure is one of the central problems of human society. So, why do we so often lack this crucial ability? (APS)

October 8

October 5

  • Fair Play in Chimpanzees. New research from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany shows that unlike humans, chimpanzees conform to traditional economic models. (MPG)
  • Researchers Mimic Vascular System to Nourish Engineered Tissue for Transplants. One day soon, laboratories may grow synthetically engineered tissues such as muscle or cartilage needed for transplants. In a major step forward, Cornell engineers describe in the journal Nature Materials a microvascular system they have developed that can nourish growing tissues. (Cornell U.)

October 4

October 3

  • New Research Into Plant Colours Sheds Light on Antioxidants. Scientists have made an important advance in understanding the genetic processes that give flowers, leaves and plants their bright colours. The knowledge could lead to a range of benefits, including better understanding of the cancer-fighting properties of plant pigments and new, natural food colourings. (BBSRC)
  • Scientists Create “Interspecies” Rodent Using Embryonic Stem Cells. By injecting embryonic stem (ES) cells from a wood mouse into the early embryo of a house mouse, an international team of scientists has produced normal healthy animals made up of a mixture of cells from each of the two distantly related species. This is the first time that stem cells from one mammalian species have been shown to contribute extensively to development when introduced into the embryo of another, very different species. (U. Chicago)
  • New Research Sheds Light On Shimmering Superconductivity and the Courtship of Electrons. In their normal state, electrons repel each other because of their charge, but in the state of superconductivity, electrons pair up. John Schlueter, a chemist from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, collaborated with a team of researchers from the University of Oxford to better understand how this unlikely courtship occurs. (ANL)
  • No Faking It, Crocodile Tears Are Real. When someone feigns sadness they “cry crocodile tears,” a phrase that comes from an old myth that the animals cry while eating. (U. Florida)
  • Linking Cigarette Smoke and Obesity. Identifying biomarkers for the key environmental risk factors responsible for two diseases that significantly contribute to death and disease of hundreds of thousands annually will be the initial focus of a new center being established at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (PNNL)
  • Mathematicians Defy Gravity. Droplets of liquid have been shown to travel uphill, rather than sliding down as expected, when the surface they are on is vigorously shaken up and down. (Bristol U.)

October 2

  • Scientists Say Sabretooth Bit Like a Pussycat. In public imagination, the sabre-toothed cat Smilodon ranks alongside Tyrannosaurus rex as the ultimate killing machine. Powerfully built, with upper canines like knives, Smilodon was a fearsome predator of Ice-Age America’s lost giants. (UNSW)
  • Geologist Discovers Martian Mineral. A Queen’s University researcher’s surprising discovery – made first in his garage and later verified through field work – has resulted in the naming of a new mineral species that may exist on Mars, and has caught the attention of the NASA space program. (Queen's U.)
  • Thumb-Size Microsystem Enables Cell Culture and Incubation. Integrating silicon microchip technology with a network of tiny fluid channels, some thinner than a human hair, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have developed a thumb-size micro-incubator to culture living cells for lab tests. (JHU)
  • Fossil Data Plug Gaps in Current Knowledge. Researchers have shown for the first time that fossils can be used as effectively as living species in understanding the complex branching in the evolutionary tree of life. (U. Bath)
  • MIT Research Helps Convert Brain Signals Into Action. MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm to help create prosthetic devices that convert brain signals into action in patients who have been paralyzed or had limbs amputated. (MIT)

October 1