Science News

July 2, 2009

Lack Of Sleep Could Be More Dangerous For Women Than Men - Women who get less than the recommended eight hours sleep a night are at higher risk of heart disease and heart-related problems than men with the same sleeping patterns.

Intense Heat Killed The Universe's Would-be Galaxies - Millions of would-be galaxies failed to develop after being exposed to intense heat from the first stars and black holes formed in the early Universe, according to new research.

Quantum Communications One Step Closer - Miniature devices for trapping ions (electrically charged atoms) are common components in atomic clocks and quantum computing research.

July 1, 2009

Promises Come At A Price - Be careful what you promise people. You are not just obliging yourself to keep your promises; other people will hold you to account for them as well.

Thirst For Blood Sparks Toxic Algal Blooms - The blooming of toxic algae that occurs during the summer conceal a fight for life and death.

First Direct Evidence Of Lightning On Mars Detected - For the first time, direct evidence of lightning has been detected on Mars, say University of Michigan researchers who found signs of electrical discharges during dust storms on the Red Planet.

June 30, 2009

Site For Alcohol's Action In The Brain Discovered - Alcohol's inebriating effects are familiar to everyone. But the molecular details of alcohol's impact on brain activity remain a mystery.

Study Of Flower Color Shows Evolution In Action - Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have zeroed in on the genes responsible for changing flower color, an area of research that began with Gregor Mendel's studies of the garden pea in the 1850's.

First Electronic Quantum Processor Created - A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.

June 29, 2009

New Fossil Tells How Piranhas Got Their Teeth - How did piranhas - the legendary freshwater fish with the razor bite - get their telltale teeth?

Evidence Of Memory Seen In Songbird Brain - When a zebra finch hears a new song from a member of its own species, the experience changes gene expression in its brain in unexpected ways, researchers report.

Cosmic Rays Accelerated In Remnants Of Exploding Stars - Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way’s particle accelerators.

June 26, 2009

Latest In Technology Looks Into Some Old Bones - Many of us have broken bones in our bodies at one time or another, and when this happens a healing process begins.

Gene Predicts How Brain Responds To Fatigue - New imaging research in the June 24 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience helps explain why sleep deprivation affects some people more than others.

1908 Tunguska Explosion Was Caused By A Comet - The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere, says new Cornell University research.

June 25, 2009

Gene Therapy Gets Under The Skin - Vaseline, a known molecule from apples and a gene network encapsulated in algal gelatin are the components of a possible gene therapy which literally gets under the skin.

Galaxies Coming Of Age In Cosmic Blobs - The "coming of age" of galaxies and black holes has been pinpointed, thanks to new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.

Need Something? Talk To My Right Ear - We humans prefer to be addressed in our right ear and are more likely to perform a task when we receive the request in our right ear rather than our left.

June 24, 2009

Smoking Linked To Brain Damage - New research which suggests a direct link between smoking and brain damage will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry.

Game For HIV Positive Youth Developed - Researchers at The University of Texas School of Public Health have developed a game for HIV-positive youth, +CLICK, designed to reduce secondary transmission of the virus.

Dinosaurs May Have Been Smaller Than Previously Thought - The largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, reveals a paper published June 21 in the Zoological Society of London’s Journal of Zoology.

June 23, 2009

Social Competition May Be Reason For Bigger Brain - For the past 2 million years, the size of the human brain has tripled, growing much faster than other mammals.

Boy Or Girl? In Lizards, Egg Size Matters - Whether baby lizards will turn out to be male or female is a more complicated question than scientists would have ever guessed. The study shows that for at least one lizard species, egg size matters.

Human Eye Inspires Advance In Computer Vision - Inspired by the behavior of the human eye, Boston College computer scientists have developed a technique that lets computers see objects as fleeting as a butterfly or tropical fish with nearly double the accuracy and 10 times the speed of earlier methods.

June 22, 2009

Beaked, Bird-like Dinosaur Tells Story Of Finger Evolution - Scientists have discovered a unique beaked, plant-eating dinosaur in China.

Brain Detects Happiness More Quickly Than Sadness - Our brains get a first impression of people's overriding social signals after seeing their faces for only 100 milliseconds (0.1 seconds).

New Light Shed On 'Dark' Gamma-ray Bursts - Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's biggest explosions, capable of producing so much light that ground-based telescopes easily detect it billions of light-years away.

June 19, 2009

First Image Of Memories Being Made - The ability to learn and to establish new memories is essential to our daily existence and identity; enabling us to navigate through the world.

New Nanoparticles Could Lead To End Of Chemotherapy - Nanoparticles specially engineered by University of Central Florida Assistant Professor J. Manuel Perez and his colleagues could someday target and destroy tumors, sparing patients from toxic, whole-body chemotherapies.

Definitive Evidence For Ancient Lake On Mars - A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has discovered the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a finding with implications for the discovery of past life on the Red Planet.

June 18, 2009

Common Fish Species Has 'Human' Ability To Learn - Although worlds apart, the way fish learn could be closer to humans' way of thinking than previously believed, suggests a new research study.

Potential For Non-invasive Brain Tumor Treatment - Duke University engineers have taken a first step toward a minimally invasive treatment of brain tumors by combining chemotherapy with heat administered from the end of a catheter.

Dad's Overworked And Tired While Mom's Potentially Fired - If dad looks exhausted this Father's Day it could be due to his job, suggests new research that found many male employees are now pressured to work up to 40 hours of overtime-often unpaid- per week to stay competitive.

June 17, 2009

Giant Eruption Reveals 'Dead' Star - NASA's Swift satellite reported multiple blasts of radiation from a rare object known as a soft gamma repeater, or SGR.

Same-sex Behavior Seen In Nearly All Animals - Same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species, from worms to frogs to birds, concludes a new review of existing research.

Computer System For Dementia Patients - The labour force in the health services is shrinking, there are more and more old people, and a very high proportion of them are plagued by deteriorating short- and long-term memory.

June 16, 2009

Better Sleep Is Associated With Improved Academic Success - Getting more high-quality sleep is associated with better academic performance. The positive relationship is especially relevant to performance in math.

Swine Flu Origins Revealed - A new analysis of the current swine-origin H1N1 influenza A virus suggests that transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the existing outbreak.

Marijuana Damages DNA And May Cause Cancer - Using a highly sensitive new test, scientists in Europe are reporting "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

June 15, 2009

Stress Makes Your Hair Go Gray - Those pesky graying hairs that tend to crop up with age really are signs of stress, reveals a new report in the journal Cell.

How Cancers Spread To The Brain - Research has shown for the first time how cancers that spread to the brain establish themselves and begin to grow.

Tiny Frozen Microbe May Hold Clues To Extraterrestrial Life - A novel bacterium - trapped more than three kilometres under glacial ice in Greenland for over 120,000 years - may hold clues as to what life forms might exist on other planets.

June 12, 2009

Hybrid Vehicles That Are Even More Efficient - One of the controllable causes of global warming is carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from burning fossil fuels.

Nintendo Wii May Enhance Parkinson's Treatment - The Nintendo Wii may help treat symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including depression, a Medical College of Georgia researcher says.

Baby Stars Finally Found In Jumbled Galactic Center - Astronomers have at last uncovered newborn stars at the frenzied center of our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery was made using the infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

June 11, 2009

Nightmares Predict Elevated Suicidal Symptoms - Self-reported nightmares among patients seeking emergency psychiatric evaluation uniquely predicted elevated suicidal symptoms.

Jellyfish Joyride A Threat To The Oceans - Early action could be crucial to addressing the problem of major increases in jellyfish numbers, which appears to be the result of human activities.

New Cleaning Protocol For Future 'Search For Life' Missions - Scientists have developed a new cleaning protocol for space hardware, such as the scoops of Mars rovers, which could be used on future "Search for Life" missions on other planets.

June 10, 2009

Supernova Remnant Is An Unusual Suspect - A new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a supernova remnant with a different look.

Advance In Bowel Cancer Test Research - Australian researchers have developed gene expression biomarkers which can accurately discriminate pre-cancerous and cancerous colorectal growths from non-cancerous controls.

Thinnest Superconducting Metal Ever Created - A superconducting sheet of lead only two atoms thick, the thinnest superconducting metal layer ever created, has been developed by physicists at The University of Texas at Austin.

June 9, 2009

Drinking Water From Air Humidity - Not a plant to be seen, the desert ground is too dry. But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity.

A New Way To Measure Cosmic Distances - Ohio State University researchers have found a way to measure distances to objects three times farther away in outer space than previously possible, by extending a common measurement technique.

Television Watching Before Bedtime Can Lead To Sleep Debt - According to new research presented at Sleep 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, television watching may be an important determinant of bedtime, and may contribute to chronic sleep debt.

June 8, 2009

Motion Capture Technology Takes A Leap Forward - A juggler and a conductor were among the artists who helped create a device which can retrieve dozens of different movement sequences in a matter of minutes.

Bats Recognize The Individual Voices Of Other Bats - Bats can use the characteristics of other bats' voices to recognize each other, according to a study by researchers from the University of Tuebingen, Germany and the University of Applied Sciences in Konstanz, Germany.

New Class Of Dim Supernovae - Core-collapse (or gravitational) supernovae are among the most energetic and violent events in the universe. They constitute the final tremendous explosions that end the life cycles of stars more massive than approximately 8 times the Sun.

June 5, 2009

Cigarette Smoking Does Not Affect Everyone In Same Way - Cigarette smoking induced COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a disease that results in severe breathing difficulty. According to World Health Organization it is the fourth leading killer worldwide.

Easily Grossed Out? You Might Be A Conservative! - Are you someone who squirms when confronted with slime, shudders at stickiness or gets grossed out by gore? Do crawly insects make you cringe or dead bodies make you blanch?

New Radio Chip Mimics Human Ear - MIT engineers have built a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip, modeled on the human inner ear, that could enable wireless devices capable of receiving cell phone, Internet, radio and television signals.

June 4, 2009

Cassini Finds Titan's Clouds Hang On To Summer - Cloud chasers studying Saturn's moon Titan say its clouds form and move much like those on Earth, but in a much slower, more lingering fashion.

Electronic Memory Chips That Can Bend And Twist - Electronic memory chips may soon gain the ability to bend and twist as a result of work by engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

People Who Wear Rose-colored Glasses See More - A University of Toronto study provides the first direct evidence that our mood literally changes the way our visual system filters our perceptual experience suggesting that seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses is more biological reality than metaphor.

June 3, 2009

Computer Program Creates Music Based On Emotions - A group of researchers from the University of Granada has developed Inmamusys, a software program that can create music in response to emotions that arise in the listener.

Stellar Explosion Displays Massive Carbon Footprint - While humans are still struggling to get rid of unwanted carbon it appears that the heavens are really rather good at it.

New Hominid 12 Million Years Old Found In Spain - Researchers have discovered a fossilized face and jaw from a previously unknown hominoid primate genus in Spain dating to the Middle Miocene era, roughly 12 million years ago.

June 2, 2009

Height Of Large Waves Changes According To Month - A team of researchers from the University of Cantabria has developed a statistical model that makes it possible to study the variability of extreme waves throughout the year.

First Complete X-ray View Of A Galaxy Cluster - The joint Japan-U.S. Suzaku mission is providing new insight into how assemblages of thousands of galaxies pull themselves together.

Quicker, Cheaper SARS Virus Detector - Members of a USC-led research team say they've made a big improvement in a new breed of electronic detectors for viruses and other biological materials - one that may be a valuable addition to the battle against epidemics.

June 1, 2009

Ghost Remains After Black Hole Eruption - NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a cosmic "ghost" lurking around a distant supermassive black hole.

Brain's Object Recognition System Activated By Touch Alone - Portions of the brain that activate when people view pictures of objects compared to scrambled images can also be activated by touch alone.

Scientists Engineer Cellular Circuits That Count Events - MIT and Boston University engineers have designed cells that can count and "remember" cellular events, using simple circuits in which a series of genes are activated in a specific order.

May 29, 2009

Portable Device Can Detect Viruses In Minutes - Imagine being able to detect in just a few minutes whether someone is infected with a virus.

XMM-Newton Takes Astronomers To A Black Hole's Edge - Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy.

Flipping The Brain's Addiction Switch Without Drugs - When someone becomes dependent on drugs or alcohol, the brain's pleasure center gets hijacked, disrupting the normal functioning of its reward circuitry.

May 28, 2009

High Torque Electric Motor Being Tested - A lightweight electric motor designed by the Electronic Power Group at the University of Oxford is to power a new four-seat coupé, with track tests scheduled for the end of 2009.

Male Or Female? Coloring Provides Gender Cues - Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision.

New Extinct Lemur Species Discovered In Madagascar - A third species of Palaeopropithecus, an extinct group of large lemurs, has just been uncovered in the northwest of Madagascar by a Franco-Madagascan team.

May 27, 2009

New Memory Material May Hold Data For One Billion Years - Packing more digital images, music, and other data onto silicon chips in USB drives and smart phones is like squeezing more strawberries into the same size supermarket carton.

Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts - Light switches, TV remote controls and even house keys could become a thing of the past thanks to brain-computer interface technology being developed in Europe that lets users perform everyday tasks with thoughts alone.

Elderly Women With 'Dowager's Hump' May Be At Higher Risk Of Earlier Death - Hyperkyphosis, or "dowager's hump" - the exaggerated forward curvature of the upper spine seen commonly in elderly women - may predict earlier death in women whether or not they have vertebral osteoporosis, UCLA researchers have found.