January 27, 2012

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Science & Technology News Digest

Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) scientists collect hundreds of meteorites in Antarctica … [more]


Flu researchers agree to pause studies on H5N1 avian flu for 60 days and evaluate public safety concerns … [more]


Researchers baffled by huge number of dolphins stranded in Cape Cod the past two weeks … [more]


Stranded whales off of New Zealand finally refloated and headed for deeper water … [more]


Mitt Romney’s and Newt Gingrich’s views on space exploration … [more]


Just lens caps? Russian scientist’s claim of life on Venus debunked … [more]


Russian scientist claims to have discovered life on Venus in pictures taken by the Venus-13 probe in 1982 … [more]


99 long-finned pilot whales stranded on at Golden Bay in New Zealand. 22 have died already, but efforts to refloat the remaining 77 are ongoing … [more]


Growing bulge of freshwater in the Arctic Ocean (Beaufort Gyre) could cool Europe if it reaches North Atlantic … [more]


Moon Colony being planned by NASA, European Space Agency, and Russian Space Agency … [more]


Highest resolution 3D map of the fruitfly genome developed with data from sequencing of 360 million DNA pairs … [more]


When it comes to climate change is natural gas from shale better or worse than coal? Two studies from Cornell University have opposing conclusions. … [more]


Debate on possible elimination of leap seconds is postponed for at least three years … [more]


University of Queensland’s Pitch Drop – The world’s longest running lab experiment … [more]


NASA breaks ground on Space Shuttle Atlantis’ permanent home, a $100 million exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex due to be completed in summer 2013 … [more]


What was life like for a Neanderthal? How did they think, live, and interact? … [more]


Can you see the “forbidden colors” of reddish green and yellowish blue? … [more]


Boa constrictors conserve energy by adjusting their squeezing according to their prey’s heartbeat, or lack thereof … [more]


Rocks collected in Morocco in December have been chemically confirmed by experts to be Martian Meteorites … [more]


Scores of long “lost” Charles Darwin fossils found in an old cabinet in the British Geological Survey … [more]


Multicellular life evolved quickly from single yeast cells in simple laboratory experiment, putting theories on the evolutions of complex life to the test … [more]


U.S. joins international efforts to develop a code of conduct for outer space … [more]


Russian paper Kommersant Daily claims that electromagnetic emissions from a powerful U.S. radar in the Marshall Islands may have accidentally disabled Phobos-Grunt … [more]


At least 20 dolphins have died after being stranded close to shore in Cape Cod, but 19 saved so far … [more]


SpaceX delays the planned rocket launch of the unmanned Dragon space capsule to the International Space Station … [more]


Scientists hope to find new life forms when they drill through 2 miles of ice to a buried Antarctic lake thought to be segregated from outside influence for the last several hundred thousand years … [more]


192 scholars answer the question “What is your favorite beautiful or elegant explanation?” … [more]


Russian Phobos-Grunt Mars probe fragments in atmosphere and crashes to Earth, most likely in the Pacific Ocean … [more]


Is carbon dioxide that important in global warming, or can reducing methane and soot make a big impact with cost and effort … [more]


Dipak Das, a University of Connecticut researcher who studied the cardiovascular health benefits of red wine and resveratrol, faked or manipulated data 145 times … [more]


Maryland man has cancerous windpipe replaced by one grown in a lab using plastic fibers and stem cells from the man’s bone marrow in operation performed by surgeons in Sweden … [more]


Rare White Chinstrap Penguin spotted in Antarctica … [more]


1,300-year-old Mayan flask contains traces of nicotine, providing the oldest chemical evidence that Maya used tobacco … [more]


IBM magnetic data storage breakthrough: Reliable storage of 1 bit of data in just 12 atoms … [more]


Intel Science Competition semifinalist is homeless teenager from Long Island … [more]


India and China join as partners in $1 Billion Hawaii Thirty Meter Telescope project … [more]


Second annual Google Science Fair will accept submissions in 13 languages with prizes including a scientific trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Explorer … [more]


Paedophryne amauensis, a tiny species of frog, is named world’s smallest vertebrate … [more]


Colorful new species of bush viper snake found in Tanzania – called Matilda’s Horned Viper … [more]


Stephen Hawking’s custom-built PC hand delivered by Intel engineer Travis Bonifield … [more]


Russian Phobos-Grunt satellite expected to fall into the Indian Ocean this weekend … [more]


Discovered by NASA last fall, Kepler-16b, a planet that may be orbiting two stars, could in theory host an Earthlike moon according to new computer simulations … [more]


Twin studies using gene analysis and brain scans reveal the importance of iron in white matter/myelin integrity … [more]


Data storage device created using Salmon DNA … [more]


New printer sized machine can sequence an entire genome in a single day, opening the door to inexpensive genetics at medical clinics … [more]


Middle aged surgeons are safest according to study at England’s Royal College of Surgeons … [more]


Vast one billion light-year cosmic map created by astronomers reveals intricate web of dark matter and galaxies … [more]


Carnivorous plants discovered that use adhesive leaves to trap and digest worms underground … [more]


Can global warming save us from the next Ice Age? … [more]


Traditional lectures are very poor at advancing students fundamental understanding of physics concepts … [more]


In Depth: Manufacturing complex parts using 3D printing technology … [more]


I once was blind, but now I can see — Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System to help bring eyesight to those that have retina photoreceptor cell degenera­tion … [more]


Stephen Hawking too ill to attend 70th birthday celebration at University of Cambridge, but recorded speech pushed interplanetary travel … [more]


Ancestral supersoldier ants produced in lab by applying hormones to larvae … [more]


First chimera monkeys produced by merging cells from up to six different rhesus monkey embryos … [more]


Tranquillityite, a mineral thought to only exist in meteorites and lunar rocks, discovered in Western Australia … [more]


NASA’s Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at Ames creates 3D Lunar Maps using images from Apollo missions … [more]


DARPA researchers successfully treat previously lethal doses of radiation using bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI) and antibiotics … [more]


The Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft expected to fall to Earth on January 15, 2012 … [more]


Cornell scientists work on invisibility cloak using “hole in time” instead of bending light around an object … [more]


The Unconscious Mind helps us identify our genuinely creative ideas … [more]


Political Science: How to be a dictator … [more]


4.5 billion year old meteorite the source for the only known natural quasicrystal specimen … [more]


Avoidable errors in Freakonomics, the wildly popular statistics book series … [more]


Unipolar and Bipolar Depression treated effectively and safely using deep brain stimulation (DBS) … [more]


World’s first hybrid shark found in Australian waters … [more]


Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center developing comet harpoon to quickly collect samples from comets it space … [more]


Winning the Brazilian war on deforestation of the Amazon rainforest … [more]


Silkworms genetically engineered to make artificial spider silk, a breakthrough that could lead to incredibly strong fabric … [more]


Researchers grow sperm in laboratory by using germ cells in breakthrough that could revolutionize fertility treatment for men … [more]


Top 10 Weird Doomsday Predictions … [more]


NASA debunks 2012 doomsday predictions … [more]


Slower response times in the elderly due to conscious focus on accuracy, not slowing of brain processing speed … [more]


Recycling old Christmas lights into slippers in China … [more]


Theories on the evolution of complex life upended by discovery of 600 million year old microscopic fossils of amoeba-like micro-organisms … [more]


Researchers explain how shearing causes granular materials to transform from a loose state to a solid state … [more]


Killer Whales Vs. Sharks on New Zealand Beach … [more]


Using DNA analysis, Scientists at New Mexico State University make progress on drought-tolerant alfalfa … [more]


More than ever, organic produce doesn’t mean small farms, sustainability, or environmentally friendly … [more]


Chimpanzees communications influenced by what their audience knows … [more]


According to new study, moss spreading throughout the Hawaiian Islands has cloned itself for 50,000 years … [more]


First computer model created that incorporates the influence of glia, brain cells that regulate synapses and control learning, memory, and adaptation … [more] [related]


Must-see science videos of 2011 … [more]


China’s National Space Administration plans to put a man on the moon … [more]


Farmers failure to rotate crops may have caused rootworms to develop resistance to genetically modified Bt corn … [more]


According to new skeletal evidence, Columbus’s crew brought back Syphilis from New World … [more]


VeriChip, an implantable computer chip, has been approved for humans by the FDA … [more]


Two charred planets recently found by NASA’s Kepler space telescope likely sped the transformation of the star they orbit from red giant to subdwarf … [more]


Mystery behind avian suicides of 1961, the inspiration for Hitchcock’s The Birds, solved at last … [more]


Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011 according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science … [more]


U.S. based security think tank Stratfor hacked by “Anonymous” … [more]


Forgetting is key to sharp intellect and a sound state of mind … [more]


Little exciting new technology expected in 2012. Is American innovation dying? … [more]


Weirdest Stories of 2011 on Discovery News … [more]


Capture of Borneo Sumatran rhino in Malaysia raises hope that this highly endangered species can be saved from extinction … [more]


Prosopagnosia, aka Face Blindness, and the inability to recognize voices … [more]


Concerns that giant Asian tiger prawn may dominate Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem … [more]


Understanding consciousness by studying the brain during general anesthesia and mapping how neural circuits change … [more]


Twin Grail probes to enter orbit around the moon over New Year’s weekend and begin study of the lunar gravity field … [more]


Observing RNA editing in real time by tracking a green glow … [more]


New technology, called the RootChip, could revolutionize root research with ability to monitor roots in real time with high precision … [more]


Best Science Pictures of 2011 … [more]


MIT neuroscientists found Npas4 gene to be master controller of new memories in the human brain … [more]


Chi_b (3P): The first new particle discovered at the Large Hadron Collider … [more]


Hollow metallic ball with a circumference of 1.1m fell out of the sky and landed in Namibia … [more]


Extremely powerful quantum computers and new states of matter may be possible by supercooling objects at the atomic level … [more]


“Sun-Believeable” – Inexpensive paint that can generate electricity from sunlight … [more]


First complex cell may have been an accidental byproduct of an attempted parasitic invasion of an archaeon by a bacterium … [more]


Evidence of complex hydrocarbon molecules spotted on the surface of Pluto by the Hubble Space Telescope … [more]


Ingredient pairing is what makes Asian food taste so different from Western food … [more]


Intense heat and pressure deep in the Earth causes iron oxide to transition into a highly conducting metal without a change to its structure … [more]


Mean Drunks: People that don’t consider future consequences when sober get very aggressive after consuming alcohol … [more]


Mean Drunks: People that don’t consider future consequences when sober get very aggressive after consuming alcohol … [more]


FDA approval granted for human trials of HIV vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario … [more]


IBM predicts 5 innovations that will change our lives in the next 5 years … [more]


In southwest Wales, researchers have located the exact source of the rocks used to build part of the 5,000 year old Stonehenge monument … [more]


Quantum Entanglement of macroscopic diamonds at room temperature … [more]


According to a study using fish, Uninformed Voters may provide value in producing democratic outcomes … [more]


U.S. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory creates solar cell with 114% external quantum efficiency (more electrons in photocurrent than photons entering cell) … [more]


Fermilab breaks ground on Illinois Accelerator Research Center … [more]


Soldierdroids, Robot Chefs, Dragons, and other Robots of the Week … [more]


Rebel Angel, Sloshed Galaxies, Red Dragonfish, Survival Story, and other Space Pictures of the Week … [more]


British study shows that loud music and noise make Alcoholic drinks taste sweeter (and I thought it was nightclubs watering down the drinks) … [more]


Astronomers may have found the smallest known black hole using NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer … [more]


Fluorescent molecules with a metal-organic framework developed at MIT could provide easy visual identification of pathogens, explosives, or toxins … [more]


Comet Lovejoy survives fiery plunge through sun’s corona to the surprise and delight of NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory scientists … [more]


New MRI study comparing activation of various brain regions finds roots to dehumanization that may facilitate atrocities, torture, and genocide … [more]


Russian icebreaker on mission to save more than 100 Beluga whales trapped off the Bering Sea before they die from suffocation or starvation … [more]


New suite of statistical tools called MINE provides new way to mine vast data sets and analyze a broad spectrum of patterns … [more]


Four Eras of Astrobiology from the Big Bang to intelligent life: Physical, Chemical, Biological, Cognitive … [more]


Google is working around the clock to release its Apple Siri competitor, codenamed Majel—a Star Trek reference, for the Android platform … [more]


NASA considers using 3D printing on the International Space Station to build spare parts and tools on demand … [more]


High-energy physicists from Caltech set record with sustained network data transfer rate of 186 gigabits per second … [more]


New chemical process developed that can create a range of complex metallic nanoparticles with potential uses in the medical industry … [more]


MIT researchers create extremely high speed camera: One Trillion Frames Per Second … [more]


Paul Allen’s new company, Stratolaunch Systems, plans to build giant airplane with a 385 foot wingspan to launch rockets into space … [more]


Longevity researchers believe that the secret to immortality, or at least extending human life spans to thousands of years, may be just around the corner … [more]


NASA’s Mars-Bound Curiosity Rover begins research in space with its Radiation Assessment Detector … [more]


CERN Scientists close in on “God Particle,” but cannot make any conclusive statement on the existence of Higgs boson … [more]


400 billion particles modeled in largest-ever simulation of the universe … [more]


Study of African lungfish offers clues on the evolution of walking … [more]


Russian scientists astonished by volume of methane release from the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in the Arctic Ocean … [more]


Two new species of frogs found in the forests of southeastern Papua New Guinea are world’s smallest tetrapods (PDF) … [more]


Quantum Computers Breakthrough: Reconfigurable photonic chip can generate, manipulate and measure entanglement … [more]


Environmental Protection Agency report shows clear link between hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and contaminated ground water … [more]


Patents on how doctors treat to their patients? Supreme Court Looks at Medical Patents … [more]


Innovative learning method improves performance on high-performance visual tasks with little or no conscious effort … [more]


Intrasexual Competition Experiment Results: Almost all women were aggressive toward an attractive female … [more]


Antenna proteins, chlorophyll coherence, quantum effects, and room temperature photosynthesis … [more]


NASA lists over 500 moon rock samples as missing or stolen and much more may be missing … [more]


Swarms of bees make decisions using very similar mechanisms to human brain neurons … [more]


Accelerated ice loss in Greenland during 2010 caused lifted bedrock up to 0.79 inches … [more]


NOAA Administrator – Predicting and Managing Extreme Events … [more]


Self Cleaning Glass – New coating made of superamphiphobic glass repels water and oil … [more]


Columbia University Medical Center researchers discover that worms can pass a trait down for 100 generations, without using DNA … [more]


Giant dinosaur bones discovered in New Mexico belong to North America’s biggest dinosaur, the sauropod Alamosaurus … [more]


New Apple Headquarters may have 500,000 square feet of solar panels generating over 5MW of power … [more]


How the voices of our ancestors sounded, back when humans still had air sacs … [more]


Pristinely detailed fossils show that the ancient predator Anomalocaris had compound eyes and keen vision … [more]


Scientists at King’s College London produce ‘clinical-grade’ human embronic stem cells without using any animal products … [more]


 

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January 27, 2012

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Researchers Use IPET to Capture 3-D Image of an Individual Protein

3-D Image of an Individual Protein

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) produced the first ever 3-D images of an individual protein. Using a technique they call “individual-particle electron tomography,” or IPET, these researchers were able to capture images of a single IgG antibody and apolipoprotein A-1 (ApoA-1.) When Gang Ren whirls the [...]

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January 27, 2012

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MSU Researchers Show How New Viruses Evolve Through Mutations

Ribbon diagram of the OmpF protein

Researchers at Michigan State University are studying how viruses evolve and potentially become deadly mutations. For the first time ever, scientists were able show how the “Lambda” virus went through four mutations and found a new way to attack host cells. Their ability to continuously duplicate these results implied that adaptation by natural selection had [...]

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January 27, 2012

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Researchers Study the Link Between Gas Hydrates and Climate Warming

Gas hydrate deposits by sector.

Recent research indicates that gas hydrate deposits should remain stable for a few thousand years and of those that become unstable, very few are likely to end up in the atmosphere contributing to global warming. This news comes from the U.S. Geological Survey and their researchers that have been examining the link between climate change [...]

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January 27, 2012

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DARPA Seeks Researchers for PERFECT Program

Power Dynamic for Continuation of Moore's Law

DARPA is looking to further increase processing speed in their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and has set up a Proposers’ Day workshop to further awareness and to attract potential researchers. The power efficiency revolution for embedded computing technologies (PERFECT) program seeks to improve computational capability by improving power efficiency for embedded computer systems and [...]

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January 27, 2012

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MIT Researchers Examine New Lunar Dynamo Evidence

lunar dynamo

New research by MIT scientists on lunar rock suggests that the moon once had a molten, convecting core of liquid metal. They believe this dynamo existed 3.7 billion years ago and may have been powered by the Earth’s gravitational pull. These findings were recently published in Science and are another piece in the planetary science [...]

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January 27, 2012

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Goddard’s Space Weather Laboratory to Use ‘Ensemble Forecasting’

Space Weather Center

Just in time for the peak in solar activity, Goddard’s Space Weather Laboratory will be fully functional in the next twenty months and will allow forecasters to simultaneously produce as many as 100 computerized forecasts. By using ensemble forecasting, they hope to better be able to predict the path and impact of severe solar storms. [...]

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January 26, 2012

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New Protein Discovery Could Lead to HIV Crippling Drugs

Scanning electron micrograph of HIV particles

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are studying the complex interactions between HIV proteins and human proteins. By focusing on the interaction between Vif and APOBEC3G, they recently discovered a new protein, CBF-ß, that enables HIV to destroy human cells. The researchers plan to conduct further tests with CBF-ß and Vif in [...]

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January 26, 2012

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Researchers Use Grape Seed Extract to Kill Cancer Cells

Grape seed extract kills head and neck cancer cells

Researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center are studying the effect of grape seed extract (GSE) on cancer cells found in the head and neck. A study published this week shows that GSE kills head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed. The researchers hope move GSE to clinical trials [...]

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January 26, 2012

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‘Blue Marble’ Image of the Earth Taken from NASA’s Suomi NPP Satellite

NASA’s Earth-observing satellite, Suomi NPP, captured this “Blue Marble” image of Earth on January 24, 2012 using the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite. As you can see, the HD photo is a vast improvement over the photo taken on December 7, 1972. A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard [...]

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January 26, 2012

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Scientists Create Stem-Cell-Derived Neurons from Alzheimer’s Disease

For the first time ever, Scientists from University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have created functional human Alzheimer’s neurons in a dish. The stem-cell-derived neurons could play a major role in unraveling the mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease and researchers hope to use the living cells as a tool for developing and testing drugs [...]

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January 26, 2012

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Worldwide Rise in Type 1 Diabetes Could Be Linked to Obesity

teenager-injecting-insulin

As obesity rises in the worldwide population, so does its effect on health, which includes joint damage, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and its complications. However, while it’s expected that type 2 diabetes is on the rise, the variant that’s linked to obesity, type 1 diabetes, the autoimmune disease with childhood onset, is on the global [...]

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