ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• How viruses evolve, and in some cases, become deadly
• NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets
• Rap music powers rhythmic action of medical sensor
• Ecologists capture first deep-sea fish noises
• Life beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues
• Following genetic footprints out of Africa: First modern humans settled in Arabia
• Radical theory explains the origin, evolution, and nature of life, challenges conventional wisdom
• Graphene: Supermaterial goes superpermeable
• Scientists create first free-standing 3-D cloak
• Engineered bacteria effectively target tumors, enabling tumor imaging potential in mice
• Giant asteroid Vesta likely cold and dark enough for ice
• Speed limit on the quantum highway: Physicists measure propagation velocity of quantum signals in a many-body system

How viruses evolve, and in some cases, become deadly Posted: 26 Jan 2012 07:45 PM PST Researchers have demonstrated how a new virus evolves, shedding light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations.

NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 planets Posted: 26 Jan 2012 12:59 PM PST NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.

Rap music powers rhythmic action of medical sensor Posted: 26 Jan 2012 12:21 PM PST The driving bass rhythm of rap music can be harnessed to power a new type of miniature medical sensor designed to be implanted in the body.

Ecologists capture first deep-sea fish noises Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:29 AM PST Fish biologists conducted one of the first studies of deep-sea fish sounds in more than 50 years, 2,237 feet under the Atlantic. With recording technology more affordable, fish sounds can be studied to test the idea that fish communicate with sound, especially those in the dark of the deep ocean.

Life beyond Earth? Underwater caves in Bahamas could give clues Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:15 AM PST Discoveries made in some underwater caves by researchers in the Bahamas could provide clues about how ocean life formed on Earth millions of years ago, and perhaps give hints of what types of marine life could be found on distant planets and moons.

Following genetic footprints out of Africa: First modern humans settled in Arabia Posted: 26 Jan 2012 09:37 AM PST A new study, using genetic analysis to look for clues about human migration over sixty thousand years ago, suggests that the first modern humans settled in Arabia on their way from the Horn of Africa to the rest of the world.

Radical theory explains the origin, evolution, and nature of life, challenges conventional wisdom Posted: 26 Jan 2012 08:51 AM PST Earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects -- for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA -- are animate, that is, alive.

Graphene: Supermaterial goes superpermeable Posted: 26 Jan 2012 07:06 AM PST Wonder material graphene has revealed another of its extraordinary properties Scientists have now found that it is superpermeable with respect to water. Graphene is one of the wonders of the science world, with the potential to create foldaway mobile phones, wallpaper-thin lighting panels and the next generation of aircraft. The new finding gives graphene's potential a most surprising dimension – graphene can also be used for distilling alcohol.

Scientists create first free-standing 3-D cloak Posted: 25 Jan 2012 04:55 PM PST Researchers in the US have, for the first time, cloaked a three-dimensional object standing in free space, bringing the much-talked-about invisibility cloak one step closer to reality.

Engineered bacteria effectively target tumors, enabling tumor imaging potential in mice Posted: 25 Jan 2012 02:23 PM PST Tumor-targeted bioluminescent bacteria have been shown for the first time to provide accurate 3-D images of tumors in mice, further advancing the potential for targeted cancer drug delivery.

Giant asteroid Vesta likely cold and dark enough for ice Posted: 25 Jan 2012 01:05 PM PST Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta's average global temperatures and illumination by the sun.

Speed limit on the quantum highway: Physicists measure propagation velocity of quantum signals in a many-body system Posted: 25 Jan 2012 12:15 PM PST A quantum computer based on quantum particles instead of classical bits, can in principle outperform any classical computer. However, it still remains an open question, how fast and how efficient quantum computers really may be able to work. A critical limitation will be given by the velocity with which a quantum signal can spread within a processing unit. For the first time, a group of physicists has succeeded in observing such a process in a solid-state like system.

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