ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Emotion reversed in left-handers' brains
• First-of-its-kind study reveals surprising ecological effects of earthquake and tsunami
• Zombie-ant fungus is under attack, research reveals
• After epic debate, avian flu research sees light of day
• Iceman mummy: 5,000-year-old red blood cells discovered -- oldest blood known to modern science
• Experiments underestimate plant responses to climate change
• Old fish makes new splash: Coelacanth find rewrites history of the ancient fish
• Ecosystem effects of biodiversity loss could rival impacts of climate change, pollution
• Black hole caught red-handed in a stellar homicide
• New understanding of Alzheimer's trigger
• At smallest scale, liquid crystal behavior portends new materials
• Infants begin to learn about race in the first year
• First 'microsubmarines' designed to help clean up oil spills
• Stream temperatures don't parallel warming climate trend
• Marine food chain becomes clearer with new revelations about prey distribution
• Eye size determined by maximum running speed in mammals
• Large-scale simulation of human blood is boon to personalized medicine
• Artificial muscle: Squid and zebrafish cells inspire camouflaging smart materials
• Sifting through Dust near Orion's Belt
• Arctic sea-ice loss didn't happen by chance
• Vibrating suit gives Olympic hopefuls competitive advantage
• Hearing and touch have common genetic basis: Gene mutation leads to impairment of two senses
• Dopamine impacts your willingness to work

Emotion reversed in left-handers' brains Posted: 02 May 2012 03:48 PM PDT The way we use our hands may determine how emotions are organized in our brains, according to a recent study. Motivation, the drive to approach or withdraw from physical and social stimuli, is a basic building block of human emotion.

First-of-its-kind study reveals surprising ecological effects of earthquake and tsunami Posted: 02 May 2012 03:47 PM PDT The reappearance of long-forgotten habitats and the resurgence of species unseen for years may not be among the expected effects of a natural disaster. Yet that's exactly what researchers have found on the sandy beaches of south central Chile, after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake and devastating tsunami in 2010. Their study also revealed a preview of the problems wrought by sea level rise -- a major symptom of climate change.

Zombie-ant fungus is under attack, research reveals Posted: 02 May 2012 03:47 PM PDT A parasite that fights the zombie-ant fungus has yielded some of its secrets to an international research team. The research reveals, for the first time, how an entire ant colony is able to survive infestations by the zombie-ant fungus, which invades an ant's brain and causes it to march to its death at a mass grave near the ant colony, where the fungus spores erupt out of the ant's head.

After epic debate, avian flu research sees light of day Posted: 02 May 2012 11:38 AM PDT After a marathon debate over a pair of studies that show how the avian H5N1 influenza virus could become transmissible in mammals, and an unprecedented recommendation by a government review panel to block publication, one of the studies was finally and fully published on May 3, 2012.

Iceman mummy: 5,000-year-old red blood cells discovered -- oldest blood known to modern science Posted: 02 May 2012 11:11 AM PDT His DNA has been decoded; samples from his stomach and intestines have allowed us to reconstruct his very last meal. The circumstances of his violent death appear to have been explained. However, what had, at least thus far, eluded the scientists, was identifying any traces of blood in Ötzi, the 5,000-year-old glacier mummy. Examination of his aorta had yielded no results. Yet recently, a team of scientists from Italy and Germany, using nanotechnology, succeeded in locating red blood cells in Ötzi's wounds, thereby discovering the oldest traces of blood to have been found anywhere in the world.

Experiments underestimate plant responses to climate change Posted: 02 May 2012 10:31 AM PDT Experiments may dramatically underestimate how plants will respond to climate change in the future. That's the conclusion of an analysis of 50 plant studies on four continents.

Old fish makes new splash: Coelacanth find rewrites history of the ancient fish Posted: 02 May 2012 10:31 AM PDT Coelacanths, an ancient group of fishes once thought to be long extinct, made headlines in 1938 when one of their modern relatives was caught off the coast of South Africa. Now coelacanths are making another splash.

Ecosystem effects of biodiversity loss could rival impacts of climate change, pollution Posted: 02 May 2012 10:31 AM PDT Loss of biodiversity appears to impact ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to a new study. There has been growing concern that the very high rates of modern extinctions -- due to habitat loss, overharvesting and other human-caused environmental changes -- could reduce nature's ability to provide goods and services like food, clean water and a stable climate.

Black hole caught red-handed in a stellar homicide Posted: 02 May 2012 10:29 AM PDT Astronomers have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close. Supermassive black holes, weighing millions to billions times more than the Sun, lurk in the centers of most galaxies. These hefty monsters lay quietly until an unsuspecting victim, such as a star, wanders close enough to get ripped apart by their powerful gravitational clutches.

New understanding of Alzheimer's trigger Posted: 02 May 2012 10:29 AM PDT A highly toxic beta-amyloid – a protein that exists in the brains of Alzheimer's disease victims – has been found to greatly increase the toxicity of other more common and less toxic beta-amyloids, serving as a possible "trigger" for the advent and development of Alzheimer's, researchers have discovered.

At smallest scale, liquid crystal behavior portends new materials Posted: 02 May 2012 10:29 AM PDT Liquid crystals, the state of matter that makes possible the flat screen technology now commonly used in televisions and computers, may have some new technological tricks in store.

Infants begin to learn about race in the first year Posted: 02 May 2012 10:29 AM PDT A new study confirms that though born with equal abilities to tell other-race people apart, by age 9 months infants are better at recognizing faces and emotional expressions of same-race people and the ability to distinguish other-race faces and match emotional sounds with expressions declines.

First 'microsubmarines' designed to help clean up oil spills Posted: 02 May 2012 09:34 AM PDT Scientists are reporting development and successful testing of the first self-propelled "microsubmarines" designed to pick up droplets of oil from contaminated waters and transport them to collection facilities. The report concludes that these tiny machines could play an important role in cleaning up oil spills, like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Stream temperatures don't parallel warming climate trend Posted: 02 May 2012 09:34 AM PDT A new analysis of streams in the western United States with long-term monitoring programs has found that despite a general increase in air temperatures over the past several decades, streams are not necessarily warming at the same rate.

Marine food chain becomes clearer with new revelations about prey distribution Posted: 02 May 2012 09:34 AM PDT A new study has found that each step of the marine food chain is clearly controlled by the trophic level below it -- and the driving factor influencing that relationship is not the abundance of prey, but how that prey is distributed.

Eye size determined by maximum running speed in mammals Posted: 02 May 2012 08:26 AM PDT Maximum running speed is the most important variable influencing mammalian eye size other than body size, according to new research.

Large-scale simulation of human blood is boon to personalized medicine Posted: 02 May 2012 06:20 AM PDT Having a virtual copy of a patient's blood in a computer would be a boon to researchers and doctors. They could examine a simulated heart attack caused by blood clotting in a diseased coronary artery and see if a drug like aspirin would be effective in reducing the size of such a clot.

Artificial muscle: Squid and zebrafish cells inspire camouflaging smart materials Posted: 02 May 2012 06:19 AM PDT Researchers have created artificial muscles that can be transformed at the flick of a switch to mimic the remarkable camouflaging abilities of organisms such as squid and zebrafish. They demonstrated two individual transforming mechanisms that they believe could be used in 'smart clothing' to trigger camouflaging tricks similar to those seen in nature.

Sifting through Dust near Orion's Belt Posted: 02 May 2012 06:19 AM PDT A new image of the region surrounding the reflection nebula Messier 78, just to the north of Orion's Belt, shows clouds of cosmic dust threaded through the nebula like a string of pearls. The observations, made with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope[1], use the heat glow of interstellar dust grains to show astronomers where new stars are being formed.

Arctic sea-ice loss didn't happen by chance Posted: 02 May 2012 06:19 AM PDT The ongoing rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is often interpreted as the canary in the mine for anthropogenic climate change. In a new study, scientists have now systematically examined the validity of this claim. They find that neither natural fluctuations nor self-acceleration can explain the observed Arctic sea-ice retreat. Instead, the recent evolution of Arctic sea ice shows a strong, physically plausible correlation with the increasing greenhouse gas concentration. For Antarctic sea ice, no such link is found – for a good reason.

Vibrating suit gives Olympic hopefuls competitive advantage Posted: 02 May 2012 06:19 AM PDT Pioneering research has applications in both health and sports. The suit is designed to give wearers feedback about where their body is in space. It does this by focusing on key points in the body, taking relative measurements between them to check the user's position. This data, much more simple to acquire and treat in real time than more complex motion capture systems, is then used to give the wearer feedback in real time about their movement.

Hearing and touch have common genetic basis: Gene mutation leads to impairment of two senses Posted: 01 May 2012 03:30 PM PDT New research shows that hearing and touch have a common genetic basis. In patients with Usher syndrome, a hereditary form of deafness accompanied by impaired vision, researchers have discovered a gene mutation that is also causative for the patients' impaired touch sensitivity.

Dopamine impacts your willingness to work Posted: 01 May 2012 03:27 PM PDT Slacker or go-getter? Everyone knows that people vary substantially in how hard they are willing to work, but the origin of these individual differences in the brain remains a mystery. Now the veil has been pushed back by a new brain imaging study that has found an individual's willingness to work hard to earn money is strongly influenced by the chemistry in three specific areas of the brain.

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