ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Plant diversity is key to maintaining productive vegetation
• Lightning signature could help reveal the solar system's origins
• First light: Researchers develop new way to generate superluminal pulses
• Low oxygen levels could drive cancer growth, research suggests
• Environmental toxicants causing ovarian disease across generations
• Simulating reality: Less memory required on quantum computer than on classical computer, study shows
• 'Smart doorknobs' and gesture-controlled smartphones: Revolutionary technology enables objects to know your touch
• Thanks for the (computer) memory: More room for data in 'phase-change' material
• Early North Americans lived with extinct giant beasts, study shows
• Life-size 3-D hologram-like telepods may revolutionize videoconferencing in the future
• Stalagmite research suggests Earth has two modes of responding to change
• Naturally blond hair in Solomon Islanders rooted in native gene
• Evolution of sex differences: Battles of sexes shown to spur adaptive sex differences
• Rats recall past to make daily decisions
• Mars: Evidence of water flows at ancient impact crater endeavour
• Increasing speed of Greenland glaciers gives new insight for rising sea level
• Aged hematopoietic stem cells rejuvenated to be functionally younger
• Scientists show how a gene duplication helped our brains become 'human'
• New technique generates predictable complex, wavy shapes: May explain brain folds and be useful for drug delivery
• Regular jogging shows dramatic increase in life expectancy
• Four white dwarf stars caught in the act of consuming 'Earth-like' exoplanets

Plant diversity is key to maintaining productive vegetation Posted: 03 May 2012 05:05 PM PDT Vegetation, such as a patch of prairie or a forest stand, is more productive in the long run when more plant species are present, results of a new study show.

Lightning signature could help reveal the solar system's origins Posted: 03 May 2012 04:42 PM PDT Every second, lightning flashes some 50 times on Earth. Together these discharges coalesce and get stronger, creating electromagnetic waves circling around Earth, to create a beating pulse between the ground and the lower ionosphere, about 60 miles up in the atmosphere. This electromagnetic signature, known as Schumann Resonance, had only been observed from Earth's surface until, in 2011, scientists discovered they could also detect it using NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite. In a new paper, researchers describe how this new technique could be used to study other planets in the solar system as well, and even shed light on how the solar system formed.

First light: Researchers develop new way to generate superluminal pulses Posted: 03 May 2012 04:42 PM PDT Researchers have developed a novel way of producing light pulses that are "superluminal" -- in some sense they travel faster than the speed of light. The new method could be used to improve the timing of communications signals and to investigate the propagation of quantum correlations.

Low oxygen levels could drive cancer growth, research suggests Posted: 03 May 2012 04:42 PM PDT Low oxygen levels in cells may be a primary cause of uncontrollable tumor growth in some cancers, according to a new study. The authors' findings run counter to widely accepted beliefs that genetic mutations are responsible for cancer growth.

Environmental toxicants causing ovarian disease across generations Posted: 03 May 2012 04:42 PM PDT Researchers have found that ovarian disease can result from exposures to a wide range of environmental chemicals and be inherited by future generations. Reproductive biologists looked at how a fungicide, pesticide, plastic, dioxin and hydrocarbon mixtures affected a gestating rat's progeny for multiple generations. They saw subsequent generations inherit ovarian disease by "epigenetic transgenerational inheritance."

Simulating reality: Less memory required on quantum computer than on classical computer, study shows Posted: 03 May 2012 01:31 PM PDT Simulations of reality would require less memory on a quantum computer than on a classical computer, new research has shown. The study demonstrates a new way in which computers based on quantum physics could beat the performance of classical computers.

'Smart doorknobs' and gesture-controlled smartphones: Revolutionary technology enables objects to know your touch Posted: 03 May 2012 01:20 PM PDT A doorknob that knows whether to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped, a smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips and a chair that adjusts room lighting based on recognizing if a user is reclining or leaning forward are among the many possible applications of Touché, a new sensing technique.

Thanks for the (computer) memory: More room for data in 'phase-change' material Posted: 03 May 2012 12:40 PM PDT Engineers have discovered previously unknown properties of a common computer memory material, paving the way for new memory drives, movie discs and computer systems that absorb data more quickly, last longer and allow far more capacity than current data storage media.

Early North Americans lived with extinct giant beasts, study shows Posted: 03 May 2012 12:39 PM PDT A new study that determined the age of skeletal remains provides evidence humans reached the Western Hemisphere during the last ice age and lived alongside giant extinct mammals. The study addresses the century-long debate among scientists about whether human and mammal remains found at Vero Beach in the early 1900s date to the same time period. Using rare earth element analysis to measure the concentration of naturally occurring metals absorbed during fossilization, researchers show modern humans in North America co-existed with large extinct mammals about 13,000 years ago, including mammoths, mastodons and giant ground sloths.

Life-size 3-D hologram-like telepods may revolutionize videoconferencing in the future Posted: 03 May 2012 11:26 AM PDT Imagine a Star Trek-like human-scale 3-D videoconferencing pod that allows people in different locations to video conference as if they are standing in front of each other. "Why Skype when you can talk to a life-size 3-D holographic image of another person?" says one of the inventors.

Stalagmite research suggests Earth has two modes of responding to change Posted: 03 May 2012 11:26 AM PDT By analyzing stalagmites, a team of researchers has determined that the climate signature in the tropics through four glacial cycles looks different in some ways and similar in others when compared to the climate signature at high latitudes. The results suggest that Earth's climate system might have two modes of responding to significant changes.

Naturally blond hair in Solomon Islanders rooted in native gene Posted: 03 May 2012 11:25 AM PDT The common occurrence of blond hair among the dark-skinned indigenous people of the Solomon Islands is due to a homegrown genetic variant distinct from the gene that leads to blond hair in Europeans, according to a new study.

Evolution of sex differences: Battles of sexes shown to spur adaptive sex differences Posted: 03 May 2012 11:25 AM PDT Male water striders benefit by mating frequently, females by mating infrequently: both have developed traits to give them the upper hand. The researchers modified a gene involved in the development of antennae in male water striders and found that as the antennae became more elaborate, mating success increased. The study is unusual in that it describes a direct linkage between known forces of selection, evolutionary change morphology, and its underlying genetic basis.

Rats recall past to make daily decisions Posted: 03 May 2012 11:24 AM PDT Scientists have identified patterns of brain activity in the rat brain that play a role in the formation and recall of memories and decision-making. The discovery, which builds on the team's previous findings, offers a path for studying learning, decision-making and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Mars: Evidence of water flows at ancient impact crater endeavour Posted: 03 May 2012 11:24 AM PDT Evidence of ancient water at a Martian crater is the latest in a long series of discoveries by a surprisingly long-lived Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The latest discovery was made at the rim of the Endeavour Crater, a large ancient impact crater on Mars measuring 14 miles in diameter.

Increasing speed of Greenland glaciers gives new insight for rising sea level Posted: 03 May 2012 11:24 AM PDT Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland's contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century might be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible, a new study shows.

Aged hematopoietic stem cells rejuvenated to be functionally younger Posted: 03 May 2012 09:58 AM PDT Researchers have rejuvenated aged hematopoietic stem cells to be functionally younger, offering intriguing clues into how medicine might one day fend off some of the ailments of old age. The study brings new perspective to what has been a life science controversy -- countering what used to be broad consensus that the aging of hematopoietic stem cells was locked in by nature and not reversible by therapeutic intervention.

Scientists show how a gene duplication helped our brains become 'human' Posted: 03 May 2012 09:57 AM PDT Scientists have shown that an extra copy of a brain-development gene, which appeared in our ancestors' genomes about 2.4 million years ago, allowed maturing neurons to migrate farther and develop more connections.

New technique generates predictable complex, wavy shapes: May explain brain folds and be useful for drug delivery Posted: 03 May 2012 09:01 AM PDT A new technique predictably generates complex, wavy shapes and may help improve drug delivery and explain natural patterns from brain folds to bell peppers.

Regular jogging shows dramatic increase in life expectancy Posted: 03 May 2012 07:43 AM PDT Undertaking regular jogging increases the life expectancy of men by 6.2 years and women by 5.6 years, reveals the latest data.  Reviewing the evidence of whether jogging is healthy or hazardous, researchers said that  between one and two-and-a-half hours of jogging  per week at a "slow or average" pace delivers  optimum benefits for longevity.

Four white dwarf stars caught in the act of consuming 'Earth-like' exoplanets Posted: 03 May 2012 07:41 AM PDT Astrophysicists have pinpointed four white dwarfs surrounded by dust from shattered planetary bodies which once bore striking similarities to the composition of Earth.

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