ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Prototype of lunar water-prospecting robot to search for water ice at moon's northern pole
• Pioneer anomaly solved? Interstellar travelers of the future may be helped by physicist's calculations
• Most complex synthetic biology circuit yet: New sensor could be used to program cells to precisely monitor their environments
• How cancer cells break free from tumors: Study identifies adhesion molecules key to cancer’s spread through the body
• Drawing a line, with carbon nanotubes: New low-cost, durable carbon nanotube sensors can be etched with mechanical pencils
• Large water reservoirs at the dawn of stellar birth
• Swimming with hormones: Researchers unravel ancient urges that drive the social decisions of fish
• Regenerated lizard tails are different from originals, researchers discover
• Nobel Prize in Physics 2012: Particle control in a quantum world

Prototype of lunar water-prospecting robot to search for water ice at moon's northern pole Posted: 09 Oct 2012 02:37 PM PDT A robotics technology company has completed assembly of a full-size prototype of Polaris, a solar-powered robot that will search for potentially rich deposits of water ice at the moon's poles. The first of its kind, Polaris can accommodate a drill to bore one meter into the lunar surface and can operate in lunar regions characterized by dark, long shadows and a sun that hugs the horizon.

Pioneer anomaly solved? Interstellar travelers of the future may be helped by physicist's calculations Posted: 09 Oct 2012 01:11 PM PDT Interstellar travel will depend upon extremely precise measurements of every factor involved in the mission. The knowledge of those factors may be improved by a researcher's solution, found to a puzzle that has stumped astrophysicists for decades.

Most complex synthetic biology circuit yet: New sensor could be used to program cells to precisely monitor their environments Posted: 09 Oct 2012 10:15 AM PDT Using genes as interchangeable parts, synthetic biologists design cellular circuits that can perform new functions, such as sensing environmental conditions. However, the complexity that can be achieved in such circuits has been limited by a critical bottleneck: the difficulty in assembling genetic components that don't interfere with each other. Unlike electronic circuits on a silicon chip, biological circuits inside a cell cannot be physically isolated from one another.

How cancer cells break free from tumors: Study identifies adhesion molecules key to cancer’s spread through the body Posted: 09 Oct 2012 10:15 AM PDT Although tumor metastasis causes about 90 percent of cancer deaths, the exact mechanism that allows cancer cells to spread from one part of the body to another is not well understood. One key question is how tumor cells detach from the structural elements that normally hold tissues in place, then reattach themselves in a new site. A new study reveals some of the cellular adhesion molecules that are critical to this process.

Drawing a line, with carbon nanotubes: New low-cost, durable carbon nanotube sensors can be etched with mechanical pencils Posted: 09 Oct 2012 09:17 AM PDT Researchers have designed a new type of pencil lead in which graphite is replaced with a compressed powder of carbon nanotubes. The lead, which can be used with a regular mechanical pencil, can inscribe sensors on any paper surface.

Large water reservoirs at the dawn of stellar birth Posted: 09 Oct 2012 08:12 AM PDT The European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory has discovered enough water vapor to fill Earth's oceans more than 2000 times over, in a gas and dust cloud that is on the verge of collapsing into a new Sun-like star. Stars form within cold, dark clouds of gas and dust -- 'pre-stellar cores' -- that contain all the ingredients to make solar systems like our own.

Swimming with hormones: Researchers unravel ancient urges that drive the social decisions of fish Posted: 09 Oct 2012 07:13 AM PDT Researchers have discovered that a form of oxytocin—the hormone responsible for making humans fall in love—has a similar effect on fish, suggesting it is a key regulator of social behaviour that has evolved and endured since ancient times.

Regenerated lizard tails are different from originals, researchers discover Posted: 09 Oct 2012 06:24 AM PDT Just because a lizard can grow back its tail, doesn't mean it will be exactly the same. Researchers examined the anatomical and microscopic make-up of regenerated lizard tails and discovered that the new tails are quite different from the original ones.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2012: Particle control in a quantum world Posted: 09 Oct 2012 04:36 AM PDT The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2012 has been awarded to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems." Haroche and Wineland have independently invented and developed methods for measuring and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature, in ways that were previously thought unattainable.

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