ScienceDaily: Top Science News |
- New study shows effects of prehistoric nocturnal life on mammalian vision
- Synthetic magnetism used to control light: Opens door to nanoscale applications that use light instead of electricity
- Dawn sees 'young' surface on giant asteroid Vesta
- Causation warps our perception of time
- Exhaustive family tree for birds shows recent, rapid diversification
- Tabletop fault model reveals why some earthquakes result in faster shaking
- New self-assembling particles offer great promise for optical materials and ceramics
- Global genome effort seeks genetic roots of disease
- Scientists build the first all-carbon solar cell
- How the brain controls our habits: Neuroscientists identify a brain region that can switch between new and old habits
- Dark clouds, young stars, and a dash of Hollywood: New results from space telescope's explorations of stellar birthplaces
| New study shows effects of prehistoric nocturnal life on mammalian vision Posted: 31 Oct 2012 01:10 PM PDT Since the age of dinosaurs, most species of day-active mammals have retained the imprint of nocturnal life in their eye structures. Humans and other anthropoid primates, such as monkeys and apes, are the only groups that deviate from this pattern, according to a new study. The findings are the first to provide a large-scale body of evidence for the "nocturnal bottleneck theory," which suggests that mammalian sensory traits have been profoundly influenced by an extended period of adaptation to nocturnality during the Mesozoic Era. |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2012 12:16 PM PDT Physics and engineering researchers have demonstrated a device that produces a synthetic magnetism to exert virtual force on photons similar to the effect of magnets on electrons. The advance could yield a new class of nanoscale applications that use light instead of electricity. |
| Dawn sees 'young' surface on giant asteroid Vesta Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:43 AM PDT Like a Hollywood starlet constantly retouching her makeup, the giant asteroid Vesta is constantly stirring its outermost layer to present a young face. Data from NASA's Dawn mission show that a form of weathering that occurs on the moon and other airless bodies we've visited in the inner solar system does not alter Vesta's outermost layer in the same way. Carbon-rich asteroids have also been splattering dark material on Vesta's surface over a long span of the body's history. |
| Causation warps our perception of time Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:20 AM PDT Events that occur close to one another in time and space are sometimes "bound" together and we perceive them as meaningful episodes, a phenomenon that philosophers and psychological scientists call "temporal binding." New research suggests that our ability to understand causal relations plays an important role in temporal binding, revealing important insights into how we experience time. |
| Exhaustive family tree for birds shows recent, rapid diversification Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:19 AM PDT The most comprehensive family tree for birds to date has just been completed, connecting all living bird species -- nearly 10,000 in total -- and revealing surprising new details about their evolutionary history and its geographic context. |
| Tabletop fault model reveals why some earthquakes result in faster shaking Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:18 AM PDT A new study reveals that the more time an earthquake fault has to heal, the faster the shake it will produce when it finally ruptures. Because the rapidity and strength of the shaking are what causes damage to major structures, the new findings could help engineers better assess the vulnerabilities of buildings, bridges and roads. They also showed that a lab model of a fault can provide important information for natural faults. |
| New self-assembling particles offer great promise for optical materials and ceramics Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:17 AM PDT Scientists have created new kinds of particles, 1/100th the diameter of a human hair, that spontaneously assemble themselves into structures resembling molecules made from atoms. These new particles come together, or "self-assemble," to form structures in patterns that were previously impossible to make and hold promise for manufacturing advanced optical materials and ceramics. |
| Global genome effort seeks genetic roots of disease Posted: 31 Oct 2012 11:17 AM PDT By decoding the genomes of more than 1,000 people whose homelands stretch from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Americas, scientists have compiled the largest and most detailed catalog yet of human genetic variation. The massive resource will help medical researchers find the genetic roots of rare and common diseases in populations worldwide. |
| Scientists build the first all-carbon solar cell Posted: 31 Oct 2012 09:50 AM PDT Scientists have built the first solar cell made entirely of carbon, a promising alternative to the expensive materials used in photovoltaic devices today. |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2012 08:14 AM PDT Neuroscientists have found that a small region of the brain's prefrontal cortex, where most thought and planning occurs, is responsible for moment-by-moment control of which habits are switched on at a given time. |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2012 05:15 AM PDT An astronomical project has examined the earliest stages of star formation in unprecedented depth: Using techniques more commonly encountered in Hollywood blockbuster computer graphics than in astronomy, the researchers produced a three-dimensional map of the molecular cloud B68, a possible future birthplace for a low-mass star. Turning their attention to much more massive molecular clouds, the researchers also managed to identify a previously unobserved class of object that is likely the earliest known precursor of the birth of massive stars. |
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