ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Obesity in dads may be associated with offspring's increased risk of disease
• Does probability come from quantum physics?
• Baby boomers in worse health than their parents
• Water purification on the cheap: System cleans 'produced water' from natural gas wells
• Tendency to fear is strong political influence
• Light-emitting nano triangles may have applications in optical technology
• A spiral galaxy with a secret
• Newly discovered plant structure may lead to improved biofuel processing
• Evidence moles can smell in stereo
• New 'retention model' explains enigmatic ribbon at edge of solar system
• Control a virtual spacecraft by thought alone
• Klondike, puppy born from a frozen embryo, fetches good news for endangered animals
• Birds in Asia may need a hand to weather climate change
• Could the humble sea urchin hold the key to carbon capture?
• 3-D printing breakthrough with human embryonic stem cells
• Injection-free vaccination technique could address global vaccine challenge for HIV, malaria

Obesity in dads may be associated with offspring's increased risk of disease Posted: 05 Feb 2013 05:02 PM PST A father's obesity is one factor that may influence his children's health and potentially raise their risk for diseases like cancer, according to new research. The study is the first in humans to show that paternal obesity may alter a genetic mechanism in the next generation, suggesting that a father's lifestyle factors may be transmitted to his children.

Does probability come from quantum physics? Posted: 05 Feb 2013 12:14 PM PST Ever since Erwin Schrodinger put his unfortunate cat in a box, his fellow physicists have been using quantum theory to explain and understand the nature of waves and particles. But a new article makes the case that these quantum fluctuations actually are responsible for the probability of all actions, with far-reaching implications for theories of the universe.

Baby boomers in worse health than their parents Posted: 05 Feb 2013 11:33 AM PST Despite having a reputation of being the healthiest and most active generation, baby boomers are actually in worse overall health than their parents, according to a new study.

Water purification on the cheap: System cleans 'produced water' from natural gas wells Posted: 05 Feb 2013 10:17 AM PST A new system cleans 'produced water' from natural gas wells, and could lead to improved desalination plants for developing countries.

Tendency to fear is strong political influence Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:37 AM PST Fear can play a role in influencing political attitudes on hot-button issues like immigration, according to new research. The study shows that individuals who are genetically predisposed to fear tend to have more negative out-group opinions, which play out politically as support for policies like anti-immigration and segregation.

Light-emitting nano triangles may have applications in optical technology Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:37 AM PST For the first time, scientists have created single layers of a naturally occurring rare mineral called tungstenite, which they have used to produce a sheet of stacked sulfur and tungsten atoms with unusual photoluminescent properties and with potential for use in optical technologies such as light detectors and lasers.

A spiral galaxy with a secret Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:37 AM PST The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope -- with a little help from an amateur astronomer -- has produced one of the best views yet of nearby spiral galaxy Messier 106. Located a little over 20 million light-years away, practically a neighbor by cosmic standards, Messier 106 is one of the brightest and nearest spiral galaxies to our own.

Newly discovered plant structure may lead to improved biofuel processing Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:36 AM PST When a botanist approached his colleagues with some unusual data he had collected, they initially seemed convinced that his experiment had become contaminated; what he was seeing simply didn't make any sense.

Evidence moles can smell in stereo Posted: 05 Feb 2013 09:30 AM PST Neuroscientists have performed a series of tests that shows definitively that the common mole uses stereo sniffing to locate its prey.

New 'retention model' explains enigmatic ribbon at edge of solar system Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:21 AM PST Since its Oct. 2008 launch, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer has provided images of the invisible interactions between our home in the galaxy and interstellar space. Particles emanating from this boundary produce a striking, narrow ribbon, which had yet to be explained despite more than a dozen possible theories. In a new "retention model," researchers suggest that charged particles trapped in this region create the ribbon as they escape as neutral atoms.

Control a virtual spacecraft by thought alone Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:17 AM PST Scientists have been working with NASA on a project where they controlled a virtual spacecraft by thought alone. Using BCI (brain-computer interface) technology, they found that combining the brain power of two people could be more accurate in steering a spacecraft than one person. BCIs convert signals generated from the brain into control commands for various applications, including virtual reality and hands-free control.

Klondike, puppy born from a frozen embryo, fetches good news for endangered animals Posted: 05 Feb 2013 07:11 AM PST Meet Klondike, the western hemisphere's first puppy born from a frozen embryo. He's a beagle-Labrador retriever mix, and although neither of those breeds are endangered, Klondike's very existence is exciting news for endangered canids, like the red wolf.

Birds in Asia may need a hand to weather climate change Posted: 04 Feb 2013 07:08 PM PST Birds in Asia may need a helping hand to adapt to climate change, according to scientists. A new study shows that many bird species are likely to suffer under future climate change, and will require enhanced protection of important sites, better management of the wider countryside, and in some of the most extreme cases may need to be physically moved to climatically suitable areas to help them survive.

Could the humble sea urchin hold the key to carbon capture? Posted: 04 Feb 2013 07:08 PM PST The discovery that sea urchins use nickel particles to harness carbon dioxide from the sea could be the key to capturing tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Experts have discovered that in the presence of a nickel catalyst, carbon dioxide can be converted rapidly and cheaply into the harmless, solid mineral, calcium carbonate.

3-D printing breakthrough with human embryonic stem cells Posted: 04 Feb 2013 07:08 PM PST A team of researchers from Scotland has used a novel 3-D printing technique to arrange human embryonic stem cells for the very first time. Scientists hope that this breakthrough will allow three-dimensional tissues and structures to be created using hESCs, which could, amongst other things, speed up and improve the process of drug testing.

Injection-free vaccination technique could address global vaccine challenge for HIV, malaria Posted: 04 Feb 2013 12:39 PM PST Scientists have demonstrated the ability to deliver a dried live vaccine to the skin without a traditional needle, and shown for the first time that this technique is powerful enough to enable specialized immune cells in the skin to kick-start the immunizing properties of the vaccine.

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