ScienceDaily: Top Science News

---

• Gas-giant exoplanets cling close to their parent stars
• Scientists discover thriving colonies of microbes in ocean 'plastisphere'
• Breakthrough in Internet bandwidth: New fiber optic technology could ease Internet congestion, video streaming
• Researchers reformulate the model of mitochondrial function
• Brain's 'garbage truck' may hold key to treating Alzheimer's and other disorders
• Key step in protein synthesis revealed
• Potential boost for world's food supply: Resistance gene found against Ug99 wheat stem rust pathogen
• Prevailing view of how the brain is wired overturned?
• Global warming may affect soil microbe survival, with unknown consequences on soil fertility and erosion
• NASA's Voyager 1 explores final frontier of our 'solar bubble'
• Chemists work to desalinate the ocean for drinking water, one nanoliter at a time
• Turning off cells in habit-associated brain region prevents rats from learning to run maze on autopilot
• A telescope for your eye: New contact lens design may improve sight of patients with macular degeneration
• Imagination can change what we hear and see
• Social networks shape monkey 'culture' too
• Researchers Discover Species-Recognition System in Fruit Flies
• Babies can read each other’s moods, study finds
• River deep, mountain high: New study reveals clues to lifecycle of world's iconic mountains
• Spiral galaxies like Milky Way bigger than thought
• Violent birth of neutron stars: Computer simulations confirm sloshing and spiral motions as stellar matter falls inward
• Tired and edgy? Sleep deprivation boosts anticipatory anxiety

Gas-giant exoplanets cling close to their parent stars Posted: 27 Jun 2013 01:14 PM PDT Gemini Observatory's Planet-Finding Campaign finds that, around many types of stars, distant gas-giant planets are rare and prefer to cling close to their parent stars. The impact on theories of planetary formation could be significant.

Scientists discover thriving colonies of microbes in ocean 'plastisphere' Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:25 AM PDT Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans -- a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the "plastisphere."

Breakthrough in Internet bandwidth: New fiber optic technology could ease Internet congestion, video streaming Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:24 AM PDT A team of engineers has devised a new fiber optic technology that promises to increase bandwidth dramatically.

Researchers reformulate the model of mitochondrial function Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:24 AM PDT New findings will mean rewriting the biochemistry textbooks. The study redefines the functioning of mitochondria and explains how cells generate energy from nutrients.

Brain's 'garbage truck' may hold key to treating Alzheimer's and other disorders Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:24 AM PDT Scientists point to a newly discovered system by which the brain removes waste as a potentially powerful new tool to treat neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease. In fact, scientists believe that some of these conditions may arise when the system is not doing its job properly.

Key step in protein synthesis revealed Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:24 AM PDT Scientists have trapped the ribosome, a protein-building molecular machine essential to all life, in a key transitional state that has long eluded researchers. Now, for the first time, scientists can see how the ribosome performs the precise mechanical movements needed to translate genetic code into proteins without making mistakes.

Potential boost for world's food supply: Resistance gene found against Ug99 wheat stem rust pathogen Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:17 AM PDT The world's food supply got a little more plentiful thanks to a scientific breakthrough. Scientists have identified a gene that gives wheat plants resistance to one of the most deadly races of the wheat stem rust pathogen, called Ug99.

Prevailing view of how the brain is wired overturned? Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:17 AM PDT A series of studies topples convention by showing that sensory information travels to two places at once: not only to the brain's mid-layer (where most axons lead), but also directly to its deeper layers.

Global warming may affect soil microbe survival, with unknown consequences on soil fertility and erosion Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:17 AM PDT Researchers have discovered for the first time that temperature determines where key soil microbes can thrive -- microbes that are critical to forming topsoil crusts in arid lands. And of concern, the scientists predict that in as little as 50 years, global warming may push some of these microbes out of their present stronghold with unknown consequences to soil fertility and erosion.

NASA's Voyager 1 explores final frontier of our 'solar bubble' Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:08 AM PDT Data from Voyager 1, now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.

Chemists work to desalinate the ocean for drinking water, one nanoliter at a time Posted: 27 Jun 2013 09:55 AM PDT By creating a small electrical field that removes salts from seawater, chemists have introduced a new method for the desalination of seawater that consumes less energy and is dramatically simpler than conventional techniques. The new method requires so little energy that it can run on a store-bought battery.

Turning off cells in habit-associated brain region prevents rats from learning to run maze on autopilot Posted: 27 Jun 2013 09:55 AM PDT Neuroscientists have now shown that they can prevent habits from taking root. Our daily routines can become so ingrained that we perform them automatically, such as taking the same route to work every day. Some behaviors, such as smoking or biting your fingernails, become so habitual that we can't stop even if we want to.

A telescope for your eye: New contact lens design may improve sight of patients with macular degeneration Posted: 27 Jun 2013 09:53 AM PDT Contact lenses correct eyesight but do nothing to improve blurry vision of those suffering from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness among older adults in the western world. Now a team of researchers has created a slim, telescopic contact lens that can switch between normal and magnified vision. With refinements, the system could offer AMD patients a relatively unobtrusive way to enhance their vision.

Imagination can change what we hear and see Posted: 27 Jun 2013 09:51 AM PDT Our imagination may affect how we experience the world more than we perhaps think. What we imagine hearing or seeing "in our head" can change our actual perception. The study sheds new light on a classic question in psychology and neuroscience -- about how our brains combine information from the different senses.

Social networks shape monkey 'culture' too Posted: 27 Jun 2013 09:51 AM PDT Of course Twitter and Facebook are all the rage, but the power of social networks didn't start just in the digital age. A new study on squirrel monkeys finds that monkeys with the strongest social networks catch on fastest to the latest in foraging crazes. They are monkey trendsters.

Researchers Discover Species-Recognition System in Fruit Flies Posted: 27 Jun 2013 09:45 AM PDT A team of researchers has discovered a sensory system in the foreleg of the fruit fly that tells male flies whether a potential mate is from a different species. The work addresses a central problem in evolution that is poorly understood: how animals of one species know not to mate with animals of other species.

Babies can read each other’s moods, study finds Posted: 27 Jun 2013 07:28 AM PDT Research shows that babies can understand each others emotional signals at five months of age. This study comes on the heels of research on infants' ability to understand the moods of dogs, monkeys and classical music.

River deep, mountain high: New study reveals clues to lifecycle of world's iconic mountains Posted: 27 Jun 2013 07:26 AM PDT Scientists have discovered the reasons behind the lifespan of some of the world's iconic mountain ranges. The study has revealed that interactions between landslides and erosion, caused by rivers, explains why some mountain ranges exceed their expected lifespan.

Spiral galaxies like Milky Way bigger than thought Posted: 27 Jun 2013 07:26 AM PDT Let's all fist bump: Spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way appear to be much larger and more massive than previously believed, according to a new study.

Violent birth of neutron stars: Computer simulations confirm sloshing and spiral motions as stellar matter falls inward Posted: 27 Jun 2013 05:30 AM PDT Scientists have conducted the most expensive and most elaborate computer simulations so far to study the formation of neutron stars at the center of collapsing stars with unprecedented accuracy. These worldwide first three-dimensional models with a detailed treatment of all important physical effects confirm that extremely violent, hugely asymmetric sloshing and spiral motions occur when the stellar matter falls towards the center. The results of the simulations thus lend support to basic perceptions of the dynamical processes that are involved when a star explodes as supernova.

Tired and edgy? Sleep deprivation boosts anticipatory anxiety Posted: 26 Jun 2013 11:30 AM PDT Researchers have found that a lack of sleep, which is common in anxiety disorders, may play a key role in ramping up the brain regions that contribute to excessive worrying. The results suggest that people suffering from such maladies as generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder, may benefit substantially from sleep therapy.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Science News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610