ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Spitzer Discovers Young Stars with a 'Hula Hoop'
• NASA's Cassini sees forces controlling Enceladus jets
• 'Highway from Hell' fueled Costa Rican volcano
• Bird brains predate birds themselves: 'Flight-ready' brain was present in some non-avian dinosaurs, CT scans indicate
• Digest this: Cure for cancer may live in our intestines
• Robots strike fear in the hearts of fish: Anxious zebrafish help researchers understand how alcohol affects fear
• Physicists discover theoretical possibility of large, hollow magnetic cage molecules
• Guided growth of nanowires leads to self-integrated circuits
• New protein discovered with vast potential for treatment of cancer and other diseases
• By tracking maggots' food choices, scientists open significant new window into human learning
• Polar ecosystems acutely vulnerable to sunlight-driven tipping points
• Could planting trees in the desert mitigate climate change?
• Dawn of carnivores explains animal boom in distant past
• Stem cells in urine easy to isolate and have potential for numerous therapies

Spitzer Discovers Young Stars with a 'Hula Hoop' Posted: 31 Jul 2013 12:57 PM PDT Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a young stellar system that "blinks" every 93 days. Called YLW 16A, the system likely consists of three developing stars, two of which are surrounded by a disk of material left over from the star-formation process.

NASA's Cassini sees forces controlling Enceladus jets Posted: 31 Jul 2013 12:53 PM PDT The intensity of the jets of water ice and organic particles that shoot out from Saturn's moon Enceladus depends on the moon's proximity to the ringed planet, according to data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

'Highway from Hell' fueled Costa Rican volcano Posted: 31 Jul 2013 10:31 AM PDT Scientists suggest that the 1960s eruption of Costa Rica's largest stratovolcano was triggered by magma rising from the mantle over a few short months, rather than thousands of years or more, as many scientists have thought.

Bird brains predate birds themselves: 'Flight-ready' brain was present in some non-avian dinosaurs, CT scans indicate Posted: 31 Jul 2013 10:31 AM PDT New research provides evidence that dinosaurs evolved the brainpower necessary for flight well before they actually took to the air as birds. Based on computed tomographic scans, the study takes a comprehensive look at the so-called "bird brain," revealing that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains that were as large or larger than that of one of the earliest known birds, Archaeopteryx.

Digest this: Cure for cancer may live in our intestines Posted: 31 Jul 2013 10:31 AM PDT Treating a cancerous tumor is like watering a houseplant with a fire hose -- too much water kills the plant, just as too much chemotherapy and radiation kills the patient before it kills the tumor. However, if the patient's gastrointestinal tract remains healthy and functioning, the patient's chances of survival increase exponentially.

Robots strike fear in the hearts of fish: Anxious zebrafish help researchers understand how alcohol affects fear Posted: 31 Jul 2013 09:29 AM PDT The latest in a series of experiments testing the ability of robots to influence live animals shows that bio-inspired robots can not only elicit fear in zebrafish, but that this reaction can be modulated by alcohol. These findings may pave the way for new methodologies for understanding anxiety and other emotions, as well as substances that modulate them.

Physicists discover theoretical possibility of large, hollow magnetic cage molecules Posted: 31 Jul 2013 09:29 AM PDT Researchers have discovered, in theory, the possibility of creating large, hollow magnetic cage molecules that could one day be used in medicine as a drug delivery system to non-invasively treat tumors, and in other emerging technologies.

Guided growth of nanowires leads to self-integrated circuits Posted: 31 Jul 2013 09:28 AM PDT Teaching nanowires self-control from the outset enabled scientists to produce complex electronic nanocomponents.

New protein discovered with vast potential for treatment of cancer and other diseases Posted: 31 Jul 2013 09:28 AM PDT In cancer research, discovering a new protein that plays a role in cancer is like finding a key and a treasure map: follow the clues and eventually there could be a big reward. At least that's the hope from a new study that discovered a novel protein called ceramide-1 phosphate transport protein.

By tracking maggots' food choices, scientists open significant new window into human learning Posted: 31 Jul 2013 09:26 AM PDT The larva of the fruit fly is helping scientists understand the way humans learn information from each other. Fruit flies have long served as models for studying behavior, but new findings show their larvae may be even more valuable. Researchers were able to demonstrate that the larvae, or maggots, are capable of social learning, which opens the door to many other experiments that could provide valuable insights into human behavior.

Polar ecosystems acutely vulnerable to sunlight-driven tipping points Posted: 31 Jul 2013 06:39 AM PDT Slight changes in the timing of the annual loss of sea-ice in polar regions could have dire consequences for polar ecosystems, by allowing a lot more sunlight to reach the sea floor. The research predicts biodiversity on some areas of the polar seabed could be reduced by as much as one third within decades, as the poles warm.

Could planting trees in the desert mitigate climate change? Posted: 31 Jul 2013 06:34 AM PDT As the world starts feeling the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and consequent global temperature rise, researchers are looking for a Plan B to mitigate climate change. A group of German scientists has now come up with an environmentally friendly method that they say could do just that. The technique, dubbed carbon farming, consists in planting trees in arid regions on a large scale to capture carbon dioxide.

Dawn of carnivores explains animal boom in distant past Posted: 31 Jul 2013 06:33 AM PDT Scientists have linked increasing oxygen levels and the rise and evolution of carnivores (meat eaters) as the force behind a broad explosion of animal species and body structures millions of years ago.

Stem cells in urine easy to isolate and have potential for numerous therapies Posted: 31 Jul 2013 06:32 AM PDT Could harvesting stem cells for therapy one day be as simple as asking patients for a urine sample? Researchers have identified stem cells in urine that can be directed to become multiple cell types.

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