ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Gravitational waves help us understand black-hole weight gain
• Unique skull find rebuts theories on species diversity in early humans
• Brain may flush out toxins during sleep
• Gene regulation differences between humans, chimpanzees very complex
• Researchers advance toward engineering 'wildly new genome'
• Astronomer helps research team see misaligned planets in distant system
• Mysterious ancient human crossed Wallace's Line
• Frog-killing fungus paralyzes amphibian immune response
• Marmoset monkeys know polite conversation
• Archaeologists rediscover the lost home of the last Neanderthals
• Most distant gravitational lens helps weigh galaxies
• U.S. regions exhibit distinct personalities, research reveals
• Neanderthals used toothpicks to alleviate the pain of diseases related to teeth, such as inflammation of the gums
• Fat black holes grown up in 'cities': Observational result using virtual observatory
• Bacteria-eating viruses 'magic bullets in the war on superbugs'

Gravitational waves help us understand black-hole weight gain Posted: 17 Oct 2013 02:40 PM PDT Supermassive black holes: every large galaxy's got one. But here's a real conundrum: how did they grow so big? A new article pits the front-running ideas about the growth of supermassive black holes against observational data -- a limit on the strength of gravitational waves, obtained with CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia.

Unique skull find rebuts theories on species diversity in early humans Posted: 17 Oct 2013 02:39 PM PDT Paleoanthropologists have uncovered the intact skull of an early Homo individual in Dmanisi, Georgia. This find is forcing a change in perspective in the field of paleoanthropology: human species diversity two million years ago was much smaller than presumed thus far. However, diversity within the Homo erectus, the first global species of human, was as great as in humans today.

Brain may flush out toxins during sleep Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:46 AM PDT Using mice, researchers showed for the first time that the space between brain cells may increase during sleep, allowing the brain to flush out toxins that build up during waking hours. These results suggest a new role for sleep in health and disease.

Gene regulation differences between humans, chimpanzees very complex Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:46 AM PDT Changes in gene regulation have been used to study the evolutionary chasm that exists between humans and chimpanzees despite their largely identical DNA. However, scientists have discovered that mRNA expression levels, long considered a barometer for differences in gene regulation, often do not reflect differences in protein expression -- and, therefore, biological function -- between humans and chimpanzees.

Researchers advance toward engineering 'wildly new genome' Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:46 AM PDT In two parallel projects, researchers have rewritten the genetic code of the bacterium E. coli. In the first study they created a genetically and biochemically novel organism by erasing every example of a single codon from the entire genome. In the second, they tested whether all codons could be swapped to a synonymous codon in 42 separate genes, while eliminating every instance of 13 codons throughout each of those genes.

Astronomer helps research team see misaligned planets in distant system Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:44 AM PDT NASA's Kepler space telescope has helped astronomers see a distant planetary system featuring multiple planets orbiting their host star at a severe tilt.

Mysterious ancient human crossed Wallace's Line Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:44 AM PDT Scientists have proposed that the most recently discovered ancient human relatives – the Denisovans – somehow managed to cross one of the world's most prominent marine barriers in Indonesia, and later interbred with modern humans moving through the area on the way to Australia and New Guinea.

Frog-killing fungus paralyzes amphibian immune response Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:44 AM PDT A fungus that is killing frogs and other amphibians around the world releases a toxic factor that disables the amphibian immune response, investigators report.

Marmoset monkeys know polite conversation Posted: 17 Oct 2013 10:52 AM PDT Humans aren't the only species that knows how to carry on polite conversation. Marmoset monkeys, too, will engage one another for up to 30 minutes at a time in vocal turn-taking.

Archaeologists rediscover the lost home of the last Neanderthals Posted: 17 Oct 2013 08:14 AM PDT A record of Neanderthal archaeology, thought to be long lost, has been re-discovered by scientists working in the Channel island of Jersey.

Most distant gravitational lens helps weigh galaxies Posted: 17 Oct 2013 08:14 AM PDT Astronomers have found the most distant gravitational lens yet -- a galaxy that, as predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, deflects and intensifies the light of an even more distant object. The discovery provides a rare opportunity to directly measure the mass of a distant galaxy. But it also poses a mystery: lenses of this kind should be exceedingly rare.

U.S. regions exhibit distinct personalities, research reveals Posted: 17 Oct 2013 06:34 AM PDT Americans with similar temperaments are so likely to live in the same areas that a map of the country can be divided into regions with distinct personalities, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Neanderthals used toothpicks to alleviate the pain of diseases related to teeth, such as inflammation of the gums Posted: 17 Oct 2013 05:03 AM PDT Removing food scraps trapped between the teeth one of the most common functions of using toothpicks, thus contributing to our oral hygiene. This habit is documented in the genus Homo, as early as Homo habilis, a species that lived between 1.9 and 1.6 million years ago. New research based on the Cova Foradà Neanderthal fossil shows that this hominid also used toothpicks to mitigate pain caused by oral diseases such as inflammation of the gums (periodontal disease). It is the oldest documented case of palliative treatment of dental disease done with this tool.

Fat black holes grown up in 'cities': Observational result using virtual observatory Posted: 17 Oct 2013 05:01 AM PDT Massive black holes of more than one million solar masses exist at the center of most galaxies.  Some of the massive black holes are observed as active galactic nuclei (AGN) which attract surrounding gas  and release huge amounts of energy.

Bacteria-eating viruses 'magic bullets in the war on superbugs' Posted: 16 Oct 2013 06:25 PM PDT A team of scientists has isolated viruses that eat bacteria -- called phages -- to specifically target the highly infectious hospital superbug Clostridium difficile (C. diff.).

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