ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Diamond 'super-Earth' may not be quite so precious
• A slow, loving, 'affective' touch may be key to a healthy sense of self
• Weighed down by guilt: Research shows it's more than a metaphor
• Part of brain that makes humans and primates social creatures may play similar role in carnivores
• DNA research sheds light on ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews
• Iron melt network helped grow Earth's core, study suggests
• Primate brains follow predictable developmental pattern
• Evolutionary question answered: Ants more closely related to bees than to most wasps
• Working together: Bacteria join forces to produce electricity
• Babies learn to anticipate touch in the womb
• 'Brain training' may boost working memory, but not intelligence
• First ever evidence of a comet striking Earth
• Unexpected genomic change through 400 years of French-Canadian history
• Terrestrial ecosystems at risk of major shifts as temperatures increase
• 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics: Higgs particle and the origin of mass
• New more effective antimicrobials might rise from old

Diamond 'super-Earth' may not be quite so precious Posted: 08 Oct 2013 01:54 PM PDT An alien world believed to be the first-known planet to consist largely of diamond now appears less likely to be of such precious nature, according to a new analysis.

A slow, loving, 'affective' touch may be key to a healthy sense of self Posted: 08 Oct 2013 10:29 AM PDT Researchers found that a loving touch, characterized by a slow caress or stroke -- often an instinctive mother/child gesture or between romantic partners -- may boost the brain's sense of body ownership and, in turn, play a part in creating and sustaining a healthy sense of self.

Weighed down by guilt: Research shows it's more than a metaphor Posted: 08 Oct 2013 10:28 AM PDT Ever feel the weight of guilt? Lots of people say they do. They're "carrying guilt" or "weighed down by guilt." Are these just expressions, or is there something more to these metaphors? Researchers have now found evidence that the emotional experience of guilt can be grounded in subjective bodily sensation.

Part of brain that makes humans and primates social creatures may play similar role in carnivores Posted: 08 Oct 2013 08:25 AM PDT The part of the brain that makes humans and primates social creatures may play a similar role in carnivores, according to a growing body of research. In studying spotted hyenas, lions and, most recently, the raccoon family, biologists found a correlation between the size of the animals' frontal cortex and their social nature.

DNA research sheds light on ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews Posted: 08 Oct 2013 08:25 AM PDT Many of the maternal ancestors of modern Ashkenazi Jews were European converts, according to new research. Analysis of DNA samples has shown that on the female line, the Ashkenazim are descended not from the Near East but from southern and western Europe.

Iron melt network helped grow Earth's core, study suggests Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:26 AM PDT Scientists recreated the intense pressures and temperatures found deep within the Earth, resulting in a discovery that complicates theories of how the planet and its core were formed.

Primate brains follow predictable developmental pattern Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:25 AM PDT In a breakthrough for understanding brain evolution, neuroscientists have shown that differences between primate brains -- from the tiny marmoset to human -- can be largely explained as consequences of the same genetic program.

Evolutionary question answered: Ants more closely related to bees than to most wasps Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:25 AM PDT Genome sequencing and bioinformatics resolves a long-standing, evolutionary issue, demonstrating that ants and bees are more closely related to each other than they are to certain wasps.

Working together: Bacteria join forces to produce electricity Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:25 AM PDT Scientists have explored the relationships of two important bacterial forms, demonstrating their ability to produce electricity by coordinating their metabolic activities.

Babies learn to anticipate touch in the womb Posted: 08 Oct 2013 06:17 AM PDT Babies learn how to anticipate touch while in the womb, according to new research. Using 4-D scans psychologists found, for the first time, that fetuses were able to predict, rather than react to, their own hand movements towards their mouths as they entered the later stages of gestation compared to earlier in a pregnancy.

'Brain training' may boost working memory, but not intelligence Posted: 08 Oct 2013 06:17 AM PDT Brain training games, apps, and websites are popular and it's not hard to see why -- who wouldn't want to give their mental abilities a boost? New research suggests that brain training programs might strengthen your ability to hold information in mind, but they won't bring any benefits to the kind of intelligence that helps you reason and solve problems.

First ever evidence of a comet striking Earth Posted: 08 Oct 2013 06:15 AM PDT The first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth's atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered by a team of South African scientists and international collaborators.

Unexpected genomic change through 400 years of French-Canadian history Posted: 08 Oct 2013 06:12 AM PDT Researchers have discovered that the genomic signature inherited by today's 6 million French Canadians from the first 8,500 French settlers who colonized New France some 400 years ago has gone through an unparalleled change in human history, in a remarkably short timescale. This unique signature could serve as an ideal model to study the effect of demographic processes on human genetic diversity, including the identification of possibly damaging mutations associated with population-specific diseases.

Terrestrial ecosystems at risk of major shifts as temperatures increase Posted: 08 Oct 2013 06:12 AM PDT Over 80% of the world's ice-free land is at risk of profound ecosystem transformation by 2100, a new study reveals. "Essentially, we would be leaving the world as we know it," says a researcher who studied the critical impacts of climate change on landscapes.

2013 Nobel Prize in Physics: Higgs particle and the origin of mass Posted: 08 Oct 2013 04:58 AM PDT The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2013 to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider."

New more effective antimicrobials might rise from old Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:16 PM PDT By tinkering with their chemical structures, researchers have essentially re-invented a class of popular antimicrobial drugs, restoring and in some cases, expanding or improving, their effectiveness against drug-resistant pathogens in animal models.

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