ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Technology produces clean-burning hydrogen fuel cheaply using carbon nanotubes
• Domestication syndrome: White patches, baby faces and tameness explained by mild neural crest deficits
• Short lives, violent deaths: Two CT-scanned Siberian mammoth calves yield trove of insights
• Smell and eye tests show potential to detect Alzheimer's early
• Australia drying caused by greenhouse gases, study shows
• Deep within spinach leaves, vibrations enhance efficiency of photosynthesis
• Getting a charge out of water droplets: Water jumping from a superhydrophobic surface can be harnessed to produce electricity
• Growing up on livestock farm halves risk of inflammatory bowel diseases
• Children on dairy farms run one-tenth the risk of developing allergies; Dairy farm exposure also beneficial during pregnancy
• Sun sends more 'tsunami waves' to Voyager 1

Technology produces clean-burning hydrogen fuel cheaply using carbon nanotubes Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:41 AM PDT Researchers have developed a technology that could overcome a major cost barrier to make clean-burning hydrogen fuel -- a fuel that could replace expensive and environmentally harmful fossil fuels. The new technology is a novel catalyst that performs almost as well as cost-prohibitive platinum for so-called electrolysis reactions, which use electric currents to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The Rutgers technology is also far more efficient than less-expensive catalysts investigated to-date.

Domestication syndrome: White patches, baby faces and tameness explained by mild neural crest deficits Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:01 AM PDT More than 140 years ago, Charles Darwin noticed something peculiar about domesticated mammals. Compared to their wild ancestors, domestic species are more tame, and they also tend to display a suite of other characteristic features, including floppier ears, patches of white fur, and more juvenile faces with smaller jaws. Since Darwin's observations, the explanation for this pattern has proved elusive, but now, a new hypothesis has been proposed that could explain why breeding for tameness causes changes in such diverse traits.

Short lives, violent deaths: Two CT-scanned Siberian mammoth calves yield trove of insights Posted: 13 Jul 2014 01:33 PM PDT CT scans of two newborn woolly mammoths recovered from the Siberian Arctic are revealing previously inaccessible details about the early development of prehistoric pachyderms. In addition, the X-ray images show that both creatures died from suffocation after inhaling mud.

Smell and eye tests show potential to detect Alzheimer's early Posted: 13 Jul 2014 12:55 PM PDT A decreased ability to identify odors might indicate the development of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, while examinations of the eye could indicate the build-up of beta-amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer's, in the brain, according to the results of four new research trials.

Australia drying caused by greenhouse gases, study shows Posted: 13 Jul 2014 12:55 PM PDT A new high-resolution climate model has been developed that shows southwestern Australia's long-term decline in fall and winter rainfall is caused by increases in human-made greenhouse gas emissions and ozone depletion, according to research. Several natural causes were tested with the model, including volcano eruptions and changes in the sun's radiation. But none of these natural climate drivers reproduced the long-term observed drying, indicating this trend is due to human activity.

Deep within spinach leaves, vibrations enhance efficiency of photosynthesis Posted: 13 Jul 2014 12:55 PM PDT Biophysics researchers have used short pulses of light to peer into the mechanics of photosynthesis and illuminate the role that molecule vibrations play in the energy conversion process that powers life on our planet.

Getting a charge out of water droplets: Water jumping from a superhydrophobic surface can be harnessed to produce electricity Posted: 11 Jul 2014 10:28 AM PDT Last year, researchers discovered that when water droplets spontaneously jump away from superhydrophobic surfaces during condensation, they can gain electric charge in the process. Now, the same team has demonstrated that this process can generate small amounts of electricity that might be used to power electronic devices.

Growing up on livestock farm halves risk of inflammatory bowel diseases Posted: 11 Jul 2014 07:13 AM PDT The incidence of inflammatory bowel diseases is rising sharply -- particularly among young people. However, new research indicates that growing up on a livestock farm may have a protective effect. "It is extremely exciting that we can now see that not only allergic diseases, but also more classic inflammatory diseases appear to depend on the environment we are exposed to early in our lives," says one expert.

Children on dairy farms run one-tenth the risk of developing allergies; Dairy farm exposure also beneficial during pregnancy Posted: 09 Jul 2014 06:56 AM PDT Children who live on farms that produce milk run one-tenth the risk of developing allergies as other rural children. According to researchers, pregnant women may benefit from spending time on dairy farms to promote maturation of the fetal and neonatal immune system.

Sun sends more 'tsunami waves' to Voyager 1 Posted: 08 Jul 2014 09:55 AM PDT NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new "tsunami wave" from the sun as it sails through interstellar space. Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun's bubble, entering a new frontier.

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