ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Cheap, highly efficient solar cells: A new stable and cost-cutting type of perovskite solar cell
• Untangling spider's webs: Largest-ever study of spider genetics shows orb weaver spiders do not share common origins
• Scientists experimentally re-create conditions deep inside giant planets, such as Jupiter and many exo-planets
• How existing cropland could feed billions more
• Earth-like soils on Mars? Ancient fossilized soils potentially found deep inside impact crater suggest microbial life
• Is the universe a bubble? Let's check: Making the multiverse hypothesis testable
• Eye movements reveal difference between love and lust
• Danish DNA could be key to happiness
• Are ants the answer to carbon dioxide sequestration?
• Humans walking on all fours is not backward evolution
• Sharpest map of Mars surface properties
• Tooth plaque provides unique insights into our prehistoric ancestors' diet
• Asteroid Vesta to reshape theories of planet formation
• Brain of world's first known predators discovered
• Scientists find way to trap, kill malaria parasite
• Mediterranean diet has varied effects on cognitive decline among different races, study shows
• Marijuana dependence alters the brain's response to drug paraphernalia

Cheap, highly efficient solar cells: A new stable and cost-cutting type of perovskite solar cell Posted: 17 Jul 2014 12:15 PM PDT Scientists have made a very efficient perovskite solar cell that does not require a hole-conducting layer. The novel photovoltaic achieved energy conversion efficiency of 12.8 percent and was stable for over 1000 hours under full sunlight. The innovation is expected to significantly reduce the cost of these promising solar cells.

Untangling spider's webs: Largest-ever study of spider genetics shows orb weaver spiders do not share common origins Posted: 17 Jul 2014 11:20 AM PDT The largest-ever phylogenetic study of spiders shows that, contrary to long-held popular opinion, the two groups of spiders that weave orb-shaped webs do not share a single origin.

Scientists experimentally re-create conditions deep inside giant planets, such as Jupiter and many exo-planets Posted: 17 Jul 2014 11:20 AM PDT Using the largest laser in the world, scientists for the first time have experimentally re-created the conditions that exist deep inside giant planets, such as Jupiter, Uranus and many of the planets recently discovered outside our solar system.

How existing cropland could feed billions more Posted: 17 Jul 2014 11:19 AM PDT Feeding a growing human population without increasing stresses on Earth's strained land and water resources may seem like an impossible challenge. But according to a new report focusing efforts to improve food systems on a few specific regions, crops and actions could make it possible to both meet the basic needs of 3 billion more people and decrease agriculture's environmental footprint.

Earth-like soils on Mars? Ancient fossilized soils potentially found deep inside impact crater suggest microbial life Posted: 17 Jul 2014 09:50 AM PDT Soil deep in a crater dating to some 3.7 billion years ago contains evidence that Mars was once much warmer and wetter, says a geologist based on images and data captured by the rover Curiosity.

Is the universe a bubble? Let's check: Making the multiverse hypothesis testable Posted: 17 Jul 2014 09:48 AM PDT Scientists are working to bring the multiverse hypothesis, which to some sounds like a fanciful tale, firmly into the realm of testable science. Never mind the Big Bang; in the beginning was the vacuum. The vacuum simmered with energy (variously called dark energy, vacuum energy, the inflation field, or the Higgs field). Like water in a pot, this high energy began to evaporate -- bubbles formed.

Eye movements reveal difference between love and lust Posted: 17 Jul 2014 09:45 AM PDT A new study suggests the difference between love and lust might be in the eyes. Specifically, where your date looks at you could indicate whether love or lust is in the cards. The new study found that eye patterns concentrate on a stranger's face if the viewer sees that person as a potential partner in romantic love, but the viewer gazes more at the other person's body if he or she is feeling sexual desire.

Danish DNA could be key to happiness Posted: 17 Jul 2014 06:48 AM PDT Genetics could be the key to explaining nation's levels of happiness, according to new research. Economists have found the closer a nation is to the genetic makeup of Denmark, the happier that country is. The research could help to solve the puzzle of why a country like Denmark so regularly tops the world happiness rankings.

Are ants the answer to carbon dioxide sequestration? Posted: 16 Jul 2014 03:31 PM PDT A 25-year-long study provides the first quantitative measurement of in situ calcium-magnesium silicate mineral dissolution by ants, termites, tree roots, and bare ground. This study reveals that ants are one of the most powerful biological agents of mineral decay yet observed. It may be that an understanding of the geobiology of ant-mineral interactions might offer a line of research on how to "geoengineer" accelerated carbon dioxide consumption by Ca-Mg silicates.

Humans walking on all fours is not backward evolution Posted: 16 Jul 2014 12:11 PM PDT Five siblings in the family, who live in a remote corner of Turkey, walk exclusively on their hands and feet. Since they were discovered in 2005, scientists have debated the nature of their disability, with speculation they represent a backward stage of evolution. An anthropologist finds quadrupedal humans with Uner Tan Syndrome do not walk in the diagonal pattern characteristic of nonhuman primates such as apes and monkeys.

Sharpest map of Mars surface properties Posted: 16 Jul 2014 11:13 AM PDT A heat-sensing camera has provided data to create the most detailed global map yet made of Martian surface properties. Surface properties tell geologists about the physical nature of a planet or moon's surface. Is a particular area coated with dust, and if so, how thick is it likely to be? Where are the outcrops of bedrock? How loose are the sediments that fill this crater or that valley? A map of surface properties lets scientists begin to answer questions such as these.

Tooth plaque provides unique insights into our prehistoric ancestors' diet Posted: 16 Jul 2014 11:10 AM PDT An international team of researchers has found new evidence that our prehistoric ancestors had a detailed understanding of plants long before the development of agriculture. By extracting chemical compounds and microfossils from dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) from ancient teeth, the researchers were able to provide an entirely new perspective on our ancestors' diets. Their research suggests that purple nut sedge (Cyperus rotundus) -- today regarded as a nuisance weed -- formed an important part of the prehistoric diet.

Asteroid Vesta to reshape theories of planet formation Posted: 16 Jul 2014 10:16 AM PDT Researchers have a better understanding of the asteroid Vesta and its internal structure, thanks to numerical simulations and data from the space mission Dawn. Their findings question contemporary models of rocky planet formation, including that of Earth.

Brain of world's first known predators discovered Posted: 16 Jul 2014 10:16 AM PDT Scientists have found the fossilized remains of the brain of the world's earliest known predators, from a time when life teemed in the oceans but had not yet colonized the land. The discovery reveals a brain much simpler than those known in some of the animal's prey and helps answer questions surrounding the evolution of arthropods.

Scientists find way to trap, kill malaria parasite Posted: 16 Jul 2014 10:15 AM PDT Scientists may be able to entomb the malaria parasite in a prison of its own making, researchers report. As it invades a red blood cell, the malaria parasite takes part of the host cell's membrane to build a protective compartment. The parasite then starts a series of major renovations that transform the red blood cell into a suitable home. But the new research reveals the proteins that make these renovations must pass through a single pore in the parasite's compartment to get into the red blood cell. When the scientists disrupted passage through that pore in cell cultures, the parasite stopped growing and died.

Mediterranean diet has varied effects on cognitive decline among different races, study shows Posted: 16 Jul 2014 09:38 AM PDT "In a population of initially well-functioning older adults, we found a significant correlation between strong adherence to the Mediterranean diet and a slower rate of cognitive decline among African American, but not white, older adults. Our study is the first to show a possible race-specific association between the Mediterranean diet and cognitive decline," a researcher outlines.

Marijuana dependence alters the brain's response to drug paraphernalia Posted: 16 Jul 2014 06:08 AM PDT New research demonstrates that drug paraphernalia triggers the reward areas of the brain differently in dependent and non-dependent marijuana users. By letting users handle a marijuana pipe while in an fMRI, researchers found that areas of brain activation in the dependent users suggests a more emotional connection than in non-dependent users. Non-dependent users had greater activations in areas associated with memory and attention.

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