ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Dwarf galaxies provide new insights on dark matter
• Sparrows change their tune to be heard in noisy cities
• Sampling the Pacific for signs of Fukushima
• Evidence that human ancestors used fire one million years ago
• Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmosphere
• New understanding to past global warming events: Hyperthermal events may be triggered by warming
• Self-sculpting sand: Heaps of 'smart sand’ could assume any shape, form new tools or duplicatie broken parts
• Growing up supermassive: A black hole's diet of stars
• Ancient Egyptian cotton unveils secrets of domesticated crop evolution
• South Pole telescope homes in on dark energy, neutrinos

Dwarf galaxies provide new insights on dark matter Posted: 02 Apr 2012 03:53 PM PDT Scientists have looked for signals from dark matter by zeroing in on 10 small, faint galaxies that orbit our own. Although no signals have been detected, a novel analysis technique applied to two years of data from the observatory's Large Area Telescope has essentially eliminated these particle candidates for the first time.

Sparrows change their tune to be heard in noisy cities Posted: 02 Apr 2012 01:27 PM PDT Sparrows have changed their tune to soar above the increasing cacophony of car horns and engine rumbles. The study compares birdsongs from as far back as 1969 to today. The researchers also detail how San Francisco's streets have grown noisier based on studies from 1974 and 2008.

Sampling the Pacific for signs of Fukushima Posted: 02 Apr 2012 01:27 PM PDT A recent research cruise has reported on the amount, spread, and impacts of radiation released into the ocean from the tsunami-crippled reactors in Fukushima, Japan. They studied ocean currents, and sampled water and marine organisms up to the edge of the exclusion zone around the reactors.

Evidence that human ancestors used fire one million years ago Posted: 02 Apr 2012 01:25 PM PDT Scientists have identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors. Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmosphere Posted: 02 Apr 2012 11:49 AM PDT Chemists have analyzed the isotopic composition of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse and ozone-destroying gas - in air samples from as far back as 1940 and found the fingerprint of nitrogen-based fertilizer. This fingerprint proves definitively that the 20 percent increase in atmospheric nitrogen since the Industrial Revolution is largely due to the Green Revolution, when use of synthetic fertilizers ramped up.

New understanding to past global warming events: Hyperthermal events may be triggered by warming Posted: 02 Apr 2012 09:44 AM PDT A series of global warming events called hyperthermals that occurred more than 50 million years ago had a similar origin to a much larger hyperthermal of the period, the Pelaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), new research has found. The findings represent a breakthrough in understanding the major "burp" of carbon, equivalent to burning the entire reservoir of fossil fuels on Earth, that occurred during the PETM. The work confirms that the PETM was not a unique event - the result, perhaps, of a meteorite strike - but a natural part of Earth's carbon cycle.

Self-sculpting sand: Heaps of 'smart sand’ could assume any shape, form new tools or duplicatie broken parts Posted: 02 Apr 2012 08:30 AM PDT New algorithms could enable heaps of "smart sand" that can assume any shape, allowing spontaneous formation of new tools or duplication of broken mechanical parts.

Growing up supermassive: A black hole's diet of stars Posted: 02 Apr 2012 06:43 AM PDT Astrophysicists have found a new explanation for the growth of supermassive black holes in the center of most galaxies: They repeatedly capture and swallow single stars from pairs of stars that wander too close.

Ancient Egyptian cotton unveils secrets of domesticated crop evolution Posted: 02 Apr 2012 06:39 AM PDT Scientists studying 1,600-year-old cotton from the banks of the Nile have found what they believe is the first evidence that punctuated evolution has occurred in a major crop group within the relatively short history of plant domestication.

South Pole telescope homes in on dark energy, neutrinos Posted: 02 Apr 2012 06:31 AM PDT Analysis of data from the 10-meter South Pole Telescope is providing new support for the most widely accepted explanation of dark energy -- the source of the mysterious force that is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe.

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