ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• NASA'S Fermi measures cosmic 'fog' produced by ancient starlight
• Why seas are rising ahead of predictions: Estimates of rate of future sea-level rise may be too low
• Super-rare, super-luminous supernovae are likely explosion of universe's earliest stars
• Staying still or going hunting: Which works better for a hungry ocean microbe?
• Particle and wave-like behavior of light measured simultaneously
• Chloroplast breakthrough could help unlock key to controlling fruit ripening in crops, research suggests
• Brain may 'see' more than the eyes, fruit fly study indicates
• Asteroid belts of just the right size are friendly to life
• An elephant that speaks Korean
• Toward making replacement organs: Scientists learn how to unlock the destiny of a cell
• Virtual reality puts human in rat world: 'Beaming' technology transforms human-animal interaction
• Five year olds are generous only when they're watched
• When people worry about math, the brain feels the pain

NASA'S Fermi measures cosmic 'fog' produced by ancient starlight Posted: 01 Nov 2012 01:47 PM PDT Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total amount of light from all of the stars that have ever shone, accomplishing a primary mission goal.

Why seas are rising ahead of predictions: Estimates of rate of future sea-level rise may be too low Posted: 01 Nov 2012 12:35 PM PDT Sea levels are rising faster than expected from global warming, and geologists now have a good idea why. The last official IPCC report in 2007 projected a global sea level rise between 0.2 and 0.5 meters by the year 2100. But current sea-level rise measurements meet or exceed the high end of that range and suggest a rise of one meter or more by the end of the century.

Super-rare, super-luminous supernovae are likely explosion of universe's earliest stars Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:12 AM PDT The most-distant, super-luminous supernovae found to date have been observed by an international team of astronomers. The stellar explosions would have occurred at a time when the universe was much younger and probably soon after the Big Bang.

Staying still or going hunting: Which works better for a hungry ocean microbe? Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:11 AM PDT For the kinds of animals that are most familiar to us -- ones that are big enough to see -- it's a no-brainer: Is it better to sit around and wait for food to come to you, or to move around and find it? Larger animals that opt to sit around aren't likely to last long. But for bacteria out in the ocean, the question is a far more complicated one.

Particle and wave-like behavior of light measured simultaneously Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:11 AM PDT What is light made of: waves or particles? This basic question has fascinated physicists since the early days of science. Quantum mechanics predicts that photons, particles of light, are both particles and waves simultaneously. Physicists now give a new demonstration of this wave-particle duality of photons, dubbed the "one real mystery of quantum mechanics" by Nobel Prize laureate Richard Feynman.

Chloroplast breakthrough could help unlock key to controlling fruit ripening in crops, research suggests Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:10 AM PDT Biologists may have unearthed the potential to manipulate the functions of chloroplasts, the parts of plant cells responsible for photosynthesis. Researchers discovered that chloroplasts are affected by the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) -- a process which causes the breakdown of unwanted proteins in cells. As a result, the researchers believe they may be able to use specific proteins to regulate the functions of chloroplasts -- such as the conversion of chloroplasts into highly-pigmented chromoplasts during the ripening of fruit.

Brain may 'see' more than the eyes, fruit fly study indicates Posted: 01 Nov 2012 10:12 AM PDT Vision may be less important to "seeing" than is the brain's ability to process points of light into complex images, according to a new study of the fruit fly visual system. Researchers have found that the very simple eyes of fruit fly larvae, with only 24 total photoreceptors (the human eye contains more than 125 million), provide just enough light or visual input to allow the animal's relatively large brain to assemble that input into images.

Asteroid belts of just the right size are friendly to life Posted: 01 Nov 2012 10:12 AM PDT Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right mass, according to a new study. Researchers suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun's protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

An elephant that speaks Korean Posted: 01 Nov 2012 09:15 AM PDT An Asian elephant named Koshik can imitate human speech, speaking words in Korean that can be readily understood by those who know the language. The elephant accomplishes this in a most unusual way: he vocalizes with his trunk in his mouth.

Toward making replacement organs: Scientists learn how to unlock the destiny of a cell Posted: 01 Nov 2012 07:02 AM PDT Scientists have discovered that breaking a biological signaling system in an embryo allows them to change the destiny of a cell. The findings could lead to new ways of making replacement organs.

Virtual reality puts human in rat world: 'Beaming' technology transforms human-animal interaction Posted: 31 Oct 2012 06:42 PM PDT Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, researchers have "beamed" a person into a rat facility allowing the rat and human to interact with each other on the same scale.

Five year olds are generous only when they're watched Posted: 31 Oct 2012 06:41 PM PDT Children as young as five are generous when others are aware of their actions, but antisocial when sharing with a recipient who can't see them, according to new research.

When people worry about math, the brain feels the pain Posted: 31 Oct 2012 06:37 PM PDT Mathematics anxiety can prompt a response in the brain similar to when a person experiences physical pain. Using brain scans, scholars determined that the brain areas active when highly math-anxious people prepare to do math overlap with the same brain areas that register the threat of bodily harm—and in some cases, physical pain.

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