ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• More intense North Atlantic tropical storms likely in the future
• Native Americans and Northern Europeans more closely related than previously thought
• Robotic equivalent of a Swiss army knife: Reconfigurable robot a step toward something that can become almost anything
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic; Mixing oil with dispersant increased toxicity to ecosystems
• Even brown dwarfs may grow rocky planets: Sizing up grains of cosmic dust around failed star
• Alcoholic fly larvae need fix for learning

More intense North Atlantic tropical storms likely in the future Posted: 30 Nov 2012 12:16 PM PST Tropical storms that make their way into the North Atlantic, and possibly strike the East Coast of the United States, likely will become more intense during the rest of this century.

Native Americans and Northern Europeans more closely related than previously thought Posted: 30 Nov 2012 12:16 PM PST Using genetic analyses, scientists have discovered that Northern European populations descend from a mixture of two very different ancestral populations, and one of these populations is related to Native Americans.

Robotic equivalent of a Swiss army knife: Reconfigurable robot a step toward something that can become almost anything Posted: 30 Nov 2012 10:27 AM PST The device doesn't look like much: a caterpillar-sized assembly of metal rings and strips resembling something you might find buried in a home-workshop drawer. But the technology behind it, and the long-range possibilities it represents, are quite remarkable.

Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic; Mixing oil with dispersant increased toxicity to ecosystems Posted: 30 Nov 2012 08:05 AM PST If the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill was a ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse – 52-times more toxic.

Even brown dwarfs may grow rocky planets: Sizing up grains of cosmic dust around failed star Posted: 30 Nov 2012 06:51 AM PST Astronomers have for the first time found that the outer region of a dusty disc encircling a brown dwarf contains millimeter-sized solid grains like those found in denser discs around newborn stars. The surprising finding challenges theories of how rocky, Earth-scale planets form, and suggests that rocky planets may be even more common in the Universe than expected.

Alcoholic fly larvae need fix for learning Posted: 29 Nov 2012 10:04 AM PST Fly larvae fed on alcohol-spiked food for a period of days grow dependent on those spirits for learning. The findings show how overuse of alcohol can produce lasting changes in the brain, even after alcohol abuse stops.

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