ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Scientists to Jupiter's moon Io: Your volcanoes are in the wrong place
• Listening to the Big Bang -- in high fidelity
• An ancient biosonar sheds new light on the evolution of echolocation in toothed whales
• New measurement of crocodilian nerves could help scientists understand ancient animals
• Building better blood vessels could advance tissue engineering
• A 'light switch' in brain illuminates neural networks: Scientists can see cells communicate by flipping a neural light switch
• 3-D printer can build synthetic tissues
• New insight into photosynthesis: Carotenoids can capture blue/green light and pass energy on to chlorophylls
• Discovery of 1,800-year-old 'Rosetta Stone' for tropical ice cores
• Adult stem cells isolated from human intestinal tissue
• A comet, not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs, experts propose
• New camera system creates high-resolution 3-D images from up to a kilometer away
• Origin of life: Power behind primordial soup discovered
• Dwarf whale survived well into Ice Age
• Bumblebees use logic to find the best flowers
• Hepatitis A virus discovered to cloak itself in membranes hijacked from infected cells
• Hubble breaks record in search for farthest supernova
• Don't call it vaporware: Scientists use cloud of atoms as optical memory device
• Climate change winners: Adélie penguin population expands as ice fields recede
• A model predicts that the world's populations will stop growing in 2050
• One extinct turtle less: Turtle species in the Seychelles never existed

Scientists to Jupiter's moon Io: Your volcanoes are in the wrong place Posted: 04 Apr 2013 02:02 PM PDT Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains up to 250 miles high. However, concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from where they are expected to be based on models that predict how the moon's interior is heated, according to researchers.

Listening to the Big Bang -- in high fidelity Posted: 04 Apr 2013 02:01 PM PDT Physicist have updated the decade-old re-creation of the sound of the Big Bang that started the universe.

An ancient biosonar sheds new light on the evolution of echolocation in toothed whales Posted: 04 Apr 2013 12:26 PM PDT Some 30 million years ago, Ganges river dolphins diverged from other toothed whales, making them one of the oldest species of aquatic mammals that use echolocation, or biosonar, to navigate and find food. This also makes them ideal subjects for scientists working to understand the evolution of echolocation among toothed whales.

New measurement of crocodilian nerves could help scientists understand ancient animals Posted: 04 Apr 2013 12:26 PM PDT A new study has measured the nerves responsible for the super-sensitive skin on a crocodile's face, which will help biologists understand how today's animals, as well as dinosaurs and crocodiles that lived millions of years ago, interact with the environment around them.

Building better blood vessels could advance tissue engineering Posted: 04 Apr 2013 12:19 PM PDT One of the major obstacles to growing new organs -- replacement hearts, lungs and kidneys -- is the difficulty researchers face in building blood vessels that keep the tissues alive, but new findings could help overcome this roadblock.

A 'light switch' in brain illuminates neural networks: Scientists can see cells communicate by flipping a neural light switch Posted: 04 Apr 2013 11:25 AM PDT Researchers have combined a range of advanced techniques that enable them to identify which neurons communicate with each other at different times in the rat brain, and in doing so, create the animal's sense of location.

3-D printer can build synthetic tissues Posted: 04 Apr 2013 11:24 AM PDT A custom-built programmable 3-D printer can create materials with several of the properties of living tissues, scientists have demonstrated.

New insight into photosynthesis: Carotenoids can capture blue/green light and pass energy on to chlorophylls Posted: 04 Apr 2013 11:24 AM PDT Pigments found in plants and purple bacteria employed to provide protection from sun damage do more than just that. Researchers have found that they also help to harvest light energy during photosynthesis. Carotenoids, the same pigments which give orange color to carrots and red to tomatoes, are often found together in plants with chlorophyll pigments that harvest solar energy. Their main function is photoprotection when rays of light from the sun are the most intense. However, a new study shows how they capture blue/green light and pass the energy on to chlorophylls, which absorb red light.

Discovery of 1,800-year-old 'Rosetta Stone' for tropical ice cores Posted: 04 Apr 2013 11:24 AM PDT Scientists report a set of ice cores from Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru which can serve as a "Rosetta Stone" for studying other ice cores from around the world.

Adult stem cells isolated from human intestinal tissue Posted: 04 Apr 2013 10:51 AM PDT For the first time, researchers have isolated adult stem cells from human intestinal tissue. The accomplishment provides a much-needed resource for scientists eager to uncover the true mechanisms of human stem cell biology.

A comet, not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs, experts propose Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:24 AM PDT In a geological moment about 66 million years ago, something killed off almost all the dinosaurs and some 70 percent of all other species living on Earth. Only those dinosaurs related to birds appear to have survived. Most scientists agree that the culprit in this extinction was extraterrestrial, and the prevailing opinion has been that the party crasher was an asteroid. Not so, say two researchers who favor another explanation, asserting that a high-velocity comet led to the demise of the dinosaurs.

New camera system creates high-resolution 3-D images from up to a kilometer away Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:22 AM PDT A new camera system provides high-resolution, 3-D information about objects that are typically difficult to image, from up to a kilometer away. The photo-counting depth imaging system is likely to be used for scanning static, human-made targets from afar, such as vehicles. It could also determine their speed and direction, or be used for remote examination of vegetation and the movement of rock faces, to assess potential hazards from as far as 10 km away.

Origin of life: Power behind primordial soup discovered Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:22 AM PDT Researchers may have solved a key puzzle about how objects from space could have kindled life on Earth.

Dwarf whale survived well into Ice Age Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:21 AM PDT Research detailing the fossil of a dwarf baleen whale from Northern California reveals that it avoided extinction far longer than previously thought.

Bumblebees use logic to find the best flowers Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:20 AM PDT Scientists have discovered why bees copy each other when looking for nectar -- and the answer is remarkably simple.

Hepatitis A virus discovered to cloak itself in membranes hijacked from infected cells Posted: 04 Apr 2013 09:18 AM PDT Viruses have historically been classified into one of two types – those with an outer lipid-containing envelope and those without an envelope. For the first time, researchers have discovered that hepatitis A virus, a common cause of enterically-transmitted hepatitis, takes on characteristics of both virus types depending on whether it is in a host or in the environment.

Hubble breaks record in search for farthest supernova Posted: 04 Apr 2013 07:45 AM PDT NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found the farthest supernova so far of the type used to measure cosmic distances. Supernova UDS10Wil, nicknamed SN Wilson after American President Woodrow Wilson, exploded more than 10 billion years ago.

Don't call it vaporware: Scientists use cloud of atoms as optical memory device Posted: 04 Apr 2013 06:28 AM PDT Talk about storing data in the cloud. Scientists have taken this to a whole new level by demonstrating that they can store visual images within quite an ethereal memory device -- a thin vapor of rubidium atoms. The effort may prove helpful in creating memory for quantum computers.

Climate change winners: Adélie penguin population expands as ice fields recede Posted: 04 Apr 2013 06:28 AM PDT Adelie penguins may actually benefit from warmer global temperatures, the opposite of other polar species, according to a breakthrough study. The study provides key information affirming hypothetical projections about the continuing impact of environmental change.

A model predicts that the world's populations will stop growing in 2050 Posted: 04 Apr 2013 04:29 AM PDT Global population data spanning the years from 1900 to 2010 have enabled a research team to predict that the number of people on Earth will stabilize around the middle of the century.

One extinct turtle less: Turtle species in the Seychelles never existed Posted: 04 Apr 2013 04:29 AM PDT The turtle species Pelusios seychellensis regarded hitherto as extinct never existed. Scientists discovered this based on genetic evidence.

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