ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Want ripples on your icicles? Scientists suggest adding salt
• Carbon's new champion: Carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, strongest material of all?
• A strange lonely planet found without a star
• Urgent new time frame for climate change revealed by massive analysis
• Chemistry: Evidence for a new nuclear 'magic number'
• Longer life for humans linked to further loss of endangered species
• Water and lava, but curiously, no explosion
• Chimpanzees of a feather sit together: Friendships are based on similar personalities
• A close look at the Toby Jug Nebula
• New type of impact crater discovered on Mars
• 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Multiscale models for complex chemical systems
• Blood vessel cells can repair, regenerate organs
• Growing bacteria keep time, know their place

Want ripples on your icicles? Scientists suggest adding salt Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:39 PM PDT Though it's barely the beginning of autumn, scientists are one step closer to explaining why winter's icicles form with Michelin Man-like ripples on their elongated shapes. It has been theorized that the ripples are the result of surface tension effects in the thin water film that flows over the ice as it forms. Their investigation revealed that the actual culprit is salt.

Carbon's new champion: Carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, strongest material of all? Posted: 09 Oct 2013 01:27 PM PDT Calculations show carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, may be the strongest material of all. Carbyne will be the strongest of a new class of microscopic materials if and when anyone can make it in bulk. If they do, they'll find carbyne nanorods or nanoropes have a host of remarkable and useful properties.

A strange lonely planet found without a star Posted: 09 Oct 2013 12:34 PM PDT An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic young planet that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago -- a newborn in planet lifetimes.

Urgent new time frame for climate change revealed by massive analysis Posted: 09 Oct 2013 10:32 AM PDT The seesaw variability of global temperatures often engenders debate over how seriously we should take climate change. But within 35 years, even the lowest monthly dips in temperatures will be hotter than we've experienced in the past 150 years, according to a new and massive analysis of all climate models. The tropics will be the first to exceed the limits of historical extremes and experience an unabated heat wave that threatens biodiversity and heavily populated countries with the fewest resources to adapt.

Chemistry: Evidence for a new nuclear 'magic number' Posted: 09 Oct 2013 10:30 AM PDT Researchers have come one step closer to understanding unstable atomic nuclei. Scientists have now provided evidence for a new nuclear magic number in the unstable, radioactive calcium isotope 54Ca. They show that 54Ca is the first known nucleus with 34 neutrons (N) where N = 34 is a magic number.

Longer life for humans linked to further loss of endangered species Posted: 09 Oct 2013 10:01 AM PDT As human life expectancy increases, so does the percentage of invasive and endangered birds and mammals, according to a new study.

Water and lava, but curiously, no explosion Posted: 09 Oct 2013 09:57 AM PDT A study finds that hollow, land-based lava pillars in Iceland likely formed in a surprising reaction where lava met water without an explosion. Such formations are common deep under the ocean, but have not been described on land, the lead researcher says.

Chimpanzees of a feather sit together: Friendships are based on similar personalities Posted: 09 Oct 2013 07:02 AM PDT Like humans, many animals have close and stable friendships. However, until now, it has been unclear what makes particular individuals bond. Cognitive biologists have now found that chimpanzees choose for friends those who are similar to them in personality.

A close look at the Toby Jug Nebula Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:59 AM PDT Located about 1200 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Carina (The Ship's Keel), the Toby Jug Nebula, more formally known as IC 2220, is an example of a reflection nebula. It is a cloud of gas and dust illuminated from within by a star called HD 65750. This star, a type known as a red giant, has five times the mass of our Sun but it is in a much more advanced stage of its life, despite its comparatively young age of around 50 million years.

New type of impact crater discovered on Mars Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:57 AM PDT Lessons from underground nuclear tests and explosive volcanoes may hold the answer to how a category of unusual impact craters formed on Mars.

2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Multiscale models for complex chemical systems Posted: 09 Oct 2013 05:21 AM PDT The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2013 to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems."

Blood vessel cells can repair, regenerate organs Posted: 08 Oct 2013 12:22 PM PDT Damaged or diseased organs may someday be healed with an injection of blood vessel cells, eliminating the need for donated organs and transplants.

Growing bacteria keep time, know their place Posted: 08 Oct 2013 12:22 PM PDT Working with a synthetic gene circuit designed to coax bacteria to grow in a predictable ring pattern, scientists have revealed an under-appreciated contributor to natural pattern formation: Time.

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