ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Kissing helps us find the right partner – and keep them
• New antiviral response discovered in mammals
• Newly discovered gene regulator could precisely target sickle cell disease
• Iron in Earth's core weakens before melting
• Innate virus-killing power discovered in mammals
• Water discovered in remnants of extrasolar rocky world orbiting white dwarf
• Hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived together for 2,000 years in Central Europe
• Ancient DNA unravels Europe's genetic diversity
• Sticks and stones: Brain releases natural painkillers during social rejection
• How red crabs on Christmas Island speak for the tropics
• How a ubiquitous herpesvirus sometimes leads to cancer
• Elephants know what it means to point to something, no training required
• Eat more, weigh less: Worm study provides clues to better fat-loss therapies for humans
• Genes predispose some people to focus on the negative
• 'Stadium waves' could explain lull in global warming
• 'Peanut butter' test can help diagnose Alzheimer's disease, researchers find
• Soft shells and strange star clusters
• Enigmatic neurons help flies get oriented
• 3-D printed microscopic cages confine bacteria in tiny zoos for the study of infections

Kissing helps us find the right partner – and keep them Posted: 10 Oct 2013 05:51 PM PDT What's in a kiss? A new study suggests kissing helps us size up potential partners and, once in a relationship, may be a way of getting a partner to stick around. 'Kissing in human sexual relationships is incredibly prevalent in various forms across just about every society and culture,' says one of the researchers. 'Kissing is seen in our closest primate relatives, chimps and bonobos, but it is much less intense and less commonly used.

New antiviral response discovered in mammals Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:27 AM PDT Researchers have discovered a part of the innate immune system in mice that had only been known in plants and invertebrates. This system seems more visible in stem and progenitor cells, which it protects from viral infection.

Newly discovered gene regulator could precisely target sickle cell disease Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:27 AM PDT A research team has discovered a new genetic target for potential therapy of sickle cell disease. The target, called an enhancer, controls a molecular switch in red blood cells called BCL11A that, in turn, regulates hemoglobin production.

Iron in Earth's core weakens before melting Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:27 AM PDT The iron in Earth's inner core weakens dramatically before it melts, explaining the unusual properties that exist in the moon-sized solid center of our planet that have, up until now, been difficult to understand.

Innate virus-killing power discovered in mammals Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:27 AM PDT Scientists have a promising new approach to combating deadly human viruses thanks to an educated hunch by a microbiology professor, and his 20 years of research on plants, fruit flies, nematodes and mice. Researchers have discovered that, like plants and invertebrate animals, mammals use the RNA interference process to destroy viruses within their own cells. Until now, scientists were unable to prove that mammals use RNAi for killing viruses. The findings could help create vaccines against deadly infections, including SARS, West Nile, dengue, Hepatitis C and influenza.

Water discovered in remnants of extrasolar rocky world orbiting white dwarf Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:27 AM PDT Astrophysicists have found the first evidence of a water-rich rocky planetary body outside our solar system in its shattered remains orbiting a white dwarf.

Hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived together for 2,000 years in Central Europe Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:27 AM PDT Indigenous hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived side-by-side for more than 2,000 years in Central Europe, before the hunter-gatherer communities died out or adopted the agricultural lifestyle.

Ancient DNA unravels Europe's genetic diversity Posted: 10 Oct 2013 11:26 AM PDT Ancient DNA recovered from a time series of skeletons in Germany spanning 4,000 years of prehistory has been used to reconstruct the first detailed genetic history of modern-day Europeans.

Sticks and stones: Brain releases natural painkillers during social rejection Posted: 10 Oct 2013 10:22 AM PDT "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," goes the playground rhyme that's supposed to help children endure taunts. But a new study suggests that there's more going on inside our brains when someone snubs us -- and that the brain may have its own way of easing social pain.

How red crabs on Christmas Island speak for the tropics Posted: 10 Oct 2013 09:48 AM PDT Research has found that erratic rainfall -- which could become more irregular as a result of climate change -- could be detrimental to animals that migrate with the dry-wet seasonal cycle. The researchers studied the annual mating migration of the land-dwelling Christmas Island red crab in order to help scientists understand the consequences of climate change for the millions of migratory animals in Earth's tropical zones.

How a ubiquitous herpesvirus sometimes leads to cancer Posted: 10 Oct 2013 09:46 AM PDT Most of us are infected with the herpesvirus known as Epstein-Barr virus. For most of us, the virus will lead at worst to a case of infectious mononucleosis, but sometimes, and especially in some parts of the world, those viruses are found in association with cancer. Now, researchers have found that the difference between a relatively harmless infection and a cancer-causing one lies at least partly in the viral strain itself.

Elephants know what it means to point to something, no training required Posted: 10 Oct 2013 09:45 AM PDT When people want to direct the attention of others, they naturally do so by pointing, starting from a very young age. Now, researchers have shown that elephants spontaneously get the gist of human pointing and can use it as a cue for finding food. That's all the more impressive given that many great apes fail to understand pointing when it's done for them by human caretakers, the researchers say.

Eat more, weigh less: Worm study provides clues to better fat-loss therapies for humans Posted: 10 Oct 2013 09:43 AM PDT Scientists have discovered key details of a brain-to-body signaling circuit that enables roundworms to lose weight independently of food intake, and there are reasons to suspect the circuit exists in a similar form in humans and other mammals.

Genes predispose some people to focus on the negative Posted: 10 Oct 2013 07:50 AM PDT Some people are genetically predisposed to see the world darkly, new research finds. According to researchers, a previously known gene variant can cause individuals to perceive emotional events -- especially negative ones -- more vividly than others.

'Stadium waves' could explain lull in global warming Posted: 10 Oct 2013 07:48 AM PDT A new article suggests that 'unpredictable climate variability' behaves in a more predictable way than previously assumed. The scientists point to the so-called 'stadium-wave' signal that propagates like the cheer at sporting events whereby sections of sports fans seated in a stadium stand and sit as a 'wave' propagates through the audience.

'Peanut butter' test can help diagnose Alzheimer's disease, researchers find Posted: 10 Oct 2013 06:24 AM PDT A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found.

Soft shells and strange star clusters Posted: 10 Oct 2013 06:16 AM PDT The beautiful, petal-like shells of galaxy PGC 6240 are captured here in intricate detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, set against a sky full of distant background galaxies. This cosmic bloom is of great interest to astronomers due to both its uneven structure, and the unusual clusters of stars that orbit around it -- two strong indications of a galactic merger in the recent past.

Enigmatic neurons help flies get oriented Posted: 09 Oct 2013 05:11 PM PDT Neurons deep in the fly's brain tune in to some of the same basic visual features that neurons in bigger animals such as humans pick out in their surroundings. The new research is an important milestone toward understanding how the fly brain extracts relevant information about a visual scene to guide behavior.

3-D printed microscopic cages confine bacteria in tiny zoos for the study of infections Posted: 07 Oct 2013 12:17 PM PDT Researchers have used a novel 3-D printing technology to build homes for bacteria at a microscopic level. Their method uses a laser to construct protein "cages" around bacteria in gelatin. The resulting structures can be of almost any shape or size, and can be moved around in relationship to other structures containing bacterial microcommunities.

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