ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Saturn and Jupiter: X-ray laser spies deep into giant gas planets
• Milky Way amidst a 'Council of Giants'
• Effective thermal camouflage and invisibility device for soldiers created
• Galaxies in the early universe mature beyond their years
• Possible evidence for dark matter particle presented at UCLA physics symposium
• Natural selection has altered the appearance of Europeans over the past 5,000 years
• Outside the body our memories fail us
• How light affects our brain's performance: Photic memory for executive brain responses
• A shocking diet: Researchers describe microbe that 'eats' electricity
• Scientists build thinnest-possible LEDs to be stronger, more energy efficient
• Dropped your toast? Five-second food rule exists, new research suggests
• 'Death stars' in Orion blast planets before they even form
• Weirdness in cosmic web of the universe: Faint strings of galaxies in 'empty' space arranged in way never before seen
• Sun's energy influences 1,000 years of natural climate variability in North Atlantic
• Deer proliferation disrupts a forest's natural growth
• The dark side of fair play: Why would evolution let spite stick around?

Saturn and Jupiter: X-ray laser spies deep into giant gas planets Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:58 AM PDT Using DESY's X-ray laser FLASH, researchers took a sneak peek deep into the lower atmospheric layers of giant gas planets such as Jupiter or Saturn. The observations reveal how liquid hydrogen becomes a plasma, providing information on the material's thermal conductivity and its internal energy exchange -- important ingredients for planetary models.

Milky Way amidst a 'Council of Giants' Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:06 AM PDT We live in a galaxy known as the Milky Way -- a vast conglomeration of 300 billion stars, planets whizzing around them, and clouds of gas and dust floating in between. Though it has long been known that the Milky Way and its orbiting companion Andromeda are the dominant members of a small group of galaxies, the Local Group, which is about 3 million light years across, much less was known about our immediate neighborhood in the universe. Now, a new article maps out bright galaxies within 35-million light years of the Earth, offering up an expanded picture of what lies beyond our doorstep.

Effective thermal camouflage and invisibility device for soldiers created Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:03 AM PDT Scientists have created a thermal illusion device to control thermal camouflage and invisibility using thermotic materials. Every natural object exhibits thermal signatures. However, if these signals are blocked or masked, then these objects become undetectable. The new device can block thermal signatures (leading to invisibility) and provide illusionary camouflage at the same time. This cloaking technology is cost-effective, easily scalable, as well as applicable to even bigger objects (such as soldiers on night missions), and it has also overcome limitations like narrow bandwidth and polarization-dependence. The technology is ready to roll out for military applications.

Galaxies in the early universe mature beyond their years Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:39 PM PDT An international team of researchers has discovered the most distant examples of galaxies in the early universe that were already mature and massive. The mature galaxies were found at a record-breaking distance of 12 billion light years, seen when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old. Their existence at such an early time raises new questions about what forced them to grow up so quickly.

Possible evidence for dark matter particle presented at UCLA physics symposium Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:23 PM PDT Dark matter, the mysterious substance estimated to make up approximately more than one-quarter of the mass of the universe, is crucial to the formation of galaxies, stars and even life but has so far eluded direct observation. At a recent UCLA symposium attended by 190 scientists from around the world, physicists presented several analyses that participants interpreted to imply the existence of a dark matter particle. The likely mass would be approximately 30 billion electron-volts, said the symposium's organizer.

Natural selection has altered the appearance of Europeans over the past 5,000 years Posted: 10 Mar 2014 03:27 PM PDT There has been much research into the factors that have influenced the human genome since the end of the last Ice Age. Anthropologists, geneticists and archaeologists have analyzed ancient DNA from skeletons and found that selection has had a significant effect on the human genome even in the past 5,000 years, resulting in sustained changes to the appearance of people.

Outside the body our memories fail us Posted: 10 Mar 2014 12:21 PM PDT New research demonstrates for the first time that there is a close relationship between body perception and the ability to remember. For us to be able to store new memories from our lives, we need to feel that we are in our own body. According to researchers, the results could be of major importance in understanding the memory problems that psychiatric patients often exhibit.

How light affects our brain's performance: Photic memory for executive brain responses Posted: 10 Mar 2014 12:20 PM PDT It has long been known that light exerts powerful effects on the brain and on our well-being. Light is not only required for vision but is also essential for a wide range of "non-visual" functions including synchronization of our biological clock to the 24h day-night cycle. A novel photoreceptor has now been shown to be an essential component for relaying light information to a set of so-called non-visual centers in the brain. Continuous changes in light throughout the day also change us, new research suggests.

A shocking diet: Researchers describe microbe that 'eats' electricity Posted: 10 Mar 2014 11:40 AM PDT Researchers have shown that the commonly found bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris can use natural conductivity to pull electrons from minerals located remotely in soil and sediment while remaining at the surface, where they absorb the sunlight needed to produce energy.

Scientists build thinnest-possible LEDs to be stronger, more energy efficient Posted: 10 Mar 2014 11:10 AM PDT Scientists have built the thinnest-known LED that can be used as a source of light energy in electronics. The LED is based off of two-dimensional, flexible semiconductors, making it possible to stack or use in much smaller and more diverse applications than current technology allows.

Dropped your toast? Five-second food rule exists, new research suggests Posted: 10 Mar 2014 07:22 AM PDT Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time, according to new research. The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the '5 second rule' -- the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. The study, undertaken by final year biology students monitored the transfer of the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus from a variety of indoor floor types (carpet, laminate and tiled surfaces) to toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet when contact was made from 3 to 30 seconds.

'Death stars' in Orion blast planets before they even form Posted: 10 Mar 2014 07:16 AM PDT Astronomers have studied the often deadly relationship between highly luminous O-type stars and nearby protostars in the Orion Nebula. Their data reveal that protostars within 0.1 light-years (about 600 billion miles) of an O-type star are doomed to have their cocoons of dust and gas stripped away in just a few millions years, much faster than planets are able to form.

Weirdness in cosmic web of the universe: Faint strings of galaxies in 'empty' space arranged in way never before seen Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:06 AM PDT Australian astronomers have shown galaxies in the vast empty regions of the universe are actually aligned into delicate strings, according to new research. Using data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, the astronomers found that the small number of galaxies inside these voids are arranged in a new way never seen before.

Sun's energy influences 1,000 years of natural climate variability in North Atlantic Posted: 09 Mar 2014 12:04 PM PDT Changes in the sun's energy output may have led to marked natural climate change in Europe over the last 1,000 years, according to researchers. The study found that changes in the sun's activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.

Deer proliferation disrupts a forest's natural growth Posted: 08 Mar 2014 06:55 AM PST Researchers have discovered that a burgeoning deer population forever alters the progression of a forest's natural future by creating environmental havoc in the soil and disrupting the soil's natural seed banks.

The dark side of fair play: Why would evolution let spite stick around? Posted: 07 Mar 2014 01:59 PM PST We often think of playing fair as an altru­istic behavior. We're sac­ri­ficing our own poten­tial gain to give others what they deserve. What could be more self­less than that? But new research sug­gests another, darker origin behind the kindly act of fairness. An expert in the evolution of spite has investigated possible explanations for fair behavior that hadn't been considered before.

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