ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Mystery of planet-forming disks explained by magnetism
• Preschoolers can outsmart college students at figuring out gizmos
• Marijuana's anxiety relief effects: Receptors found in emotional hub of brain
• Plasma plumes help shield Earth from damaging solar storms
• Hubble witnesses an asteroid mysteriously disintegrating
• Engineering team increases power efficiency for future computer processors
• Robotic prosthesis turns drummer into a three-armed cyborg
• New insights into ancient Pacific settlers' diet: Diet based on foraging, not horticulture
• Sardis dig yields enigmatic trove: Ritual egg in a pot
• If your dog is aggressive, maybe it is in pain

Mystery of planet-forming disks explained by magnetism Posted: 07 Mar 2014 09:46 AM PST Astronomers say that magnetic storms in the gas orbiting young stars may explain a mystery that has persisted since before 2006. Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to study developing stars have had a hard time figuring out why the stars give off more infrared light than expected. The planet-forming disks that circle the young stars are heated by starlight and glow with infrared light, but Spitzer detected additional infrared light coming from an unknown source.

Preschoolers can outsmart college students at figuring out gizmos Posted: 06 Mar 2014 04:15 PM PST Preschoolers can be smarter than college students at figuring out how unusual toys and gadgets work because they're more flexible and less biased than adults in their ideas about cause and effect, according to new research.

Marijuana's anxiety relief effects: Receptors found in emotional hub of brain Posted: 06 Mar 2014 11:28 AM PST Cannabinoid receptors, through which marijuana exerts its effects, have been found in a key emotional hub in the brain involved in regulating anxiety and the flight-or-fight response. This is the first time cannabinoid receptors have been identified in the central nucleus of the amygdala in a mouse model.

Plasma plumes help shield Earth from damaging solar storms Posted: 06 Mar 2014 11:27 AM PST Scientists have identified a plasma plume that naturally protects the Earth against solar storms. Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, stretches from the planet's core out into space, where it meets the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun. For the most part, the magnetosphere acts as a shield to protect Earth from this high-energy solar activity. But when this field comes into contact with the sun's magnetic field -- a process called "magnetic reconnection" -- powerful electrical currents from the sun can stream into Earth's atmosphere, whipping up geomagnetic storms and space weather phenomena that can affect high-altitude aircraft, as well as astronauts on the International Space Station. Now scientists have identified a process in Earth's magnetosphere that reinforces its shielding effect, keeping incoming solar energy at bay.

Hubble witnesses an asteroid mysteriously disintegrating Posted: 06 Mar 2014 07:08 AM PST The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the never-before-seen break-up of an asteroid, which has fragmented into as many as ten smaller pieces. Although fragile comet nuclei have been seen to fall apart as they approach the Sun, nothing like the breakup of this asteroid, P/2013 R3, has ever been observed before in the asteroid belt.

Engineering team increases power efficiency for future computer processors Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:55 AM PST Scientists have made major improvements in computer processing using an emerging class of magnetic materials called 'multiferroics,' and these advances could make future devices far more energy-efficient than current technologies.

Robotic prosthesis turns drummer into a three-armed cyborg Posted: 06 Mar 2014 06:51 AM PST Scientists have created a robotic drumming prosthesis with motors that power two drumsticks. The first stick is controlled both physically by the musicians' arms and electronically using electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors. The other stick "listens" to the music being played and improvises.

New insights into ancient Pacific settlers' diet: Diet based on foraging, not horticulture Posted: 05 Mar 2014 04:15 PM PST Researchers studying 3,000-year-old skeletons from the oldest known cemetery in the Pacific Islands are casting new light on the diet and lives of the enigmatic Lapita people, the likely ancestors of Polynesians. Their results—obtained from analysing stable isotope ratios of three elements in the bone collagen of 49 adults buried at the Teouma archaeological site on Vanuatu's Efate Island—suggest that its early Lapita settlers ate reef fish, marine turtles, fruit bats, free-range pigs and chickens, rather than primarily relying on growing crops for human food and animal fodder.

Sardis dig yields enigmatic trove: Ritual egg in a pot Posted: 03 Mar 2014 11:32 AM PST The ruins of Sardis have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity since the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia. Now, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.

If your dog is aggressive, maybe it is in pain Posted: 13 Jun 2012 07:21 AM PDT Dogs can sometimes suffer sudden episodes of aggression without their owners understanding why. But, in many cases, the cause of these attacks can be pain that has never been diagnosed or treated. For the first time the study describes the characteristics of this irritability, which can make dogs violent and increase aggression in already conflictive individuals. There are many factors that explain aggression in dogs: the conditions of the mother during gestation, the handling of the puppy in the neonatal phase, the age at weaning, the experiences of the animal during the socializing phase, diet, exercise, genetics and learning techniques based on active punishment during adulthood. However, aggressive behavior also arises from the presence of pathologies and pain in the dog.

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