ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• New airborne GPS technology for weather conditions takes flight
• Flexible electronics: Flexible carbon nanotube circuits more reliable and power efficient
• Rocky mountain wildflower season lengthens by more than a month
• Chicken bones tell true story of pacific migration
• Tremors of the Big Bang: First direct evidence of cosmic inflation
• Back to life after 1,500 years: Moss brought back to life after 1,500 years frozen in ice
• Baby's life saved after 3-D printed devices were implanted restore his breathing
• Who’s afraid of math? Study finds some genetic factors
• Eat more, die young: Why eating a diet very low in nutrients can extend lifespan
• Why did humans replace Neanderthals? Paleo diet didn't change, the climate did
• Time out: Spanking babies is surprisingly common, U.S. study finds
• Three quarters of people with seasonal, pandemic flu have no symptoms
• Major 'third-hand smoke' compound causes DNA damage and potentially cancer
• Bionic plants: Nanotechnology could turn shrubbery into supercharged energy producers
• Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than thought
• Mercury's contraction much greater than thought, new imaging shows
• Northeast Greenland ice loss accelerating, researchers say
• African dust changes India's rainfall: Dust can affect planet's climate, research shows
• Honey offers new approach to fighting antibiotic resistance
• These boosts are made for walkin': Visual system amplifier directly activated by locomotion

New airborne GPS technology for weather conditions takes flight Posted: 17 Mar 2014 02:06 PM PDT GPS technology has broadly advanced science and society's ability to pinpoint precise information, from driving directions to tracking ground motions during earthquakes. A new technique stands to improve weather models and hurricane forecasting by detecting precise conditions in the atmosphere through a new GPS system aboard airplanes.

Flexible electronics: Flexible carbon nanotube circuits more reliable and power efficient Posted: 17 Mar 2014 12:56 PM PDT Engineers want to create flexible electronic devices, like e-readers that could fold into a pocket. One approach involves designing circuits based on carbon nanotubes instead of rigid silicon chips. But silicon chips are designed to function flawlessly despite power fluctuations. This is more challenging to do with CNT circuits. Scientists have now developed a process to create flexible CNT chips that can tolerate power fluctuation, bringing high-performance flexible electronics closer to reality.

Rocky mountain wildflower season lengthens by more than a month Posted: 17 Mar 2014 12:56 PM PDT A 39-year study of wildflower blooms in a Rocky Mountain meadow shows more than two-thirds of alpine flowers changed their blooming pattern in response to climate change. Half are beginning to bloom weeks earlier, more than a third are reaching peak bloom earlier, and others' last blooms are later. Records of more than two million blooms show flowering plants' response to climate change is more complex than previously believed. Species that depend on wildflowers are likely to be affected.

Chicken bones tell true story of pacific migration Posted: 17 Mar 2014 12:52 PM PDT Did the Polynesians beat Columbus to South America? Not according to the tale of migration uncovered by analysis of ancient DNA from chicken bones recovered in archaeological digs across the Pacific. The ancient DNA has been used to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens, reconstructing the early migrations of people and the animals they carried with them.

Tremors of the Big Bang: First direct evidence of cosmic inflation Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:58 AM PDT Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of our best telescopes. All this, of course, was just theory. Researchers now announce the first direct evidence for this cosmic inflation. Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Back to life after 1,500 years: Moss brought back to life after 1,500 years frozen in ice Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:50 AM PDT Researchers have demonstrated that, after over 1,500 years frozen in Antarctic ice, moss can come back to life and continue to grow. For the first time, this vital part of the ecosystem in both polar regions has been shown to have the ability to survive century to millennial scale ice ages. This provides exciting new insight into the survival of life on Earth.

Baby's life saved after 3-D printed devices were implanted restore his breathing Posted: 17 Mar 2014 09:49 AM PDT Garrett is just the second person whose life was saved with a new, bioresorbable device. He needed to be on a ventilator at pressure levels that had reached the maximum, and he was not improving. Often on strong medication, and even at times in a medically-induced coma because he would work against the ventilator if he was awake, Garrett's family learned about a procedure that might just change his life.

Who’s afraid of math? Study finds some genetic factors Posted: 17 Mar 2014 06:58 AM PDT A new study of math anxiety shows how some people may be at greater risk to fear math not only because of negative experiences, but also because of genetic risks related to both general anxiety and math skills. The results don't mean that math anxiety can be blamed solely or even mostly on genetic factors, the researchers emphasized. In this study, genetic factors explained about 40 percent of the individual differences in math anxiety.

Eat more, die young: Why eating a diet very low in nutrients can extend lifespan Posted: 17 Mar 2014 05:47 AM PDT A new evolutionary theory claims that consuming a diet very low in nutrients can extend lifespan in laboratory animals, a finding which could hold clues to promoting healthier aging in humans. Scientists have known for decades that severely restricted food intake reduces the incidence of diseases of old age, such as cancer, and increases lifespan. The most widely accepted theory is that this effect evolved to improve survival during times of famine.

Why did humans replace Neanderthals? Paleo diet didn't change, the climate did Posted: 17 Mar 2014 05:46 AM PDT Why were Neanderthals replaced by anatomically modern humans around 40,000 years ago? One popular hypothesis states that a broader dietary spectrum of modern humans gave them a competitive advantage on Neanderthals. Geochemical analyses of fossil bones seemed to confirm this dietary difference. Indeed, higher amounts of nitrogen heavy isotopes were found in the bones of modern humans compared to those of Neanderthals. However, these studies did not look at possible isotopic variation of nitrogen isotopes in the food resource themselves. In fact, environmental factors such as aridity can increase the heavy nitrogen isotope amount in plants, leading to higher nitrogen isotopic values in herbivores and their predators even without a change of subsistence strategy.

Time out: Spanking babies is surprisingly common, U.S. study finds Posted: 16 Mar 2014 06:09 PM PDT The same hands that parents use to lovingly feed, clothe and bathe their babies are also commonly used to spank their bundles of joy. A new study found that 30 percent of 1-year-old children were spanked at least once in the past month by their mother, father or both parents. A long-time topic of debate, spanking children is a common practice among U.S. parents.

Three quarters of people with seasonal, pandemic flu have no symptoms Posted: 16 Mar 2014 05:32 PM PDT Around 1 in 5 of the population were infected in both recent outbreaks of seasonal flu and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, but just 23% of these infections caused symptoms, and only 17% of people were ill enough to consult their doctor. These findings come from a major new community-based study comparing the burden and severity of seasonal and pandemic influenza in England over 5 years.

Major 'third-hand smoke' compound causes DNA damage and potentially cancer Posted: 16 Mar 2014 05:31 PM PDT Leftover cigarette smoke that clings to walls and furniture is a smelly nuisance, but now research suggests that it could pose a far more serious threat, especially to young children who put toys and other smoke-affected items into their mouths. Scientists reported that one of the tobacco-specific nitrosamines newly formed in "third-hand smoke" damages DNA and could potentially cause cancer.

Bionic plants: Nanotechnology could turn shrubbery into supercharged energy producers Posted: 16 Mar 2014 12:33 PM PDT Plants have many valuable functions: They provide food and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance their energy production and give them completely new functions, such as monitoring environmental pollutants.

Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than thought Posted: 16 Mar 2014 12:33 PM PDT Global warming of only 2 degrees Celsius will be detrimental to crops in temperate and tropical regions, researchers have determined, with reduced yields from the 2030s onwards. In the study, the researchers created a new data set by combining and comparing results from 1,700 published assessments of the response that climate change will have on the yields of rice, maize and wheat. Due to increased interest in climate change research, the new study was able to create the largest dataset to date on crop responses.

Mercury's contraction much greater than thought, new imaging shows Posted: 16 Mar 2014 12:32 PM PDT New global imaging and topographic data from MESSENGER show that the innermost planet has contracted far more than previous estimates. The results are based on a global study of more than 5,900 geological landforms, such as curving cliff-like scarps and wrinkle ridges, that have resulted from the planet's contraction as Mercury cooled. The findings are key to understanding the planet's thermal, tectonic, and volcanic history, and the structure of its unusually large metallic core.

Northeast Greenland ice loss accelerating, researchers say Posted: 16 Mar 2014 12:29 PM PDT The last remaining stable portion of the Greenland ice sheet is stable no more, an international team of scientists has discovered. The finding will likely boost estimates of expected global sea level rise in the future. The new result focuses on ice loss due to a major retreat of an outlet glacier connected to a long "river" of ice -- known as an ice stream -- that drains ice from the interior of the ice sheet. The Zachariae ice stream retreated about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) over the last decade, the researchers concluded. For comparison, one of the fastest moving glaciers, the Jakobshavn ice stream in southwest Greenland, has retreated 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) over the last 150 years.

African dust changes India's rainfall: Dust can affect planet's climate, research shows Posted: 16 Mar 2014 12:29 PM PDT Dust in the air in North Africa and West Asia absorbs sunlight west of India, warming the air and strengthening the winds carrying moisture eastward, raining down in India about a week later. The results of this new study explain one way that dust can affect the climate, filling in previously unknown details about Earth's system.

Honey offers new approach to fighting antibiotic resistance Posted: 16 Mar 2014 10:28 AM PDT Honey, that delectable condiment for breads and fruits, could be one sweet solution to the serious, ever-growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, researchers say. In addition, several studies have shown that honey inhibits the formation of biofilms, or communities of slimy disease-causing bacteria.

These boosts are made for walkin': Visual system amplifier directly activated by locomotion Posted: 13 Mar 2014 12:39 PM PDT The body may get help in fast-changing situations from a specialized brain circuit that causes visual system neurons to fire more strongly during locomotion, neuroscientists have discovered. It has long been known that nerve cells in the visual system fire more strongly when we pay close attention to objects than when we view scenes more passively. But the new research breaks new ground, mapping out a visual system amplifier that is directly activated by walking or running.

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