ScienceDaily: Top Science News

---

• Plasma plumes help shield Earth from damaging solar storms
• Icy wreckage discovered in nearby planetary system
• Warmer temperatures push malaria to higher elevations
• Are you smarter than a 5-year-old? Preschoolers can do algebra
• Earth's mantle plasticity explained: Missing mechanism for deforming olivine-rich rocks
• 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
• New dinosaur found in Portugal, largest terrestrial predator from Europe
• Alzheimer's disease much larger cause of death than reported, study shows
• Personalized gene therapy locks out HIV, paving the way to control virus without antiretroviral drugs
• Convergent evolution: New fins evolve repeatedly in teleost fishes

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.

Icy wreckage discovered in nearby planetary system Posted: 06 Mar 2014 11:25 AM PST Astronomers have discovered the splattered remains of comets colliding together around a nearby star. The researchers believe they are witnessing the total destruction of one of these icy bodies once every five minutes.

Warmer temperatures push malaria to higher elevations Posted: 06 Mar 2014 11:25 AM PST Researchers have debated for more than two decades the likely impacts, if any, of global warming on the worldwide incidence of malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that infects more than 300 million people each year. Now, ecologists are reporting the first hard evidence that malaria does -- as had long been predicted -- creep to higher elevations during warmer years and back down to lower altitudes when temperatures cool.

Are you smarter than a 5-year-old? Preschoolers can do algebra Posted: 06 Mar 2014 10:00 AM PST Millions of high school and college algebra students are united in a shared agony over solving for x and y, and for those to whom the answers don't come easily, it gets worse: Most preschoolers and kindergarteners can do some algebra before even entering a math class. A new study finds that most preschoolers and kindergarteners, or children between 4 and 6, can do basic algebra naturally.

Earth's mantle plasticity explained: Missing mechanism for deforming olivine-rich rocks Posted: 06 Mar 2014 08:22 AM PST The Earth's mantle is a solid layer that undergoes slow, continuous convective motion. But how do these rocks deform, thus making such motion possible, given that minerals such as olivine (the main constituent of the upper mantle) do not exhibit enough defects in their crystal lattice to explain the deformations observed in nature? Scientists have provided an unexpected answer to this question. It involves little known and hitherto neglected crystal defects, known as 'disclinations', which are located at the boundaries between the mineral grains that make up rocks.

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.

New dinosaur found in Portugal, largest terrestrial predator from Europe Posted: 05 Mar 2014 04:14 PM PST A new dinosaur species found in Portugal may be the largest land predator discovered in Europe, as well as one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs from the Jurassic. T. gurneyi had blade-shaped teeth up to 10 cm long, which indicates it may have been at the top of the food chain in the Iberian Peninsula roughly 150 million years ago. The scientists estimate that the dinosaur could reach 10 meters long and weigh around 4 to 5 tons.

Alzheimer's disease much larger cause of death than reported, study shows Posted: 05 Mar 2014 04:12 PM PST Alzheimer's disease may contribute to close to as many deaths in the United States as heart disease or cancer, a new study suggests. Currently, Alzheimer's disease falls sixth on the list of leading causes of death in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whereas heart disease and cancer are numbers one and two, respectively. These numbers are based on what is reported on death certificates.

Personalized gene therapy locks out HIV, paving the way to control virus without antiretroviral drugs Posted: 05 Mar 2014 04:11 PM PST The immune cells of 12 HIV positive patients have been successfully genetically engineered by researchers to resist infection, and decrease the viral loads of some patients taken off antiretroviral drug therapy (ADT) entirely -— including one patient whose levels became undetectable. The study is the first published report of any gene editing approach in humans. "This study shows that we can safely and effectively engineer an HIV patient's own T cells to mimic a naturally occurring resistance to the virus, infuse those engineered cells, have them persist in the body, and potentially keep viral loads at bay without the use of drugs," said the senior author.

Convergent evolution: New fins evolve repeatedly in teleost fishes Posted: 05 Mar 2014 05:44 AM PST A new study analyzing the origins of the adipose fin, thought by some to be vestigial, finds that these fins arose repeatedly and independently in multiple species -- a striking example of convergent evolution. Adipose fins also appear to have repeatedly and independently evolved skeleton, offering a glimpse into the evolution of vertebrate appendages.

You are subscribed to email updates from All Top News -- ScienceDaily To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610