ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Off the shelf, on the skin: Stick-on electronic patches for health monitoring
• New U.S. time standard: Atomic clock will neither gain nor lose one second in about 300 million years
• Researchers design trees that make it easier to produce paper
• Gravity measurements confirm subsurface ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus
• Monster 'El Gordo' galaxy cluster is bigger than thought
• Energy breakthrough uses sun to create solar energy materials
• Hummingbirds' 22-million-year-old history of remarkable change is far from complete
• Fermi data tantalize with new clues to dark matter: Gamma rays from center of Milky Way galaxy
• Tiny power generator runs on spit
• Running, cardio activities in young adulthood may preserve thinking skills in middle age

Off the shelf, on the skin: Stick-on electronic patches for health monitoring Posted: 03 Apr 2014 06:26 PM PDT Wearing a fitness tracker on your wrist or clipped to your belt is so 2013. Engineers have demonstrated thin, soft stick-on patches that stretch and move with the skin and incorporate off-the-shelf electronics for sophisticated wireless health monitoring. The patches stick to the skin like a temporary tattoo and incorporate a unique microfluidic construction with wires folded like origami to allow the patch to bend and flex.

New U.S. time standard: Atomic clock will neither gain nor lose one second in about 300 million years Posted: 03 Apr 2014 06:26 PM PDT National Institute of Standards and Technology has officially launched a new atomic clock, called NIST-F2, to serve as a new US civilian time and frequency standard, along with the current NIST-F1 standard. NIST-F2 would neither gain nor lose one second in about 300 million years, making it about three times as accurate as NIST-F1, which has served as the standard since 1999. Both clocks use a 'fountain' of cesium atoms to determine the exact length of a second.

Researchers design trees that make it easier to produce paper Posted: 03 Apr 2014 11:20 AM PDT Researchers have genetically engineered trees that will be easier to break down to produce paper and biofuel, a breakthrough that will mean using fewer chemicals, less energy and creating fewer environmental pollutants.

Gravity measurements confirm subsurface ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus Posted: 03 Apr 2014 11:20 AM PDT In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft sent pictures back to Earth depicting an icy Saturnian moon spewing water vapor and ice from fractures, known as "tiger stripes," in its frozen surface. It was big news that tiny Enceladus -- a mere 500 kilometers in diameter -- was such an active place. Since then, scientists have hypothesized that a large reservoir of water lies beneath that icy surface, possibly fueling the plumes. Now, using gravity measurements collected by Cassini, scientists have confirmed that Enceladus does in fact harbor a large subsurface ocean near its south pole, beneath those tiger stripes.

Monster 'El Gordo' galaxy cluster is bigger than thought Posted: 03 Apr 2014 11:18 AM PDT Astronomers have weighed the largest known galaxy cluster in the distant universe and found that it definitely lives up to its nickname: El Gordo (Spanish for "the fat one"). By precisely measuring how much the gravity from the cluster's mass warps images of far-more-distant background galaxies, a team of astronomers has calculated the cluster's mass to be as much as 3 million billion times the mass of our Sun. The Hubble data show that the cluster is roughly 43 percent more massive than earlier estimates based on X-ray and dynamical studies of the unusual cluster.

Energy breakthrough uses sun to create solar energy materials Posted: 03 Apr 2014 10:23 AM PDT Researchers have discovered a way to tap the sun not only as a source of power, but also to directly produce the solar energy materials that make this possible. This breakthrough could make the sun almost a 'one-stop shop' that produces both the materials for solar devices and the eternal energy to power them.

Hummingbirds' 22-million-year-old history of remarkable change is far from complete Posted: 03 Apr 2014 10:22 AM PDT The first comprehensive map of hummingbirds' 22-million-year-old family tree -- reconstructed based on careful analysis of 284 of the world's 338 known species -- tells a story of rapid and ongoing diversification. The decade-long study also helps to explain how today's hummingbirds came to live where they do.

Fermi data tantalize with new clues to dark matter: Gamma rays from center of Milky Way galaxy Posted: 03 Apr 2014 09:36 AM PDT A new study of gamma-ray light from the center of our galaxy makes the strongest case to date that some of this emission may arise from dark matter, an unknown substance making up most of the material universe. Using publicly available data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, independent scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Chicago have developed new maps showing that the galactic center produces more high-energy gamma rays than can be explained by known sources and that this excess emission is consistent with some forms of dark matter.

Tiny power generator runs on spit Posted: 03 Apr 2014 07:58 AM PDT Saliva-powered micro-sized microbial fuel cells can produce minute amounts of energy sufficient to run on-chip applications, according to engineers. Biomedical devices using micro-sized microbial fuel cells would be portable and have their energy source available anywhere.

Running, cardio activities in young adulthood may preserve thinking skills in middle age Posted: 02 Apr 2014 01:23 PM PDT Young adults who run or participate in other cardio fitness activities may preserve their memory and thinking skills in middle age, according to a new study. Middle age was defined as ages 43 to 55 in this study. "These findings are likely to help us earlier identify and consequently prevent or treat those at high risk of developing dementia," researchers said.

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