ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• New Tool to Measure the Speed of Aging: Your handshake
• Astronomers create first realistic virtual universe
• Emerald ash borers were in U.S. long before first detection
• Early depression, anger may taint love life even 20 years later, study shows
• As carbon dioxide levels rise, some crop nutrients will fall, researchers find
• Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations
• Semi-synthetic organism: Scientists create first living organism that transmits added letters in DNA 'alphabet'
• A stellar explosion on the outer reaches of the Universe provides clues about black hole formation
• Mapping the spider genome: Surprising similarities to humans
• Ancient crater points to massive meteorite strike
• Newly found dinosaur is long-nosed cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex
• Arctic study sheds light on tree-ring divergence problem: Changes in light intensity may impact density of tree rings
• Nearest bright 'hypervelocity star' found: Speeding at 1 million mph, it probes black hole and dark matter
• All teeth and claws? New study sheds light on dinosaur claw function
• Motor cortex shown to play active role in learning movement patterns

New Tool to Measure the Speed of Aging: Your handshake Posted: 07 May 2014 06:14 PM PDT A strong handshake can say a lot about a person —- it can indicate power, confidence, health, or aggression. Now scientists say that the strength of a person's grasp may also be one of the most useful ways to measure people's true age.

Astronomers create first realistic virtual universe Posted: 07 May 2014 11:28 AM PDT Move over, Matrix - astronomers have done you one better. They have created the first realistic virtual universe using a computer simulation called 'Illustris.' Illustris can recreate 13 billion years of cosmic evolution in a cube 350 million light-years on a side with unprecedented resolution.

Emerald ash borers were in U.S. long before first detection Posted: 07 May 2014 10:27 AM PDT The uber-destructive emerald ash borer arrived at least 10 years before it was first identified in North America, new research confirms. shows that EABs were feasting on ash trees in southeast Michigan by the early 1990s, well before this pest was discovered in 2002, arriving inside wood crating or pallets imported from Asia where the beetle is native.

Early depression, anger may taint love life even 20 years later, study shows Posted: 07 May 2014 10:27 AM PDT Negative emotions people may have suffered as young adults can have a lasting grip on their couple relationships, well into middle age, research demonstrates. The study followed 341 people for 25 years, and found that negative emotions they may have suffered as young adults can have a lasting grip on their couple relationships, well into middle age. The fact that depression and anger experienced during the teen years clung to people, even through major life events such as child-rearing, marriages and careers was surprising, researchers note.

As carbon dioxide levels rise, some crop nutrients will fall, researchers find Posted: 07 May 2014 10:26 AM PDT Researchers have some bad news for future farmers and eaters: As carbon dioxide levels rise this century, some grains and legumes will become significantly less nutritious than they are today.

Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations Posted: 07 May 2014 10:26 AM PDT Up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and neighboring parts of the Canadian Arctic may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. The other portion is likely due to global warming.

Semi-synthetic organism: Scientists create first living organism that transmits added letters in DNA 'alphabet' Posted: 07 May 2014 10:21 AM PDT Scientists have engineered a bacterium whose genetic material includes an added pair of DNA "letters," or bases, not found in nature; the bacterium's cells can replicate the unnatural DNA bases more or less normally, as long as the molecular building blocks are supplied.

A stellar explosion on the outer reaches of the Universe provides clues about black hole formation Posted: 07 May 2014 08:47 AM PDT On 24 October 2012 observatories across the world were alerted about a huge stellar explosion, the GRB121024A, which had been located just hours before in the Eridanus constellation. The data obtained on that explosion, which took place about 11,000 million years ago, have made it possible to reconstruct how a black hole is formed.

Mapping the spider genome: Surprising similarities to humans Posted: 07 May 2014 07:50 AM PDT For the first time ever, a group of researchers has sequenced the genome of the spider. This knowledge provides a much more qualified basis for studying features of the spider. It also shows that humans share certain genomic similarities with spiders. However, the sequencing has far greater significance for our future understanding of the spider's special properties. The researchers worked with two types of spiders, representing two of the three main groups in the spider family. One of these is a small velvet spider and the other is a tarantula.

Ancient crater points to massive meteorite strike Posted: 07 May 2014 07:50 AM PDT An eight-kilometer-wide crater suggests a meteorite strike devastated southern Alberta within the last 70 million years, experts theorize. Time and glaciers have buried and eroded much of the evidence, making it impossible at this point to say with full certainty the ring-like structure was caused by a meteorite impact, but that's what seismic and geological evidence strongly suggests.

Newly found dinosaur is long-nosed cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex Posted: 07 May 2014 07:04 AM PDT Scientists have discovered a new species of long-snouted tyrannosaur, nicknamed Pinocchio rex, which stalked the Earth more than 66 million years ago. Researchers say the animal, which belonged to the same dinosaur family as Tyrannosaurus rex, was a fearsome carnivore that lived in Asia during the late Cretaceous period. The newly found ancient predator looked very different from most other tyrannosaurs.

Arctic study sheds light on tree-ring divergence problem: Changes in light intensity may impact density of tree rings Posted: 07 May 2014 07:04 AM PDT New research has found that changes in tree-ring density in the Arctic may be evidence of changes in light intensity during the trees' growth. The finding has direct implications for the tree-ring 'divergence problem,' in which the density of tree rings in recent decades has not kept pace with increases in temperature, as expected.

Nearest bright 'hypervelocity star' found: Speeding at 1 million mph, it probes black hole and dark matter Posted: 07 May 2014 06:30 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered a "hypervelocity star" that is the closest, second-brightest and among the largest of 20 found so far. Speeding at more than 1 million mph, the star may provide clues about the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way and the halo of mysterious "dark matter" surrounding the galaxy, astronomers say.

All teeth and claws? New study sheds light on dinosaur claw function Posted: 06 May 2014 05:41 PM PDT How claw form and function changed during the evolution from dinosaurs to birds is explored in a new study into the claws of a group of theropod dinosaurs known as therizinosaurs. Theropod dinosaurs, a group which includes such famous species as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, are often regarded as carnivorous and predatory animals, using their sharp teeth and claws to capture and dispatch prey. However, a detailed look at the claws on their forelimbs revealed that the form and shape of theropod claws are highly variable and might also have been used for other tasks.

Motor cortex shown to play active role in learning movement patterns Posted: 04 May 2014 10:32 AM PDT Skilled motor movements of the sort tennis players employ while serving a tennis ball or pianists use in playing a concerto, require precise interactions between the motor cortex and the rest of the brain. Neuroscientists had long assumed that the motor cortex functioned something like a piano keyboard. This new study shows that the motor cortex itself plays an active role in learning new motor movements.

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