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Saturday, December 13, 2014

ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

ScienceDaily: Most Popular News


New 'high-entropy' alloy is as light as aluminum, as strong as titanium alloys

Posted: 10 Dec 2014 11:08 AM PST

Researchers have developed a new 'high-entropy' metal alloy that has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than any other existing metal material.

Abandoned wells can be 'super-emitters' of greenhouse gas

Posted: 09 Dec 2014 09:04 AM PST

Researchers have uncovered a previously unknown, and possibly substantial, source of the greenhouse gas methane to Earth's atmosphere. After testing a sample of abandoned oil and natural gas wells in northwestern Pennsylvania, the researchers found that many of the old wells leaked substantial quantities of methane. Because there are many abandoned wells nationwide, the researchers believe the overall contribution of leaking wells could be significant.

Are you helping your toddler's aggressive behavior?

Posted: 09 Dec 2014 07:10 AM PST

Physical aggression in toddlers has been thought to be associated with the frustration caused by language problems, but a recent study shows that this isn't the case. The researchers did find, however, that parental behaviors may influence the development of an association between the two problems during early childhood. Frequent hitting, kicking, and a tendency to bite or push others are examples of physical aggression observed in toddlers.

Astronomers identify gas spirals as a nursery of twin stars through ALMA

Posted: 09 Dec 2014 05:16 AM PST

Astronomers have found spiral arms of molecular gas and dust around the "baby twin" stars, binary protostars. Gas motions to supply materials to the twin were also identified. These observational results unveil, for the first time, the mechanism of the birth and growth of binary stars, which are ubiquitous throughout the universe.

Shedding new light on the formation of emotional fear memories

Posted: 08 Dec 2014 12:25 PM PST

Everyday events are easy to forget, but unpleasant ones can remain engraved in the brain. A new study identifies a neural mechanism through which unpleasant experiences are translated into signals that trigger fear memories by changing neural connections in a part of the brain called the amygdala. The findings show that a long-standing theory on how the brain forms memories, called Hebbian plasticity, is partially correct, but not as simple as was originally proposed.

Adult-onset diabetes, obesity cured in lab mice, scientists report

Posted: 08 Dec 2014 11:44 AM PST

A new treatment for adult-onset diabetes and obesity has essentially cured lab animals of obesity, diabetes and associated lipid abnormalities through improved glucose sensitivity, reduced appetite and enhanced calorie burning.

Chemicals released during natural gas extraction may harm reproduction, development

Posted: 05 Dec 2014 02:50 PM PST

Unconventional oil and gas operations combine directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing to release natural gas from rock. Discussions have centered on potential air and water pollution from chemicals and how they affect the more than 15 million Americans living within one mile of UOG operations. Now, a researcher has conducted the largest review of research centered on fracking byproducts and their effects on human reproductive and developmental health.

Stick out your tongue: Tongue appearance and illness

Posted: 05 Dec 2014 08:39 AM PST

The tongue can betray signs of illness, which combined with other symptoms such as a cough, fever, presence of jaundice, headache or bowel habits, can help a physician offer a diagnosis. For people in remote areas who do not have ready access to a physician, a new diagnostic system works to combine the soft inputs of described symptoms with a digital analysis of an image of the patient's tongue.

New research paves the way for nano-movies of biomolecules

Posted: 05 Dec 2014 07:03 AM PST

Scientists have caught a light sensitive biomolecule at work using an X-ray laser. Their new study proves that high speed X-ray lasers can capture the fast dynamics of biomolecules in ultra slow-motion, revealing subtle processes with unprecedented clarity.

Antioxidant capacity of orange juice is multiplied tenfold

Posted: 05 Dec 2014 06:37 AM PST

The antioxidant activity of citrus juices and other foods is undervalued, experts say. A new technique for measuring this property generates values that are ten times higher than those indicated by current analysis methods. The results suggest that tables on the antioxidant capacities of food products that dieticians and health authorities use must be revised. Orange juice and juices from other citrus fruits are considered healthy due to their high content of antioxidants, which help to reduce harmful free radicals in our body, but a new investigation shows that their benefits are greater than previously thought.

ScienceDaily: Top Science News

ScienceDaily: Top Science News


Earth's most abundant mineral finally has a name

Posted: 12 Dec 2014 12:01 PM PST

An ancient meteorite and high-energy X-rays have helped scientists conclude a half century of effort to find, identify and characterize a mineral that makes up 38 percent of the Earth.

New insights into origins of agriculture could help shape future of food

Posted: 11 Dec 2014 01:24 PM PST

Agricultural decisions made by our ancestors more than 10,000 years ago could hold the key to food security in the future, according to new research. Scientists, looking at why the first arable farmers chose to domesticate some cereal crops and not others, studied those that originated in the Fertile Crescent, an arc of land in western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.

Reasons for malaria's drug resistance discovered

Posted: 11 Dec 2014 11:20 AM PST

Scientists have discovered, in a breakthrough study, exactly how the malaria parasite is developing resistance towards the most important front-line drugs used to treat the disease. Malaria is a mosquito-borne parasite which affects over 60 million people worldwide and in serious cases, can be fatal. There is currently no viable vaccine for malaria while antimalarial drugs and prophylaxis are losing its efficacy with increasing drug resistance.

Why tool-wielding crows are left- or right-beaked

Posted: 04 Dec 2014 11:07 AM PST

New Caledonian crows show preferences when it comes to holding their tools on the left or the right sides of their beaks, in much the same way that people are left- or right-handed. Now researchers suggest that those bill preferences allow each bird to keep the tip of its tool in view of the eye on the opposite side of its head. Crows aren't so much left- or right-beaked as they are left- or right-eyed.

'Non-echolocating' fruit bats actually do echolocate, with wing clicks

Posted: 04 Dec 2014 11:07 AM PST

In a discovery that overturns conventional wisdom about bats, researchers have found that Old World fruit bats -- long classified as 'non-echolocating' -- actually do use a rudimentary form of echolocation. Perhaps most surprisingly, the clicks they emit to produce the echoes that guide them through the darkness aren't vocalizations at all. They are instead produced by the bats' wings, although scientists don't yet know exactly how the bats do it.

Electric eels deliver taser-like shocks

Posted: 04 Dec 2014 11:06 AM PST

The electric eel -- the scaleless Amazonian fish that can deliver an electrical jolt strong enough to knock down a full-grown horse -- possesses an electroshock system uncannily similar to a Taser. That is the conclusion of a nine-month study of the way in which the electric eel uses high-voltage electrical discharges to locate and incapacitate its prey.

New revelations on dark matter and relic neutrinos

Posted: 04 Dec 2014 09:13 AM PST

Satellite have been studying relic radiation (the most ancient light in the Universe). This light has been measured precisely across the entire sky for the first time, in both intensity and polarization, thereby producing the oldest image of the Universe. This primordial light lets us "see" some of the most elusive particles in the Universe: dark matter and relic neutrinos. Between 2009 and 2013, the Planck satellite observed relic radiation, sometimes called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Today, with a full analysis of the data, the quality of the map is now such that the imprints left by dark matter and relic neutrinos are clearly visible.