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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Chinese scientists finish sequencing Genghis Khan descendant's genome
Post Date: 2011-12-19 05:06:01 by Tatarewicz
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HOHHOT, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Scientists said on Sunday that they have finished sequencing the genome of a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Zhou Huanmin, project leader and head of the biological research lab at the Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, said Sunday that this was the first individual genome sequencing of a Mongolian. The blood donator was a male only identified as one of Genghis Khan's 34th-generation offspring from the Sunit Tribe, which is based in the Xilingol league (prefecture) in Inner Mongolia. Zhou said the research team will continue to sequence the genomes of another 199 ethnic Mongolians and build a database consisting of Mongolian genetic code. Zhou ...
Scientists May Be Able to Double Efficacy of Radiation Therapy
Post Date: 2011-12-18 03:17:42 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) — Scientists may have a way to double the efficacy and reduce the side effects of radiation therapy. Georgia Health Sciences University scientists have devised a way to reduce lung cancer cells' ability to repair the lethal double-strand DNA breaks caused by radiation therapy. "Radiation is a great therapy -- the problem is the side effects," said Dr. William S. Dynan, biochemist and Associate Director of Research and Chief, Nanomedicine and Gene Regulation at the GHSU Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics. "We think this is a way to get the same amount of cancer cell death with less radiation or use the same amount and maybe ...
Self-cleaning cotton nanoparticle coating invented
Post Date: 2011-12-17 07:29:48 by Tatarewicz
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Efforts to create self-cleaning cotton fabrics are bearing fruit in China. Engineers have created a chemical coating that causes cotton materials to clean themselves of stains and remove odours when exposed to sunlight. The researchers say the treatment is cheap, non-toxic and ecologically friendly. Retail experts say the innovation could prove a hit with retailers thanks to a growing demand for "functional clothing". The research was carried out by engineers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Hubei University for Nationalities, and is published in the latest issue of the Applied Materials and Interfaces journal. The study focuses on titanium dioxide - a chemical known to ...
47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth
Post Date: 2011-12-17 00:27:12 by X-15
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While searching deep space for extra-terrestrial signals, scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have stumbled across signals broadcast from Earth nearly half a century ago. Radio astronomer Dr. Venn described how he made the historic discovery after analysing a number of signals originating from the same point in space. "I realised the signal was in the VHF Band and slap bang in the middle of 41-68 MHz. It was obviously old terrestrial television broadcasts, but they seemed to be originating from deep space." After boosting and digital enhancement the resulting video signals are remarkably clear. Responding to questions, Dr Venn was at pains to explain that little ...
Next Step to Space: Allen, Rutan announce Stratolaunch Systems for commercial spaced launches
Post Date: 2011-12-15 14:35:45 by X-15
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December 13, 2011 – Burt Rutan, homebuilt aviation and private space flight icon, reunited with entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul G. Allen in Seattle Tuesday, December 13, to announce what they called “a revolutionary approach to space transportation: an air-launch system to provide orbital access to space with greater safety, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility.” Stratolaunch Systems, like their SpaceShipOne (SS1) collaboration seven years ago, uses a mothership to lift a vehicle to altitude, release it, then return to Earth as the launch vehicle rockets into space. While SS1 was proof of concept, Stratolaunch Systems is commercial application. “I have long ...
'Matrix'-Style Effortless Learning? Vision Scientists Demonstrate Innovative Learning Method
Post Date: 2011-12-15 05:35:35 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2011) — New research published December 8 in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It's the kind of thing seen in Hollywood's "Matrix" franchise. Experiments conducted at Boston University (BU) and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, recently demonstrated that through a person's visual cortex, researchers could use decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce brain activity patterns to match a previously known target state and thereby improve performance on ...
Ultrafast Camera Records at Speed of Light
Post Date: 2011-12-14 11:14:15 by gengis gandhi
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Ultrafast Camera Records at Speed of Light By Larry Greenemeier | December 13, 2011 | 3 Share Email Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) have developed an imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second–fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom. As Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor in M.I.T.’s Media Lab, explains in the video below, a high-speed camera can capture the image of a bullet mid-flight. The M.I.T. camera can capture the movement of photons, which travel about ...
LHC: Higgs boson 'may have been glimpsed'
Post Date: 2011-12-14 05:12:28 by Tatarewicz
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The most coveted prize in particle physics - the Higgs boson - may have been glimpsed, say researchers reporting at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva. The particle is purported to be the means by which everything in the Universe obtains its mass. Scientists say that two experiments at the LHC see hints of the Higgs at the same mass, fuelling huge excitement. But the LHC does not yet have enough data to claim a discovery. Finding the Higgs would be one of the biggest scientific advances of the last 60 years. It is crucial for allowing us to make sense of the Universe, but has never been observed by experiments. Continue reading the main story The Higgs boson The Higgs is a ...
British scientists discover new way to target cancer
Post Date: 2011-12-14 04:03:11 by Tatarewicz
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- British scientists have discovered a new way to target cancer through manipulating a master switch responsible for cancer cell growth. The findings, published Monday in the U.S. journal Cancer Cell, reveal how cancer cells grow faster by producing their own blood vessels. Cancer cells gain the nutrients they need by producing proteins that make blood vessels grow, helping deliver oxygen and sugars to the tumor. These proteins are vascular growth factors like VEGF -- the target for the anti-cancer drug Avastin. Making these proteins requires the slotting together of different parts of genes, a process called splicing. Scientists at the University of West ...
A 'Wild Card' in Your Genes
Post Date: 2011-12-12 06:28:56 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2011) — The human genome and the endowments of genes in other animals and plants are like a deck of poker cards containing a "wild card" that in a genetic sense introduces an element of variety and surprise that has a key role in life. That's what scientists are describing in a review of more than 100 studies on the topic that appears in ACS Chemical Biology. Rahul Kohli and colleagues focus on cytosine, one of the four chemical "bases" that comprise the alphabet that the genetic material DNA uses to spell out everything from hair and eye color to risk of certain diseases. But far from just storing information, cytosine has acquired a ...
Solar Power Much Cheaper to Produce Than Most Analysts Realize, Study Finds
Post Date: 2011-12-12 06:19:56 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2011) — The public is being kept in the dark about the viability of solar photovoltaic energy, according to a study conducted at Queen's University. "Many analysts project a higher cost for solar photovoltaic energy because they don't consider recent technological advancements and price reductions," says Joshua Pearce, Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. "Older models for determining solar photovoltaic energy costs are too conservative." Dr. Pearce believes solar photovoltaic systems are near the "tipping point" where they can produce energy for about the same price other traditional ...
A Rothschild Speaks - Listen Closely
Post Date: 2011-12-11 11:35:14 by CadetD
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Click for Full Text!Poster Comment:
Chewing gum boosts test scores
Post Date: 2011-12-11 04:48:45 by Tatarewicz
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Researchers at St. Lawrence University have found that chewing gum for five minutes before taking a test will improve people's performance. According to previous findings any type of physical activity before taking an exam can improve test performance. A new study published in the journal appetite, however, says mild activities like chewing gum may also be helpful. Serge Onyper and colleagues compared the effects of chewing gum before or during various testing situations in 80 undergraduate students. A “battery of cognitive tasks” was given to participants, who chewed gum either prior to or throughout testing. Their performance was then compared with subjects who did not ...
Mysterious planet-sized object spotted near Mercury
Post Date: 2011-12-09 09:55:54 by PSUSA2
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Is a giant, cloaked spaceship orbiting around Mercury? That's been the speculation from some corners aftera camera onboard NASA's STEREO spacecraft caught a wave of electronically charged material shooting out from the sun and hitting Mercury. Theorists have seized on the images captured from the "coronal mass ejection" (CME) last week as suggestive of alien life hanging out in our own cosmic backyard. Specifically, the solar flare washing over Mercury appears to hit another object of comparable size. "It's cylindrical on either side and has a shape in the middle. It definitely looks like a ship to me, and very obviously, it's cloaked," YouTube-user ...
Vanadium - the new power source
Post Date: 2011-12-09 07:44:52 by Tatarewicz
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A little-known metal used in steelmaking could emerge as a game-changer for battery technology, raising the prospect of an investment boom like the one that lifted rare earths out of obscurity last year. Those aren't my words. They're Reuters'. The opportunity the straitlaced news organization is describing is so exciting, its description almost sounds sensationalized... It's not. Another Metal to Learn The metal in question is vanadium. And according to Chris Berry, founder of New York-based research firm House Mountain Partners, the potential exists “to make vanadium into a multi-billion dollar metal.” Its strengthening capabilities have been known for ...
Drug reverses aging-associated changes in brain cells: study
Post Date: 2011-12-09 04:39:32 by Tatarewicz
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- Drugs that affect the levels of an important brain protein involved in learning and memory reverse cellular changes in the brain seen during aging, according to an animal study published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience. The findings could one day aid in the development of new drugs that enhance cognitive function in older adults. Aging-related memory loss is associated with the gradual deterioration of the structure and function of synapses (the connections between brain cells) in brain regions critical to learning and memory, such as the hippocampus. Recent studies suggested that histone acetylation, a chemical process that controls whether genes ...
Cosmic collisions likely caused gamma-ray explosion last Christmas
Post Date: 2011-12-09 03:29:21 by Tatarewicz
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Last Christmas, NASA’s Swift spacecraft detected a large gamma ray burst – the cause of which has been a puzzle to astrophysicists. Gamma ray bursts are large, high energy explosions that last only a short period of time. In just a few seconds, though, they emit more energy than the Sun will throughout its entire lifetime. While hundreds of gamma ray bursts have been studied and their mechanics well known, advances in detection have produced a few that don’t fit the mold – and the Christmas burst is one of those. “What the Christmas burst seems to be telling us is that the family of gamma-ray bursts is more diverse than we fully appreciate,” said Christina ...
Chinese 2,485 year tree ring study shows natural cycles control climate, temps may cool til 2068
Post Date: 2011-12-08 20:51:54 by Original_Intent
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Chinese 2,485 year tree ring study shows natural cycles control climate, temps may cool til 2068A blockbuster Chinese study of Tibetan tree rings by Liu et al 2011 shows, with detail, that the modern era is a dog-standard normal climate when compared to the last 2,500 years. The temperature, the rate of change — it’s all been seen before. Nothing about the current period is “abnormal”, indeed the current warming period in Tibet can be produced through calculation of cycles. Liu et al do a Fourier analysis on the underlying cycles and do brave predictions as well. In Tibet, it was about the same temperature on at least four occasions — back in late Roman times (those ...
The BBC: less trustworthy, more dangerous than a cannibal polar bear
Post Date: 2011-12-08 14:02:30 by farmfriend
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The BBC: less trustworthy, more dangerous than a cannibal polar bear By James Delingpole Environment Last updated: December 8th, 2011 Today's endangered polar bear story du jour comes, you won't be at all surprised to hear, from the BBC's news website. An "environmental photojournalist" named Jenny E Ross took a photograph of a polar bear eating a cub – and concluded, as of course any self-respecting environmental photojournalist would, that this was probably the result of "climate change". "This type of intraspecific predation has always occurred to some extent," she told BBC News. "However, there are increasing numbers of ...
China developing next-gen nuclear with Microsoft's Bill Gates
Post Date: 2011-12-08 03:15:37 by Tatarewicz
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BEIJING / WASHINGTON - Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates confirmed on Wednesday that a company he helped found is cooperating on the development of a new type of nuclear reactor in China. "TerraPower is working on what we call Generation-4 nuclear energy. And the idea is to be very low-cost, very safe and generate very little waste," Gates said at a news conference after he discussed cooperation with Ministry of Science and Technology officials in Beijing on Wednesday. "It is in an early stage," Gates said. TerraPower, co-founded by Gates several years ago, is working on the idea of new technologies with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), though Gates ...
Study faults partial radiation for breast cancer recurrance
Post Date: 2011-12-07 01:47:46 by Tatarewicz
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SAN ANTONIO — New research casts doubt on a popular treatment for breast cancer: A week of radiation to part of the breast instead of longer treatment to all of it. Women who were given partial radiation were twice as likely to need their breasts removed later because the cancer came back, doctors found. The treatment uses radioactive pellets briefly placed in the breast instead of radiation beamed from a machine. At least 13 percent of older patients in the U.S. get this now, and it is popular with working women. "Even women who aren't working appreciate convenience," but they may pay a price in effectiveness if too little tissue is being treated, said study leader ...
NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone
Post Date: 2011-12-05 14:38:27 by Eric Stratton
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NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5). The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700. The potentially habitable ...
Gene ABCC9 determines need for extra sleep
Post Date: 2011-12-05 02:55:06 by Tatarewicz
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People who like a lie-in may now have an excuse - it is at least partly down to their genes, according to experts. Experts, who studied more than 10,000 people across Europe, found those with the gene ABCC9 need around 30 minutes more sleep per night than those without the gene. The gene is carried by one in five Europeans, they say in their study, published in Molecular Psychiatry. The researchers said the finding could help explain "sleep behaviour". Over 10,000 people took part, each reporting how long they slept and providing a blood sample for DNA analysis. People's sleep needs can differ significantly. At the extreme, Margaret Thatcher managed on four hours of ...
Turtle telepathy
Post Date: 2011-12-03 02:30:01 by Tatarewicz
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ADELAIDE: River Murray Turtle embryos can adjust their developmental rate so that all the eggs in a clutch can hatch around the same time, a new study has found. Young turtles face many challenges when they hatch and venture into the world. Synchronous hatching increases their survival chances, as predators are swamped by high numbers of prey. As a large group, hatchlings can also work together to dig their way out of the nest more easily. Scientists investigated incubation and group hatching in the River Murray Turtle, which is a species restricted to the Murray-Darling River system in southeastern Australia. Although the temperature of the nest affects the developmental rate of eggs, ...
Periodic table to welcome two new elements
Post Date: 2011-12-03 01:59:54 by Tatarewicz
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Livermorium and flerovium could soon occupy the 114 and 116 spots on the periodic table of the elements. The names for the elements, which were synthesized a decade ago, were announced Thursday by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Years after their discovery, the super-heavy elements with atomic numbers of 114 and 116 have finally been named by their Russian and American discoverers. The elements are flerovium and livermoreium also known as Fl and Lv. Chemistry's periodic table can now welcome livermorium and flerovium, two newly named elements, which were announced Thursday (Dec. 1) by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The new names will ...
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