ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Milky Way image reveals detail of a billion stars
• New layer of genetic information helps determine how fast proteins are produced
• Ripping electrons from their cores: Physicists mix two lasers to create light at many frequencies
• 'Lucy' lived among close cousins: Discovery of foot fossil confirms two human ancestor species co-existed
• Fossil raindrop impressions imply greenhouse gases loaded early atmosphere
• Viral disease -- particularly from herpes -- gaining interest as possible cause of coral decline
• Solar storm seen from inside and outside Earth's magnetosphere
• Many billions of rocky planets in habitable zones around red dwarfs in Milky Way
• Powerhouse in the Crab Nebula: MAGIC telescopes observe pulsar at highest energies yet and strongly challenge current theories
• Wave character of individual molecules revealed
• Exploding dinosaur hypothesis implodes
• DNA traces cattle back to a small herd domesticated around 10,500 years ago

Milky Way image reveals detail of a billion stars Posted: 28 Mar 2012 05:37 PM PDT More than one billion stars in the Milky Way can be seen together in detail for the first time in a new image. Large structures of the Milky Way galaxy, such as gas and dust clouds where stars have formed and died, can be seen in the image.

New layer of genetic information helps determine how fast proteins are produced Posted: 28 Mar 2012 11:28 AM PDT A hidden and never before recognized layer of information in the genetic code has been uncovered by a team of scientists, thanks to a new technique called ribosome profiling, which enables the measurement of gene activity inside living cells.

Ripping electrons from their cores: Physicists mix two lasers to create light at many frequencies Posted: 28 Mar 2012 11:28 AM PDT Physicists have seen the light, and it comes in many different colors. By aiming high- and low-frequency laser beams at a semiconductor, the researchers caused electrons to be ripped from their cores, accelerated, and then smashed back into the cores they left behind. This recollision produced multiple frequencies of light simultaneously.

'Lucy' lived among close cousins: Discovery of foot fossil confirms two human ancestor species co-existed Posted: 28 Mar 2012 10:59 AM PDT Scientists have found a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot fossil in the Afar region of Ethiopia, showing that "Lucy," Australopithecus afarensis, and a much different-looking early hominin lived in the area at the same time.

Fossil raindrop impressions imply greenhouse gases loaded early atmosphere Posted: 28 Mar 2012 10:59 AM PDT Evidence from fossilized raindrop impressions from 2.7 billion years ago indicates that an abundance of greenhouse gases most likely caused the warm temperatures on ancient Earth.

Viral disease -- particularly from herpes -- gaining interest as possible cause of coral decline Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:09 AM PDT As corals continue to decline in abundance around the world, researchers are turning their attention to a possible cause that's almost totally unexplored -- viral disease. It appears that corals harbor many different viruses -- particularly herpes. They also are home to the adenoviruses and other viral families that can cause human colds and gastrointestinal disease.

Solar storm seen from inside and outside Earth's magnetosphere Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:09 AM PDT For the first time, instrumentation aboard two NASA missions operating from complementary vantage points watched as a powerful solar storm spewed a two million-mile-per-hour stream of charged particles and interacted with the invisible magnetic field surrounding Earth.

Many billions of rocky planets in habitable zones around red dwarfs in Milky Way Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:09 AM PDT Rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars, according to new research. The astronomers estimate that there are tens of billions of such planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and probably about one hundred in the Sun's immediate neighborhood. This is the first direct measurement of the frequency of super-Earths around red dwarfs, which account for 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way.

Powerhouse in the Crab Nebula: MAGIC telescopes observe pulsar at highest energies yet and strongly challenge current theories Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:08 AM PDT The pulsar at the center of the famous Crab Nebula is a veritable bundle of energy. Astronomers observed the pulsar in the area of very high energy gamma radiation from 25 up to 400 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), a region that was previously difficult to access with high energy instruments, and discovered that it actually emits pulses with the maximum energy of up to 400 GeV -- 50 to 100 times higher than theorists thought possible. These latest observations are difficult for astrophysicists to explain.

Wave character of individual molecules revealed Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:08 AM PDT Quantum theory describes the world of atoms very precisely. Still, it defies our macroscopic conception of the everyday world due to its many anti-intuitive predictions. The wave-particle dualism probably is the best known example and means that matter may spread and interfere like waves. Now, scientists have recorded the interference process of individual molecules. "Seeing how the interference pattern develops with every light spot, molecule after molecule, and how a basic principle of quantum mechanics is visualized enhances our understanding of the atomic world," explains one of the researchers.

Exploding dinosaur hypothesis implodes Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:08 AM PDT A pregnant ichthyosaur female that perished 182 million years ago puzzled researchers for quite some time: The skeleton of the extinct marine reptile is almost immaculately preserved and the fossilized bones of the mother animal lie largely in their anatomical position. The bones of the ichthyosaur embryos, however, are a different story: For the most part, they lie scattered outside the body of the mother. Such peculiar bone arrangements are repeatedly found in ichthyosaur skeletons. According to the broadly accepted scientific doctrine, this is the result of exploding carcasses: Putrefaction gases produced during the decomposition process cause the carcass to swell and burst. However, sedimentologists, paleontologists and forensic scientists have now managed to dispel the myth of exploding dinosaur carcasses.

DNA traces cattle back to a small herd domesticated around 10,500 years ago Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:42 AM PDT All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study.

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