ScienceDaily: Top Science News

---

• Deadly frog fungus at work in the wild
• Wind pushes plastics deeper into oceans, driving trash estimates up
• Study finds twist to the story of the number line: Number line is learned, not innate human intuition
• Facial defects shown to self-repair
• Electron politics: Physicists probe organization at the quantum level
• Your brain knows which ads are winners, better than you do: Study on smokers' brains may mark dawn of new age in advertising
• Agent reduces autism-like behaviors in mice: Boosts sociability, quells repetitiveness
• Shedding light on southpaws: Sports data help confirm theory explaining left-handed minority in general population
• Liquid solar cells can be painted onto surfaces
• Warm ocean currents cause majority of ice loss from Antarctica
• Just a few cell clones can make heart muscle
• Tiny 'spherules' reveal details about Earth's asteroid impacts
• Splatters of molten rock signal period of intense asteroid impacts on Earth
• Can organic food feed the world? New yields data for debate over organic vs conventional agriculture
• NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveals secrets of giant asteroid Vesta
• How PCBs promote dendrite growth, may increase autism risk
• Spectacular star cluster a wing-span away from Eagle Nebula
• Evolution on an island: Fossils show secret for a longer life
• Vast structure of satellite galaxies discovered: Do the Milky Way’s companions spell trouble for dark matter?
• Did bone ease acid for early land crawlers?
• 'Inhabitants of Madrid' ate elephants’ meat and bone marrow 80,000 years ago
• Can future actions influence past events? Experiment mimics quantum physics 'spooky action into the past'

Deadly frog fungus at work in the wild Posted: 25 Apr 2012 04:30 PM PDT The fungal infection that has killed a record number of amphibians worldwide leads to deadly dehydration in frogs in the wild, according to a new study. High levels of an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) disrupt fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, the scientists say, severely depleting the frogs' sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death.

Wind pushes plastics deeper into oceans, driving trash estimates up Posted: 25 Apr 2012 04:28 PM PDT Decades of research into how much plastic litters the ocean, conducted by skimming only the surface, may in some cases vastly underestimate the true amount of plastic debris, according to an oceanographer.

Study finds twist to the story of the number line: Number line is learned, not innate human intuition Posted: 25 Apr 2012 04:27 PM PDT Tape measures. Rulers. Graphs. The gas gauge in your car, and the icon on your favorite digital device showing battery power. The number line and its cousins -- notations that map numbers onto space and often represent magnitude -- are everywhere. Most adults in industrialized societies are so fluent at using the concept, we hardly think about it. We don't stop to wonder: Is it "natural"? Is it cultural? Now, challenging a mainstream scholarly position that the number-line concept is innate, a study suggests it is learned.

Facial defects shown to self-repair Posted: 25 Apr 2012 12:54 PM PDT A "self-repair" mechanism has been found by which developing organisms recognize and correct facial defects. A tadpole model showed organisms aren't genetically hard-wired with cell movements that result in normal facial features. Cell groups instead measure shape and position and move and remodel to fix abnormalities.

Electron politics: Physicists probe organization at the quantum level Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:36 AM PDT "Quantum critical points" (QCP) in exotic electronic materials can act much like polarizing "hot button issues" in an election. On either side of the QCP, electrons fall into line and behave as traditionally expected, but the new study finds traditional physical laws break down at the critical point itself.

Your brain knows which ads are winners, better than you do: Study on smokers' brains may mark dawn of new age in advertising Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:36 AM PDT Advertisers and public health officials may be able to access hidden wisdom in the brain to more effectively sell their products and promote public health and safety, neuroscientists report in the first study to use brain data to predict how large populations will respond to advertisements.

Agent reduces autism-like behaviors in mice: Boosts sociability, quells repetitiveness Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:36 AM PDT Researchers have reversed behaviors in mice resembling two of the three core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders. An experimental agent increased social interactions and lessened repetitive self-grooming behavior in a strain of mice that normally display such autism-like behaviors. Since the same class of agents is being tested in patients with a related syndrome, the findings suggest a strategy for developing a single treatment that could target multiple diagnostic symptoms of ASDs.

Shedding light on southpaws: Sports data help confirm theory explaining left-handed minority in general population Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:04 AM PDT Lefties (only ten percent of the general population) have always been a bit of a puzzle. Researchers have now developed a mathematical model that shows the low percentage of lefties is a result of the balance between cooperation and competition in human evolution. They are the first to use real-world data (from competitive sports, including baseball, boxing and hockey) to test and confirm the hypothesis that social behavior is related to population-level handedness.

Liquid solar cells can be painted onto surfaces Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:04 AM PDT Scientists have developed a potential pathway to cheap, stable solar cells made from nanocrystals so small they can exist as a liquid ink and be painted or printed onto clear surfaces.

Warm ocean currents cause majority of ice loss from Antarctica Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:03 AM PDT Warm ocean currents are the dominant cause of recent ice loss from Antarctica, new research shows. New techniques have been used to differentiate, for the first time, between the two known causes of melting ice shelves - warm ocean currents attacking the underside, and warm air melting from above. This finding brings scientists a step closer to providing reliable projections of future sea-level rise.

Just a few cell clones can make heart muscle Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:03 AM PDT Just a handful of cells in the embryo are all that's needed to form the outer layer of pumping heart muscle in an adult zebrafish. Researchers used zebrafish embryos and careful employment of a new technique that allows for up to 90 color labels on different cells to track individual cells and cell lines as the heart formed.

Tiny 'spherules' reveal details about Earth's asteroid impacts Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:03 AM PDT Researchers are learning details about asteroid impacts going back to the Earth's early history by using a new method for extracting precise information from tiny "spherules" embedded in layers of rock.

Splatters of molten rock signal period of intense asteroid impacts on Earth Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:03 AM PDT New research reveals that the Archean era -- a formative time for early life from 3.8 billion years ago to 2.5 billion years ago -- experienced far more major asteroid impacts than had been previously thought, with a few impacts perhaps even rivaling those that produced the largest craters on the Moon.

Can organic food feed the world? New yields data for debate over organic vs conventional agriculture Posted: 25 Apr 2012 11:01 AM PDT Can organic agriculture feed the world? Although organic techniques may not be able to do the job alone, they do have an important role to play in feeding a growing global population while minimizing environmental damage, according to researchers. Crop yields from organic farming are generally lower than from conventional agriculture, especially for cereal crops.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveals secrets of giant asteroid Vesta Posted: 25 Apr 2012 10:03 AM PDT Findings from NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveal new details about the giant asteroid Vesta, including its varied surface composition, sharp temperature changes and clues to its internal structure. The findings will help scientists better understand the early solar system and processes that dominated its formation. Images from Dawn's framing camera and visible and infrared mapping spectrometer, taken 420 miles (680 kilometers) and 130 miles (210 kilometers) above the surface of the asteroid, show a variety of surface mineral and rock patterns. Coded false-color images help scientists better understand Vesta's composition and enable them to identify material that was once molten below the asteroid's surface.

How PCBs promote dendrite growth, may increase autism risk Posted: 25 Apr 2012 08:54 AM PDT PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, launch a cellular chain of events that leads to an overabundance of dendrites -- the filament-like projections that conduct electrochemical signals between neurons -- and disrupts normal patterns of neuronal connections in the brain, new research shows.

Spectacular star cluster a wing-span away from Eagle Nebula Posted: 25 Apr 2012 06:46 AM PDT The star cluster NGC 6604 is shown in a new image. It is often overlooked in favor of its more prominent neighbor, the Eagle Nebula (also known as Messier 16), that lies a mere wingspan away. But the framing of this picture, which places the star cluster in a landscape of surrounding gas and dust clouds, shows what a beautiful object NGC 6604 is in its own right.

Evolution on an island: Fossils show secret for a longer life Posted: 25 Apr 2012 06:43 AM PDT Scientists have discovered one of the first fossil-based evidences supporting the evolutionary theory of aging, which predicts that species evolving in low mortality and resource-limited ecosystems tend to be more long-lived.

Vast structure of satellite galaxies discovered: Do the Milky Way’s companions spell trouble for dark matter? Posted: 25 Apr 2012 06:43 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered a vast structure of satellite galaxies and clusters of stars surrounding our Galaxy, stretching out across a million light years. The work challenges the existence of dark matter, part of the standard model for the evolution of the universe.

Did bone ease acid for early land crawlers? Posted: 24 Apr 2012 05:53 PM PDT Scientists have proposed that the bony structures in the skin of many early four-legged creatures might have been there to relieve acid buildup in bodily fluids. Analysis of their anatomy suggests that as they ventured out of water, the animals would have had trouble getting rid of enough CO2 to prevent acid buildup.

'Inhabitants of Madrid' ate elephants’ meat and bone marrow 80,000 years ago Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:17 AM PDT Humans that populated the banks of the river Manzanares during the Middle Palaeolithic fed themselves on pachyderm meat and bone marrow. This is what a new study shows and has found percussion and cut marks on elephant remains in the site of Preresa.

Can future actions influence past events? Experiment mimics quantum physics 'spooky action into the past' Posted: 23 Apr 2012 10:19 AM PDT Physicists have, for the first time, demonstrated in an experiment that the decision whether two particles were in an entangled or in a separable quantum state can be made even after these particles have been measured and may no longer exist.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Science News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610