ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Most accurate robotic legs mimic human walking gait
• Dust today, gone tomorrow: Astronomers discover Houdini-like vanishing act in space
• Life's molecules could lie within reach of Mars Curiosity rover
• Drought monitor shows record-breaking expanse of drought across United States
• Jekyll and Hyde bacteria helps or kills, depending on chance
• Smaller volcanoes could cool climate
• Brain center for social choices discovered: Poker-playing subjects seen weighing whether to bluff
• Natural climate shifts drove coral reefs to a total ecosystem collapse lasting 2,500 years
• Eddies, not sunlight, spur annual phytoplankton bloom in North Atlantic
• Diabetes drug makes brain cells grow
• Endowment effect in chimpanzees can be turned on and off
• Yak genome provides new insights into high altitude adaptation
• Robot vision: Muscle-like action allows camera to mimic eye movement
• Rewiring DNA circuitry could help treat asthma
• 'Impossible’ binary stars discovered

Most accurate robotic legs mimic human walking gait Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:37 PM PDT A group of researchers has produced a robotic set of legs which they believe is the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner.

Dust today, gone tomorrow: Astronomers discover Houdini-like vanishing act in space Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:13 PM PDT Astronomers report a baffling discovery never seen before: An extraordinary amount of dust around a nearby star has mysteriously disappeared. "It's as if the rings around Saturn had disappeared," said an astronomer.

Life's molecules could lie within reach of Mars Curiosity rover Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:41 PM PDT Stick a shovel in the ground and scoop. That's about how deep scientists need to go in order to find evidence for ancient life on Mars, if there is any to be found, a new study suggests. The new findings, which suggest optimal depths and locations to probe for organic molecules like those that compose living organisms as we know them, could help the newest Mars rover scout for evidence of life beneath the surface and within rocks.

Drought monitor shows record-breaking expanse of drought across United States Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:41 PM PDT More of the United States is in moderate drought or worse than at any other time in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, officials have said.

Jekyll and Hyde bacteria helps or kills, depending on chance Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:41 PM PDT Living in the guts of worms are seemingly innocuous bacteria that contribute to their survival. With a flip of a switch, however, these same bacteria transform from harmless microbes into deadly insecticides. Scientists have revealed how a bacteria flips a DNA switch to go from an upstanding community member in the gut microbiome to deadly killer in insect blood.

Smaller volcanoes could cool climate Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:41 PM PDT Scientists have discovered that aerosols from relatively small volcanic eruptions can be boosted into the high atmosphere by weather systems such as monsoons, where they can affect global temperatures. The massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 temporarily dropped temperatures by half a degree Celsius world-wide.

Brain center for social choices discovered: Poker-playing subjects seen weighing whether to bluff Posted: 05 Jul 2012 03:12 PM PDT Although many areas of the human brain are devoted to social tasks like detecting another person nearby, a new study has found that one small region carries information only for decisions during social interactions. Specifically, the area is active when we encounter a worthy opponent and decide whether to deceive them.

Natural climate shifts drove coral reefs to a total ecosystem collapse lasting 2,500 years Posted: 05 Jul 2012 03:12 PM PDT A new article shows how natural climatic shifts stopped reef growth in the eastern Pacific for 2,500 years. The reef shutdown, which began 4,000 years ago, corresponds to a period of dramatic swings in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Eddies, not sunlight, spur annual phytoplankton bloom in North Atlantic Posted: 05 Jul 2012 03:09 PM PDT Researchers have long believed that the longer days and calmer seas of spring set off an annual bloom of plants in the North Atlantic, but scientists have now discovered that warm eddies fuel the growth three weeks before the sun does.

Diabetes drug makes brain cells grow Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:20 PM PDT The widely used diabetes drug metformin comes with a rather unexpected and alluring side effect: it encourages the growth of new neurons in the brain, according to researchers. Their study also finds that those neural effects of the drug also make mice smarter.

Endowment effect in chimpanzees can be turned on and off Posted: 05 Jul 2012 12:14 PM PDT Groundbreaking new research in the field of "evolutionary analysis in law" not only provides additional evidence that chimpanzees share the controversial human psychological trait known as the endowment effect -- which in humans has implications for law -- but also shows the effect can be turned on or off for single objects, depending on their immediate situational usefulness.

Yak genome provides new insights into high altitude adaptation Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:46 AM PDT Scientists have completed the genomic sequence and analyses of a female domestic yak, which provides important insights into understanding mammalian divergence and adaptation at high altitude.

Robot vision: Muscle-like action allows camera to mimic eye movement Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:44 AM PDT Using piezoelectric materials, researchers have replicated the muscle motion of the human eye to control camera systems in a way designed to improve the operation of robots. This new muscle-like action could help make robotic tools safer and more effective for MRI-guided surgery and robotic rehabilitation.

Rewiring DNA circuitry could help treat asthma Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:39 AM PDT Reprogramming asthma-promoting immune cells in mice diminishes airway damage and inflammation, and could potentially lead to new treatments for people with asthma, researchers have found. The researchers were able to reprogram the asthma-promoting cells (called Th2 [T-helper 2] cells) after identifying an enzyme that modifies the DNA of these cells. The enzyme could be a target for the development of new treatments for chronic inflammatory diseases, in particular allergic asthma, caused by an excess of Th2 cells.

'Impossible’ binary stars discovered Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:37 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered four pairs of stars that orbit each other, in less than 4 hours. Until now it was thought that such close-in binary stars could not exist.

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