ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Giant fossil turtle from Colombia round like car tire
• The eyes don't have it: New research into lying and eye movements
• Transforming cancer into a manageable illness with multi-drug approach
• Smarter materials: Self-powered, homeostatic nanomaterial actively self-regulates in response to environmental change
• Skulls shed new light on the evolution of the cat
• Trigger for past rapid sea level rise discovered
• Native American populations descend from three key migrations, scientists say
• One step closer to new kind of thermoelectric 'heat engine'
• Hubble discovers a fifth moon orbiting Pluto
• Ions, not particles, make silver toxic to bacteria: Too small a dose may enhance microbes' immunity
• The more gray matter you have, the more altruistic you are
• Nanodevice builds electricity from tiny pieces
• Giving ancient life another chance to evolve: Scientists place 500-million-year-old gene in modern organism
• Not so happy: King penguins stressed by human presence
• Dark galaxies of the early universe spotted for the first time
• Hormone-mimicking chemicals cause inter-species mating: Bisphenol A breaks down fish species barriers
• Cutting daily sitting time to under three hours might extend life by two years

Giant fossil turtle from Colombia round like car tire Posted: 11 Jul 2012 06:03 PM PDT Even the world's largest snake, Titanoboa, could probably not have swallowed this new, very round fossil turtle species from Colombia.

The eyes don't have it: New research into lying and eye movements Posted: 11 Jul 2012 05:59 PM PDT Widely held beliefs about Neuro-Linguistic Programming and lying are unfounded. Proponents of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) have long claimed that it is possible to tell whether a person is lying from their eye movements. New research reveals that this claim is unfounded, with the authors calling on the public and organizations to abandon this approach to lie detection.

Transforming cancer into a manageable illness with multi-drug approach Posted: 11 Jul 2012 12:06 PM PDT A new, multi-drug approach to treatment could make many cancers manageable, if not curable, illnesses by overcoming resistance to certain drug treatments, a new study suggests. The findings suggest that, of the billions of cancer cells that exist in a patient, only a tiny percentage -- about one in a million -- are resistant to drugs used in targeted therapy.

Smarter materials: Self-powered, homeostatic nanomaterial actively self-regulates in response to environmental change Posted: 11 Jul 2012 11:19 AM PDT Living organisms have developed sophisticated ways to maintain stability in a changing environment. The integration of similar features in artificial materials, however, has remained a challenge. In a new study, engineers present a strategy for building self-thermoregulating nanomaterials that can, in principle, be tailored to maintain a set pH, pressure, or just about any other desired parameter by meeting the environmental changes with a compensatory chemical feedback response.

Skulls shed new light on the evolution of the cat Posted: 11 Jul 2012 11:10 AM PDT Modern cats diverged in skull shape from their sabre-toothed ancestors early in their evolutionary history and then followed separate evolutionary trajectories, according to new research.

Trigger for past rapid sea level rise discovered Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:47 AM PDT The cause of rapid sea level rise in the past has been found by scientists using climate and ice sheet models. The process, named 'saddle-collapse', was found to be the cause of two rapid sea level rise events: The Meltwater pulse 1a (MWP1a) around 14,600 years ago and the '8,200 year' event.

Native American populations descend from three key migrations, scientists say Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:47 AM PDT Scientists have found that Native American populations -- from Canada to the southern tip of Chile -- arose from at least three migrations, with the majority descended entirely from a single group of First American migrants that crossed over through Beringia, a land bridge between Asia and America that existed during the ice ages, more than 15,000 years ago.

One step closer to new kind of thermoelectric 'heat engine' Posted: 11 Jul 2012 10:09 AM PDT Researchers who are studying a new magnetic effect that converts heat to electricity have discovered how to amplify it a thousand times over -- a first step in making the technology more practical.

Hubble discovers a fifth moon orbiting Pluto Posted: 11 Jul 2012 09:30 AM PDT A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

Ions, not particles, make silver toxic to bacteria: Too small a dose may enhance microbes' immunity Posted: 11 Jul 2012 09:30 AM PDT Researchers have settled a long-standing controversy over the mechanism by which silver nanoparticles, the most widely used nanomaterial in the world, kill bacteria. Their work comes with a Nietzsche-esque warning: Use enough. If you don't kill them, you make them stronger.

The more gray matter you have, the more altruistic you are Posted: 11 Jul 2012 09:30 AM PDT The volume of a small brain region influences one's predisposition for altruistic behavior. Researchers have shown that people who behave more altruistically than others have more gray matter at the junction between the parietal and temporal lobe, thus showing for the first time that there is a connection between brain anatomy, brain activity and altruistic behavior.

Nanodevice builds electricity from tiny pieces Posted: 11 Jul 2012 07:10 AM PDT Scientists in the United Kingdom have made a significant advance in using nano-devices to create accurate electrical currents. They have developed a nano-size electron pump that picks these electrons up one at a time and moves them across a barrier, creating a very well-defined electrical current. The device drives electrical current by manipulating individual electrons, one-by-one at very high speed. This technique could replace the traditional definition of electrical current, the ampere, which relies on measurements of mechanical forces on current-carrying wires.

Giving ancient life another chance to evolve: Scientists place 500-million-year-old gene in modern organism Posted: 11 Jul 2012 07:07 AM PDT Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action.

Not so happy: King penguins stressed by human presence Posted: 11 Jul 2012 04:43 AM PDT King penguins tolerate some, but not all, human interference. Scientists have now investigated the adjustment of a king penguin colony on the protected Possession island in the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago to over 50 years of constant human disturbance.

Dark galaxies of the early universe spotted for the first time Posted: 11 Jul 2012 04:42 AM PDT Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies in the early Universe that are very inefficient at forming stars. They are predicted by theories of galaxy formation and are thought to be the building blocks of today's bright, star-filled galaxies. Astronomers think that they may have fed large galaxies with much of the gas that later formed into the stars that exist today.

Hormone-mimicking chemicals cause inter-species mating: Bisphenol A breaks down fish species barriers Posted: 11 Jul 2012 04:42 AM PDT Hormone-mimicking chemicals released into rivers have been found to impact the mating choices of fish, a new study has revealed. The controversial chemical BPA, which emits estrogen-like properties, was found to alter an individual's appearance and behavior, leading to inter-species breeding.

Cutting daily sitting time to under three hours might extend life by two years Posted: 09 Jul 2012 08:11 PM PDT Restricting the amount of time spent seated every day to less than three hours might boost the life expectancy of U.S. adults by an extra two years, indicates a new analysis.

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