ScienceDaily: Top Science News

---

• Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of ancient New Zealanders
• Milky Way's black hole getting ready for snack
• Fuller picture of human expansion from Africa
• Can your body sense future events without any external clue?
• Evolution of new genes captured
• Split-personality elliptical galaxy holds a hidden spiral
• Beetles use dung balls to stay cool
• A whale with a distinctly human-like voice
• New glow for electron microscopy: Protein-labeling technique allows high-resolution visualization of molecules inside cells
• Water could flow on Mars, model suggests; Scientists look at melting and evaporation of frozen brines
• Combined pesticide exposure affects bumblebee colony success
• New Understanding of Antarctica's 'weight loss': Sea level is rising with little apparent contribution from Antarctica
• How fear can skew spatial perception
• Unique feature of HIV helps create antibodies, researchers discover
• Astronomers study 2-million-light-year 'extragalactic afterburner'

Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of ancient New Zealanders Posted: 22 Oct 2012 01:25 PM PDT Scientists have sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes for members of what was likely to be one of the first groups of Polynesians to settle New Zealand and have revealed a surprising degree of genetic variation among these pioneering voyagers.

Milky Way's black hole getting ready for snack Posted: 22 Oct 2012 11:54 AM PDT Get ready for a fascinating eating experience in the center of our galaxy. The event involves a black hole that may devour much of an approaching cloud of dust and gas known as G2. A supercomputer simulation prepared by physicists suggests that some of G2 will survive, although its surviving mass will be torn apart, leaving it with a different shape and questionable fate.

Fuller picture of human expansion from Africa Posted: 22 Oct 2012 11:54 AM PDT A comprehensive analysis of the anthropological and genetic history of humans' expansion out of Africa could lead to medical advances.

Can your body sense future events without any external clue? Posted: 22 Oct 2012 11:53 AM PDT Wouldn't it be amazing if our bodies prepared us for future events that could be very important to us, even if there's no clue about what those events will be? "Presentiment," as in "sensing the future," without any external clues may exist, according to new research that analyzes the results of 26 studies published between 1978 and 2010.

Evolution of new genes captured Posted: 22 Oct 2012 11:53 AM PDT Like job-seekers searching for a new position, living things sometimes have to pick up a new skill if they are going to succeed. Researchers have shown for the first time how living organisms do this.

Split-personality elliptical galaxy holds a hidden spiral Posted: 22 Oct 2012 09:22 AM PDT Most big galaxies fit into one of two camps: pinwheel-shaped spiral galaxies and blobby elliptical galaxies. Spirals like the Milky Way are hip and happening places, with plenty of gas and dust to birth new stars. Ellipticals are like cosmic retirement villages, full of aging residents in the form of red giant stars. Now, astronomers have discovered that one well-known elliptical has a split personality. Centaurus A is hiding a gassy spiral in its center.

Beetles use dung balls to stay cool Posted: 22 Oct 2012 09:20 AM PDT Dung beetles roll their feasts of dung away to avoid the hoards of other hungry competitors at the dung pile. But now a team of researchers from South Africa and Sweden have discovered that they also use their balls in another, rather clever way. The moist balls keep the beetles cool even as they push a weight up to 50 times heavier than their own bodies across the hot sand.

A whale with a distinctly human-like voice Posted: 22 Oct 2012 09:20 AM PDT For the first time, researchers have been able to show by acoustic analysis that whales -- or at least one very special white whale -- can imitate the voices of humans. That's a surprise, because whales typically produce sounds in a manner that is wholly different from humans.

New glow for electron microscopy: Protein-labeling technique allows high-resolution visualization of molecules inside cells Posted: 22 Oct 2012 08:36 AM PDT The glowing green molecule known as green fluorescent protein (GFP) has revolutionized molecular biology. When GFP is attached to a particular protein inside a cell, scientists can easily identify and locate it using fluorescence microscopy. However, GFP can't be used with electron microscopy, which offers much higher resolution than fluorescence microscopy. Chemists have now designed a GFP equivalent for electron microscopy -- a tag that allows scientists to label and visualize proteins with unprecedented clarity.

Water could flow on Mars, model suggests; Scientists look at melting and evaporation of frozen brines Posted: 22 Oct 2012 08:28 AM PDT Researchers have created a model that might explain how water could produce the flow patterns seen by a spacecraft orbiting Mars.

Combined pesticide exposure affects bumblebee colony success Posted: 22 Oct 2012 06:31 AM PDT Individual worker behavior and colony success are both affected when bees are exposed to a combination of pesticides, according to new research.

New Understanding of Antarctica's 'weight loss': Sea level is rising with little apparent contribution from Antarctica Posted: 22 Oct 2012 06:31 AM PDT Scientists have found that the present sea level rise is happening with apparently very little contribution from Antarctica as a whole. The large amount of water flowing away from West Antarctica through ice-melt has been partly cancelled out by the volume of water falling onto the continent in the form of snow, suggesting some past studies have overestimated Antarctica's contribution to fast-rising sea levels.

How fear can skew spatial perception Posted: 22 Oct 2012 05:11 AM PDT That snake heading towards you may be further away than it appears. Fear can skew our perception of approaching objects, causing us to underestimate the distance of a threatening one, a new study finds.

Unique feature of HIV helps create antibodies, researchers discover Posted: 22 Oct 2012 05:11 AM PDT A new AIDS study describes how a unique change in the outer covering of the virus found in two HIV infected South African women enabled them to make potent antibodies which are able to kill up to 88% of HIV types from around the world. The ground-breaking discovery suggests an important new approach that could be useful in making an AIDS vaccine.

Astronomers study 2-million-light-year 'extragalactic afterburner' Posted: 22 Oct 2012 04:14 AM PDT Blasting over two million lights years from the centre of a distant galaxy is a supersonic jet of material that looks strikingly similar to the afterburner flow of a fighter jet, except in this case the jet engine is a supermassive black hole and the jet material is moving at nearly the speed of light.

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