science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Παρασκευή 30 Νοεμβρίου 2012

Science News SciGuru.com

Ice Sheet Loss at Both Poles Increasing, Study Finds
Scientists discover water ice on Mercury
Scientists create road map to metabolic reprogramming for aging
Precisely engineering 3-D brain tissues
A Multi-Wavelength View of Radio Galaxy Hercules A
Bacteria Hijack Host Cell Process, Create Their Own Food Supply to Become Infectious
Research Helps Improve Nano-manufacturing with Nanometer-scale Diamond Tip

Ice Sheet Loss at Both Poles Increasing, Study Finds

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 07:15 PM PST

An international team of experts supported by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) has combined data from multiple satellites and aircraft to produce the most comprehensive and accurate assessment to date of ice sheet losses in Greenland and Antarctica and their contributions to sea level rise.

Scientists discover water ice on Mercury

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 12:32 PM PST

Mercury, the smallest and innermost planet in our solar system, revolves around the sun in a mere 88 days, making a tight orbit that keeps the planet incredibly toasty. Surface temperatures on Mercury can reach a blistering 800 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to liquefy lead.

Now researchers from NASA, MIT, the University of California at Los Angeles and elsewhere have discovered evidence that the scorching planet may harbor pockets of water ice, along with organic material, in several permanently shadowed craters near Mercury’s north pole.

Scientists create road map to metabolic reprogramming for aging

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 12:19 PM PST

In efforts to understand what influences life span, cancer and aging, scientists are building road maps to navigate and learn about cells at the molecular level.

To survey previously uncharted territory, a team of researchers at UW-Madison has created an "atlas" that maps more than 1,500 unique landmarks within mitochondria that could provide clues to the metabolic connections between caloric restriction and aging.

Precisely engineering 3-D brain tissues

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 09:52 AM PST

Borrowing from microfabrication techniques used in the semiconductor industry, MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) engineers have developed a simple and inexpensive way to create three-dimensional brain tissues in a lab dish.

A Multi-Wavelength View of Radio Galaxy Hercules A

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 08:03 AM PST

Spectacular jets powered by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole in the core of the elliptical galaxy Hercules A illustrate the combined imaging power of two of astronomy's cutting-edge tools, the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, and the recently upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico.

Bacteria Hijack Host Cell Process, Create Their Own Food Supply to Become Infectious

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 07:48 AM PST

Bacteria that cause the tick-borne disease anaplasmosis in humans create their own food supply by hijacking a process in host cells that normally should help kill the pathogenic bugs, scientists have found.

This bacterium, Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Ap), secretes a protein that can start this process. The protein binds with another protein produced by white blood cells, and that connection creates compartments that siphon host-cell nutrients to feed the bacteria, enabling their growth inside the white blood cells.

Research Helps Improve Nano-manufacturing with Nanometer-scale Diamond Tip

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 07:33 AM PST

One of the most promising innovations of nanotechnology has been the ability to perform rapid nanofabrication using nanometer-scale tips. Heating such tips can dramatically increase fabrication speeds, but high speed and high temperature have been known to blunt their atomically sharp points.

Now, research conducted by a team that included the University of Pennsylvania’s Robert Carpick and Tevis Jacobs has created a new type of nano-tip for thermal processing, which is made entirely made out of diamond.