ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Silicone liquid crystal stiffens with repeated compression: Discovery may point toward self-healing materials
• How we decode 'noisy' language in daily life: How people rationally interpret linguistic input
• More evidence suggests eating omega 3s and avoiding meat, dairy linked to preserving memory
• World's longest-running plant monitoring program now digitized
• Sea turtles benefiting from protected areas
• Key shift in brain that creates drive to overeat identified
• Cat and mouse: One gene is necessary for mice to avoid predators
• First snapshot of organisms eating each other: Feast clue to smell of ancient Earth
• Cicadas get a jump on cleaning
• Dinosaur predecessors gain ground in wake of world's biggest biodiversity crisis
• Singing humpback whales tracked on Northwest Atlantic feeding ground
• Patterned hearts: Bioengineers create rubber-like material bearing micropatterns for stronger, more elastic hearts
• Researchers design nanometer-scale material that can speed up, squeeze light

Silicone liquid crystal stiffens with repeated compression: Discovery may point toward self-healing materials Posted: 29 Apr 2013 01:49 PM PDT Scientists have found that liquid crystalline silicone stiffens significantly when compressed repeatedly for hours on end. The discovery may lead to new strategies for self-healing materials or biocompatible materials that mimic human tissues.

How we decode 'noisy' language in daily life: How people rationally interpret linguistic input Posted: 29 Apr 2013 01:49 PM PDT Suppose you hear someone say, "The man gave the ice cream the child." Does that sentence seem plausible? Or do you assume it is missing a word? Such as: "The man gave the ice cream to the child." People use an array of strategies to make sense of confusing statements.

More evidence suggests eating omega 3s and avoiding meat, dairy linked to preserving memory Posted: 29 Apr 2013 01:46 PM PDT A UAB study suggests that the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes consuming foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, chicken and salad dressing, and avoiding saturated fats, meat and dairy foods, may be linked to preserving memory and thinking abilities.

World's longest-running plant monitoring program now digitized Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:42 PM PDT Researchers have digitized 106 years of growth data on the birth, growth and death of individual plants on Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Ariz., making the information available for study by people all over the world. The permanent research plots on the University of Arizona's Tumamoc Hill represent the world's longest-running study that monitors individual plants. Knowing how plants respond to changing conditions over many decades provides new insights into how ecosystems behave.

Sea turtles benefiting from protected areas Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:42 PM PDT Nesting green sea turtles are benefiting from marine protected areas by using habitats found within their boundaries, according to a new study that is the first to track the federally protected turtles in Dry Tortugas National Park.

Key shift in brain that creates drive to overeat identified Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:42 PM PDT Neuroscientists have identified a cellular change in the brain that accompanies obesity. The findings could explain the body's tendency to maintain undesirable weight levels, rather than an ideal weight, and identify possible targets for pharmacological efforts to address obesity. The study identifies a mechanism for the body's ongoing tendency to return to the heavier weight.

Cat and mouse: One gene is necessary for mice to avoid predators Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:41 PM PDT A new study involving olfactory receptors provides evidence that a single gene is necessary for a mouse to avoid a cat. A research team has shown that removing one olfactory receptor from mice can have a profound effect on their behavior. The gene, called TAAR4, encodes a receptor that responds to a chemical that is enriched in the urine of carnivores. While normal mice innately avoid the scent marks of predators, mice lacking the TAAR4 receptor do not.

First snapshot of organisms eating each other: Feast clue to smell of ancient Earth Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:41 PM PDT Tiny 1,900-million-year-old fossils from rocks around Lake Superior, Canada, give the first ever snapshot of organisms eating each other and suggest what the ancient Earth would have smelled like.

Cicadas get a jump on cleaning Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:41 PM PDT As cicadas on the East Coast begin emerging from their 17-year slumber, a spritz of dew drops is all they need to keep their wings fresh and clean.

Dinosaur predecessors gain ground in wake of world's biggest biodiversity crisis Posted: 29 Apr 2013 12:40 PM PDT Newly discovered fossils from 10 million years after Earth's greatest mass extinction reveal a lineage of animals thought to have led to dinosaurs taking hold in Tanzania and Zambia in the mid-Triassic period, many millions of years before dinosaur relatives were seen in the fossil record elsewhere on Earth.

Singing humpback whales tracked on Northwest Atlantic feeding ground Posted: 29 Apr 2013 10:36 AM PDT Male humpback whales sing complex songs in tropical waters during the winter breeding season, but they also sing at higher latitudes at other times of the year. NOAA researchers have provided the first detailed description linking humpback whale movements to acoustic behavior on a feeding ground in the Northwest Atlantic.

Patterned hearts: Bioengineers create rubber-like material bearing micropatterns for stronger, more elastic hearts Posted: 29 Apr 2013 10:36 AM PDT Bioengineers report creating artificial heart tissue that closely mimics the functions of natural heart tissue through the use of human-based materials. Their work will advance how clinicians treat the damaging effects caused by heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Researchers design nanometer-scale material that can speed up, squeeze light Posted: 29 Apr 2013 06:46 AM PDT In a process one researcher compares to squeezing an elephant through a pinhole, researchers have designed a way to engineer atoms capable of funneling light through ultra-small channels.

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