ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Solar activity not a key cause of climate change, study shows
• Clues to how plants evolved to cope with cold
• Innovative screening strategy swiftly uncovers new drug candidates, new biology
• Scientists anticipated size and location of 2012 Costa Rica earthquake
• Greenland ice stores liquid water year-round
• Where Alzheimer's starts and how it spreads

Solar activity not a key cause of climate change, study shows Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:18 PM PST Climate change has not been strongly influenced by variations in heat from the sun, a new scientific study shows.

Clues to how plants evolved to cope with cold Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:18 PM PST Researchers have found new clues to how plants evolved to withstand wintry weather. Scientists constructed an evolutionary tree of more than 32,000 species of flowering plants -- the largest time-scaled evolutionary tree to date. By combining their tree with freezing exposure records and leaf and stem data, the researchers were able to reconstruct how plants evolved to cope with cold as they spread across the globe.

Innovative screening strategy swiftly uncovers new drug candidates, new biology Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:00 PM PST Scientists have demonstrated a drug-discovery strategy with a double payoff —- it enables the rapid selection of chemical compounds that have a desired effect on cells and also highlights how the compounds work.

Scientists anticipated size and location of 2012 Costa Rica earthquake Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:00 PM PST Scientists using GPS to study changes in the Earth's shape accurately forecasted the size and location of the magnitude 7.6 Nicoya earthquake that occurred in 2012 in Costa Rica.

Greenland ice stores liquid water year-round Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:00 PM PST Researchers have found an extensive reservoir in the Greenland Ice Sheet that holds water year round. A surprising discovery, the existence of the 27,000 square mile aquifer adds important information to sea level rise calculations.

Where Alzheimer's starts and how it spreads Posted: 22 Dec 2013 01:00 PM PST Using high-resolution fMRI imaging in patients with Alzheimer's disease and in mouse models of the disease, researchers have clarified three fundamental issues about Alzheimer's: where it starts, why it starts there, and how it spreads. In addition to advancing understanding of Alzheimer's, the findings could improve early detection of the disease, when drugs may be most effective.

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