ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• New, inexpensive production materials boost promise of hydrogen fuel
• Oldest fortified settlement ever found in North America? Location of Fort Caroline may be in Georgia
• Shocking behavior of a runaway star: High-speed encounter creates arc
• What has happened to the tsunami debris from Japan?
• Newly discovered marsupial the victim of fatal attraction: Due to stress hormone, males die before young are born
• The parasite that escaped out of Africa: Tracing origins of malaria parasite
• Managed honeybees linked to new diseases in wild bees, UK study shows

New, inexpensive production materials boost promise of hydrogen fuel Posted: 21 Feb 2014 03:45 PM PST Generating electricity is not the only way to turn sunlight into energy we can use on demand. The sun can also drive reactions to create chemical fuels, such as hydrogen, that can in turn power cars, trucks and trains. Scientists have now combined cheap, oxide-based materials to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases using solar energy with a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 1.7 percent, the highest reported for any oxide-based photoelectrode system.

Oldest fortified settlement ever found in North America? Location of Fort Caroline may be in Georgia Posted: 21 Feb 2014 08:12 AM PST In an announcement likely to rewrite the book on early colonization of the New World, two researchers have proposed a location for the oldest fortified settlement ever found in North America. They believe that the legendary Fort Caroline, a long-sought fort built by the French in 1564, is located near the mouth of the Altamaha River in southeast Georgia.

Shocking behavior of a runaway star: High-speed encounter creates arc Posted: 21 Feb 2014 08:01 AM PST Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in a newly released image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

What has happened to the tsunami debris from Japan? Posted: 21 Feb 2014 07:39 AM PST The amount of debris in the ocean is growing exponentially, becoming more and more hazardous and harmful to marine life and therefore to our ocean food source. Measuring and tracking the movements of such debris are still in their infancy. The driftage generated by the tragic 2011 tsunami in Japan gave scientists a unique chance to learn about the effects of the ocean and wind on floating materials as they move across the North Pacific Ocean.

Newly discovered marsupial the victim of fatal attraction: Due to stress hormone, males die before young are born Posted: 21 Feb 2014 07:39 AM PST A highly sexed mouse-like marsupial in Queensland's Springbrook National Park, Australia, has been discovered by a mammalogist. The rare, Black-tailed Antechinus is a rare, mouse-like marsupial with a deadly mating habit. "A single female's brood of young will typically be sired by several fathers. But during mating, stress hormone levels rise dramatically, eventually causing the males' bodies to shut down. The males all die before their young are born," found the researchers.

The parasite that escaped out of Africa: Tracing origins of malaria parasite Posted: 21 Feb 2014 04:37 AM PST An international team has traced the origin of the second-worst malaria parasite of humans to Africa. The closest genetic relatives of human Plasmodium vivax were found only in Asian macaques, leading researchers to believe that P. vivax originated in Asia. This study overturns that, finding that wild-living apes in central Africa are widely infected with parasites that, genetically, are nearly identical to human P. vivax.

Managed honeybees linked to new diseases in wild bees, UK study shows Posted: 19 Feb 2014 10:33 AM PST Diseases that are common in managed honeybee colonies are now widespread in the UK's wild bumblebees, according to new research. The study suggests that some diseases are being driven into wild bumblebee populations from managed honeybees.

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