ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Researchers rethink 'natural' habitat for wildlife
• Better way to deal with bad memories suggested
• Bright points in sun's atmosphere mark patterns deep in its interior
• Wireless power transfer achieved at 5-meter distance
• In sex-reversed cave insects, females have the penises
• Chimpanzees prefer firm, stable beds
• Cultivating happiness often misunderstood
• Lens turns any smartphone into a portable microscope
• Obesity: Are lipids hard drugs for the brain?
• Medieval slave trade routes in Eastern Europe extended from Finland and the Baltic Countries to Central Asia

Researchers rethink 'natural' habitat for wildlife Posted: 18 Apr 2014 01:14 PM PDT Protecting wildlife while feeding a world population predicted to reach nine billion by 2050 will require a holistic approach to conservation that considers human-altered landscapes such as farmland, according to researchers. A new study finds that a long-accepted theory used to estimate extinction rates, predict ecological risk and make conservation policy recommendations is overly pessimistic. The researchers point to an alternative framework that promises a more effective way of accounting for human-altered landscapes and assessing ecological risks.

Better way to deal with bad memories suggested Posted: 18 Apr 2014 11:11 AM PDT A simple and effective emotion-regulation strategy that has neurologically and behaviorally been proven to lessen the emotional impact of personal negative memories, researchers have shown. "Sometimes we dwell on how sad, embarrassed, or hurt we felt during an event, and that makes us feel worse and worse. But we found that instead of thinking about your emotions during a negative memory, looking away from the worst emotions and thinking about the context, like a friend who was there, what the weather was like, or anything else non-emotional that was part of the memory, will rather effortlessly take your mind away from the unwanted emotions associated with that memory," the researchers suggest.

Bright points in sun's atmosphere mark patterns deep in its interior Posted: 17 Apr 2014 04:17 PM PDT Like a balloon bobbing along in the air while tied to a child's hand, a tracer has been found in the sun's atmosphere to help track the flow of material coursing underneath the sun's surface.

Wireless power transfer achieved at 5-meter distance Posted: 17 Apr 2014 09:45 AM PDT A great improvement has been demonstrated in the distance that electric power can travel wirelessly. Researchers developed the 'Dipole Coil Resonant System' for an extended range of inductive power transfer, up to 5 meters between transmitter and receiver coils. "Our technology proved the possibility of a new remote power delivery mechanism that has never been tried at such a long distance. Although the long-range wireless power transfer is still in an early stage of commercialization and quite costly to implement, we believe that this is the right direction for electric power to be supplied in the future. Just like we see Wi-Fi zones everywhere today, we will eventually have many Wi-Power zones at such places as restaurants and streets that provide electric power wirelessly to electronic devices," they say.

In sex-reversed cave insects, females have the penises Posted: 17 Apr 2014 07:11 AM PDT Little-known cave insects with rather novel sex lives have been discovered by researchers. The Brazilian insects, which represent four distinct but related species in the genus Neotrogla, are the first example of an animal with sex-reversed genitalia.

Chimpanzees prefer firm, stable beds Posted: 16 Apr 2014 02:22 PM PDT Chimpanzees may select a certain type of wood, Ugandan ironwood, over other options for its firm, stable, and resilient properties to make their bed. Chimpanzees use tree branches to build beds or nests in trees. They select certain tree species to sleep in more frequently than others, but the reason for selecting a particular tree was unclear.

Cultivating happiness often misunderstood Posted: 15 Apr 2014 10:39 AM PDT The concept of maximizing happiness has been explored by researchers, who have found that pursuing concrete 'giving' goals rather than abstract ones leads to greater satisfaction. One path to happiness is through concrete, specific goals of benevolence -- like making someone smile or increasing recycling -- instead of following similar but more abstract goals -- like making someone happy or saving the environment.

Lens turns any smartphone into a portable microscope Posted: 15 Apr 2014 10:38 AM PDT The Micro Phone Lens can turn any smartphone or tablet computer into a hand-held microscope. The soft, pliable lens sticks to a device's camera without any adhesive or glue and makes it possible to see things magnified dozens of times on the screen.

Obesity: Are lipids hard drugs for the brain? Posted: 15 Apr 2014 05:42 AM PDT Why can we get up for a piece of chocolate, but never because we fancy a carrot? Research has demonstrated part of the answer: triglycerides, fatty substances from food, may act in our brains directly on the reward circuit, the same circuit that is involved in drug addiction. These results show a strong link in mice between fluctuations in triglyceride concentration and brain reward development. Identifying the action of nutritional lipids on motivation and the search for pleasure in dietary intake will help us better understand the causes of some compulsive behaviors and obesity.

Medieval slave trade routes in Eastern Europe extended from Finland and the Baltic Countries to Central Asia Posted: 15 Apr 2014 05:41 AM PDT The routes of slave trade in Eastern Europe in the medieval and pre-modern period extended all the way to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. A recent study suggests that persons captured during raids into areas which today constitute parts of Finland, the Russian Karelia and the Baltic Countries ended up being sold on these remote trade routes.

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