ScienceDaily: Top News

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• Scientists confirm limited genetic diversity in the extinct Tasmanian tiger
• Genetic similarity promotes cooperation
• Kidney stone mystery solved: Why some people are more prone to develop kidney stones
• Marijuana use higher in young adult smokers than previously reported
• Lactating tsetse flies models for lactating mammals?
• Finding ET may require giant robotic leap
• Deadly cat disease: Effective treatment for bobcat fever
• Nanoparticles may increase plant DNA damage, new evidence shows
• DDT linked to long-term decline of insect-eating birds in North America, through analysis of bird droppings
• Nature's billion-year-old battery key to storing energy
• Crime and punishment: Neurobiological roots of modern justice
• Jellyfish on the rise in world's coastal ecosytems
• New research could mean cellphones that can see through walls
• Non-surgical test for brain cancer
• Unique adaptations to a symbiotic lifestyle reveal novel targets for aphid insecticides
• How selective hearing works in the brain: 'Cocktail party effect' explained
• Scientists regenerate damaged mouse hearts by transforming scar tissue into beating heart muscle
• Where do the highest-energy cosmic rays come from? Probably not from gamma-ray bursts
• Physicists observe the splitting of an electron inside a solid
• Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian Explosion
• Joint failures potentially linked to oral bacteria
• Serious blow to dark matter theories? New study finds mysterious lack of dark matter in Sun's neighborhood
• Big doses of vitamin C may lower blood pressure
• Can behavior be controlled by genes? The case of honeybee work assignments
• Green-glowing fish provides new insights into health impacts of pollution
• First description of a triple DNA helix in vacuum
• Hair regeneration from adult stem cells

Scientists confirm limited genetic diversity in the extinct Tasmanian tiger Posted: 18 Apr 2012 05:49 PM PDT Scientists have confirmed the unique Tasmanian tiger or thylacine had limited genetic diversity prior to its extinction.

Genetic similarity promotes cooperation Posted: 18 Apr 2012 05:43 PM PDT In a dog-eat-dog world of ruthless competition and 'survival of the fittest,' new research reveals that individuals are genetically programmed to work together and cooperate with those who most resemble themselves.

Kidney stone mystery solved: Why some people are more prone to develop kidney stones Posted: 18 Apr 2012 05:35 PM PDT New research provides evidence to explain why some people are more likely to develop kidney stones than others. Their discovery opens the door to finding effective drug treatments and a test that could assess a person's risk of the condition.

Marijuana use higher in young adult smokers than previously reported Posted: 18 Apr 2012 05:35 PM PDT Half of young adult tobacco smokers also have smoked marijuana in the last 30 days, according to a recent Facebook-based survey, indicating a greater prevalence of marijuana and tobacco co-use among smokers age 18-25 than previously reported.

Lactating tsetse flies models for lactating mammals? Posted: 18 Apr 2012 01:23 PM PDT An unprecedented study of intra-uterine lactation in the tsetse fly reveals that an enzyme found in the fly's milk functions similarly in mammals, making the tsetse a potential model for lipid metabolism during mammalian lactation. Better yet, reduced levels of this enzyme led to poor health in offspring, leading the authors to suggest that targeting it could help decrease the tsetse population in Africa and so reduce the incidence of sleeping sickness.

Finding ET may require giant robotic leap Posted: 18 Apr 2012 01:23 PM PDT Autonomous, self-replicating robots -- exobots -- are the way to explore the universe, find and identify extraterrestrial life and perhaps clean up space debris in the process, according to an engineer, who notes that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence -- SETI -- is in its 50th year.

Deadly cat disease: Effective treatment for bobcat fever Posted: 18 Apr 2012 01:22 PM PDT University of Missouri veterinarian Leah Cohn, a small animal disease expert, and Adam Birkenheuer from North Carolina State University, have found an effective treatment for "bobcat fever" which is a deadly disease found in cats.

Nanoparticles may increase plant DNA damage, new evidence shows Posted: 18 Apr 2012 11:38 AM PDT Researchers have provided the first evidence that engineered nanoparticles are able to accumulate within plants and damage their DNA. Under laboratory conditions, cupric oxide nanoparticles have the capacity to enter plant root cells and generate many mutagenic DNA base lesions.

DDT linked to long-term decline of insect-eating birds in North America, through analysis of bird droppings Posted: 18 Apr 2012 11:37 AM PDT Analysis of 50 years' bird droppings inside a large decommissioned chimney on a university campus, provided evidence that DDT and bird diet may have played a role, in a long-term decline for populations of insect-eating birds in North America.

Nature's billion-year-old battery key to storing energy Posted: 18 Apr 2012 11:37 AM PDT New research is bringing us one step closer to clean energy. It is possible to extend the length of time a battery-like enzyme can store energy from seconds to hours, a new study shows.

Crime and punishment: Neurobiological roots of modern justice Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:53 AM PDT Neuroscientists have proposed the first neurobiological model for third-party punishment. It outlines a collection of potential cognitive and brain processes that evolutionary pressures could have re-purposed to make this behavior possible.

Jellyfish on the rise in world's coastal ecosytems Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:53 AM PDT Jellyfish are increasing in the majority of the world's coastal ecosystems, according to the first global study of jellyfish abundance.

New research could mean cellphones that can see through walls Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:53 AM PDT Researchers have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other solid objects.

Non-surgical test for brain cancer Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:53 AM PDT In a breakthrough for the way brain cancer is diagnosed and monitored, researchers have demonstrated that brain tumors can be reliably diagnosed and monitored without surgery. Previously, an accurate non-surgical test to detect brain tumors was unavailable and methods of monitoring a brain tumor's progression or response to treatment were not reliable.

Unique adaptations to a symbiotic lifestyle reveal novel targets for aphid insecticides Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:51 AM PDT Biologists have potential new targets for aphid-specific insecticides. Aphids' diet of plants' sugary sap is limited in nitrogenous essential amino acids. To solve this problem, the aphid must use a bacterial symbiont, Buchnera, that lives inside special insect cells and supplements the animal's diet with the required nutrients.

How selective hearing works in the brain: 'Cocktail party effect' explained Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:50 AM PDT The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works -- how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs -- has just been solved. Psychologists have known for decades about the so-called "cocktail party effect," a name that evokes the Mad Men era in which it was coined. It is the remarkable human ability to focus on a single speaker in virtually any environment -- a classroom, sporting event or coffee bar -- even if that person's voice is seemingly drowned out by a jabbering crowd.

Scientists regenerate damaged mouse hearts by transforming scar tissue into beating heart muscle Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:50 AM PDT Scientists have announced a medical breakthrough that one day may help doctors restore hearts damaged by heart attacks -- by converting scar-forming cardiac cells into beating heart muscle.

Where do the highest-energy cosmic rays come from? Probably not from gamma-ray bursts Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:50 AM PDT Some rare cosmic rays pack an astonishing wallop, with energies prodigiously greater than particles in human-made accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. Their sources are unknown, although scientists favor active galacti nuclei or gamma-ray bursts. If so, gamma-ray bursts should produce ultra-high-energy neutrinos, but scientists searching for these with IceCube, the giant neutrino telescope at the South Pole, have found exactly zero. The mystery deepens.

Physicists observe the splitting of an electron inside a solid Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:48 AM PDT An electron has been observed to decay into two separate parts, each carrying a particular property of the electron: a spinon carrying its spin -- the property making the electron behave as a tiny compass needle -- and an orbiton carrying its orbital moment -- which arises from the electron's motion around the nucleus. These newly created particles, however, cannot leave the material in which they have been produced.

Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian Explosion Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:14 AM PDT The oceans teemed with life 600 million years ago, but the simple, soft-bodied creatures would have been hardly recognizable as the ancestors of nearly all animals on Earth today. Then something happened. Over several tens of millions of years -- a relative blink of an eye in geologic terms -- a burst of evolution led to a flurry of diversification and increasing complexity, including the expansion of multicellular organisms and the appearance of the first shells and skeletons.

Joint failures potentially linked to oral bacteria Posted: 18 Apr 2012 08:20 AM PDT The culprit behind a failed hip or knee replacements might be found in the mouth. DNA testing of bacteria from the fluid that lubricates hip and knee joints had bacteria with the same DNA as the plaque from patients with gum disease and in need of a joint replacement.

Serious blow to dark matter theories? New study finds mysterious lack of dark matter in Sun's neighborhood Posted: 18 Apr 2012 08:19 AM PDT The most accurate study so far of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the Sun. According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts. This may mean that attempts to directly detect dark matter particles on Earth are unlikely to be successful.

Big doses of vitamin C may lower blood pressure Posted: 18 Apr 2012 08:18 AM PDT Taking large doses of vitamin C may moderately reduce blood pressure, according to an analysis of years of research. But the researchers stopped short of suggesting people load up on supplements.

Can behavior be controlled by genes? The case of honeybee work assignments Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:55 AM PDT Biologists have demonstrated that the division of labor among honeybees is correlated with the presence in their brains of tiny snippets of noncoding RNA, called micro-RNAs, or miRNAs, that suppress the expression of genes.

Green-glowing fish provides new insights into health impacts of pollution Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:54 AM PDT Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set to become much easier thanks to a new green-glowing zebrafish. The fish makes it easier than ever before to see where in the body environmental chemicals act and how they affect health. The fluorescent fish has shown that estrogenic chemicals, which are already linked to reproductive problems, impact on more parts of the body than previously thought.

First description of a triple DNA helix in vacuum Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:53 AM PDT Scientists have managed for the first time to extract trustworthy structural information from a triple helix DNA in gas phase, that is to say in conditions in which DNA is practically in a vacuum. This research could bring the development of antigen therapy based on these DNA structures closer.

Hair regeneration from adult stem cells Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:50 AM PDT Scientists have demonstrated "functional hair regeneration from adult stem cells." This is a substantial advance in the development of next-generation of "organ replacement regenerative therapies."

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