ScienceDaily: Top Science News

---

• Scientists confirm limited genetic diversity in the extinct Tasmanian tiger
• Genetic similarity promotes cooperation
• Finding ET may require giant robotic leap
• Nanoparticles may increase plant DNA damage, new evidence shows
• Jellyfish on the rise in world's coastal ecosytems
• New research could mean cellphones that can see through walls
• 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
• Serious blow to dark matter theories? New study finds mysterious lack of dark matter in Sun's neighborhood
• Can behavior be controlled by genes? The case of honeybee work assignments
• Green-glowing fish provides new insights into health impacts of pollution
• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Science News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610