ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Sombrero galaxy has split personality
• Do urban 'heat islands' hint at trees of future?
• Study finds surprising Arctic methane emission source
• Following life's chemistry to the earliest branches on the tree of life
• Mysterious 'monster' discovered by amateur paleontologist
• Cassini sees new objects blazing trails in Saturn ring
• Violence puts wear and tear on kids' DNA
• Did exploding stars help life on Earth thrive?
• How ancient viruses became genomic 'superspreaders'
• Neurological changes can happen due to social status, crayfish study shows

Sombrero galaxy has split personality Posted: 24 Apr 2012 01:14 PM PDT While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender disks like our spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that the Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, which is a round elliptical galaxy with a thin disk embedded inside, is one of the first known to exhibit characteristics of the two different types. The findings will lead to a better understanding of galaxy evolution, a topic still poorly understood.

Do urban 'heat islands' hint at trees of future? Posted: 24 Apr 2012 12:43 PM PDT A new study shows that common native red oak seedlings grow as much as eight times faster in New York's Central Park than in more rural, cooler settings in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains. Red oaks and their close relatives dominate areas ranging from northern Virginia to southern New England, so the study may have implications for changing climate and forest composition over a wide region.

Study finds surprising Arctic methane emission source Posted: 24 Apr 2012 11:51 AM PDT The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic region is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth's climate warms, the methane, frozen in reservoirs stored in Arctic tundra soils or marine sediments, is vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Now a multi-institutional study has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of Arctic methane: the ocean itself.

Following life's chemistry to the earliest branches on the tree of life Posted: 24 Apr 2012 11:21 AM PDT Scientists have traced the development of life-sustaining chemistry to the earliest forms of life on Earth.

Mysterious 'monster' discovered by amateur paleontologist Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:17 AM PDT For 70 years, academic paleontologists in Cincinnati have been assisted by a dedicated corps of amateurs. One such amateur recently found a very large and very mysterious fossil that has paleontologists amazed.

Cassini sees new objects blazing trails in Saturn ring Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:08 AM PDT Scientists have discovered strange half-mile-sized objects punching through parts of Saturn's F ring, leaving glittering trails behind them. These trails in the rings, which scientists are calling 'mini-jets', fill in a missing link in our understanding of the curious behaviour of the F ring.

Violence puts wear and tear on kids' DNA Posted: 24 Apr 2012 06:59 AM PDT Children who have experienced violence might really be older than their years. The DNA of 10-year-olds who experienced violence in their young lives has been found to show wear and tear normally associated with aging, a new study has found.

Did exploding stars help life on Earth thrive? Posted: 24 Apr 2012 06:56 AM PDT Research by a Danish physicist suggests that the explosion of massive stars -- supernovae -- near the Solar System has strongly influenced the development of life.

How ancient viruses became genomic 'superspreaders' Posted: 23 Apr 2012 12:31 PM PDT Scientists have uncovered clues as to how our genomes became riddled with viruses. The study reveals important information about the so–called 'dark matter' of our genome.

Neurological changes can happen due to social status, crayfish study shows Posted: 19 Apr 2012 12:39 PM PDT Researchers have discovered that in one species of freshwater crustaceans, social status can affect the configuration of neural circuitry. They found that dominant and subordinate crayfish differ in their behavioral responses when touched unexpectedly, and that those differences correlate with differences in neural circuits that mediate those responses.

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