ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Americans living longer, more healthy lives
• Genes linked to being right- or left-handed identified
• Get touchy feely with plants: Gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease
• Underlying ocean melts ice shelf, speeds up glacier movement
• Viruses associated with coral epidemic of 'white plague'
• Movement of marine life follows speed and direction of climate change
• Functioning 'mechanical gears' seen in nature for first time
• Molecule that triggers septic shock identified
• Molecular structure reveals how HIV infects cells
• NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft embarks on historic journey into interstellar space
• Unprecedented rate and scale of ocean acidification found in the Arctic
• Genetics of how and why fish swim in schools: Research sheds light on complex social behavior
• Darwin's dilemma resolved: Evolution's 'big bang' explained by five times faster rates of evolution
• Hate the sound of your voice? Not really
• Insights into evolution of life on Earth from one of Saturn's moons
• Hubble uncovers largest known population of star clusters
• Delaying climate policy would triple short-term mitigation costs
• Dogs' behavior could help design social robots
• Guinness record: World’s thinnest glass is just two atoms thick
• Could life have survived a fall to Earth?
• The inside of the Milky Way Galaxy in 3-D
• Stem cell transplants may be a novel treatment for schizophrenia

Americans living longer, more healthy lives Posted: 12 Sep 2013 05:33 PM PDT In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have found that the average 25-year-old American today can look forward to 2.4 more years of a healthy life than 20 years ago while a 65-year-old today has gained 1.7 years.

Genes linked to being right- or left-handed identified Posted: 12 Sep 2013 05:32 PM PDT A genetic study has identified a biological process that influences whether we are right-handed or left-handed. Scientists found correlations between handedness and a network of genes involved in establishing left-right asymmetry in developing embryos.

Get touchy feely with plants: Gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease Posted: 12 Sep 2013 05:30 PM PDT Forget talking to plants to help them grow, gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease, a new article reveals. Gently rubbing the leaves of thale cress plants (Arabidsopsis thaliana) between thumb and forefinger activates an innate defense mechanism, scientists report. Within minutes, biochemical changes occur, causing the plant to become more resistant to Botrytis cinerea, the fungus that causes grey mould.

Underlying ocean melts ice shelf, speeds up glacier movement Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:39 AM PDT Warm ocean water, not warm air, is melting the Pine Island Glacier's floating ice shelf in Antarctica and may be the culprit for increased melting of other ice shelves, according to an international team of researchers.

Viruses associated with coral epidemic of 'white plague' Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:39 AM PDT They call it the "white plague," and like its black counterpart from the Middle Ages, it conjures up visions of catastrophic death, with a cause that was at first uncertain even as it led to widespread destruction -- on marine corals in the Caribbean Sea. Now, at least, one of the causes of this plague has been found.

Movement of marine life follows speed and direction of climate change Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:36 AM PDT New research shows that the trick to predicting when and where sea animals will relocate due to climate change is to follow the pace and direction of temperature changes, known as climate velocity.

Functioning 'mechanical gears' seen in nature for first time Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:36 AM PDT Previously believed to be only human-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect -- showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did. In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can't, one of the researchers said.

Molecule that triggers septic shock identified Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:32 AM PDT Researchers have identified a sensor pathway inside cells. These internal sensors are like motion detectors inside a house; they trigger an alarm that signals for help — a response from the immune system.

Molecular structure reveals how HIV infects cells Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:32 AM PDT A team scientists has determined the high-resolution atomic structure of a cell-surface receptor that most strains of HIV use to get into human immune cells. The researchers also showed where maraviroc, an HIV drug, attaches to cells and blocks HIV's entry.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft embarks on historic journey into interstellar space Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:55 AM PDT NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. Voyager is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, where some effects from our sun are still evident.

Unprecedented rate and scale of ocean acidification found in the Arctic Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:21 AM PDT Acidification of the Arctic Ocean is occurring faster than projected, according to new findings. The increase in rate is being blamed on rapidly melting sea ice, a process that may have important consequences for health of the Arctic ecosystem.

Genetics of how and why fish swim in schools: Research sheds light on complex social behavior Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:17 AM PDT How and why fish swim in schools has long fascinated biologists looking for clues to understand the complexities of social behavior. A new study may help provide some insight.

Darwin's dilemma resolved: Evolution's 'big bang' explained by five times faster rates of evolution Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:17 AM PDT Biologists have estimated, for the first time, the rates of evolution during the "Cambrian explosion" when most modern animal groups appeared between 540 and 520 million years ago.

Hate the sound of your voice? Not really Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:27 AM PDT A new study finds people unknowingly find their own pre-recorded voice more attractive than others do.

Insights into evolution of life on Earth from one of Saturn's moons Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:27 AM PDT Glimpses of the nursery of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago are coming from an unlikely venue almost 1 billion miles away, according to the leader of an effort to understand Titan, one of the most unusual moons in the solar system.

Hubble uncovers largest known population of star clusters Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:27 AM PDT NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered the largest known population of globular star clusters, an estimated 160,000, swarming like bees inside the crowded core of the giant grouping of galaxies Abell 1689. By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy hosts about 150 such clusters.

Delaying climate policy would triple short-term mitigation costs Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:18 AM PDT Further delay in the implementation of comprehensive international climate policies could substantially increase the short-term costs of climate change mitigation. Global economic growth would be cut back by up to 7 percent within the first decade after climate policy implementation if the current international stalemate is continued until 2030 -- compared to 2 percent if a climate agreement is reached by 2015 already, a new study shows.

Dogs' behavior could help design social robots Posted: 12 Sep 2013 07:48 AM PDT Designers of social robots, take note. Bring your dog to the lab next time you test a prototype, and watch how your pet interacts with it. You might just learn a thing or two that could help you fine-tune future designs. So says researchers who found that 'man's best friend' reacts sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if the devices look nothing like a human.

Guinness record: World’s thinnest glass is just two atoms thick Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:52 AM PDT At just a molecule thick, it's a new record: The world's thinnest sheet of glass, a serendipitous discovery by scientists in the U.S. and Germany, is recorded for posterity in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Could life have survived a fall to Earth? Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:27 AM PDT It sounds like science fiction, but the theory of panspermia, in which life can naturally transfer between planets, is considered a serious hypothesis by planetary scientists. The suggestion that life did not originate on Earth but came from elsewhere in the universe (for instance, Mars), is one possible variant of panspermia. Planets and moons were heavily bombarded by meteorites when the Solar System was young, throwing lots of material back into space. Meteorites made of Mars rock are occasionally found on Earth to this day, so it is quite plausible that simple life forms like yeasts or bacteria could have been carried on them.

The inside of the Milky Way Galaxy in 3-D Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:27 AM PDT Scientists have produced the first detailed three-dimensional map of the stars that form the inner regions of our Milky Way, using publicly available VVV survey data. They find a box/peanut shaped bulge with an elongated bar and a prominent X-structure, which had been hinted at in previous studies. This indicates that the Milky Way was originally a pure disk of stars, which then formed a thin bar, before buckling into the box/peanut shape seen today. The new map can be used for more detailed studies of the dynamics and evolution of our Milky Way.

Stem cell transplants may be a novel treatment for schizophrenia Posted: 09 Sep 2013 12:29 PM PDT Researchers have discovered that transplanting stem cells into the rat brain -- into a center called the hippocampus -- restored functions that are abnormal in schizophrenia.

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