ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Machine learning used to boil down the stories that wearable cameras are telling
• To touch the microcosmos: New haptic microscope technique allows researchers to 'feel' microworld
• 'Terminator' polymer: Self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself
• Dating of beads sets new timeline for early humans
• Low omega-3 could explain why some children struggle with reading
• Pinpointing when the First Dynasty of Kings ruled Egypt
• Tiny plankton could have big impact on climate: CO2-hungry microbes might short-circuit the marine foodweb

Machine learning used to boil down the stories that wearable cameras are telling Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:40 AM PDT Computers will someday soon automatically provide short video digests of a day in your life, your family vacation or an eight-hour police patrol, say computer scientists. Researchers are working to develop tools to help make sense of the vast quantities of video that are going to be produced by wearable camera technology like Google Glass and Looxcie.

To touch the microcosmos: New haptic microscope technique allows researchers to 'feel' microworld Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:33 AM PDT What if you could reach through a microscope to touch and feel the microscopic structures under the lens? In a breakthrough that may usher in a new era in the exploration of the worlds that are a million times smaller than human beings, researchers have unveiled a new technique that allows microscope users to manipulate samples using a technology known as "haptic optical tweezers."

'Terminator' polymer: Self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself Posted: 13 Sep 2013 07:18 AM PDT Scientists have reported the first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention. The researchers have dubbed the material a "Terminator" polymer in tribute to the shape-shifting, molten T-100 terminator robot from the Terminator 2 film.

Dating of beads sets new timeline for early humans Posted: 13 Sep 2013 06:33 AM PDT Scientists have new dating evidence indicating when the earliest fully modern humans arrived in the Near East, the region known as the Middle East. They have obtained the radiocarbon dates of marine shell beads found at Ksar Akil, a key archaeological site in Lebanon, which allowed them to calculate that the oldest human fossil from the same sequence of archaeological layers is 42,400-41,700 years old. This is significant because the age of the earliest fossils, directly and indirectly dated, of modern humans found in Europe is roughly similar. This latest discovery throws up intriguing new possibilities about the routes taken by the earliest modern humans out of Africa.

Low omega-3 could explain why some children struggle with reading Posted: 13 Sep 2013 06:24 AM PDT A new study has shown that a representative sample of UK schoolchildren aged seven to nine years had low levels of key omega-3 fatty acids in their blood. Furthermore, the study found that children's blood levels of the long-chain omega-3 DHA (the form found in most abundance in the brain) 'significantly predicted' how well they were able to concentrate and learn.

Pinpointing when the First Dynasty of Kings ruled Egypt Posted: 13 Sep 2013 06:16 AM PDT For the first time, a team of scientists and archaeologists has been able to set a robust timeline for the first eight dynastic rulers of Egypt. Until now there have been no verifiable chronological records for this period or the process leading up to the formation of the Egyptian state. The chronology of Early Egypt between 4500 and 2800 BC has been reset by building mathematical models that combine new radiocarbon dates with established archaeological evidence.

Tiny plankton could have big impact on climate: CO2-hungry microbes might short-circuit the marine foodweb Posted: 13 Sep 2013 05:57 AM PDT As the climate changes and oceans' acidity increases, tiny plankton seem set to succeed. Marine scientists have found that the smallest plankton groups thrive under elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. This could cause an imbalance in the food web as well as decrease ocean CO2 uptake, an important regulator of global climate.

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