ScienceDaily: Top News

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• A 'carbonizing dragon': Construction drives China's growing CO₂ emissions
• Smoking could lead to 40 million excess tuberculosis deaths by 2050
• Scientists take up golf to prove long-standing theory of cell stickiness
• Sociability may depend upon brain cells generated in adolescence
• Culling can't save the Tasmanian devil
• Lungfish provides insight to life on land: 'Humans are just modified fish'
• A fish's personality may determine how it is captured
• Hysterectomy is associated with increased levels of iron in the brain; Study suggests reducing iron may lower age-related brain disease risk
• Arctic sea ice continues decline, hits second-lowest level
• Hyperactive Hartley 2 has a split history, comet-exploring spacecraft finds
• Titanic jigsaw challenge: Piecing together a global color map of Saturn’s largest moon
• Kepler spacecraft discovers new multi-planet solar system
• Vitamin D could lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, study suggests
• Form follows family -- not function: Humans and chimpanzees have similar long bone shape
• A new technique for understanding quantum effects in water
• Pumice proposed as home to the first life forms
• Advance offers new opportunities in chemistry education, research
• Newly identified gene may be risk factor for osteoporosis
• Herbivore populations will go down as temperatures go up
• Green tea helps mice keep off extra pounds
• Physicists move one step closer to quantum computer
• Natural compound helps reverse diabetes in mice
• This is your brain on estrogen
• Hormone fights fat with fat: Orexin prevents obesity in mice by activating calorie-burning brown fat
• Experiments suggest research avenues for treating excess fat storage and obesity
• HIV: Cell-penetrating peptides for drug delivery act like a Swiss Army Knife
• Young children show improved verbal IQ after 20 days of exposure to music-based, cognitive training 'cartoons'
• Circadian clock may impact organ transplant success
• A shot of cortisone stops traumatic stress, study suggests
• Alzheimer's might be transmissible in similar way as infectious prion diseases, research suggests
• Depression uncouples brain's 'hate circuit', MRI study finds
• Preterm infants exposed to stressors in neonatal intensive care unit display reduced brain size, study finds
• 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics: Discovery of expanding universe by observing distant supernovae

A 'carbonizing dragon': Construction drives China's growing CO<sub>2</sub> emissions Posted: 04 Oct 2011 07:11 PM PDT Constructing buildings, power plants and roads has driven a substantial increase in China's carbon dioxide emission growth, according to a new study.

Smoking could lead to 40 million excess tuberculosis deaths by 2050 Posted: 04 Oct 2011 07:11 PM PDT Between 2010 and 2050, smoking could be responsible for 40 million excess deaths from tuberculosis, according to new research.

Scientists take up golf to prove long-standing theory of cell stickiness Posted: 04 Oct 2011 07:11 PM PDT State-of-the-art, highly-sensitive golf clubs, developed by scientists, regularly catch the eye of golf's elite; however before the likes of Rory McIlroy get excited this time, this new golf putter is being put to use in microbiology laboratories.

Sociability may depend upon brain cells generated in adolescence Posted: 04 Oct 2011 03:01 PM PDT Mice become profoundly anti-social when the creation of new brain cells is interrupted in adolescence, a surprising finding that may help researchers understand schizophrenia and other mental disorders, researchers report.

Culling can't save the Tasmanian devil Posted: 04 Oct 2011 03:01 PM PDT Culling will not control the spread of facial tumor disease among Tasmanian devils, according to a new study. Unless a way of managing the disease is found, the iconic marsupial could become extinct in the wild within the next 25 years.

Lungfish provides insight to life on land: 'Humans are just modified fish' Posted: 04 Oct 2011 03:01 PM PDT A study into the muscle development of several different fish has given insights into the genetic leap that set the scene for the evolution of hind legs in terrestrial animals. This innovation gave rise to the tetrapods -- four-legged creatures, and our distant ancestors -- that made the first small steps on land some 400 million years ago.

A fish's personality may determine how it is captured Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:16 PM PDT A fish's personality may determine how it is captured. This association between personality difference and capture-technique could have significant evolutionary and ecological consequences for affected fish populations, as well as for the quality of fisheries.

Hysterectomy is associated with increased levels of iron in the brain; Study suggests reducing iron may lower age-related brain disease risk Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:16 PM PDT Men have more iron in their bodies and brains than women. These higher levels may be part of the explanation for why men develop these age-related neurodegenerative diseases at a younger age. But why do women have less iron in their systems than men? One possible explanation for the gender difference is that during menstruation, iron is eliminated through the loss of blood. Now, a new study confirms this suspicion and suggests strategies to reduce excess iron levels in both men and women.

Arctic sea ice continues decline, hits second-lowest level Posted: 04 Oct 2011 12:04 PM PDT Last month the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the the National Snow and Ice Data Center showed that the summertime sea ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low. The near-record ice-melt followed higher-than-average summer temperatures, but without the unusual weather conditions that contributed to the extreme melt of 2007.

Hyperactive Hartley 2 has a split history, comet-exploring spacecraft finds Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:28 AM PDT The latest analysis of data from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft shows that comet 103P/Hartley 2 is hyperactive in terms of the material it spews out, compared to the other comets observed up close to date. The comet also shows surprising diversity - ice on the comet's sunlit surface is found in patches that are isolated from areas of dust. In addition, one lobe of the dog-bone shaped comet may have lost much more of the primordial material from the formation of the comet than the other, suggesting that Hartley 2 was originally two comets that came together in a gentle collision.

Titanic jigsaw challenge: Piecing together a global color map of Saturn’s largest moon Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:28 AM PDT An international team has pieced together images gathered over six years by the Cassini mission to create a global mosaic of the surface of Titan.

Kepler spacecraft discovers new multi-planet solar system Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:28 AM PDT A team of researchers has used NASA's Kepler spacecraft to discover an unusual multiple-planet system containing a super-Earth and two Neptune-sized planets orbiting in resonance with each other.

Vitamin D could lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, study suggests Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:28 AM PDT Scientists have shown that people with a good vitamin D supply are at lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Form follows family -- not function: Humans and chimpanzees have similar long bone shape Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:27 AM PDT Although humans and chimpanzees move quite differently, muscle attachment sites at their thighbones are similar. This result has major consequences for the interpretation of fossil hominin finds.

A new technique for understanding quantum effects in water Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:27 AM PDT The use of oxygen isotope substitution will lead to more accurate structural modeling of oxide materials found in everything from biological processes to electronic devices.

Pumice proposed as home to the first life forms Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:25 AM PDT The glassy, porous, and once gas-rich rock called pumice may have given rise to early life forms, according to a provocative new hypothesis on the origin of life.

Advance offers new opportunities in chemistry education, research Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:25 AM PDT Researchers have created a new, unifying method to describe a basic chemical concept called "electronegativity," first described almost 80 years ago by Linus Pauling and part of the work that led to his receiving the Nobel Prize. The new system offers simplicity of understanding that should rewrite high school and college chemistry textbooks around the world, even as it opens important new avenues in materials and chemical research.

Newly identified gene may be risk factor for osteoporosis Posted: 04 Oct 2011 10:25 AM PDT Researchers have identified a new gene that modulates bone mass and that could become a risk factor for developing osteoporosis.

Herbivore populations will go down as temperatures go up Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:38 AM PDT As climate change causes temperatures to rise, the number of herbivores will decrease, affecting the human food supply, according to new research.

Green tea helps mice keep off extra pounds Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:38 AM PDT Green tea may slow down weight gain and serve as another tool in the fight against obesity, according to food scientists.

Physicists move one step closer to quantum computer Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:36 AM PDT Physicists have created a tiny "electron superhighway" that could one day be useful for building a quantum computer -- a new type of computer that will use quantum particles in place of the digital transistors found in today's microchips. Researchers now describe how to make a "topological insulator," a much-sought device that could help physicists create elusive pairs of quantum particles that are particularly useful for storing information.

Natural compound helps reverse diabetes in mice Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:36 AM PDT Researchers have restored normal blood sugar metabolism in diabetic mice using a compound the body makes naturally. The finding suggests that it may one day be possible for people to take the compound much like a daily vitamin as a way to treat or even prevent Type 2 diabetes.

This is your brain on estrogen Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:36 AM PDT It's no secret that women often gain weight as they get older. The sex hormone estrogen has an important, if underappreciated, role to play in those burgeoning waistlines. Now, researchers have traced those hormonal effects on metabolism to different parts of the brain. The findings may lead to the development of highly selective hormone replacement therapies that could be used to combat obesity or infertility in women without the risks for heart disease and breast cancer, the researchers say.

Hormone fights fat with fat: Orexin prevents obesity in mice by activating calorie-burning brown fat Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:35 AM PDT Researchers have discovered that the hormone orexin activates calorie-burning brown fat in mice. Orexin deficiency is associated with obesity, suggesting that orexin supplementation could provide a new therapeutic approach for the treatment of obesity and other metabolic disorders. An orexin-based therapy would represent a new class of fat-fighting drugs -- one that focuses on peripheral fat-burning tissue rather than the brain's appetite control center.

Experiments suggest research avenues for treating excess fat storage and obesity Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:35 AM PDT Scientists have begun to unravel the complex process by which cells take in and store microscopic fat molecules, suggesting new directions for further research into solutions for obesity and its related conditions, such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.

HIV: Cell-penetrating peptides for drug delivery act like a Swiss Army Knife Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:13 AM PDT Scientists have identified how HIV TAT peptides can have multiple interactions with the membrane, the actin cytoskeleton, and specific cell-surface receptors to produce multiple pathways of translocation under different conditions. Moreover, because they now know how cell penetrating peptides work, it is possible to have a general recipe for reprogramming normal peptides into cell penetrating peptides.

Young children show improved verbal IQ after 20 days of exposure to music-based, cognitive training 'cartoons' Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:13 AM PDT Canadian scientists who specialize in learning, memory and language in children have found exciting evidence that preschoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after only 20 days of classroom instruction using interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.

Circadian clock may impact organ transplant success Posted: 04 Oct 2011 09:12 AM PDT Health-care providers assess blood and tissue type as well as organ size and health to enhance transplant success. New research indicates that checklist might also need to include the circadian clock. While some human studies have shown the time of day transplant surgery is performed can influence the outcome, this study of mice with dysfunctional internal clocks is the first correlating circadian clocks with transplant success.

A shot of cortisone stops traumatic stress, study suggests Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:38 AM PDT Scientists say that a single extra dose of cortisone -- which the body naturally produces just after a traumatic event -- reduces the chance that an individual will develop PTSD by 60 percent.

Alzheimer's might be transmissible in similar way as infectious prion diseases, research suggests Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:37 AM PDT The brain damage that characterizes Alzheimer's disease may originate in a form similar to that of infectious prion diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob, according to newly published research.

Depression uncouples brain's 'hate circuit', MRI study finds Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:37 AM PDT A new study using MRI scans has found that depression frequently seems to uncouple the brain's 'hate circuit'.

Preterm infants exposed to stressors in neonatal intensive care unit display reduced brain size, study finds Posted: 04 Oct 2011 08:37 AM PDT New research shows that exposure to stressors in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is associated with alterations in the brain structure and function of very preterm infants. According to the study, infants who experienced early exposure to stress displayed decreased brain size, functional connectivity, and abnormal motor behavior.

2011 Nobel Prize in Physics: Discovery of expanding universe by observing distant supernovae Posted: 04 Oct 2011 06:17 AM PDT The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011 to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess, for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.

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