ScienceDaily: Latest Science News

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• Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust: Planet’s dust cloud may explain strange patterns of light from its star
• Attraction or repulsion? New method predicts interaction energy of large molecules
• 'Rare' genetic variants are surprisingly common, life scientists report
• How exercise affects the brain: Age and genetics play a role
• Functional coatings from the plasma nozzle
• New key mechanism in cell division discovered
• Hitting snooze on the molecular clock: Rabies evolves slower in hibernating bats
• Intricate, often invisible land-sea ecological chains of life threatened with extinction around the world
• A cell's first steps: Building a model to explain how cells grow
• Sutureless aortic valve replacement a North American first
• Facebook and smartphones: New tools for psychological science research
• New silicon memory chip may offer super-fast memory
• A crowning success for crayfish
• Days of 'gizmo' launches return: NASA team to test new vehicle-descent technologies
• Meals, Equipment Top Cargo List for SpaceX spacecraft Dragon
• Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) flight hardware test
• Unparalleled views of Earth's coastal zone with HREP-HICO
• Hinode mission to capture annular solar eclipse this weekend
• Measuring transient X-rays with lobster eyes
• Ultra-short laser pulses for science and industry
• Emotionally intelligent people are less good at spotting liars
• Foul-mouthed characters in teen books have it all
• Chemists merge experimentation with theory in understanding of water molecule
• Google goes cancer: Search engine algorithm finds cancer biomarkers
• Pollination with precision: How flowers do it

Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust: Planet’s dust cloud may explain strange patterns of light from its star Posted: 18 May 2012 04:23 PM PDT Researchers have detected a possible planet, some 1,500 light years away, that appears to be evaporating under the blistering heat of its parent star. The scientists infer that a long tail of debris -- much like the tail of a comet -- is following the planet, and that this tail may tell the story of the planet's disintegration. According to the team's calculations, the tiny exoplanet, not much larger than Mercury, will completely disintegrate within 100 million years.

Attraction or repulsion? New method predicts interaction energy of large molecules Posted: 18 May 2012 10:28 AM PDT Scientists have developed and validated a more accurate method for predicting the interaction energy of large molecules, such as biomolecules used to develop new drugs.

'Rare' genetic variants are surprisingly common, life scientists report Posted: 18 May 2012 10:28 AM PDT A large survey of human genetic variation shows that rare genetic variants are not so rare after all, and offers insights into human diseases. A team of scientists studied 202 genes in 14,002 people -- one of the largest ever in a sequencing study in humans.

How exercise affects the brain: Age and genetics play a role Posted: 18 May 2012 10:28 AM PDT Findings suggest that the effects of exercise on memory depend on the age of the exerciser; underlying genetic mechanisms matter, too.

Functional coatings from the plasma nozzle Posted: 18 May 2012 10:28 AM PDT These coatings offer protection against rust, scratches and moisture and also improve adhesion: Surfaces with a nano coating. A new plasma process enables these coatings to be applied more easily and cost-efficiently -- on an industrial scale.

New key mechanism in cell division discovered Posted: 18 May 2012 10:28 AM PDT Researchers have identified the mechanism by which protein Zds1 regulates a key function in mitosis, the process that occurs immediately before cell division. The research opens the door to developing targeted and direct therapies against cancer.

Hitting snooze on the molecular clock: Rabies evolves slower in hibernating bats Posted: 18 May 2012 10:27 AM PDT The rate at which the rabies virus evolves in bats may depend heavily upon the ecological traits of its hosts, according to new research. Rabies viruses in tropical and sub-tropical bat species evolved nearly four times faster than viral variants in bats in temperate regions.

Intricate, often invisible land-sea ecological chains of life threatened with extinction around the world Posted: 18 May 2012 10:27 AM PDT Intricate, often invisible chains of life are threatened with extinction around the world. A new study quantifies one of the longest such chains ever documented.

A cell's first steps: Building a model to explain how cells grow Posted: 18 May 2012 10:26 AM PDT Physicists and biologists are addressing an important fundamental question in basic cell biology: how do living cells figure out when and where to grow?

Sutureless aortic valve replacement a North American first Posted: 18 May 2012 10:25 AM PDT A surgical milestone was reached on May 1st with a sutureless aortic valve replacement through a thoracic incision just 5 centimeters long. The two patients in their seventies who underwent this innovative procedure were doing well only one week after their operations.

Facebook and smartphones: New tools for psychological science research Posted: 18 May 2012 10:25 AM PDT Whether you're an iPerson who can't live without a Mac, a Facebook addict, or a gamer, you know that social media and technology say things about your personality and thought processes. And psychological scientists know it too -- they've started researching how new media and devices both reveal and change our mental states.

New silicon memory chip may offer super-fast memory Posted: 18 May 2012 10:25 AM PDT The first purely silicon oxide-based "resistive RAM" memory chip that can operate in ambient conditions -- opening up the possibility of new super-fast memory -- has now been developed.

A crowning success for crayfish Posted: 18 May 2012 10:24 AM PDT Australian freshwater crayfish have a tooth enamel very similar to humans. Nature sometimes copies its own particularly successful developments. Scientists have now found that the teeth of the Australian freshwater crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus are covered with an enamel amazingly similar to that of vertebrates. Both materials consist of calcium phosphate and are also very alike in terms of their microstructure. This extremely hard substance has apparently developed in freshwater crayfish independently from vertebrates, as it makes the teeth particularly strong.

Days of 'gizmo' launches return: NASA team to test new vehicle-descent technologies Posted: 18 May 2012 07:45 AM PDT NASA technologists will get a chance next summer to relive the good old days when Agency engineers would affix space-age gizmos to rockets just to see if the contraptions worked. In what will be the first of four high-altitude balloon flights to begin in the summer of 2013, technologists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., and Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., are preparing to test new deceleration devices that could replace current descent technologies for landing ever-larger payloads at higher elevations on Mars.

Meals, Equipment Top Cargo List for SpaceX spacecraft Dragon Posted: 18 May 2012 07:38 AM PDT The Dragon spacecraft built by SpaceX will head to the International Space Station with about 1,200 pounds of cargo during its demonstration mission, including commemorative patches and pins, 162 meals and a collection of student experiments.

Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) flight hardware test Posted: 18 May 2012 07:35 AM PDT A NASA flight test designed to demonstrate the feasibility of inflatable spacecraft technology is coming down to the wire. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) is the third in a series of suborbital flight tests of this new technology. It is scheduled to launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore this summer.

Unparalleled views of Earth's coastal zone with HREP-HICO Posted: 18 May 2012 07:32 AM PDT Scanning the globe from the vantage point of the International Space Station is about more than the fantastic view. While cruising in low Earth orbit, the space station HICO and RAIDS Experiment Payload-Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean, or HREP-HICO, gives researchers a valuable new way to view the coastal zone.

Hinode mission to capture annular solar eclipse this weekend Posted: 18 May 2012 07:30 AM PDT On May 20-21, 2012 an annular eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor along Earth's northern Hemisphere -- beginning in eastern Asia, crossing the North Pacific Ocean, and ending in the western United States. A partial eclipse will be visible from a much larger region covering East Asia, North Pacific, North America and Greenland.

Measuring transient X-rays with lobster eyes Posted: 18 May 2012 07:27 AM PDT A technology that mimics the structure of a lobster's eyes is now being applied to a new instrument that could help revolutionize X-ray astronomy and keep astronauts safe on the International Space Station.

Ultra-short laser pulses for science and industry Posted: 18 May 2012 05:13 AM PDT The shorter the pulse duration, the more precisely the laser tool operates. Ultra-short laser pulses of outstanding high average püower are opening the doors to new applications in high throughput materials processing. Thanks to the short pulse duration, thermal damage of the material being processed is minimized.

Emotionally intelligent people are less good at spotting liars Posted: 18 May 2012 05:13 AM PDT People who rate themselves as having high emotional intelligence (EI) tend to overestimate their ability to detect deception in others.

Foul-mouthed characters in teen books have it all Posted: 18 May 2012 05:11 AM PDT Analysis of best-selling teen novels shows that readers come across seven instances of profanity per hour spent reading, and the characters who cuss are usually rich, beautiful and popular.

Chemists merge experimentation with theory in understanding of water molecule Posted: 18 May 2012 05:11 AM PDT Using newly developed imaging technology, chemists have confirmed years of theoretical assumptions about water molecules, the most abundant and one of the most frequently studied substances on Earth.

Google goes cancer: Search engine algorithm finds cancer biomarkers Posted: 17 May 2012 04:31 PM PDT The strategy used by Google to decide which pages are relevant for a search query can also be used to determine which proteins in a patient's cancer are relevant for the disease progression.

Pollination with precision: How flowers do it Posted: 17 May 2012 10:20 AM PDT Pollination could be a chaotic disaster. With hundreds of pollen grains growing long tubes to ovules to deliver their sperm to female gametes, how can a flower ensure that exactly two fertile sperm reach every ovule? Biologists report the discovery of how plants optimize the distribution of pollen for successful reproduction.

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