ScienceDaily: Top News

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• Experiment opens the door to multi-party quantum communication
• Electric 'thinking cap' controls learning speed
• Engineers design 'living materials': Hybrid materials combine bacterial cells with nonliving elements that emit light
• Path to safer drugs for heart disease, cancer found by researchers
• Unavoidable disorder used to build nanolaser
• Southeast England most at risk of rising deaths due to climate change
• Off-rift volcanoes explained
• Leukaemia caused by chromosome catastrophe
• Shifting evolution into reverse promises cheaper, greener way to make new drugs
• Study on element could change ballgame on radioactive waste
• Drugs fail to reawaken dormant HIV infection
• Spintronics: Could diamonds be a computer's best friend?
• New way to make muscle cells from human stem cells
• Genetic signature reveals new way to classify gum disease
• Box-shaped pressure vessel for liquefied natural gas
• Ancient clam gardens nurture food security

Experiment opens the door to multi-party quantum communication Posted: 23 Mar 2014 03:44 PM PDT In the world of quantum science, Alice and Bob have been talking to one another for years. Charlie joined the conversation a few years ago, but now with spacelike separation, scientists have measured that their communication occurs faster than the speed of light. For the first time, physicists have demonstrated the distribution of three entangled photons at three different locations (Alice, Bob and Charlie) several hundreds of meters apart, proving quantum nonlocality for more than two entangled photons.

Electric 'thinking cap' controls learning speed Posted: 23 Mar 2014 02:19 PM PDT Caffeine-fueled cram sessions are routine occurrences on any college campus. But what if there was a better, safer way to learn new or difficult material more quickly? What if "thinking caps" were real? Scientists have now shown that it is possible to selectively manipulate our ability to learn through the application of a mild electrical current to the brain, and that this effect can be enhanced or depressed depending on the direction of the current.

Engineers design 'living materials': Hybrid materials combine bacterial cells with nonliving elements that emit light Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:21 PM PDT Inspired by natural materials such as bone -- a matrix of minerals and other substances, including living cells -- engineers have coaxed bacterial cells to produce biofilms that can incorporate nonliving materials, such as gold nanoparticles and quantum dots. These "living materials" combine the advantages of live cells, which respond to their environment, produce complex biological molecules, and span multiple length scales, with the benefits of nonliving materials, which add functions such as conducting electricity or emitting light.

Path to safer drugs for heart disease, cancer found by researchers Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:21 PM PDT Investigators may have found a way to solve a problem that has plagued a group of drugs called ligand-mimicking integrin inhibitors, which have the potential to treat conditions ranging from heart attacks to cancer metastasis.

Unavoidable disorder used to build nanolaser Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:21 PM PDT World around researchers are working to develop nano-optical chips, where light can be controlled. These could be used for future circuits based on light (photons) instead of electrons -- that is photonics instead of electronics. But it has proved to be impossible to achieve perfect photonic nanostructures. Now researchers have shown that imperfect optical chips can be used to produce 'nanolasers', which is an ultimately compact and energy-efficient light source.

Southeast England most at risk of rising deaths due to climate change Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:20 PM PDT Warmer summers brought on by climate change will cause more deaths in London and southeast England than the rest of the country, scientists predict. In the most vulnerable districts, in London and the southeast, the odds of dying from cardiovascular or respiratory causes increased by over 10 per cent for every 1C rise in temperature. Districts in the far north were much more resilient, seeing no increase in deaths at equivalent temperatures.

Off-rift volcanoes explained Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:19 PM PDT Rift valleys are large depressions formed by tectonic stretching forces. Volcanoes often occur in rift valleys, within the rift itself or on the rift flanks as e.g. in East Africa. The magma responsible for this volcanism is formed in the upper mantle and ponds at the boundary between crust and mantle. For many years, the question of why volcanoes develop outside the rift zone in an apparently unexpected location offset by tens of kilometers from the source of molten magma directly beneath the rift has remained unanswered. Scientists have now shown that the pattern of stresses in the crust changes when the crust thins due to stretching and becomes gravitationally unloaded. As a consequence of this stress pattern, the path of the magma pockets ascending from the ponding zone is deviated diagonally to the sides of the rift. Eventually, the magma pockets emerge at distances of tens, sometime hundreds of kilometers from the rift axis, creating the so-called off-rift volcanoes.

Leukaemia caused by chromosome catastrophe Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:19 PM PDT Researchers have found that people born with a rare abnormality of their chromosomes have a 2,700-fold increased risk of a rare childhood leukaemia. In this abnormality, two specific chromosomes are fused together but become prone to catastrophic shattering.

Shifting evolution into reverse promises cheaper, greener way to make new drugs Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT By shifting evolution into reverse, it may be possible to use "green chemistry" to make a number of costly synthetic drugs as easily and cheaply as brewing beer. Normally, both evolution and synthetic chemistry proceed from the simple to the complex. Small molecules are combined and modified to make larger and more complex molecules that perform specific functions. Bioretrosynthesis works in the opposite direction. It starts with the final, desired product and then uses natural selection to produce a series of specialized enzymes that can make the final product out of a chain of chemical reactions that begin with simple, commonly available compounds.

Study on element could change ballgame on radioactive waste Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT Groundbreaking work by a team of chemists on a fringe element of the periodic table could change how the world stores radioactive waste and recycles fuel. The element is called californium -- Cf if you're looking at the Periodic Table of Elements -- and it's what researchers called "wicked stuff."

Drugs fail to reawaken dormant HIV infection Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT Scientists report that compounds they hoped would "wake up" dormant reservoirs of HIV inside immune system T cells — a strategy designed to reverse latency and make the cells vulnerable to destruction — have failed to do so in laboratory tests of such white blood cells taken directly from patients infected with HIV.

Spintronics: Could diamonds be a computer's best friend? Posted: 23 Mar 2014 12:17 PM PDT For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that information can flow through a diamond wire. In the experiment, electrons did not flow through diamond as they do in traditional electronics; rather, they stayed in place and passed along a magnetic effect called "spin" to each other down the wire -- like a row of sports spectators doing "the wave." Spin could one day be used to transmit data in computer circuits -- and this new experiment revealed that diamond transmits spin better than most metals in which researchers have previously observed the effect.

New way to make muscle cells from human stem cells Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:46 PM PDT As stem cells continue their gradual transition from the lab to the clinic, a research group has discovered a new way to make large concentrations of skeletal muscle cells and muscle progenitors from human stem cells. The new method could be used to generate large numbers of muscle cells and muscle progenitors directly from human pluripotent stem cells. These stem cells, such as embryonic (ES) or induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, can be made into virtually any adult cell in the body.

Genetic signature reveals new way to classify gum disease Posted: 21 Mar 2014 01:46 PM PDT A new system for classifying periodontal disease has been devised based on the genetic signature of affected tissue, rather than on clinical signs and symptoms. The new classification system, the first of its kind, may allow for earlier detection and more individualized treatment of severe periodontitis, before loss of teeth and supportive bone occurs.

Box-shaped pressure vessel for liquefied natural gas Posted: 21 Mar 2014 06:55 AM PDT A pressure vessel that is neither cylindrical nor spherical has been developed by a multinational steel-making company. The scientists have developed a box-type, large size pressure vessel for the storage and transportation of liquids such as liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas, or liquefied natural gas.

Ancient clam gardens nurture food security Posted: 20 Mar 2014 02:34 PM PDT A three-year study of ancient clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest has led researchers to make a discovery that could benefit coastal communities' food production. The researchers discovered that ancient clam gardens made by Aboriginal people produced quadruple the number of butter clams and twice the number of littleneck clams as unmodified clam beaches.

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