ScienceDaily: Top News

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• Collective hum: Buzzing midges inspire new swarm theory
• An engineered protein can disrupt tumor-promoting 'messages' in human cells
• New therapeutic targets for small cell lung cancer identified
• How the immune system might evolve to conquer HIV
• Historical records miss a fifth of global warming: NASA
• Football concussion update: Player-on-player hits cause more serious head impacts
• Trees' surprising role in the boreal water cycle quantified
• Biologists home in on paleo gut for clues to our evolutionary history
• New mechanism of tuberculosis infection
• Mars rover's laser can now target rocks all by itself
• An accelerated pipeline to open materials research
• More doesn't mean better when it comes to trauma centers
• Temperature helps drive the emergence of different personalities in spiders
• Large protein nanocages could improve drug design and delivery
• Researchers discuss challenges, successes of HIV cure research in science
• Why Americans waste so much food
• Scientists program cells to remember and respond to series of stimuli
• Mines hydrology research provides 'missing link' in water modeling
• Yeast emerges as hidden third partner in lichen symbiosis
• Physical declines begin earlier than expected among U.S. adults
• Designing a geothermal drilling tool that can take the heat
• Does social status affect generosity?
• Imaging software predicts how you look with different hair styles, colors, appearances
• New detector at South Pole shows early success at neutrino hunting
• New research gleans climate change insight from lizard genome
• Researchers temporarily turn off brain area to better understand function
• Researchers find first direct evidence that A. aegypti mosquito transmits Zika virus
• Artificial muscle for soft robotics: Low voltage, high hopes
• One-third of students report elevated psychological distress, survey shows
• Chronic low back pain linked to higher rates of illicit drug use
• Here's why run-down schools trigger low test scores
• Wrist fractures linked to poor balance in elderly patients
• GPS jamming: Keeping ships on the 'strait' and narrow
• Prevalence, severity of tinnitus in the US
• New intellectual disability syndrome caused by genetic damage to single gene
• Diabetes could be due to failure of beta cell 'hubs'
• What hunter-gatherers can tell us about fundamental human social networks
• Atmospheric chemistry on paper
• Protecting ice memory
• Neanderthals in Germany: First population peak, then sudden extinction
• Making magnets flip like cats at room temperature
• Super-eruptions may give a year's warning before they blow
• Watching the brain do math
• Integration of novel materials with silicon chips makes new 'smart' devices possible
• Can palm oil be sustainable?
• Hospital more than four times as likely for under-6s after laundry pod detergent contact
• Researchers make leap in measuring quantum states
• Self-organizing smart materials that mimic swarm behavior
• HD monkeys display full spectrum of symptoms seen in humans
• Immune-enhancing treatment may destabilize HIV reservoirs
• Preventive therapy in brain-injured patients lowers risk of pulmonary embolism, DVT
• Computer scientists find way to make all that glitters more realistic in computer graphics
• Stop the rogue ADAM gene and you stop asthma
• Brains of college athletes with prior concussion show physical changes months, years later
• Light-bulb moment for stock market behavior
• Students calculate how to build Star Trek photon torpedoes
• Lyme disease: You can't blame the deer
• Online braggers don't get dates
• Virtual development of real drugs
• Chemical pollution gets to Antarctic marine bird colonies

Collective hum: Buzzing midges inspire new swarm theory Posted: 21 Jul 2016 06:09 PM PDT A team of researchers based in Israel and the US has found a mathematical resemblance between swarm dynamics and gravitational interactions. The study could provide a big leap forward in understanding the mass movement of flying insects.

An engineered protein can disrupt tumor-promoting 'messages' in human cells Posted: 21 Jul 2016 03:03 PM PDT A team of researchers have unveiled an engineered protein that they designed to repress a specific cancer-promoting message within cells.

New therapeutic targets for small cell lung cancer identified Posted: 21 Jul 2016 03:03 PM PDT Researchers have identified a protein termed ASCL1 that is essential to the development of small cell lung cancer and that, when deleted in the lungs of mice, prevents the cancer from forming.

How the immune system might evolve to conquer HIV Posted: 21 Jul 2016 03:03 PM PDT Scientists have mathematically modeled the coevolutionary processes that describe how antibodies and viruses interact and adapt to one another over the course of a chronic infection, such as HIV/AIDS.

Historical records miss a fifth of global warming: NASA Posted: 21 Jul 2016 01:42 PM PDT A new NASA-led study finds that almost one-fifth of the global warming that has occurred in the past 150 years has been missed by historical records due to quirks in how global temperatures were recorded. The study explains why projections of future climate based solely on historical records estimate lower rates of warming than predictions from climate models.

Football concussion update: Player-on-player hits cause more serious head impacts Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:15 PM PDT In football, player-vs.-player hits will likely cause more severe head impacts than other impacts, according to a new study.

Trees' surprising role in the boreal water cycle quantified Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:15 PM PDT This is the first study to show that deciduous tree water uptake of snowmelt water represents a large but overlooked aspect of the water balance in boreal watersheds. For the boreal forest of Alaska and Western Canada, this equates to about 17-20 billion cubic meters of water per year. That is roughly equivalent to 8-10 percent of the Yukon River's annual discharge.

Biologists home in on paleo gut for clues to our evolutionary history Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:14 PM PDT A new study of the gut microbiomes of humans, chimps, bonobos and gorillas shows that at least two major groups of bacteria have cospeciated with these hosts, with a lineage going back at least 15 million years to our last common ancestor. Researchers hope to reconstruct the ancestral 'paleo gut' that went with our paleo diet, and use the gut bacteria to track human migration.

New mechanism of tuberculosis infection Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:14 PM PDT Researchers have identified a new way that tuberculosis bacteria get into the body, revealing a potential therapeutic angle to explore.

Mars rover's laser can now target rocks all by itself Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:14 PM PDT New software is enabling ChemCam, the laser spectrometer on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, to select rock targets autonomously -- the first time autonomous target selection is available for an instrument of this kind on any robotic planetary mission.

An accelerated pipeline to open materials research Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:14 PM PDT The Bellerophon Environment for Analysis of Materials (BEAM) is an ORNL platform that combines scientific instruments with web and data services and HPC resources through a user-friendly interface. Designed to streamline data analysis and workflow processes from experiments originating at DOE Office of Science User Facilities at ORNL, such as the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences and Spallation Neutron Source, BEAM gives materials scientists a direct pipeline to scalable computing, software support, and high-performance cloud storage services.

More doesn't mean better when it comes to trauma centers Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:14 PM PDT For the first time, research shows that changes over time in the volume of patients seen by trauma centers influence the likelihood of seriously injured patients living or dying. The findings mean that changes in patient volume across all affected centers should be considered when designating a new trauma center in a region.

Temperature helps drive the emergence of different personalities in spiders Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:14 PM PDT Not a single aggressive spider was able to reproduce at 93 degrees Fahrenheit and most of them died at that temperature. But when researchers added docile spiders to the mix, the aggressive spiders thrived in that diverse community at that temperature.

Large protein nanocages could improve drug design and delivery Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:12 PM PDT Using novel computational and biochemical approaches, scientists have designed and built from scratch 10 large protein icosahedra that are similar to viral capsids that carry viral DNA.

Researchers discuss challenges, successes of HIV cure research in science Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:12 PM PDT A better understanding of HIV latency is the key to eradicating the virus, researchers write in a new article. Worldwide, 37 million people are living with HIV. A cure has proved elusive due to viral latency -- a period when the virus remains alive, but dormant in body thereby eluding the immune system.

Why Americans waste so much food Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:12 PM PDT Even though American consumers throw away about 80 billion pounds of food a year, only about half are aware that food waste is a problem. Even more, researchers have identified that most people perceive benefits to throwing food away, some of which have limited basis in fact.

Scientists program cells to remember and respond to series of stimuli Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:12 PM PDT Engineers have programmed cells to remember and respond to events. This approach to circuit design enables scientists to create complex cellular state machines and track cell histories.

Mines hydrology research provides 'missing link' in water modeling Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:12 PM PDT New research tackles the issue of global freshwater supply by taking a unique approach in quantifying the water that plants release into the atmosphere through a process called transpiration in conjunction with evaporation of water from the soil.

Yeast emerges as hidden third partner in lichen symbiosis Posted: 21 Jul 2016 12:12 PM PDT For nearly 150 years, lichens have been the model organisms of symbiosis. Now researchers have uncovered an unexpected third partner embedded in the lichen cortex or 'skin' -- yeast.

Physical declines begin earlier than expected among U.S. adults Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:48 AM PDT Physical declines begin sooner in life than typically detected, often when people are still in their 50s, according to a new study that focused on a large group of U.S. adults across a variety of age groups.

Designing a geothermal drilling tool that can take the heat Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:48 AM PDT A drilling tool that will withstand the heat of geothermal drilling has now been developed by scientists. The downhole hammer attaches to the end of a column of drill pipe and cuts through rock with a rapid hammering action similar to that of a jackhammer. Downhole hammers are not new -- the oil and gas and mining industries have used them since the 1950s -- but the older design, with its reliance on oil-based lubricants, plastic and rubber O-rings, isn't suited for the hotter temperatures of geothermal drilling.

Does social status affect generosity? Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:41 AM PDT High-ranking people don't always turn out to be selfish jerks. It all depends on whether they feel worthy of their prominent social position, new research indicates.

Imaging software predicts how you look with different hair styles, colors, appearances Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:41 AM PDT How can we predict if a new haircut will look good without physically trying it? Or explore what missing children might look like if their appearance is changed? A new personalized image search engine developed by a computer vision researcher lets a person imagine how they would look with different hairstyles or appearances.

New detector at South Pole shows early success at neutrino hunting Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:41 AM PDT The Askaryan Radio Array team recently published a performance review of the first two stations to come online, showing great potential for the detector to push forward understanding of the cosmos once it's fully operational.

New research gleans climate change insight from lizard genome Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:41 AM PDT Using genomic data from three lizard species, researchers gleaned insights not available before on the impact of climate change on the distribution of animal populations in South American forests. The findings improve ways of modeling the distribution of biodiversity in the past and future.

Researchers temporarily turn off brain area to better understand function Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:41 AM PDT Capitalizing on experimental genetic techniques, researchers have demonstrated that temporarily turning off an area of the brain changes patterns of activity across much of the remaining brain.

Researchers find first direct evidence that A. aegypti mosquito transmits Zika virus Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:39 AM PDT Researchers have now directly connected the Aedes aegypti mosquito with Zika transmission in the Americas, during an outbreak in southern Mexico. The findings will help scientists to better target efforts for controlling the population of mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus.

Artificial muscle for soft robotics: Low voltage, high hopes Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:39 AM PDT A dielectric elastomer with a broad range of motion that requires relatively low voltage and no rigid components has now been created by scientists. This type of actuator could be used in everything from wearable devices to soft grippers, laparoscopic surgical tools, entirely soft robots or artificial muscles in more complex robotics.

One-third of students report elevated psychological distress, survey shows Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:39 AM PDT More than one in three -- an estimated 328,000 -- students in grades seven to 12 report moderate-to-serious psychological distress, according to new survey results in Ontario, Canada. Girls are twice as likely as boys to experience psychological distress, the study indicates.

Chronic low back pain linked to higher rates of illicit drug use Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:39 AM PDT People living with chronic low back pain (cLBP) are more likely to use illicit drugs -- including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine -- compared to those without back pain, reports a study.

Here's why run-down schools trigger low test scores Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:38 AM PDT More than 230 New York City public middle schools were involved in a study that found a chain reaction at work: leaking toilets, smelly cafeterias, broken furniture, and run-down classrooms made students feel negatively which lead to high absenteeism and in turn, contributed to low test scores and poor academic achievement.

Wrist fractures linked to poor balance in elderly patients Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:38 AM PDT Elderly patients suffering a low energy wrist (distal radius) fracture are more likely to have difficulties with balance, placing them at risk for future injuries, according to a new study.

GPS jamming: Keeping ships on the 'strait' and narrow Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:38 AM PDT Researchers are investigating how to prevent shipping Global Positioning Signals (GPS) being jammed in potential cyberattacks that may cause vessels to go off course and collide or run aground.

Prevalence, severity of tinnitus in the US Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:28 AM PDT Approximately one in 10 adults in the US have tinnitus, and durations of occupational and leisure time noise exposures are correlated with rates of tinnitus and are likely targetable risk factors, according to a study.

New intellectual disability syndrome caused by genetic damage to single gene Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:27 AM PDT Scientists have found a gene responsible for an intellectual disability disorder and proven how it works. The research, details the role of a gene called BCL11A in a new intellectual disability syndrome.

Diabetes could be due to failure of beta cell 'hubs' Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:27 AM PDT The significant role of beta cell 'hubs' in the pancreas has been demonstrated for the first time, suggesting that diabetes may due to the failure of a privileged few cells, rather than the behavior of all cells.

What hunter-gatherers can tell us about fundamental human social networks Posted: 21 Jul 2016 11:25 AM PDT Long before the advent of social media, human social networks were built around sharing a much more essential commodity: food. Now, researchers reporting on the food sharing networks of two contemporary groups of hunter-gatherers provide new insight into fundamental nature of human social organization.

Atmospheric chemistry on paper Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:55 AM PDT Normally computers speed up calculations. But with his new pen-and-paper formula, a researcher gets his results thousands of times faster than using conventional computer codes. The astrophysicist calculates the abundances of molecules (known as atmospheric chemistry) in exoplanetary atmospheres. Ultimately, deciphering the abundances of molecules allows us to interpret if features in a spectrum are due to physics, geology or biology.

Protecting ice memory Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:55 AM PDT The project's first mission to protect the world's ice memory will be launched in France on 15 August, in the Mont Blanc massif. Researchers from the CNRS, the IRD and the Université Grenoble Alpes will be extracting ice samples from the Col du Dôme, ultimately for storage in Antarctica.

Neanderthals in Germany: First population peak, then sudden extinction Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:55 AM PDT Neanderthals once populated the entire European continent. Around 45,000 years ago, Homo neanderthalensis was the predominant human species in Europe. Archaeological findings show that there were also several settlements in Germany. However, the era of the Neanderthal came to an end quite suddenly. Based on an analysis of the known archaeological sites comes to the conclusion that Neanderthals reached their population peak right before their population rapidly declined and they eventually became extinct.

Making magnets flip like cats at room temperature Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:55 AM PDT Heusler alloy NiMnSb could prove valuable as a new material for digital information processing and storage, report scientists. Similar to the ability of a cat to flip itself in the air by twisting different parts of its body in different directions and land on its feet, these magnets can flip themselves through the internal motion of their own electrons.

Super-eruptions may give a year's warning before they blow Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:50 AM PDT A microscopic analysis of quartz crystals from an ancient California super-eruption indicates that the process of decompression immediately preceding the eruption began about a year before the eruption itself.

Watching the brain do math Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:50 AM PDT A new neuroimaging study reveals the mental stages people go through as they are solving challenging math problems. Insights from this new work may eventually be applied to the design of more effective classroom instruction - particularly in the form of improving cognitive tutors by creating models that match the brain activation and thinking patterns used to solve these problems, say investigators.

Integration of novel materials with silicon chips makes new 'smart' devices possible Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:50 AM PDT Materials researchers have developed a way to integrate novel functional materials onto a computer chip, allowing the creation of new smart devices and systems.

Can palm oil be sustainable? Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:46 AM PDT A new study shows to where and to what extent palm oil plantations could be expanded, while avoiding further deforestation in pristine and carbon-rich tropical forests.

Hospital more than four times as likely for under-6s after laundry pod detergent contact Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:46 AM PDT Children under the age of 6 are four times as likely to end up in hospital after contact with laundry pod detergent as children exposed to other types of detergent, finds new research.

Researchers make leap in measuring quantum states Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:46 AM PDT Researchers have developed self-guided quantum tomography which uses a search algorithm to iteratively "find" the quantum state.This technique significantly reduces the necessary resources by removing the need for any data storage or post-processing.

Self-organizing smart materials that mimic swarm behavior Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:44 AM PDT Scientists have successfully demonstrated the self-organizing pattern formation in active materials at microscale with computer simulations.

HD monkeys display full spectrum of symptoms seen in humans Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:44 AM PDT Transgenic Huntington's disease monkeys display a full spectrum of symptoms resembling the human disease, strengthening the case that they could be used to evaluate emerging treatments before launching human clinical trials.

Immune-enhancing treatment may destabilize HIV reservoirs Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:44 AM PDT Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) can reduce the amount of HIV in the blood to an undetectable level in most chronically infected people, it cannot eliminate reservoirs of HIV that persist in latently infected immune cells. Recent findings suggest that combining ART with an immune-enhancing treatment may destabilize viral reservoirs in macaques infected with SIV, the monkey equivalent of HIV.

Preventive therapy in brain-injured patients lowers risk of pulmonary embolism, DVT Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:38 AM PDT People who sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at high risk for developing deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. But blood-thinning medications started within 72 hours of hospital arrival have a significant protective effect against these conditions in patients with severe TBI and do not increase risk of bleeding complications or death, say investigators.

Computer scientists find way to make all that glitters more realistic in computer graphics Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:38 AM PDT Iron Man's suit. Captain America's shield. The Batmobile. These all could look a lot more realistic thanks to a new algorithm developed by a team of computer graphics experts. The researchers has created a method to improve how computer graphics software reproduces the way light interacts with extremely small details, called glints, on the surface of a wide range of materials.

Stop the rogue ADAM gene and you stop asthma Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:38 AM PDT A potential and novel way of preventing asthma at the origin of the disease has now been discovered by researchers, a finding that could challenge the current understanding of the condition.

Brains of college athletes with prior concussion show physical changes months, years later Posted: 21 Jul 2016 07:38 AM PDT University athletes with a history of concussion had changes in the size, blood flow and connections in their brains months and even years after the injury -- changes not seen in athletes without prior concussions, a new study has found.

Light-bulb moment for stock market behavior Posted: 21 Jul 2016 04:30 AM PDT Physicists have discovered that the timing of electronic orders on the stock market can be mathematically described in the same way as the lifetime of a light bulb.

Students calculate how to build Star Trek photon torpedoes Posted: 21 Jul 2016 04:28 AM PDT Physics students have boldly gone where no student has gone before -- by calculating one way to potentially build photon torpedoes seen in the Star Trek universe.

Lyme disease: You can't blame the deer Posted: 21 Jul 2016 04:28 AM PDT The last decades the disease Lyme borreliosis that is spread by ticks has been increasing, but this increase cannot be explained by the increasing deer population only, say researchers.

Online braggers don't get dates Posted: 21 Jul 2016 04:28 AM PDT As online dating has become a widely accepted way to attract possible romantic partners, scholars have been taking a closer look at the practice. What makes an online dater successful? Do the same factors that make face-to-face relationships successful also apply in the online dating world?

Virtual development of real drugs Posted: 21 Jul 2016 04:27 AM PDT Inside the human body, the same drug can interact with multiple molecules. This phenomenon is known as 'polypharmacology' and, according to the interaction, a drug can cure a disease or cause side effects in the patient. It is therefore critical to create a drug that can hit the right molecular target, minimizing the risk of undesired molecular interactions. The current process to screen for this is time consuming and expensive. systemsDock is a new, free on-line resource that makes screening for drugs faster and more accurate.

Chemical pollution gets to Antarctic marine bird colonies Posted: 21 Jul 2016 04:27 AM PDT Latitude is the main factor which determines the organic pollutant concentration in Antarctic giant petrels – emblematic species in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions – according to a new article.

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