Science News

"Now a new study shows how the brain speedily delivers the hormone oxytocin — which new mothers have in elevated levels, starting with childbirth — to where it's needed, freeing them to protect their young. The study, done in rats, revealed that oxytocin rushes to the brain region governing fear, called the amygdala, courtesy of special cells that act like a neurological expressway. Further, when the researchers provoked these cells into sending oxytocin to the amygdala, it diminished the rats' fearful responses to being startled. The findings "could have implications for autism, anxiety and fear disorders," said study researcher Ron Stoop, a psychiatric neuroscientist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. The work may also spur scientists to look more closely at the brain's activity at moments when oxytocin levels are high, such as during childbirth and lactation, Stoop said." - Shevonne from Bookmarklet

"Charles Darwin was born 203 years ago Sunday, 50 years before he would forever change the field of biology with "On the Origin of Species." Another book, published 143 years later, dubbed his opus on evolution "the single best idea, ever." The editors of that book helped found Darwin Day in the 1990s, honoring not just Darwin, but also "the achievements of humanity as represented in the acquisition of verifiable scientific knowledge." People had already been celebrating Darwin's birthday every Feb. 12 for decades, but Darwin Day became a broad, global holiday for science, with Darwin as its patriarch — sort of like a less jolly, more scholarly Santa Claus. But while Darwin's discovery of natural selection has revolutionized science, it has also inspired generations of critics. Some distrust it for religious reasons, seeing it as a threat to Creationism or Intelligent Design, and some just don't like to think of people as animals. Darwin wasn't anti-religion, though — he was on track... more... - John (bird whisperer) from Bookmarklet

#DarwinFanGirl - Kelli H.

"In response to J.R. Labbe's recent column about the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History asking for yet another bailout, I agree that our fiscally responsible Mayor Betsy Price should decline and that the board of directors should step up to the plate and make some changes. Now is the time when Fort Worth residents must demand changes at the museum. In terms of national prominence, our beloved Museum of Science has been refashioned into the most boring experience in the city and a joke in the eyes of other prestigious U.S. museums. I would be surprised to learn its accreditation is not in jeopardy." - Joe The Sausage from Bookmarklet

i used to go to the old museum (razed to build the new one) all the time as a child and teen and into adulthood. always looked forward to it. when i took my wife (who'd been with me to the old one) and children i was both saddened and disgusted. everything good and important had been tossed out and in its place is what amounts to a gigantic indoor playground like you'd find at a major fast food chain. this museum went from crown jewel to travesty and i can't imagine what might be able to save it now. - Joe The Sausage

a follow-on by other readers: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012... - Joe The Sausage

"A flowering Tibetan shrub that tricks cells into thinking they are starving could become a weapon against multiple sclerosis and even old age. The roots of the blue evergreen hydrangea (Dichroa febrifuga) have been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine to treat malaria. Now Tracy Keller and colleagues at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in Boston have found that halofuginone – a chemical based on the roots' active ingredient – blocks immune reactions that can cause disease." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

"Falling in love can wreak havoc on your body. Your heart races, your tummy gets tied up in knots, and you're on an emotional roller coaster, feeling deliriously happy one minute and anxious and desperate the next. Research shows that these intense, romantic feelings come from the brain. In one small study, researchers looked at magnetic resonance images of the brains of 10 women and seven men who claimed to be deeply in love. The length of their relationships ranged from one month to less than two years. Participants were shown photographs of their beloved, and photos of a similar-looking person. The brains of the smitten participants reacted to photos of their sweethearts, producing emotional responses in the same parts of the brain normally involved with motivation and reward. "Intense passionate love uses the same system in the brain that gets activated when a person is addicted to drugs," said study co-author Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In other words, you start to crave the person you're in love with like a drug." - Shevonne from Bookmarklet

"No one knows how they got there. But an invasion of African giant snails has southern Florida in a panic over potential crop damage, disease and general yuckiness surrounding the slimy gastropods. The US and Florida departments of agriculture have mobilized 34 agents to battle the infestation and the US Fish & Wildlife Service is heading up an investigation into how the mollusks -- which can be up to 20 centimeters (eight inches) long -- arrived." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

"Smoking marijuana a couple of hours before you drive almost doubles your chances of having a serious car crash, say Canadian researchers. The study led by Associate Professor Mark Asbridge from Dalhousie University in Halifax, is the first to review of data from drivers who had been treated for serious injuries or died in car accidents." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

Although I'm not at all a conspiracy theorist, I find it interesting that this study was released right before Washington state is trying to legalize marijuana. - Akiva

"The U.N. got it wrong on Himalaya’s glaciers -- and the proof is finally here. The authors of the U.N.’s climate policy guide were red-faced two years ago when it was revealed that they had inaccurately forecast that the Himalayan glaciers would melt completely in 25 years, vanishing by the year 2035. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Dehli, India, ultimately issued a statement offering regret for what turned out to be a poorly vetted statement." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

The estimate for the region they call 'High Mountain Asia' is certainly much lower than previous estimates. Most of their regional mass loss estimates seem to be lower than expected, but the Himalaya+ region is the one that's most off. Ice melting outside of Greenland and Antarctica is still estimated to have contributed 0.41 ± 0.08 mm/yr to sea level rise in the period 2003-2010. This... more... - Eivind

"The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each of which is connected to many others. Neuroscientists believe these connections hold the key to our memories, personality and even mental disorders such as schizophrenia. By unraveling them, we may be able to learn more about how we become our unique selves, and possibly even how to alter those selves. Mapping all those connections may sound like a daunting task, but MIT neuroscientist Sebastian Seung believes it can be done — one cubic millimeter of brain tissue at a time. “When you start to explain how difficult it would be to find the connectome of an entire brain, people ask, ‘What’s the point? That seems too far off.’ But even finding or mapping the connections in a small piece of brain can tell you a lot,” says Seung, a professor of computational neuroscience and physics at MIT. Even more than our genome, our connectome shapes who we are, says Seung, who outlines his vision for connectome research in a new book, Connectome,... more... - Kelli H. from Bookmarklet

I think he did a TED talk a while back too. - Ken Morley

"Zebras evolved from all black to striped in order to repel insects that distract them from feeding, a new study contends. Researchers from Hungary and Sweden said that zebras' black and white stripes are the least-attractive hide pattern to disease-carrying bloodsuckers known as tabanids or more commonly, horseflies." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

Invisibility cloaks have recently become a topic of considerable interest thanks to the theoretical works of transformation optics and conformal mapping. The design of the cloak involves extreme values of material properties and spatially dependent parameter tensors, which are very difficult to implement. The realization of an isolated invisibility cloak in the visible light, which is an important step towards achieving a fully movable invisibility cloak, has remained elusive. Here, we report the design and experimental demonstration of an isolated polygonal cloak for visible light. The cloak is made of several elements, whose electromagnetic parameters are designed by a linear homogeneous transformation method. Theoretical analysis shows the proposed cloak can be rendered invisible to the rays incident from all the directions. Using natural anisotropic materials, a simplified hexagonal cloak which works for six incident directions is fabricated for experimental demonstration. The performance is validated in a broadband visible spectrum. - Ami Iida

"In the coldest spot on the earth’s coldest continent, Russian scientists have reached a freshwater lake the size of Lake Ontario after spending a decade drilling through more than two miles of solid ice, the scientists said Wednesday. A statement by the chief of the Vostok Research Station, A. M. Yelagin, released by the director of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, Valery Lukin, said the drill made contact with the lake water at a depth of 12,366 feet. As planned, lake water under pressure rushed up the bore hole 100 to 130 feet pushing drilling fluid up and away from the pristine water, Mr. Yelagin said, and forming a frozen plug that will prevent contamination. Next Antarctic season, the scientists will return to take samples of the water. The first hint of contact with the lake was on Saturday, but it was not until Sunday that pressure sensors showed that the drill had fully entered the lake. Lake Vostok, named after the Russian research station above it, is the largest of more... more... - John (bird whisperer) from Bookmarklet

"Nowhere does it get colder than at Vostok, in the middle of the East Antarctic ice sheet about 800 miles from the South Pole. The coldest documented temperature on earth was recorded at Vostok in July 1983, minus 128.6. Some environmentalists have raised objections to drilling to subglacial lakes because of the possibility of contamination. The Russian plan to prevent the drilling... more... - John (bird whisperer)

"The need to prevent even the slightest contamination of the lake is acute. Its environment is comparable to conditions on the moons of Jupiter, which are among the candidates for extraterrestrial life. If life exists in Vostok, it may well exist on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, which has subsurface icy water. The water in Vostok stays liquid because of the pressure and the warmth of the earth below it." - John (bird whisperer)

Why was it, for example, that in the hundreds of hours I'd clocked at French playgrounds, I'd never seen a child (except my own) throw a temper tantrum? Why didn't my French friends ever need to rush off the phone because their kids were demanding something? Why hadn't their living rooms been taken over by teepees and toy kitchens, the way ours had? - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

When Pauline tried to interrupt our conversation, Delphine said, "Just wait two minutes, my little one. I'm in the middle of talking." It was both very polite and very firm. I was struck both by how sweetly Delphine said it and by how certain she seemed that Pauline would obey her. Delphine was also teaching her kids a related skill: learning to play by themselves. "The most important thing is that he learns to be happy by himself," she said of her son, Aubane. - Mitchell Tsai

Ever felt like an idiot in a meeting at work or clammed up at a cocktail party? New research from Virginia Tech shows that many people are actually less intelligent in small group settings. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

"An extensive field study has identified areas of the U.S. where people have the highest risk of contracting Lyme disease, according to the Centers for Disease Controland Prevention(CDC). The study found that high infection risk is mainly confined to the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwest regions of the country. Lyme disease is one of the most rapidly emerging infectious diseases in North America, and there were nearly 30,000 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. in 2009, according to the CDC. People are infected with bacteria that cause Lyme disease when they are bitten by an infected deer tick. "A better understanding of where Lyme disease is likely to be endemic is a significant factor in improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment," study researcher Maria A. Diuk-Wasser, of the Yale School of Public Health, said in a statement. "People need to know where to take precautions to avoid tick bites."" - John (bird whisperer) from Bookmarklet

It was first discovered in Connecticut, and it's a big deal here. (I know at least two people who've had it.) I'm not sure if it's stable or will spread beyond this area. - John (bird whisperer)

"Scientists digging in a Namibian national park have uncovered sponge-like fossils they say are the first animals, a discovery that would push the emergence of animal life back millions of years. The tiny vase-shaped creatures' fossils were found in Namibia's Etosha National Park and other sites around the country in rocks between 760 and 550 million years old, a 10-member team of international researchers said in a paper published in the South African Journal of Science." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

Several approaches have in recent years suggested that scientists are closing in on methods to tap into our very thoughts; the current study achieved its result by implanting electrodes directly into a part of participants' brains. found via http://ff.im/QqO1I - Halil from Bookmarklet

I hear alot of voices..."new iPad", "buy an iMac" etc etc - Winckel

I hear alot of voices..."new iPad", "buy and iMac" etc etc - Winckel =)))))) - Danny

"The HPV vaccine should be given to all males between the ages of 11 and 21, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." - LANjackal from Bookmarklet

"Time and again humans have domesticated wild animals, producing tame individuals with softer appearances and more docile temperaments, such as dogs and guinea pigs. But a new study suggests that one of our primate cousins—the African ape known as the bonobo—did something similar without human involvement. It domesticated itself. Anthropologist Brian Hare of Duke University's Institute for Brain Sciences noticed that the bonobo looks like a domestic version of its closest living relative, the chimpanzee. The bonobo is less aggressive than the chimp, with a smaller skull and shorter canine teeth. And it spends more time playing and having sex. These traits are very similar to those that separate domestic animals from their wild ancestors. They are all part of a constellation of characteristics known as the domestication syndrome." - Eivind from Bookmarklet

We're animals, too, A. T. :) - Eivind

"Antarctica is so vast that the pictures give you no sense of scale. The pencil-thin line across the satellite image of Pine Island Glacier (above) is actually more than 18 miles long, 800 feet across in places, and 180 feet deep. And it's growing. In the next few months, scientists expect the glacier to create an iceberg about 350 square miles in area. It will probably float northward, melting as it goes." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

"Scientists on an expedition to sample a deep-sea trench got a surprise when their traps brought back seven giant crustaceans glimpsed only a handful of times in human history. The "supergiant" amphipods are more than 20 times larger than their typical crustacean relatives, which are generally less than a half-inch (1 centimeter) long, and thrive in lakes and oceans around the world. They are sometimes called the "insects of the sea."" - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

*prepares the garlic butter* - Marie

"Between out-of-control fires and destructive invasive species, Australia is facing major environmental problems. Now, an Australian scientist says he has a radical solution to these issues: Import large animals, such as elephants, to consume flammable grasses and combat the feral animals that are reconstructing the ecosystem." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

"A protest against Elsevier, the world's largest scientific journal publisher, is rapidly gaining momentum since it began as an irate blog post at the end of January. By Tuesday evening, about 2,400 scholars had put their names to an online pledge not to publish or do any editorial work for the company's journals, including refereeing papers. The boycott is growing so quickly—it had about 1,800 signers on Monday—that Elsevier officials on Tuesday broke their official silence to respond to protesters' accusations that they charge too much and support laws that will keep research findings bottled up behind a company paywall. "Over the past 10 years, our prices have been in the lowest quartile in the publishing industry," said Alicia Wise, Elsevier's director of universal access. "Last year our prices were lower than our competitors'. I'm not sure why we are the focus of this boycott, but I'm very concerned about one dissatisfied scientist, and I'm concerned about 2,000." She added that... more... - Kelli H. from Bookmarklet

"According to the boycotters, Elsevier, which publishes over 2,000 journals including the prestigious Cell and The Lancet, is abusing academic researchers in three areas. First there are the prices. Then the company bundles subscriptions to lesser journals together with valuable ones, forcing libraries to spend money to buy things they don't want in order to get a few things they do... more... - Kelli H.

"Ms. Wise, from Elsevier, says she understands why libraries complain about prices. "Globally, the amount of research that's published and needs to be read is going up every year. But library budgets are not keeping pace." That is why her company offers a variety of packages and pricing schemes to libraries, and negotiates discounts based on institution size, type, and usage patterns.... more... - Kelli H.

Researchers have demonstrated a striking method to reconstruct words, based on the brain waves of patients thinking of those words. - Ami Iida

The technique reported in PLoS Biology relies on gathering electrical signals directly from patients' brains. Based on signals from listening patients, a computer model was used to reconstruct the sounds of words that patients were thinking of. The method may in future help comatose and locked-in patients communicate. Several approaches have in recent years suggested that scientists are... more... - Ami Iida

Earth’s tidal forces have slowed down Moon’s rotation so that it always presents one side to us. The other side, although receiving as much light as the front side, is called the far (or, more poetically, dark) side of the Moon, notably giving the name to one of Pink Floyd’s most successful albums. - Mitchell Tsai from Bookmarklet

In the 30-second video, you can see Moon’s heavily cratered, rough surface; notable sights include Moon’s north pole, the 560-mile-wide Mare Orientale impact basin and, near the bottom of the screen, the 93-mile-wide Drygalski crater. - Mitchell Tsai

Caldera-forming volcanic eruptions are low-frequency, high-impact events capable of discharging tens to thousands of cubic kilometres of magma explosively on timescales of hours to days, with devastating effects on local and global scales1. Because no such eruption has been monitored during its long build-up phase, the precursor phenomena are not well understood. Geophysical signals obtained during recent episodes of unrest at calderas such as Yellowstone, USA, and Campi Flegrei, Italy, are difficult to interpret, and the conditions necessary for large eruptions are poorly constrained2, 3. Here we present a study of pre-eruptive magmatic processes and their timescales using chemically zoned crystals from the ‘Minoan’ caldera-forming eruption of Santorini volcano, Greece4, which occurred in the late 1600s BC. The results provide insights into how rapidly large silicic systems may pass from a quiescent state to one on the edge of eruption5, 6. Despite the large volume of erupted magma4... more... - Ami Iida

"It’s a neat new paper in the current issue of Marine Biology that’s caught my attention. It reports observations made during June 2010 when Takuzo Abe and colleagues were aboard the Hokkaido University research vessel the Oshoro Maru in the waters of the western North Pacific. Their observations are sunfish-based, but they also involve those fantastic oceanic birds, the albatrosses." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

"A burgeoning population of huge pythons — many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big — appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, a study says. The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sightings of medium-size mammals are down dramatically — as much as 99 percent, in some cases — in areas where pythons and other large, non-native constrictor snakes are known to be lurking." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

what's the annual birth-rate of snakes? did a quick search, didn't find any useful links - Halil

Read a simailar article not so long ago about how a Burmese Python had died after eating an Aligator believe it or not! - NewFrontierAdvisory

"Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that can cause inflammation and organ failure, has different effects on different people. But no one is sure why some people are very susceptible to the infection, while others are resistant. Scientists believe that if they could study liver cells from different people in the lab, they could determine how genetic differences produce these varying responses. However, liver cells are difficult to obtain and notoriously difficult to grow in a lab dish because they tend to lose their normal structure and function when removed from the body." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

"There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet

I believe my ex-stepfather was a prime source of evidence to support this hypothesis. - Kelli H.