This Week in Science! March 26th to March 30th

Sadly, this will be the second to last newsletter I'll be doing. My contract with Science is coming to an end and, as a result, I won't be able to provide you with awesome info in science. Thanks for reading and it was a ton of fun!

-Ryan

Viral Disease -- Particularly from Herpes -- Gaining Interest as Possible Cause of Coral Decline—As corals continue to decline in abundance around the world, researchers are turning their attention to a possible cause that's almost totally unexplored -- viral disease. [Link]

Oscillating Gel Acts Like Artificial Skin, Giving Robots Potential Ability to 'Feel'—Sooner than later, robots may have the ability to "feel." In a paper published online March 26 in Advanced Functional Materials, a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrated that a nonoscillating gel can be resuscitated in a fashion similar to a medical cardiopulmonary resuscitation. [Link]

Electricity and Carbon Dioxide Used to Generate Alternative Fuel—Imagine being able to use electricity to power your car -- even if it's not an electric vehicle. Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity. [Link]

This Week in Science! March 19th to March 23rd

How the Smell of Food Affects How Much You Eat—Bite size depends on the familiarly and texture of food. Smaller bite sizes are taken for foods which need more chewing and smaller bite sizes are often linked to a sensation of feeling fuller sooner. New research published in BioMed Central's new open access journal Flavour, shows that strong aromas lead to smaller bite sizes and suggests that aroma may be used as a means to control portion size. [Link]

Scientists Wrest Partial Control of a Memory—Scripps Research Institute scientists and their colleagues have successfully harnessed neurons in mouse brains, allowing them to at least partially control a specific memory. Though just an initial step, the researchers hope such work will eventually lead to better understanding of how memories form in the brain, and possibly even to ways to weaken harmful thoughts for those with conditions such as schizophrenia and post traumatic stress disorder. [Link]

Trees May Play Role in Electrifying the Atmosphere, Study Suggests—Plants have long been known as the lungs of the Earth, but a new finding has found they may also play a role in electrifying the atmosphere. [Link]

This Week in Science! March 11 to March 16

Image: Hari Manoharan, Stanford University.

Molecular Graphene Heralds New Era of 'Designer Electrons'—Researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the first-ever system of "designer electrons" -- exotic variants of ordinary electrons with tunable properties that may ultimately lead to new types of materials and devices. [Link]

 

Evolutionary Surprise: Developmental 'Scaffold' for Vertebrate Brain Found in Brainless Marine Worm—The origin of the exquisitely complex vertebrate brain is somewhat mysterious. "In terms of evolution, it basically pops up out of nowhere. You don't see anything anatomically like it in other animals," says Ariel Pani, an investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole and a graduate student at the University of Chicago. [Link]

Researchers Send 'Wireless' Message Using a Beam of Neutrinos—A group of scientists led by researchers from the University of Rochester and North Carolina State University have for the first time sent a message using a beam of neutrinos -- nearly massless particles that travel at almost the speed of light. The message was sent through 240 meters of stone and said simply, "Neutrino." [Link]

Why the Nice Weather Lately?

There seems to be a reason for the unseasonably nice weather in the DC area lately. Apparently, we have the nearby urban sprawl to thank!

According to this piece from Science Daily, the idea is that the city landscapes around Baltimore and Washington, D.C. attract heat and retain it throughout the winter. The result is a longer growing season, which means flowers bloom and leaves turn green earlier than in other areas.

Who knew?

Ryan Wheaton
Production Assistant
SCIENCE

This Week in Science! March 5-9

Chimpanzees Have Police Officers, Too
Chimpanzees are interested in social cohesion and have various strategies to guarantee the stability of their group. Anthropologists now reveal that chimpanzees mediate conflicts between other group members, not for their own direct benefit, but rather to preserve the peace within the group. Their impartial intervention in a conflict — so-called "policing" — can be regarded as an early evolutionary form of moral behavior. See the whole story.

Nasty People in the Media Prime the Brain for Aggression
Research over the past few decades has shown that viewing physical violence in the media can increase aggression in adults and children. But a new study, co-authored by an Iowa State University psychology professor, has also found that onscreen relational aggression — including social exclusion, gossip and emotional bullying — may prime the brain for aggression. See the whole story.

Communication Technologies Including Smartphones and Laptops Could Now Be 1,000 Times Faster, New Study Suggests
Many of the communication tools of today rely on the function of light or, more specifically, on applying information to a light wave. Up until now, studies on electronic and optical devices with materials that are the foundations of modern electronics — such as radio, TV, and computers — have generally relied on nonlinear optical effects, producing devices whose bandwidth has been limited to the gigahertz (GHz) frequency region. (Hertz stands for cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon, in this case 1billion cycles). See the whole story.

This Week in Science: February 13-17

Here's what's going on in science this week. Things are starting to pick up in medicine with huge headway in the treatment and cure of Alzheimer's, while physics seems to be slowing up a bit.

Oh, and PS, I'll be out of the office next week. So I'll see you all in two weeks!

Why Do Dinosaur Skeletons Look So Weird?
Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs. See the whole story.

Microbial Oasis Discovered Beneath the Atacama Desert
Two meters below the surface of the Atacama Desert there is an 'oasis' of microorganisms. Researchers from the Center of Astrobiology (Spain) and the Catholic University of the North in Chile have found it in hypersaline substrates thanks to SOLID, a detector for signs of life which could be used in environments similar to subsoil on Mars. See the whole story.

LHC Boosts Energy to Snag Higgs — and Superpartners
It has already broken the record for the most energetic particle collisions, but the world's largest particle smasher is boosting its energy still further. Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider hope this will confirm or rule out tantalizing hints of the elusive Higgs particle. See the whole story.

This Week in Science!

Good morrow science enthusiasts. Here's what's going on in the world of science this week.

Leave a comment if you think we missed anything!

Most Detailed Infrared Image of the Carina Nebula Ever
ESO's Very Large Telescope has delivered the most detailed infrared image of the Carina Nebula stellar nursery taken so far. Many previously hidden features, scattered across a spectacular celestial landscape of gas, dust and young stars, have emerged. This is one of the most dramatic images ever created by the VLT. See the whole story.

'Shish Kebab' Structure Provides Improved Form of 'Buckypaper'
Scientists are reporting development of a new form of buckypaper, which eliminates a major drawback of these sheets of carbon nanotubes — 50,000 times thinner than a human hair, 10 times lighter than steel, but up to 250 times stronger — with potential uses ranging from body armor to next-generation batteries. See the whole story.

New Diet: Top Off Breakfast With — Chocolate Cake?
When it comes to diets, cookies and cake are off the menu. Now, in a surprising discovery, researchers from Tel Aviv University have found that dessert, as part of a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that also includes proteins and carbohydrates, can help dieters to lose more weight — and keep it off in the long run. See the whole story.

Science News Weekly Round Up

As a Production Assistant for SCIENCE, I send out an email to the rest of the team wrapping up big stories in science-related news every Friday. It helps us keep on top of what's going on in the world around us. We hope it helps you all too.

Leave a comment if you think we missed anything this week!

Self-Portraits of a Declining Brain
"He died in 2007, but really he was dead long before that," explains the bright-eyed woman to a room full of sympathetic listeners. "Bill died in 2000, when the disease meant he was no longer able to draw." See the whole story.

Societal Control of Sugar Essential to Ease Public Health Burden, Experts Urge
Sugar should be controlled like alcohol and tobacco to protect public health, according to a team of UCSF researchers, who maintain in a new report that sugar is fueling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. See the whole story.

Taking the Long View on the World's Energy Supplies
Now a handful of researchers are warning that energy sources we normally think of as innocuous could affect the planet's climate too. If we start to extract immense amounts of power from the wind, for instance, it will have an impact on how warmth and water move around the planet, and thus on temperatures and rainfall. See the whole story.