Hat Tip: Geek Press
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bees Fight Back Against Colony Collapse Disorder: Some Honey Bees Toss Out Varroa Mites
ARS researchers have developed honey bees that more aggressively deal with varroa mites, a parasite that is one of the major problems damaging honey bees today. (Credit: Photo by Stephen Ausmus)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Honey bees are now fighting back aggressively against Varroa mites, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) efforts to develop bees with a genetic trait that allows them to more easily find the mites and toss them out of the broodnest.
The parasitic Varroa mite attacks the honey bee, Apis mellifera L., by feeding on its hemolymph, which is the combination of blood and fluid inside a bee. Colonies can be weakened or killed, depending on the severity of the infestation. Most colonies eventually die from varroa infestation if left untreated.
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Myths About Diabetes And Diet Persist
From Live Science:Once upon a time, in the dark ages of the 1960s and '70s, a diabetes diet meant avoiding sugar. Refrigerators of diabetics were filled with Fresca; sugar bowls were filled with Sweet'N Low; and, for the most part, plates were still filled with meat and potatoes.
That diet didn't work so well, and self-administered insulin shots were often needed to keep blood-sugar levels safe.
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Rocket Company Tests World's Most Powerful Ion Engine
In the next few years, the VASIMR ion engine could be used toboost the space station's orbit (Illustration: Ad Astra Rocket Company)
From New Scientist:
Rockets that would use charged particles to propel super-fast missions to Mars are one step closer, now that a small-scale prototype has been demonstrated at full power.
The ion engine may be used to maintain the orbit of the International Space Station within the next five years, and could lay the groundwork for rockets that could one day travel to Mars in about a month.
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LCROSS Impact Site Picked
From Discover Magazine:
NASA has chosen the final destination for the LCROSS lunar impacting probe: the crater Cabeus A, near the Moon’s south pole.
So why is NASA smacking a probe into the Moon at high speed, and why there?
The idea is that over millions and billions of years, a lot of comets have hit the Moon. The water from these comets hits the surface and sublimates away… but if any settles at the bottoms of deep craters near the Moon’s poles, these permanently shadowed regions can act as a refrigerator, keeping the water from disappearing. It can stay there, locked up as ice, for a long, long time. Some estimates indicate there could be billions of tons of ice near the Moon’s south pole.
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A Brief History Of Climate Change
From The BBC:As the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, BBC News environment correspondent Richard Black traces key milestones, scientific discoveries, technical innovations and political action.
1712 - British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.
1800 - world population reaches one billion.
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Nobel Prize For Physics Awarded
Half of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics went to Charles K. Kao, center. The other half of the prize was shared by two researchers at Bell Labs, Willard S. Boyle, left, and George E. Smith. ReutersNobel Awarded for Advances in Harnessing Light -- New York Times
The mastery of light through technology was the theme of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored breakthroughs in fiber optics and digital photography.
Half of the $1.4 million prize went to Charles K. Kao for insights in the mid-1960s about how to get light to travel long distances through glass strands, leading to a revolution in fiber optic cables. The other half of the prize was shared by two researchers at Bell Labs, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, for inventing the semiconductor sensor known as a charge-coupled device, or CCD for short. CCDs now fill digital cameras by the millions.
The prize will be awarded in Stockholm on Dec. 10.
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More News On The Awarding Of The Nobel Prize In Physics
Excerpts from 2009 Nobel physics prize -- AP
‘Masters of light’ scoop Nobel physics prize -- Financial Times
3 Scientists Win 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics -- Voice of America
Nobel Prize in Physics -- Scientific American
3 win Nobel in physics for digital devices -- CNN
Nobel honours 'masters of light' -- BBC
Communication pioneers win 2009 physics Nobe -- Reuters
FACTBOX: The Nobel prize for Physics -- Reuters
Recent winners of the Nobel Prize in physics -- AP
Key Cancer Spread Gene Found
From The BBC:Scientists have pinpointed a gene linked to more than half of all breast cancers.
The gene, NRG1 (neuregulin-1), is also thought to play a role in many bowel, prostate, ovarian and bladder tumours.
The University of Cambridge team said the breakthrough should provide "vital information" about how cancer spreads.
Experts agreed the finding, published in the journal Oncogene, could represent a very significant advance in the fight against cancer.
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Stunning Underwater Shots Captured By World's Top Female Cave Diver And Her Team
A diver swims inside the passages that lay below Peacock Springs State Park in FloridaFrom The Daily Mail:
Crawling through underwater caves from Antarctica to Mexico and Florida to Bermuda, it is a good thing that Jill Heinerth is not claustrophobic.
It also helps that Ms Heinerth, 44, is acknowledged as the world's top female cave diver.
Holding the world record for distance travelled in underwater caves as well as being the first person to cave dive in an Antarctic iceberg, Ms Heinerth has been at the top of her game for 20 years.
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Roman Coin Hoards Show More War Means Fewer Babies
From Wired Science:
Coins buried by anxious Italians in the first century B.C. can be used to track the ups and downs of the Roman population during periods of civil war and violence.
In times of instability in the ancient world, people stashed their cash and if they got killed or displaced, they didn’t come back for their Geld. Thus, large numbers of coin hoards are a good quantitative indicator of population decline, two researchers argue in in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Monday.
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Ultrafast DNA Nanosensor
Image: Glowing DNA: A CCD camera sensor captures the glow of hairpin-shaped DNA nanosensors when they bind with a target gene sequence of anthrax bacteria. Credit: Benjamin Miller, University of Rochester Medical Center From Technology Review:
A new type of sensor makes diagnosing infections quick and easy.
A portable instrument based on an ultrasensitive nanoscale sensor could detect bacteria in minutes, helping to catch infectious diseases early and prevent their spread. The simple, low-cost device should be available within three years, says Benjamin Miller, professor of dermatology and biomedical engineering at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and codeveloper of the sensor.
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Graphite Mimics Iron's Magnetism: New Nanotech Applications
The electron density of states on a grain boundary of defects. The arrows (pointing in the reader's direction) indicate the direction of the magnetic moments. (Credit: Kees Flipse, Eindhoven University of Technology)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Oct. 5, 2009) — Researchers of Eindhoven University of Technology and the Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands show for the first time why ordinary graphite is a permanent magnet at room temperature. The results are promising for new applications in nanotechnology, such as sensors and detectors. In particular graphite could be a promising candidate for a biosensor material. The results will appear online on 4 October in Nature Physics.
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Green Roofs Curb Global Warming, Study Finds
Chicago's City Hall got a green roof in 2001. The project was designed to test various concepts and methods and to test the benefits. Credit: Wikipedia CommonsFrom Live Science:
Rooftops covered with plants — logically dubbed “green roofs” — could help fight global warming, scientists now suggest.
Green roofs are growing more popular in cities, with the number of green roofs increasing by more than 35 percent from 2007 to 2008 in the United States, representing more than 3.1 million square feet installed last year. In Germany, widely considered the leader in green roofing, some 12 percent of all flat roofs are green, with the German green roof industry growing 10 to 15 percent annually.
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Sports Jocks Are Oh-So Predictable
Another fast ball... how predictable (Image: Rex Features)From New Scientist:
A clever athlete knows how to keep an opponent guessing, but professionals act more predictably than they should. So says a study based on game theory, which shows that baseball pitchers throw too many fastballs and American football teams don't pass the ball enough. The finding could give savvy teams an extra victory or two over the course of a season.
The game theory concept of "minimax" says that players in a head-to-head match should follow two basic rules: first, play in a way that minimises your opponent's possible gain; second, be unpredictable.
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The Power Loader Is Real
From Popular Science:
Still no word about the xenomorphs, though.
For everyone out there who's been fighting aliens with a flamethrower, but now needs something with a little more kick, you're in luck. Panasonic has taken a break from hawking TVs and camcorder to build the power loader from Aliens.
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Baby Mammoth Yields Secrets After 40,000 Years In Siberian Tundra
From Times Online:
A baby woolly mammoth that died after being sucked into a muddy river bed 40,000 years ago has revealed more prehistoric secrets of how the species survived in its icy habitat.
The mammoth, known as Lyuba, was about a month old when she died in the Siberian tundra, where she remained until she was discovered by reindeer herders three years ago. Her body was so well preserved in the permafrost that her stomach retained traces of her mother’s milk, and scientists identified sediment in her mouth, trunk and throat — suggesting that she suffocated while struggling to free herself from the mud.
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Energy-From-Waste Powers US Army
The pyrolysis tube at the system's heart can consume 100kg of waste per hourFrom The BBC:
A system that generates energy from rubbish is being sent by defence firm Qinetiq to the US army.
The PyTEC system heats mixed waste, releasing a gas that can be burned to produce five times more energy than is required to drive the system.
Qinetiq say that the system, already in use on British navy ship HMS Ocean, has been "containerised" for US army use.
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British Scientists 'Seek And Destroy' Cancer Cells Using Iron Nanoparticles
Photo: The 'nano magnets' wipe out the cancer cells without harming the surrounding tissueFrom The Daily Mail:
A revolutionary technique that uses injections of iron nanoparticles to seek out and destroy cancer cells has been developed by British scientists.
The tiny particles are designed to roam through the body's blood vessels in search of tumour cells.
Once they have latched on to their targets, the magnets can be heated from outside the body using a magnetic field - wiping out the cancer cells without harming the surrounding tissue.
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What's Inside A Cup Of Coffee?
Photo: Tim Morris From Wired Science:
Caffeine
This is why the world produces more than 16 billion pounds of coffee beans per year. It's actually an alkaloid plant toxin (like nicotine and cocaine), a bug killer that stimulates us by blocking neuroreceptors for the sleep chemical adenosine. The result: you, awake.
Water
Hot H2O is a super solvent, leaching flavors and oils out of the coffee bean. A good cup of joe is 98.75 percent water and 1.25 percent soluble plant matter. Caffeine is a diuretic, so coffee newbies pee out the water quickly; java junkies build up resistance.
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Vital Embryo Research Driven Out Of Britain
Professor Justin St John, who has left the UK for Australia (left); Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, of the MRC, which turned down one licence-holder (right). REXFrom The Independent:
Scientists abandon plan to develop stem cells after funding dries up.
All research involving the controversial creation of animal-human "hybrid" embryos has been refused funding in Britain and one of the three scientists licensed to carry out the work has left the UK for a job in Australia.
Every one of the three projects to develop embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos created by fusing human cells with animal eggs has now been abandoned, after publicly-funded research councils refused to back the studies aimed at developing new treatments for incurable illnesses ranging from heart disease to Parkinson's.
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