Science & TechnologyS


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Brain DNA "Changes Through Life"

New research on brain cells could shed more light on neurological diseases, scientists have discovered.

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© domain-b
Researchers from The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh have found brain cells alter their genetic make-up during a person's lifetime.

They have identified genes - known as retrotransposons - responsible for thousands of tiny changes in the DNA of brain tissue.

Researchers, whose work is published in the journal Nature, found that the genes were particularly active in areas of the brain linked to cell renewal.

By mapping the locations of these genes in the human genome, scientists could identify mutations that impact on brain function and that may cause diseases to develop.

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Insects are scared to death of fish: Presence of predators leads to stress and potentially death

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© Fawn McNeill
The mere presence of a predator causes enough stress to kill a dragonfly, even when the predator cannot actually get at its prey to eat it, say biologists at the University of Toronto.

"How prey respond to the fear of being eaten is an important topic in ecology, and we've learned a great deal about how these responses affect predator and prey interactions," says Professor Locke Rowe, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and co-principal investigator of a study conducted at U of T's Koffler Scientific Reserve.

"As we learn more about how animals respond to stressful conditions - whether it's the presence of predators or stresses from other natural or human-caused disruptions - we increasingly find that stress brings a greater risk of death, presumably from things such as infections that normally wouldn't kill them," says Rowe.

Shannon McCauley, a post-doctoral fellow, and EEB professors Marie-Josée Fortin and Rowe raised juvenile dragonfly larvae (Leucorrhinia intacta) in aquariums or tanks along with their predators. The two groups were separated so that while the dragonflies could see and smell their predators, the predators could not actually eat them.

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Observing Alert: Bright Spot On Uranus Reported

Uranus Spot
© Universe TodayThe bright spot on Uranus observed with Gemini.

There's nothing like a dynamic solar system... and right now another planet is being heard from. According to various sources, a bright spot - possibly a developing storm - has been spotted on Uranus.

"Professional observers this morning (October 27) reported a very bright cloud on Uranus, using the Gemini telescope, and need amateur confirmation if possible, to obtain a rotation period." says John H. Rogers, Jupiter Section Director, British Astronomical Association. "Near-infrared filters may have the best chance of detecting it. It was recorded in the 1.6 micron band, which is further into the IR than amateurs can reach, but your usual near-IR filters might be successful. I think that methane filters are not especially promising, as these clouds on Uranus are overlaid by a methane-rich layer of atmosphere, but would be worth trying anyway. Anyone who has a 1-micron filter should have a go too."

At this point in time, information is limited, but professional images taken using the 8.1-metre Gemini Telescope North on Hawaii have recorded a region said to be ten times brighter than the planetary background. The bright spot is believed to be attributed to methane ice. ""This is an H-band image, centered at 1.6 microns, close to the wavelength of maximum contrast for such features. Its contrast will decrease with decreasing wavelength, and will likely not be detectable by amateur astronomers, except possibly at the longer CCD wavelengths where the Rayleigh scattering background can be suppressed." says Larry Sromovsky, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Looking with a methane band filters at 890 nm might be productive, especially if the feature continues to brighten."

Igloo

Facebook unveils massive new data center near Arctic circle

Facebook's new server farm in the northern Swedish city of Lulea is the firm's first outside the U.S. - in a location chosen because the fierce cold will help to keep the company's racks of high-performance computers cool.

Facebook looked at several sites across Europe, and picked Lulea for its cold climate. The move will see Facebook become faster for users across Europe.

'Facebook has more users outside the U.S. than inside,' Facebook director of site operations Tom Furlong said. 'It was time for us to expand in Europe.'
face book new arctic data center
© UnknownFacebook confirmed that it had picked the northern Swedish city of Lulea for the data centre partly because of the cold climate - crucial for keeping racks of high-performance computers cool

Igloo

Facebook Builds Data Center Near Arctic Circle

Facebook will be constructing a gigantic datacenter in Lulea, Sweden.
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© Unknown

The city is located near the Arctic Circle and will be home to Facebook's first European data center. Lulea's sub-arctic climate will enable the company to take advantage of natural cooling resources with a climate that has short, mild summers and long, cold winters.

The data center will have a floor space of more than 900,000 square feet, which exceeds the size of 15 football fields. According to the town of Lulea, the facility will be built in three phases and eventually consist of three separate server rooms that are designed to handle a substantial portion of Facebook's data traffic. The completion date is targeted for 2014.

Facebook has been frequently criticized, especially by Greenpeace, that it does not make enough effort to achieve an efficient use of energy in its data centers and draw most of its power from coal power plants. The Lulea data center will consume power that is exclusively produced by water power plants and the natural climate should help bring down the power consumption quite a bit. Competitors, such as Google, use similar concepts: Google recently opened a data center in Hamina, Finland, which uses sea water for cooling its servers.

Rocket

Virgin Galactic to Launch Spaceships in 2013

It appears that we are now having 2013 as a much more credible date for space flights.
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© Unknown

Stephen Attenborough, commercial director at Virgin Galactic, said that the company will be taking customers into space in about 2 years, if all tests go well. According to a report published by the BBC, Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson had originally hoped to launch into space by 2007 and apparently 500 people have bought tickets for $200,000 a piece so far.

Attenborough, however, cautioned against considering 2013 a fixed date just yet. He said that the launch into space cannot have a fixed date as the carrier won't compromise on safety. He denied claims that the space flight program is delayed.

"Our foot is flat on the gas, we have proven technology, we have a spaceport that opened last week, and the test flight programme is well advanced - I don't think you can ask for a lot more from a programme like this," he told the BBC. "A delay is [a] strange word, and there is no delay."

Telescope

Discovery: Cosmic Dust Contains Organic Matter from Stars

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© NASA, C.R. O'Dell, S.K. Wong (Rice University) A spectrum from the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observator superimposed on an image of the Orion nebula, where these complex organics are found.
A new look at the interstellar dust permeating the universe has revealed hints of organic matter that could be created naturally by stars, scientists say.

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong observed stars at different evolutionary phases and found that they are able to produce complex organic compounds and eject them into space, filling the regions between stars. The compounds are so complex that their chemical structures resemble the makeup of coal and petroleum, the study's lead author Sun Kwok, of the University of Hong Kong, said.

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Evidence For The Existence Of A Hypnotic State Found

Researchers have found evidence for the existence of a hypnotic state -- the key was in the glazed staring eyes.

Hypnotically Induced Stare
© University of Turku and Aalto University/PLoSThe Hypnotically Induced Stare (HIS).
A multidisciplinary group of researchers from Finland (University of Turku and Aalto University) and Sweden (University of Skövde) has found that strange stare may be a key that can eventually lead to a solution to this long debate about the existence of a hypnotic state.

One of the most widely known features of a hypnotized person in the popular culture is a glazed, wide-open look in the eyes. Paradoxically, this sign has not been considered to have any major importance among researchers and has never been studied in any detail, probably due to the fact that it can be seen in only some hypnotized people.

This study was done with a very highly hypnotizable participant who can be hypnotized and dehypnotized by just using a one-word cue. The change between hypnotic state and normal state can thus be varied in seconds.

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Are Gut Bacteria In Charge?

Gut Bacteria
© CorbisExperiments have shown that mice with no gut microbes show differences in how much they move and in their anxiety-like behavior than mice with normal gut bacteria.

The bacteria in our gut may be controlling our lives more than we ever realized.

In the latest findings, published today in Nature, a link between gut bacteria and the development of multiple sclerosis in mice was shown. Studies have also examined gut bacteria in relation to obesity, depression and much more.

More human studies are emerging hinting at the role the bacteria in our guts may play well beyond helping us to digest our food.

"What has been observed in humans with regard to obesity is that there seems to be a difference in the number of kinds of bacteria in the gut," said Rob Knight of the University of Colorado, Boulder. "That number is much lower in obese people than in healthy people."

Researchers have also seen differences in bacteria between mice bred to be obese versus those of normal weight. In one experiment, researchers found that an obese mouse's gut microbes extracted more of the calories from a given parcel of food than did those of non-obese mice.

This caused the obese mice to gain more body fat than the non-obese mice did.

But even stranger, in a type of mouse with a different mutation that leads to obesity, transferring gut microbes from the obese mice into other mice led the non-obese mice to eat more.

Question

Trees blamed for lack of air

Oxygen eating trees

A day after 136 students collapsed at a Kompong Cham high school while standing at attention as punishment for not showing deference to the national flag, the local police chief offered a unique explanation for the mass fainting - trees.

"According to the hospital's analysis, the reason why the students fainted is [because of] the huge tree in the school compound and the farmland surrounding the school, which absorbed the oxygen," said Heng Meng, police chief of Chamkar Leu district, adding that the punishment could not be blamed as one of the teachers "also [had difficulty breathing] and felt dizzy".

Heng Phal Rith, school director of Bosknor high school in Chamkar Leu district, also cited the hospital's report in blaming the incident on a lack of oxygen, adding that he "did not punish the students. It is just a rumour".

A doctor from the local hospital, Iv Then, said that based on his examination, the lack of oxygen was due to an abundance of trees, which trapped the oxygen, adding that the first four or five students fainted because they were standing under the school's large medicinal oil tree.