Science & TechnologyS


Einstein

Students' Perceptions of Earth's Age Influence Acceptance of Human Evolution


ScienceDaily
Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC
High school and college students who understand the geological age of the Earth (4.5 billion years) are much more likely to understand and accept human evolution, according to a University of Minnesota study published in the March issue of the journal Evolution.

The finding could give educators a new strategy for teaching evolution, since the Earth's age is typically covered in physical rather than biological science classes.

Researchers Sehoya Cotner and Randy Moore, professors in College of Biological Sciences, and D. Christopher Brooks, of the university's Office of Information Technology, surveyed 400 students enrolled in several sections of a University of Minnesota introductory biology course for non-majors.
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Magnify

First Direct Evidence of Neuroplastic Changes Following Brainwave Training


ScienceDaily
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00 UTC
Significant changes in brain plasticity have been observed following alpha brainwave training.

A pioneering collaboration between two laboratories from the University of London has provided the first evidence of neuroplastic changes occurring directly after natural brainwave training. Researchers from Goldsmiths and the Institute of Neurology have demonstrated that half an hour of voluntary control of brain rhythms is sufficient to induce a lasting shift in cortical excitability and intracortical function.

Remarkably, these after-effects are comparable in magnitude to those observed following interventions with artificial forms of brain stimulation involving magnetic or electrical pulses. The novel finding may have important implications for future non-pharmacological therapies of the brain and calls for a serious re-examination and stronger backing of research on neurofeedback, a technique which may be promising tool to modulate cerebral plasticity in a safe, painless, and natural way.
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Info

Pottery Leads to Discovery of Peace-seeking Women in American Southwest


redOrbit
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:55 UTC
From the time of the Crusades to the modern day, war refugees have struggled to integrate into their new communities. They are often economically impoverished and socially isolated, which results in increased conflict, systematic violence and warfare, within and between communities as the new immigrants interact with and compete with the previously established inhabitants. Now, University of Missouri researcher Todd VanPool believes pottery found throughout the North American Southwest comes from a religion of peace-seeking women in the violent, 13th-century American Southwest. These women sought to find a way to integrate newly immigrating refugees and prevent the spread of warfare that decimated communities to the north.

First discovered in 1930's Arizona, Salado pottery created a debate among archaeologists. According to VanPool, the Salado tradition is a grassroots movement against violence. The mystery of the pottery's origin and significance was known as "the Salado problem." This southwestern pottery was found among three major cultural areas of the ancient southwest: the ancestral Puebloan in northern Arizona and New Mexico, the Mogollon of southern New Mexico and the Hohokam of central and southern Arizona, all with different religious traditions. Even though the pottery was found in three different cultural areas, the pottery communicated the same, specific set of religious messages. It was buried with both the elite and non-elite and painted with complex, geometric motifs and animals, such as horned serpents. Instead of celebrating local elites, the symbols in Salado pottery emphasized fertility and cooperation
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Saturn

Galaxy study validates general relativity on cosmic scale, existence of dark matter

Robert Sanders
University of California - Berkeley
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:49 UTC
An analysis of more than 70,000 galaxies by University of California, Berkeley, University of Zurich and Princeton University physicists demonstrates that the universe - at least up to a distance of 3.5 billion light years from Earth - plays by the rules set out 95 years ago by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity.

By calculating the clustering of these galaxies, which stretch nearly one-third of the way to the edge of the universe, and analyzing their velocities and distortion from intervening material, the researchers have shown that Einstein's theory explains the nearby universe better than alternative theories of gravity.

One major implication of the new study is that the existence of dark matter is the most likely explanation for the observation that galaxies and galaxy clusters move as if under the influence of some unseen mass, in addition to the stars astronomers observe.
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Info

First whole genome sequencing of family of 4 reveals new genetic power

Todd Langton
Institute for Systems Biology
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:41 UTC
Seattle, Washington - The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) has analyzed the first whole genome sequences of a human family of four. The findings of a project funded through a partnership between ISB and the University of Luxembourg was published online today by Science on its Science Express website. It demonstrates the benefit of sequencing entire families, including lowering error rates, identifying rare genetic variants and identifying disease-linked genes.

"We were very pleased and a little surprised at how much additional information can come from examining the full genomes of the same family." said David Galas, PhD, a corresponding author on the paper, an ISB faculty member and its senior vice president of strategic partnerships. "Comparing the sequences of unrelated individuals is useful, but for a family the results are more accurate. We can now see all the genetic variations, including rare ones, and can construct the inheritance of every piece of the chromosomes, which is critical to understanding the traits important to health and disease."
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Info

Heat-Sensitive Material Remembers Four Shapes

Stephanie Pappas
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:33 UTC
A substance called a polymer usually used to make fuel cells can "remember" up to four different shapes, and revert to each one at different temperatures, according to new research.

The polymer, or others like it, could be used in fields ranging from biomedical engineering to space exploration.

Perfluorosulphonic acid ionomer (PFSA) is what's known as a shape memory polymer. A polymer is a substance made mostly of repeating identical or similar molecules.

The chemical structure of shape memory polymers allows them to "memorize" shapes under certain conditions of heat, magnetism or moisture. The next time they're exposed to those conditions, the polymers revert back to the memorized shapes.
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Evil Rays

First 3D TV Sets To Go On Sale 'By April'

Matt Smith
Sky News Online
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:11 UTC
Electronics giant Samsung is promising the first 3D TV sets will go on sale in Britain by the end of the month.

The Korean firm is expected to reveal more details at a launch in New York but entry-level prices for the dedicated 3D sets are thought to be around £1,800.

Samsung says 2010 will be the year of the "3D television revolution" with "explosive growth in demand".
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Meteor

DR Congo ring may be giant 'impact crater'

Paul Rincon
BBC News
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:26 UTC
Image
© Terrametric, IncA survey in the area is now required to stand up some of the ideas
Deforestation has revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, scientists say.

The 36-46km-wide feature, identified in DR Congo, may be one of the largest such structures discovered in the last decade.

Italian researchers considered other origins for the ring, but say these are unlikely.

They presented their findings at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, US.

The ring shape is clearly visible in the satellite image by TerraMetrics Inc reproduced on this page.
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Info

Ancient Norse colonies hit bad climate times

Alexandra WItze
ScienceNews
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:08 UTC
New research reveals just how bad an idea it was to colonize Greenland and Iceland more than a millennium ago: average temperatures in Iceland plummeted nearly 6°Celsius in the century that followed the island's Norse settlement in about A.D. 870, a climate record gleaned from mollusk shells shows.

The record is the most precise year-by-year chronology yet of temperatures experienced by the northern Norse colonies, says William Patterson, an isotope geochemist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who led the new work. The study will appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're aware from written documents of the kinds of things that people faced in the North Atlantic over the last 1,000 years," he says. "This is a way to quantify the experiences they had."
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Saturn

Most extreme white dwarf binary system found with orbit of just 5 minutes


Warwick News
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:57 UTC
Image
© Unknown
An international team of astronomers, including Professor Tom Marsh and Dr Danny Steeghs from the University of Warwick, have shown that the two stars in the binary HM Cancri definitely revolve around each other in a mere 5.4 minutes. This makes HM Cancri the binary star with by far the shortest known orbital period. It is also the smallest known binary. The binary system is no larger than 8 times the diameter of the Earth which is the equivalent of no more than a quarter of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

The binary system consists of two white dwarfs. These are the burnt- out cinders of stars such as our Sun, and contain a highly condensed form of helium, carbon and oxygen. The two white dwarfs in HM Cancri are so close together that mass is flowing from one star to the other. HM Cancri was first noticed as an X-ray source in 1999 showing a 5.4 minutes periodicity but for a long time it has remained unclear whether this period also indicated the actual orbital period of the system. It was so short that astronomers were reluctant to accept the possibility without solid proof.
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