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An international team of scientists including both European institutes and an institute in South Africa has identified the strain of bluetongue that threatened European livestock in 2006-2007. The strain is believed to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa.
Personally, I've always thought so. And now a new study suggests that there may really be a genetic impulse to seek the sun, though there's plenty of evidence that excess exposure to sunlight can cause skin cancer.
In the study, published in the March 9 issue of Cell, Dr. David E. Fisher , director of the melanoma program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, reported that the same biochemical process that leads to skin tanning also raises levels of a natural opiate, the "feel good" chemical, beta-endorphin.
Evolution might have favored this because, by making sunning pleasurable, the body increases production of melanin, the pigment that makes the skin tan. People who can tan have a much lower risk of skin cancer, including melanoma, than non tanners.
In the study, published in the March 9 issue of Cell, Dr. David E. Fisher , director of the melanoma program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, reported that the same biochemical process that leads to skin tanning also raises levels of a natural opiate, the "feel good" chemical, beta-endorphin.
Evolution might have favored this because, by making sunning pleasurable, the body increases production of melanin, the pigment that makes the skin tan. People who can tan have a much lower risk of skin cancer, including melanoma, than non tanners.
An international team of researchers led by Monash University has used chemicals found in plants to replicate a key process in photosynthesis paving the way to a new approach that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The breakthrough could revolutionise the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen - touted as the clean, green fuel of the future - cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale.
The breakthrough could revolutionise the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen - touted as the clean, green fuel of the future - cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale.
Here's a mind-bending idea: The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people's thoughts. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals.
Comment: Just to help the sick and injured... Right...
But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy.
Comment: Just to help the sick and injured... Right...
But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy.
A Colorado couple researching the shroud dispute radiocarbon dating of the alleged burial cloth of Jesus, and Oxford has agreed to help them reexamine the findings.
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| ©Ellen Jaskol / The Times |
| A life-sized illuminated photograph of the Shroud of Turin, believed by some--including John and Rebecca Jackson--to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. |
A gene hunt among more than 4,000 British, Irish and American patients suffering from bipolar disorder has turned up two genes that put new emphasis on a possible cause of the disease.
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| ©Times |
Add yet another new class of objects to the solar system's growing bestiary - the first known visitor from the inner part of the Oort cloud. Many comets originate in the outer Oort cloud, a shell of icy bodies that surrounds the main part of the solar system.
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| ©Illustration: N Kaib |
| No known object has a similar orbit to 2006 SQ372. Sedna, the fifth-largest object beyond Neptune, has an elongated orbit stretching nearly 1000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth, but it never comes closer to the Sun than 75 AU. 2006 SQ372, on the other hand, comes within 24 AU of the Sun, putting it in a different dynamical category |
A team of astronomers at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA) led by Dr. Istvan Szapudi has found direct evidence for the existence of "dark energy." Dark energy works against the tendency of gravity to pull galaxies together and so causes the universe's expansion to speed up.
The nature of dark energy (what precisely it is, and why it exists) is one of the biggest puzzles of modern science.
This is arguably the clearest detection to date of dark energy's stretching effect on vast cosmic structures: there is only a one in 200,000 chance that the detection would occur by chance.
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| ©B. Granett, M. Neyrinck, I. Szapudi |
| The UH team compared directions in the sky where they found superclusters (red circles) and supervoids (blue circles) with the strength of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Superclusters are more likely to coincide with directions where microwaves are unusually strong (red or orange coloring) and supervoids with directions where the microwaves are unusually weak (blue coloring). |
The nature of dark energy (what precisely it is, and why it exists) is one of the biggest puzzles of modern science.
This is arguably the clearest detection to date of dark energy's stretching effect on vast cosmic structures: there is only a one in 200,000 chance that the detection would occur by chance.
The largest 3-dimensional maps of the universe show that galaxies lie in filamentary superclusters interlaced by vast zones of emptiness, cosmic voids tens of millions of light years across that contain few or no bright galaxies.
Researchers analyzing the two largest maps, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) and the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS), have concluded that these voids are also missing the "halos" of invisible dark matter that bright galaxies reside in.
"Astronomers have wondered for a quarter-century whether these voids were 'too big' or 'too empty' to be explained by gravity alone," said University of Chicago researcher Jeremy Tinker, who led the new study. "Our analysis shows that the voids in these surveys are exactly as big and as empty as predicted by the 'standard' theory of the universe."
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| ©M. Blanton and the SDSS |
| A map of the distribution of galaxies in a thin wedge on the sky, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II). The earth is at the vertex of the wedge, and the most distant objects shown are 1.3 billion light years away. Red points mark galaxies whose light is dominated by old stars, while blue points show galaxies with younger populations of stars. Galaxies are arrayed in clumps, filaments, and sheets, which are interweaved with bubbles and tunnels, the cosmic voids. |
Researchers analyzing the two largest maps, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) and the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS), have concluded that these voids are also missing the "halos" of invisible dark matter that bright galaxies reside in.
"Astronomers have wondered for a quarter-century whether these voids were 'too big' or 'too empty' to be explained by gravity alone," said University of Chicago researcher Jeremy Tinker, who led the new study. "Our analysis shows that the voids in these surveys are exactly as big and as empty as predicted by the 'standard' theory of the universe."
A new, cheaper way to store electricity to run air conditioners or vehicles promises to make solar power competitive with traditional generation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers said.
The discovery might shatter the biggest barrier to widespread use of solar power, namely that it's unavailable after dark, said Daniel Nocera, an MIT energy professor. The process uses nontoxic natural materials to convert sunlight into gases, as described Thursday in the online version of Science.
Electricity produced from sun rays by photovoltaic cells costs about four times as much as power from conventional coal-fired generators. The higher expense of storing solar power in batteries has undercut its acceptance as a dependable source of renewable energy.
Cheaply storing energy from sun rays would mean ''you've answered everything,'' said Kevin Book, senior energy analyst for Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., before the study was published. For solar power, ''It's the difference between being on the sidelines and being the quarterback,'' he said.
The discovery might shatter the biggest barrier to widespread use of solar power, namely that it's unavailable after dark, said Daniel Nocera, an MIT energy professor. The process uses nontoxic natural materials to convert sunlight into gases, as described Thursday in the online version of Science.
Electricity produced from sun rays by photovoltaic cells costs about four times as much as power from conventional coal-fired generators. The higher expense of storing solar power in batteries has undercut its acceptance as a dependable source of renewable energy.
Cheaply storing energy from sun rays would mean ''you've answered everything,'' said Kevin Book, senior energy analyst for Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., before the study was published. For solar power, ''It's the difference between being on the sidelines and being the quarterback,'' he said.
