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Epilepsy Marked By Neural 'Hub' Network


sciencedaily.com
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:26 UTC
An increased number of neuron "hubs" in the epileptic brain may be the root cause for the seizures that characterize the disorder, according to a UC Irvine study.

Researchers Robert Morgan and Ivan Soltesz with the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology identified that these hubs - a small number of highly connected neurons - are formed in the hippocampus during the transition from a healthy brain to an epileptic one. The increased number of connections among these hubs, they found, circulate and amplify signals to such a degree that they overwhelm brain networks, leading to epileptic seizures.

Neural hub
©University of California - Irvine
Neural hub figure.
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Star

Organic Molecule, Amino Acid-Like, Found In Constellation Sagittarius


sciencedaily.com
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:22 UTC
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn have detected for the first time a molecule closely related to an amino acid: amino acetonitrile. The organic molecule was found with a 30 metre radio telescope in Spain and two radio interferometers in France and Australia in the "Large Molecule Heimat", a giant gas cloud near the galactic centre in the constellation Sagittarius (Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press).

Amino acetonitrile
©Sven Thorwirth, MPIfR
Amino acetonitrile.
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Telescope

Planet in Progress? Evidence Of A Huge Planet Forming In Star System


sciencedaily.com
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:17 UTC
Astrophysicists have a new window into the formation of planets. Ben R. Oppenheimer, Assistant Curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues have imaged a structure within the disk of material coalescing from the gas and dust cloud surrounding a well-studied star, AB Aurigae.

star AB Aurigae
©American Museum Of Natural History
Coronagraphic image of the polarized light around the star AB Aurigae, showing the distribution of dust in the inner part of a complex disk of material around this star. The shaded middle region is covered to block out light from the star. The inset at upper right is a blow-up of the depleted region of dust to the NNW of the star.

Within that structure, it appears that an object is forming, either a small body currently accreting dust or a brown dwarf (a body intermediate between stars and planets) between 5 and 37 times the mass of Jupiter. The observations, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, represent a significant step toward direct imaging and study of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than the Sun), and may bear on theories of planet and brown dwarf formation.

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Telescope

World's First Movie Of Black Hole Birth


sciencedaily.com
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:12 UTC
The date of March 19, 2008 marked the brightest ever cosmic explosion observed from the Earth. The outburst known as GRB 080319B was probably the death of a massive star leading to the creation of a black hole. For the first time the birth of a black hole has been filmed.

Cameras of the "Pi of the Sky" project recorded this remarkable event with a 4-minute sequence of 10-second-long images. In almost 20 seconds the object became so bright that it could be visible with the naked eye. Then it began fading and in 4 minutes it became 100 times fainter. At that time the observation was taken over by larger telescopes.

black hole birth
©Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies
2008.03.19 "Pi of the Sky" telescope detected the brightest ever optical outburst from a distant universe. The explosion happened 7.5 billion light years from the Earth, halfway across the visible Universe. The telescope is only 71 mm in diameter.
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Bulb

Key factor in brain development revealed, offers insight into disorder


UCSF
Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:10 UTC
In the earliest days of brain development, the brain's first cells - neuroepithelial stem cells -- divide continuously, producing a population of cells that eventually evolves into the various cells of the fully formed brain. Now, scientists have identified a gene that, in mice, is critical for these stem cells to divide correctly. Without it, they fail to divide, and die.

The finding offers insight into the first steps of brain development, and may shed light, the scientists say, on a rare pediatric disorder known as lissencephaly, or "smooth brain" disease.
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Clock

International team of scientists discover clue to delay of life on Earth


Arizona State University
Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:08 UTC
Scientists from around the world have reconstructed changes in Earth's ancient ocean chemistry during a broad sweep of geological time, from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago. They have discovered that a deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in the ancient deep ocean may have delayed the evolution of animal life on Earth for nearly 2 billion years.

The findings, which appear in the March 27 issue of Nature, come as no surprise to Ariel Anbar, one of the authors of the study and an associate professor at Arizona State University with joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Earth and Space Exploration in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The study was led by Clint Scott, a graduate student at University of California Riverside. Scott works with Timothy Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry at UCR who is a long-time collaborator of Anbar's and also an author of the paper.
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Star

Saturn's moon Enceladus surprisingly comet-like

Stephen Battersby
New Scientist
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:14 UTC
Saturn's curious moon Enceladus appears to have the same chemical makeup as a comet, according to the latest results from the Cassini probe. That's a big surprise, as Enceladus should have formed in very different conditions from those of comets.

On 12 March, Cassini flew through the huge plume of steam and other gases that spews from fissures at the moon's south pole. A glitch prevented the spacecraft's dust analyser from studying the makeup of the plume, but another instrument, called the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), did sample its chemistry.

As well as water vapour, the INMS detected carbon dioxide, methane and a range of more complex organic chemicals such as propane.

Image
©NASA/JPL/GSFC/SwRI/SSI
Heat radiates from the entire length of 150-kilometre-long fractures on the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus
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Bulb

Brain scientist shedding light on learning, memory

Toni Baker
Medical College of Georgia
Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:40 UTC
Neurons spoke to Dr. Joe Z. Tsien when he was a sophomore college student searching for some meaningful extracurricular activity.

He had stopped by the lab of a brain researcher at Shanghai's East China Normal University. The room was dark except for a light shining on the brain. "You could hear this pop, pop, pop, pop," says Dr. Tsien, brain scientist who recently came to the Medical College of Georgia from Boston University. "At that moment, I got interested in the brain.
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Arrow Down

UK's biggest meteorite impact rocked Scotland

Lester Haines
The Register
Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:22 UTC
It's lucky for the good burghers of Ullapool in Scotland that they weren't around 1.2 billion years ago, because it was around then that the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles would have made a bit of a dent in local house prices.

That's according to the combined forces of the University of Oxford and the University of Aberdeen, who say that "unusual rock formations" previously thought to have volcanic origins are actually the debris ejected from a meteorite strike which threw material over an area 50km across.
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Extinguisher

Solar Activity Alert


SpaceWeather.com
Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:05 UTC
With little warning, three big sunspots have materialized and on March 25th one of them (989) unleashed an M2-class solar flare. This is the biggest flare of the year and it signals a significant increase in solar activity. The eruption also produced a coronal mass ejection (CME), but auroras are unlikely because the cloud is not heading toward Earth: movie.

"It's March Madness," says Greg Piepol who photographed the three sunspots from his backyard observatory in Rockville, Maryland:

3 sun spots
©Greg Piepol
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