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Here is your customized PHYSorg.com Newsletter for December 29, 2011:
Spotlight Stories Headlines
- Social robotics: Beyond the uncanny valley- MIT student builds self-balancing electric unicycle
- US-CERT says Wi-Fi hole open to brute force attack
- Study resolves century-long debate over how to describe electromagnetic momentum density in matter
- I know something you don't know -- and I will tell you
- Brain's connective cells are much more than glue; they also regulate learning and memory
- The art of molecular carpet-weaving: 2-D networks from boron acids
- Ancient seal found in Jerusalem linked to ritual
- Researchers hope to use bugged bugs for search and rescue
- Stanford archives offer window into Apple origins
- Great apes make sophisticated decisions
- Gene identified in increasing pancreatic cancer risk
- British oceanographers find new species in Indian Ocean hydrothermal vents
- China lays out five-year space plans
- Echoes from Eta Carinae's great eruption
Space & Earth news
Supernova alphabet soup
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is the sole body responsible for the official naming of astronomical objects. So if you have a problem with the way things in the Universe are named, you now know where to send your email and letters of protest.
Australian miner says any derailment spill 'diluted'
An Australian mining company said Thursday that any hazardous copper concentrate from its operations that may have washed into floodwaters when a freight train derailed had likely been "highly diluted."
US eyes first BP criminal charges over Gulf spill: WSJ
US prosecutors are readying criminal charges against British oil giant BP employees over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident that led to the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, The Wall Street Journal reported online.
South polar region of Titan, Saturn's largest moon
(PhysOrg.com) -- This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft looks toward the south polar region of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and shows a depression within the moon's orange and blue haze layers near the south pole.
Powerful pixels: Mapping the 'Apollo Zone'
(PhysOrg.com) -- Grayscale pixels – up close, they look like black, white or grey squares. But when you zoom out to see the bigger picture, they can create a digital photograph, like this one of our moon.
Echoes from Eta Carinae's great eruption
During the mid 1800's, the well known star η Carinae underwent an enormous eruption becoming for a time, the second brightest star in the sky. Although astronomers at the time did not yet have the technology to study one of the largest eruptions in recent history in depth, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute recently discovered that light echoes are just now reaching us. This discovery allows astronomers to use modern instruments to study η Carinae as it was between 1838 and 1858 when it underwent its Great Eruption.
China lays out five-year space plans
China said Thursday cleaner fuel will power its next-generation rockets, which will launch heavy cargoes into space, bringing nearer plans to build a space station and put a man on the moon.
Technology news
Elpida starts sample shipments of next-generation mobile RAM products
Elpida Memory, the world's third largest Dynamic Random Access Memory manufacturer, today announced that it has begun sample shipments of 4-gigabit Wide IO Mobile RAMTM and 4-gigabit DDR3 Mobile RAM (LPDDR3).
Del. court says ex-HP CEO can't keep letter secret
(AP) -- Former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd will have to make public a letter detailing sexual-harassment allegations that led to his ouster.
SC company sues ex-worker over Twitter followers
(AP) -- An Internet company has sued one of its former employees, saying the worker cost the company thousands of dollars in lost business when he took 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left the firm.
NYTimes offers discounts in mistaken email gaffe
(AP) -- In today's digital age, it's easy to send out an email by mistake - even for a company that's in the business of communication.
Singapore's SPH says Yahoo! plagiarised content
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which is suing Yahoo! for copyright infringement, has accused the US Internet company of plagiarising its works.
ORNL technology could mean improved prosthesis fitting, design
(PhysOrg.com) -- Soldiers returning from war who have lost a leg could lead a more active lifestyle with the help of a technology being developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers.
Stephen Hawking seeks help to make voice heard
(AP) -- Can you help make Stephen Hawking's voice heard?
Review: 'W.E.L.D.E.R.' leads parade of iPad gems
So you just got an iPad for Christmas. You already have all the essentials loaded - Facebook, Twitter, iBooks, whatever news app you prefer.
Kindle sales on fire: Amazon
Amazon said Thursday that it sold more than one million Kindles a week in December with the new Kindle Fire tablet computer its top-selling item.
Verizon Wireless to charge $2 for one-time payment
(AP) -- Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cellphone company, is introducing a $2 fee for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards.
Google top US Web destination in 2011: Nielsen
Google was the most-visited Web destination in the United States in 2011, followed by Facebook and Yahoo!, industry tracker Nielsen said Thursday.
RIM share of US smartphone market slips
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion's share of the US smartphone market declined during the three months ending in November, while Apple and Google's Android platform both made gains, industry tracker comScore said Thursday.
Stanford archives offer window into Apple origins
In the interview, Steve Wozniak and the late Steve Jobs recall a seminal moment in Silicon Valley history - how they named their upstart computer company some 35 years ago.
Researchers hope to use bugged bugs for search and rescue
(PhysOrg.com) -- While search and rescue dogs are currently used to help locate survivors of earthquakes or other disasters, new research hopes to make this job easier by turning to bugs. Insects have the ability to get into the smallest of places and could make locating people that much easier.
Kaspersky team reveals Stuxnet family of weapons
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Stuxnet cyber weapon that was designed to cripple control systems in Iran’s nuclear plant was just one of five weapons engineered in the same lab, and three have not been released yet. That is the word from Moscow based Kaspersky Lab. What’s more, according to Kaspersky’s director of global research, Costin Raiu, these Lego-like weapons work as modules, in that they are designed to fit together with each having different functions. They were developed on a single platform whose roots trace back at least to 2007; the creators have used the same software development environment ever since.
MIT student builds self-balancing electric unicycle
(PhysOrg.com) -- If ever you go look outside at all the traffic on the road, it's hard to not come to the conclusion that what’s needed is a smaller vehicle; perhaps one that doesn’t take up any more room than the body that it needs to transport. The Segway is a good example, though it does take up more ground space than a person simply standing. Lucky thing we have smart people like Stephan Boyer, a student at MIT who has created an electric unicycle that not only does some self-stabilizing, but is an actual functioning vehicle which he uses to get himself around the school campus.
US-CERT says Wi-Fi hole open to brute force attack
(PhysOrg.com) -- The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has issued a warning about a security hole in the Wi-Fi Protected Set-up protocol for Wi-Fi routers. Security researcher Stefan Viehbock discovered the vulnerability, reported it to the US-CERT, which then issued its public warning earlier this week. Viehbock was able to recognize design decisions about the protocol, which enables an efficient brute force attack.
Medicine & Health news
JSCM publishes revised International Standards for Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury
The 2011 revision of the International Standards for the Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury (ISNCSCI) was published in the November 2011 issue of the Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine. The accompanying reference article by Steven Kirshblum et al clarifies the modifications to this newest revision. Both are available for free download via http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/scm (#6, Nov 2011).
Study finds most paramedics are victims of abuse in the workplace
More than two-thirds of paramedics surveyed have experienced verbal, physical or sexual abuse on the job, new research has found.
Need help avoiding hangover? Less booze, more H2O
(AP) -- Chicago attorney Colleen Gorman has a holiday ritual that doesn't involve buying presents or counting down to midnight: She goes online looking for new hangover remedies.
Genetic test for Plavix use may be unneeded: study
A new study published Wednesday cast doubt on the usefulness of a genetic test for patients taking the anti-coagulant drug Plavix, calling into question last year's FDA warning about the blood thinner.
Scientists perform large asian genome-wide association study on kidney disease
Singapore and China scientists, headed by Dr Liu Jianjun, Senior Group Leader and Associate Director of Human Genetics at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and Dr Yu Xueqing, a nephrologist at the 1st Affiliated Hospital of the Sun Yat-Sen University, have identified new susceptibility genes for the kidney disease Immunoglobulin A Nephropathy (IgAN). This discovery, reported in the advance online issue of Nature Genetics on December 25, 2011, brings scientists closer to understanding the disease and working towards its cure.
Study examines multivessel mortality rates
(Medical Xpress) -- A new study led by University at Albany School of Public Health Distinguished Professor Emeritus Edward L. Hannan finds a link between higher mortality rates and incomplete revascularization procedures for patients suffering from multivessel disease.
Open source licensing defuses copyright law's threat to medicine
(Medical Xpress) -- Enforcing copyright law could potentially interfere with patient care, stifle innovation and discourage research, but using open source licensing instead can prevent the problem, according to a physician – who practices both at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center – and a legal scholar at the UC Hastings College of Law.
How to make New Year's resolutions that you'll actually follow
Drop 10 pounds. Quit smoking. Stop cursing.
Scientists record electrical currents that control male fertility
Performance anxiety? Not for this human sperm.
Swine flu strain that is resistant to Tamiflu is spreading more easily
The flu season is still young in the United States and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, but Australia wrapped up its flu season months ago, and public health officials there have some disturbing news to report: The version of so-called swine flu that is resistant to the drug Tamiflu is spreading more easily in the land Down Under.
People don't just think with their guts; logic plays a role too
For decades, science has suggested that when people make decisions, they tend to ignore logic and go with the gut. But Wim De Neys, a psychological scientist at the University of Toulouse in France, has a new suggestion: Maybe thinking about logic is also intuitive. He writes about this idea in the January issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Breast cancer survivors benefit from practicing Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction
Women recently diagnosed with breast cancer have higher survival rates than those diagnosed in previous decades, according to the American Cancer Society. However, survivors continue to face health challenges after their treatments end. Previous research reports as many as 50 percent of breast cancer survivors are depressed. Now, University of Missouri researchers in the Sinclair School of Nursing say a meditation technique can help breast cancer survivors improve their emotional and physical well-being.
New findings provide more complete picture of kidney cancer
Two recent studies by Van Andel Research Institute scientists are providing a foundation for a more complete understanding of distinct kidney cancer subtypes, which could pave the way for better treatments.
Evidence found for brain injury in diet-induced obesity
(Medical Xpress) -- The first evidence, reported today, of structural changes in the brains of rodents and humans with diet-induced obesity may help explain one of the most vexing problems of body weight control.
Gene identified in increasing pancreatic cancer risk
Mutations in the ATM gene may increase the hereditary risk for pancreatic cancer, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, the newest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Brain's connective cells are much more than glue; they also regulate learning and memory
Glia cells, named for the Greek word for "glue," hold the brain's neurons together and protect the cells that determine our thoughts and behaviors, but scientists have long puzzled over their prominence in the activities of the brain dedicated to learning and memory. Now Tel Aviv University researchers say that glia cells are central to the brain's plasticity — how the brain adapts, learns, and stores information.
Biology news
Record ivory seizures in 2011: watchdog
The past 12 months has seen a record number of large ivory seizures across the world, confirming a sharp increase in the illegal trade in recent years, a wildlife watchdog said Thursday.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket -- or all your horses on one pasture
Winters in the Gobi desert are usually long and very cold but the winter of 2009-2010 was particularly severe. Millions of livestock died in Mongolia and the re-introduced wild Przewalski's horse population crashed dramatically. Petra Kaczensky and Chris Walzer from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna have used spatially explicit loss statistics, ranger survey data and GPS telemetry to provide insights into the effect of a catastrophic climate event on wild horses, wild asses and livestock.
Bugs may be resistant to genetically modified corn
(AP) -- One of the nation's most widely planted crops - a genetically engineered corn plant that makes its own insecticide - may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected.
Hedgerows can be managed better for wildlife
Simple changes to hedgerow management could significantly improve winter habitats and food supplies for wildlife, according to new research by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.
British oceanographers find new species in Indian Ocean hydrothermal vents
(PhysOrg.com) -- A research team sailing on the vessel James Cook has been studying the unique habitat surrounding deep sea vents in the Indian Ocean far off the south-east coast of Africa. The vents, created by under-the-sea-floor volcanic activity, spew black cloudy liquid and create a hot hostile environment. One of them, known as the Dragon Vent, was the main focus of cameras fixed to an aquatic robot that captured the existence of some of the exotic animals that are able to live in the distinctive environment. One of those creatures, a type of yeti crab, may even be a species unknown to science.
Great apes make sophisticated decisions
Chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and bonobos make more sophisticated decisions than was previously thought. Great apes weigh their chances of success, based on what they know and the likelihood to succeed when guessing, according to a study of MPI researcher Daniel Haun, published on December 21 in the online journal PLoS ONE. The findings may provide insight into human decision-making as well.
I know something you don't know -- and I will tell you
Researchers found that wild chimpanzees monitor the information available to other chimpanzees and inform their ignorant group members of danger.
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