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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for May 6, 2012:
Spotlight Stories Headlines
- Single-inlet electric vehicle charging to showcase in LA- Beamed-up lemon shark shows research promise (w/ Video)
- Scientists measure communication between stem cell-derived motor neurons and muscle cells
- A new candidate pathway for treating visceral obesity
- Robot reveals the inner workings of brain cells
- Climatic effects of a solar minimum
- Liver fat gets a wake-up call that maintains blood sugar levels
- Eye color may indicate risk for serious skin conditions
- Multiple thought channels may help brain avoid traffic jams
- Astronomers discover a rare stellar disk of quartz dust
- Subaru telescope discovers the most distant protocluster of galaxies
- The largest known true crocodile identified
- Cell membrane is patterned like a patchwork quilt
- Hubble sees the eye of the storm in galaxy cluster
- New technique could identify drugs that help fight broad range of viruses
Space & Earth news
1st private cargo run to space station now May 19
(AP) -- A private U.S. company has set a new date for launching a cargo ship to the International Space Station.
Hubble sees the eye of the storm in galaxy cluster
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope could seem like a quiet patch of sky at first glance. But zooming into the central part of a galaxy cluster — one of the largest structures of the Universe — is rather like looking at the eye of the storm.
Subaru telescope discovers the most distant protocluster of galaxies
Using the Subaru Telescope, a team of astronomers led by Jun Toshikawa (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan), Dr. Nobunari Kashikawa (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), and Dr. Kazuaki Ota (Kyoto University) has discovered the most distant protocluster of galaxies ever found--one that existed less than one billion years after the Big Bang. Since protoclusters are ancestors of today's massive clusters of galaxies, this discovery of a protocluster in the early Universe advances our understanding of how large-scale structures form and how galaxies evolve.
Astronomers discover a rare stellar disk of quartz dust
A research team of Japanese astronomers led by Dr. Hideaki Fujiwara (Subaru Telescope) has discovered a main-sequence star that is surrounded by a rare disk of quartz dust. Collisions of planetesimals, building blocks for planets, may have produced the dusty quartz ring during planet formation around the star. Based on observations with the AKARI and Spitzer infrared space telescopes, this recently discovered, intriguing feature of a stellar system may open new doors for research on the mineralogical nature of extrasolar planetary systems.
Climatic effects of a solar minimum
An abrupt cooling in Europe together with an increase in humidity and particularly in windiness coincided with a sustained reduction in solar activity 2800 years ago. Scientists from the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ in collaboration with Swedish and Dutch colleagues provide evidence for a direct solar-climate linkage on centennial timescales. Using the most modern methodological approach, they analysed sediments from Lake Meerfelder Maar, a maar lake in the Eifel/Germany, to determine annual variations in climate proxies and solar activity.
Technology news
Campaign web wars 2.0: can Republicans strike back?
Tired of playing catch-up to the Obama Internet juggernaut, Republicans have rolled out a one-stop online shop for conservative activism which they hope will help them capture the White House.
San Franciscans bring startup approach to homeless
(AP) -- On the foggy streets of San Francisco, tech superstars and the homeless can be hard to tell apart in their identical hoodies. But there's a key difference: smartphones and cash in some pockets, neither in others.
Murdoch scandal follows classic media baron script
(AP) -- If the phone hacking scandal gripping Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire has a familiar ring, it might be because you've heard the story before. Scrappy outsider turns modest newspaper business into international media conglomerate. Ambition turns to hubris. Mogul dramatically falls from grace.
Internet group: Quality over speed in new domains
(AP) -- The organization in charge of expanding the number of Internet address suffixes - the ".com" part of domain names - is apologizing for delays but says it's favoring "quality, not speed."
Single-inlet electric vehicle charging to showcase in LA
(Phys.org) -- Big names in global car manufacturers have announced a common method for charging electric vehicles. The companies are in agreement with a common charging technology for use on electric vehicles in Europe and the United States. The new method will provide special convenience by enabling car owners to charge their EVs using AC or DC from a single inlet. The charging system will allow for both alternating current and faster direct current charging on the same port. Another feature of the new system is that the charge can be done in faster time; a battery charge will take only 15 to 20 minutes.
Medicine & Health news
Living alone with Alzheimer's tough choice for all
(AP) -- Elaine Vlieger is making some concessions to Alzheimer's. She's cut back on her driving, frozen dinners replace once elaborate cooking, and a son monitors her finances. But the Colorado woman lives alone and isn't ready to give up her house or her independence.
Bayer challenges India cancer drug ruling
German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG has challenged a ground-breaking Indian ruling that allowed a local firm to produce a vastly cheaper copy of its patented drug for kidney and liver cancer.
S. Korea stamps down on 'human-flesh' pills: report
South Korea has stepped up customs inspections to stop the smuggling from China of pills made from dead human foetuses or deceased infants, a report said on Sunday.
HPV vaccine completion rate among girls is poor, getting worse
The proportion of insured girls and young women completing the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine among those who initiated the series has dropped significantly – as much as 63 percent – since the vaccine was approved in 2006, according to new research from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston.
Higher risk of birth defects from assisted reproduction
A University of Adelaide study has identified the risk of major birth defects associated with different types of assisted reproductive technology.
First oral agent to quell invasive macular degeneration, restore lost vision
There may be new found hope for patients whose vision is threatened when medicine injected directly into the eyes fails to cause abnormal blood vessels to recede. While injectable drugs called angiogenesis (an-gee-oh-jen-esis) inhibitors are considered a modern miracle and have become the standard of care for patients with the fast-progressive form of macular degeneration, they are not foolproof. For the first time researchers report that an oral nutriceutical, used on a last resort basis, rapidly restores vision to otherwise hopeless patients who face permanent loss.
Judge: Texas can't cut funds to Planned Parenthood
(AP) -- A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Texas cannot ban Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds, at least until a lower court has a chance to hear formal arguments.
Scientists measure communication between stem cell-derived motor neurons and muscle cells
In an effort to identify the underlying causes of neurological disorders that impair motor functions such as walking and breathing, UCLA researchers have developed a novel system to measure the communication between stem cell-derived motor neurons and muscle cells in a Petri dish.
New technique could identify drugs that help fight broad range of viruses
Results of a new study demonstrate the feasibility of a novel strategy in drug discovery: screening large numbers of existing drugs — often already approved for other uses — to see which ones activate genes that boost natural immunity.
Multiple thought channels may help brain avoid traffic jams
Brain networks may avoid traffic jams at their busiest intersections by communicating on different frequencies, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the University Medical Center at Hamburg-Eppendorf and the University of Tübingen have learned.
Liver fat gets a wake-up call that maintains blood sugar levels
A Penn research team, led by Mitchell Lazar, MD, PhD, director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, reports in Nature Medicine that mice in which an enzyme called histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) was deleted had massively fatty livers, but lower blood sugar, and were thus protected from glucose intolerance and insulin resistance, the hallmark of diabetes.
Robot reveals the inner workings of brain cells
Gaining access to the inner workings of a neuron in the living brain offers a wealth of useful information: its patterns of electrical activity, its shape, even a profile of which genes are turned on at a given moment. However, achieving this entry is such a painstaking task that it is considered an art form; it is so difficult to learn that only a small number of labs in the world practice it.
Eye color may indicate risk for serious skin conditions
Eye color may be an indicator of whether a person is high-risk for certain serious skin conditions. A study, led by the University of Colorado School of Medicine, shows people with blue eyes are less likely to have vitiligo. It then follows, according to scientists, that people with brown eyes may be less likely to have melanoma. Vitiligo is an autoimmune skin disease in which pigment loss results in irregular white patches of skin and hair. Melanoma is the most dangerous kind of skin cancer.
A new candidate pathway for treating visceral obesity
Brown seems to be the color of choice when it comes to the types of fat cells in our bodies. Brown fat expends energy, while its counterpart, white fat stores it. The danger in white fat cells, along with the increased risk for diabetes and heart disease it poses, seems especially linked to visceral fat. Visceral fat is the build-up of fat around the organs in the belly.
Biology news
Slaughtering animals without prior stunning should be curbed, if not banned
The slaughter of animals for commercial meat supply without stunning them first should at the very least be curbed, if not banned, concludes a former president of the British Veterinary Association (BVA) in an opinion piece in this week's Veterinary Record.
Northern California fishermen free entangled whale
(AP) -- Crab fisherman Mark Anello noticed something odd near his boat off the Northern California coast: three buoys floating nearby were moving. Motoring closer he saw a gray whale tangled in a large fishing line.
Early spring means more bat girls
There must be something in the warm breeze. A study on bats by a University of Calgary researcher suggests that bats produce twice as many female babies as male ones in years when spring comes early.
Cell membrane is patterned like a patchwork quilt
(Phys.org) -- As the interface between the cell and its environment, the cell membrane, which consists of fats and proteins, fulfils a variety of vital functions. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich have performed the first comprehensive analysis of the molecular structure of this boundary layer, and revealed precisely how it is organised. In yeast cells, the entire membrane is made up of independent domains, each containing just one or a few protein types. If a protein is relocated to an inappropriate domain, it may even fail to function. The study shows that the membrane is a kind of patchwork quilt and should help scientists to gain a better understanding of basic cellular processes.
Beamed-up lemon shark shows research promise (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) -- Not everyone is game enough to fit a laser beam on to a shark’s head and live to tell the tale intact, but not everyone is a marine biologist, either. Last month, marine biologist Luke Tipple, armed with a career in the study of sharks, accepted the request from handheld laser manufacturers, Wicked Lasers, to attach a Wicked Lasers laser beam to a shark’s fin, which he did with success. On a diving trip in the Bahamas, he fit a laser device onto a lemon shark’s dorsal fin and tested the shark’s movements.
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