Dear Reader ,
Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 26:
Maya archaeologists unearth new 2012 monument
(Phys.org) -- Archaeologists working at the site of La Corona in Guatemala have discovered a 1,300 year-old year-old Maya text that provides only the second known reference to the so-called “end date” for the Maya calendar on December 21, 2012. The discovery, one of the most significant hieroglyphic find in decades, was announced today at the National Palace in Guatemala.
UCLA biologists reveal potential 'fatal flaw' in iconic sexual selection study
(Phys.org) -- A classic study from more than 60 years ago suggesting that males are more promiscuous and females more choosy in selecting mates may, in fact, be wrong, say life scientists who are the first to repeat the historic experiment using the same methods as the original.
Understanding what's up with the Higgs boson
(Phys.org) -- CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, will hold a seminar early in the morning on July 4 to announce the latest results from ATLAS and CMS, two major experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that are searching for the Higgs boson. Both experimental teams are working down to the wire to finish analyzing their data, and to determine exactly what can be said about what they've found.
National Geographic looking to respond to "alien" Wow! signal from 1977
(Phys.org) -- Back in 1977, on August 15, to be exact, a mysterious radio transmission was received by astronomers working at an Ohio State radio observatory. It lasted all of seventy two seconds, and was so unique that one of the impressed researchers, Jerry Ehman, scrawled the word “Wow!” on the printout, giving a name to the only such transmission every recorded. It’s never been heard again and scientists are still at a loss trying to explain its source. Now, to commemorate the anniversary of the reception of the Wow! transmission, the National Geographic Channel is sponsoring a Twitter messaging event that will result in Tweets from people from all walks of life having their messages combined into one giant Tweet back to those who may have sent us the Wow! message, perhaps inciting a similar response from beings somewhere out there beyond the edges of our ability to see them.
Rare case of gravitational lensing reported (Update)
(Phys.org) -- Seeing is believing, except when you don't believe what you see. Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a puzzling arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic grouping, discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was observed as it existed when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years.
Scientists twist light to send data
(Phys.org) -- A multi-national team led by USC with researchers hailing from the U.S., China, Pakistan and Israel has developed a system of transmitting data using twisted beams of light at ultra-high speeds – up to 2.56 terabits per second.
Glucose deprivation activates feedback loop that kills cancer cells: study
Compared to normal cells, cancer cells have a prodigious appetite for glucose, the result of a shift in cell metabolism known as aerobic glycolysis or the "Warburg effect." Researchers focusing on this effect as a possible target for cancer therapies have examined how biochemical signals present in cancer cells regulate the altered metabolic state.
Desert mystery
There’s a mystery in the Syrian desert shielded by the conflict tearing apart the Middle Eastern nation.
The toughest life on Earth
You can freeze it, thaw it, vacuum dry it and expose it to radiation but still life survives. ESA’s research on the International Space Station is giving credibility to theories that life came from outer space – as well as helping to create better suncreams. In 2008 scientists sent the suitcase-sized Expose-E experiment package to the Space Station filled with organic compounds and living organisms to test their reaction to outer space.
Space tornadoes power the atmosphere of the Sun
Mathematicians at the University of Sheffield, as part of an international team, have discovered tornadoes in space which could hold the key to power the atmosphere of the Sun to millions of kelvin.
Scientists struggle with mathematical details
(Phys.org) -- Scientists would like to believe that the popularity of new theories depends entirely on their scientific value, in terms of novelty, importance and technical correctness. But the Bristol study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, shows that scientists pay less attention to theories that are crammed with mathematical details.
Mystery of the flatfish head solved
Those delicious flatfishes, like halibut and sole, are also evolutionary puzzles. Their profoundly asymmetrical heads have one of the most unusual body plans among all backboned animals (vertebrates) but the evolution of their bizarre anatomy has long been a mystery. How did flatfishes, with both of their eyes on one side of their head, evolve? So puzzling was the anatomy of flounders and their kin that they were used in early arguments against Darwin and his theory of natural selection. Skeptics wondered how such unusual features could have slowly evolved whilst remaining advantageous for the fishes' survival.
Scientists developing pulsed nuclear fusion system for distant missions
(Phys.org) -- The ticket to Mars and beyond may be a series of nuclear slapshots that use magnetic pulses to slam nuclei into each other inside hockey pucks made of a special, lightweight salt.
Elephantnose fish's unique retina helps it see through mud
An international group of researchers has been studying the Peters’ elephantnose fish to try to find out how it can see in its murky habitat, and have discovered it has a unique system of crystal-lined cups within its retina.
Scientists find new primitive mineral in meteorite
In 1969, an exploding fireball tore through the sky over Mexico, scattering thousands of pieces of meteorite across the state of Chihuahua. More than 40 years later, the Allende meteorite is still serving the scientific community as a rich source of information about the early stages of our solar system's evolution. Recently, scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) discovered a new mineral embedded in the space rock—one they believe to be among the oldest minerals formed in the solar system.
US beaches laden with sewage, bacteria: study
US beaches can be dirty places, making about 3.5 million people sick each year from sewage in the water, said an annual study Wednesday that rates American beaches by how dirty they are.
US court upholds agency's global warming rules
(AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever U.S. regulations aimed at reducing the gases blamed for global warming, handing down perhaps the most significant decision on the issue since a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases could be controlled as air pollutants.
Explained: Near-miss asteroids (w/ Video)
On May 29, an asteroid the size of a bus came whizzing past Earth at 10 times the speed of a fired bullet. The near-miss asteroid, named 2012 KT42 — or “KT42” for short — streaked across the orbits of weather and television satellites, 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface, making it the sixth-closest asteroid approach on record. While the object had little chance of colliding with Earth, its approach gave scientists an opportunity to run a rapid-response program — or as MIT’s Richard Binzel calls it, an asteroid-tracking “fire drill” — to gain as much information as possible from the incoming space rock.
Ancient human ancestor Australopithecus sediba had unique diet: study
When it came to eating, an upright, 2-million-year-old African hominid had a diet unlike virtually all other known human ancestors, says a study led by the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and involving the University of Colorado Boulder.
Gas cloud will collide with our galaxy's black hole in 2013
Scientists have determined a giant gas cloud is on a collision course with the black hole in the center of our galaxy, and the two will be close enough by mid-2013 to provide a unique opportunity to observe how a super massive black hole sucks in material, in real time. This will give astronomers more information on how matter behaves near a black hole.
This email is a free service of Phys.org
You received this email because you subscribed to our list.
If you no longer want to receive this email use the link below to unsubscribe.
http://phys.org/profile/nwletter/
You are subscribed as jmabs1@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment