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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 01:
Telecommunications expert suggests Earth may have dark matter disc
Ben Harris, a telecommunications and GPS satellite expert with the University of Texas has made a surprising announcement during his presentation at this year's gathering for the American Geophysical Union. He reported that using GPS data to calculate the mass of the Earth, gives a slightly bigger number than is accepted by the International Astronomical Union. The difference, he suggests, may be due to a disc of dark matter that exists over the equator.
Researchers find simple, cheap way to increase solar cell efficiency
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found an easy way to modify the molecular structure of a polymer commonly used in solar cells. Their modification can increase solar cell efficiency by more than 30 percent.
Methane hydrates and global warming
Methane hydrates are fragile. At the sea floor the ice-like solid fuel composed of water and methane is only stable at high pressure and low temperature. In some areas, for instance in the North Atlantic off the coast of Svalbard, scientists have detected gas flares regularly. The reasons for their occurrence were still unclear but one hypothesis was that global warming might cause the dissolution of gas hydrates. Over the past years, comprehensive investigations by an international team of researchers led by scientists from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have now shown that it is very likely that the gas flares are caused by natural processes.
Turning off the 'aging genes'
Restricting calorie consumption is one of the few proven ways to combat aging. Though the underlying mechanism is unknown, calorie restriction has been shown to prolong lifespan in yeast, worms, flies, monkeys, and, in some studies, humans.
A third of Americans don't believe in evolution
One third of Americans utterly reject the theory of evolution and believe instead that humans "have existed in their present form since the beginning of time," a new survey has found.
Researchers find dogs sensitive to small variations in Earth's magnetic field
A team of researchers in the Czech Republic has found that dogs can now be added to the list of animals that are able to sense and respond to the Earth's magnetic field. In their paper published in Frontiers in Zooology, the researchers describe field experiments they conducted that indicated that dogs prefer to defecate while in a North-South stance relative to the Earth's axis, during times when the magnetic field is calm.
Pulsar in stellar triple system makes unique gravitational laboratory
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a unique stellar system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense neutron star, all packed within a space smaller than Earth's orbit around the Sun. The closeness of the stars, combined with their nature, has allowed the scientists to make the best measurements yet of the complex gravitational interactions in such a system.
Private american rockets blast open 2014 & commercial space race with big bangs on jan. 6 & 7
The status quo in space flight operations is no more. Private American rockets are leading the charge of overdue change into the innovative 'Commercial Space Race' by blasting 2014 open with a pair of 'Big Bang fireworks' just a day apart on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7.
Michigan researchers hunt for Internet remnants from time travelers
Time travel has captured the public imagination for decades, not excluding screenwriters and creative writing instructors who encourage creative leaps about stepping back and beyond the present through time. What about evidence?
What can slime molds offer computing?
Slime molds may not have brains, but that isn't preventing some computer scientists from investigating them for their potential as novel, unconventional computers. A slime mold consists of a single cell containing millions of nuclei, and forms a network of protoplasmic tubes to move toward its food source along nearly the shortest paths. Since the challenge of finding the shortest path between two points is a much studied problem in computing, with applications in communication networks, robot path planning, and optimization, slime molds may hold some untapped potential for these areas.
Tomb of ancient Egyptian beer brewer unearthed
(AP)�Egypt's minister of antiquities says Japanese archeologists have unearthed the tomb of an ancient beer brewer in the city of Luxor that is more than 3,000 years old.
Plant used in Chinese medicine fights chronic pain
A plant used for centuries as a pain reliever in Chinese medicine may be just what the doctor ordered, especially when it comes to chronic pain. A key pain-relieving ingredient is a compound known as dehydrocorybulbine (DHCB) found in the roots of the flowering plant Corydalis, a member of the poppy family, according to researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 2.
30C3: SD card tricks can deliver MITM attacks
(Phys.org) �This year's 30th Chaos Communication Congress (30C3) in Hamburg from December 27 to December 30 carried numerous informative presentations, including a reverse-engineering story about SD cards, which two investigators explored for malware potential. The presenters were identified as "bunnie" and "xobs," taking center-stage to discuss their work. The presentation was titled " The Exploration and Exploitation of an SD Memory Card." (SD cards are the small flash-memory cards used to store data on phones, digital cameras and other portable devices.) As Gizmodo put it, "the next time you plug in an SD card, just remember that it's actually a tiny computer of its own." In short, some cards' embedded microcontrollers can be exploited. The two found that some SD cards contain vulnerabilities that allow arbitrary code execution�on the memory card itself. They talked about reverse-engineering and loading code into the microcontroller within a SD memory card.
How mass extinctions drove the evolution of dinosaurs
For 20 privileged Victorians, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins held a lavish New Year's dinner party in 1853 inside a model of a dinosaur that was created for the Great Exhibition held two years earlier. Hawkins's models, which still stand in Crystal Palace Park in London, were the first life reconstructions of dinosaurs. They gripped the public imagination, and dinosaurs have never left it since.
Supercomputers join search for 'cheapium'
In the search for cheaper materials that mimic their purer, more expensive counterparts, researchers are abandoning hunches and intuition for theoretical models and pure computing power.
Florida space center home to secret spacecraft
(AP)�Kennedy Space Center will be the testing site for a top-secret Air Force space plane.
Genetically identical bacteria can behave in radically different ways
Although a population of bacteria may be genetically identical, individual bacteria within that population can act in radically different ways. bacterial cells split
Novel noninvasive therapy prevents breast cancer formation in mice
A novel breast-cancer therapy that partially reverses the cancerous state in cultured breast tumor cells and prevents cancer development in mice, could one day provide a new way to treat early stages of the disease without resorting to surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, a multi-institutional team led by researchers from the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported January 1 in Science Translational Medicine.
Space science stories to watch in 2014
There's an old Chinese proverb that says, "May you live in interesting times," and 2013 certainly fit the bill in the world of spaceflight and space science. The past year saw spacecraft depart for Mars, China land a rover on the Moon, and drama in low Earth orbit to repair the International Space Station. And all of this occurred against a landscape of dwindling budgets, government shutdowns that threatened launches and scientific research, and ongoing sequestration.
Money talks when ancient Antioch meets Google Earth (w/ Video)
There's a map of an ancient Syrian trade route that shows how one city's political sway extended farther than once thought.
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