Science X Newsletter Week 10

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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 10:

	Newly discovered bacteria can eat plastic bottles A team of Japanese scientists has found a species of bacteria that eats the type of plastic found in most disposable water bottles.
	Scientists surprised to find that amino acids, not sugar, supply most building blocks for tumor cells Cancer cells are notorious for their ability to divide uncontrollably and generate hordes of new tumor cells. Most of the fuel consumed by these rapidly proliferating cells is glucose, a type of sugar.
	Engineers develop flexible skin that traps radar waves, cloaks objects Iowa State University engineers have developed a new flexible, stretchable and tunable "meta-skin" that uses rows of small, liquid-metal devices to cloak an object from the sharp eyes of radar.
	Australia's 'ugly' animals attract less study Koalas and kangaroos are subject to more scientific study than Australia's twitching rodents and bats, according to new research which finds 'ugly' animals attract less funding and investigation.
	Game over! Computer wins series against Go champion (Update) A Google-developed computer programme won its best-of-five match-up with a South Korean Go grandmaster on Saturday, taking an unassailable 3-0 lead to score a major victory for a new style of "intuitive" artificial intelligence (AI).
	Down the rabbit hole: How electrons travel through exotic new material Researchers at Princeton University have observed a bizarre behavior in a strange new crystal that could hold the key for future electronic technologies. Unlike most materials in which electrons travel on the surface, in these new materials the electrons sink into the depths of the crystal through special conductive channels.
	Scientists make renewable plastic from carbon dioxide and plants Stanford scientists have discovered a novel way to make plastic from carbon dioxide (CO2) and inedible plant material, such as agricultural waste and grasses. Researchers say the new technology could provide a low-carbon alternative to plastic bottles and other items currently made from petroleum.
	Syntax is not unique to human language Human communication is powered by rules for combining words to generate novel meanings. Such syntactical rules have long been assumed to be unique humans. A new study, published in Nature Communications, show that Japanese great tits combine their calls using specific rules to communicate important compound messages. These results demonstrate that syntax is not unique to humans. Instead, syntax may be a general adaptation to social and behavioural complexity in communication systems.
	Experiment shows magnetic chips could dramatically increase computing's energy efficiency In a breakthrough for energy-efficient computing, engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown for the first time that magnetic chips can operate with the lowest fundamental level of energy dissipation possible under the laws of thermodynamics.
	57 different pesticides found in poisoned honeybees European honeybees are being poisoned with up to 57 different pesticides, according to new research published in the Journal of Chromatography A. A new method for detecting a whole range of pesticides in bees could help unravel the mystery behind the widespread decline of honeybees in recent years, and help develop an approach to saving them.
	Surgical tools made smaller with origami to make surgery less invasive Brigham Young University mechanical engineering professors Larry Howell and Spencer Magleby have made a name for themselves by applying the principles of origami to engineering. Now they're applying their origami skills to a new realm: the human body.
	Death by gamma-ray bursts may place first lower bound on the cosmological constant (Phys.org)—Sometimes when a star collapses into a supernova, it releases an intense, narrow beam of gamma rays. Gamma-ray bursts often last just a few seconds, but during that time they can release as much energy as the Sun will produce in its entire lifetime, making gamma-ray bursts the most powerful explosions ever observed in the universe. They are so intense that, if pointed at the Earth from even the most distant edge of our galaxy, they could easily cause a mass extinction, possibly obliterating all life on the planet. It's thought that a gamma-ray burst may have caused the Ordovician extinction around 440 million years ago, which wiped out 85% of all species at the time.
	Competition favours shy tits Different personalities are maintained in the wild mainly because of changes in density. This is what researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen and colleagues of the University Groningen found out for great tits. During four years, they observed that slow explorers are more likely to survive if intraspecific competition increases due to an increase of density in a population. But although individuals are able to anticipate future breeding densities, they are amazingly bad in adjusting their exploratory behavior and therefore their chance to survive: Instead of slowing down, birds increased their speed of exploration when facing increases in density between years.
	Revolutionary graphene filter could solve water crisis A new type of graphene-based filter could be the key to managing the global water crisis, a study has revealed. The new graphene filter, which has been developed by Monash University and the University of Kentucky, allows water and other liquids to be filtered nine times faster than the current leading commercial filter.
	Spray-on coating could ice-proof airplanes, power lines, windshields On your car windshield, ice is a nuisance. But on an airplane, a wind turbine, an oil rig or power line, it can be downright dangerous. And removing it with the methods that are available today—usually chemical melting agents or labor-intensive scrapers and hammers—is difficult and expensive work.
	Clocking the rotation rate of a supermassive black hole A recent observational campaign involving more than two dozen optical telescopes and NASA's space based SWIFT X-ray telescope allowed a team of astronomers to measure very accurately the rotational rate of one of the most massive black holes in the universe. The rotational rate of this massive black hole is one third of the maximum spin rate allowed in General Relativity. This 18 billion solar mass heavy black hole powers a quasar called OJ287 which lies about 3.5 billion light years away from Earth. Quasi-stellar radio sources or `quasars' for short, are the very bright centers of distant galaxies which emit huge amounts of electro-magnetic radiation due to the infall of matter into their massive black holes.
	World's oldest chameleon found in amber fossil About 100 million years ago an infant lizard's life was cut short when it crawled into a sticky situation.
	New fuel cell design powered by graphene-wrapped nanocrystals Hydrogen is the lightest and most plentiful element on Earth and in our universe. So it shouldn't be a big surprise that scientists are pursuing hydrogen as a clean, carbon-free, virtually limitless energy source for cars and for a range of other uses, from portable generators to telecommunications towers—with water as the only byproduct of combustion.
	Potential Western Atlantic spawning area found for Atlantic bluefin tuna Scientists from NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) and the University of Massachusetts Boston have found evidence of Atlantic bluefin tuna spawning activity off the northeastern United States in an area of open ocean south of New England and east of the Mid-Atlantic states called the Slope Sea.
	Functional heart muscle regenerated in decellularized human hearts Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have taken some initial steps toward the creation of bioengineered human hearts using donor hearts stripped of components that would generate an immune response and cardiac muscle cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which could come from a potential recipient. The investigators described their accomplishments - which include developing an automated bioreactor system capable of supporting a whole human heart during the recellularization process—earlier this year in Circulation Research.

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