Science X Newsletter Week 01

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Here is your customized Science X Newsletter for week 01:

	Scientists engineer shortcut for photosynthetic glitch, boost crop growth by 40 percent Plants convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis; however, most crops on the planet are plagued by a photosynthetic glitch, and to deal with it, evolved an energy-expensive process called photorespiration that drastically suppresses their yield potential. Researchers from the University of Illinois and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report in the journal Science that crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.
	A mathematical approach for understanding intra-plant communication A team of researchers at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) and Istituto Italiano di Technologia (IIT) have devised a mathematical approach for understanding intra-plant communication. In their paper, pre-published on bioRxiv, they propose a fully coupled system of non-linear, non-autonomous discontinuous and ordinary differential equations that can accurately describe the adapting behavior and growth of a single plant, by analyzing the main stimuli affecting plant behavior.
	Physicists uncover new competing state of matter in superconducting material A team of experimentalists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and theoreticians at University of Alabama Birmingham discovered a remarkably long-lived new state of matter in an iron pnictide superconductor, which reveals a laser-induced formation of collective behaviors that compete with superconductivity.
	Dark matter on the move Scientists have found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around, as a result of star formation in galaxies. The findings provide the first observational evidence for the effect known as 'dark matter heating', and give new clues as to what makes up dark matter. The research is published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
	Researchers find bottom of Pacific getting colder, possibly due to Little Ice Age A pair of researchers, one with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the other Harvard University, has found evidence of deep ocean cooling that is likely due to the Little Ice Age. In their paper published in the journal Science, Jake Gebbie and Peter Huybers describe their study of Pacific Ocean temperatures over the past 150 years and what they found.
	Chinese rover powers up devices in pioneering moon mission All systems are go as a Chinese spacecraft and rover power up their observation equipment after making a first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, the Chinese National Space Administration said.
	How does the brain learn by talking to itself? Humans, like other animals, possess an enormous learning capacity that allows for the apprehension of new sensory information to master new skills or to adapt to an ever-changing environment. However, many of the mechanisms that enable people to learn remain poorly understood. One of the greatest challenges of systems neuroscience is to explain how synaptic connections change to support adaptive behaviours. Neuroscientists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, previously showed that synaptic learning mechanisms in the brain's cortex are dependent on feedback from deeper brain regions. They have now deciphered how this feedback gates synaptic strengthening by switching particular inhibitory neurons on and off. This study, published in Neuron, not only constitutes an important milestone in the understanding of the mechanisms for perceptual learning, but may also offer insight into computerized learning systems and artificial intelligence.
	China lunar probe sheds light on the 'dark' side of the moon China's burgeoning space program achieved a lunar milestone on Thursday: landing a probe on the mysterious and misnamed "dark" side of the moon.
	Study shows the Sahara swung between lush and desert conditions every 20,000 years, in sync with monsoon activity The Sahara desert is one of the harshest, most inhospitable places on the planet, covering much of North Africa in some 3.6 million square miles of rock and windswept dunes. But it wasn't always so desolate and parched. Primitive rock paintings and fossils excavated from the region suggest that the Sahara was once a relatively verdant oasis, where human settlements and a diversity of plants and animals thrived.
	Extraordinary treefrog discovered in the Andes of Ecuador A new treefrog species was discovered during a two-week expedition to a remote tabletop mountain at Cordillera del Cóndor, a largely unexplored range in the eastern Andes.
	Egg metabolites in blood related to lower risk of type 2 diabetes Consumption of one egg every day seems to associate with a blood metabolite profile that is related to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study conducted in the University of Eastern Finland shows. The findings were published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.
	Climate warming experiment finds unexpected results Tropical forests store about a third of Earth's carbon and about two-thirds of its above-ground biomass. Most climate change models predict that as the world warms, all of that biomass will decompose more quickly, which would send a lot more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But new research presented at the American Geophysical Union's 2018 Fall Meeting contradicts that theory.
	Study points to increased risk of harm from cannabis across Europe Cannabis resin and herbal cannabis have significantly increased in potency and in price, according to the first study to investigate changes in cannabis across Europe.
	Recurrent miscarriage linked to faulty sperm The early-stage study, from scientists at Imperial College London, investigated the sperm quality of 50 men whose partners had suffered three or more consecutive miscarriages.
	NASA: Icy object past Pluto looks like reddish snowman A NASA spacecraft 4 billion miles from Earth yielded its first close-up pictures Wednesday of the most distant celestial object ever explored, depicting what looks like a reddish snowman.
	Quantum chemistry on quantum computers Quantum computing and quantum information processing technology have attracted attention in recently emerging fields. Among many important and fundamental issues in science, solving the Schroedinger equation (SE) of atoms and molecules is one of the ultimate goals in chemistry, physics and their related fields. SE is the first principle of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, whose solutions, termed wave functions, can afford any information of electrons within atoms and molecules, predicting their physicochemical properties and chemical reactions.
	Catastrophic galactic collision could send Solar System flying into space New research led by astrophysicists at Durham University, UK, predicts that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could hit the Milky Way in two billion years' time.
	Juno mission captures images of volcanic plumes on Jupiter's moon Io A team of space scientists has captured new images of a volcanic plume on Jupiter's moon Io during the Juno mission's 17th flyby of the gas giant. On Dec. 21, during winter solstice, four of Juno's cameras captured images of the Jovian moon Io, the most volcanic body in our solar system. JunoCam, the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) and the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVS) observed Io for over an hour, providing a glimpse of the moon's polar regions as well as evidence of an active eruption.
	Archaeologists find Mexico temple to god of skinning sacrifices Archaeologists in Mexico have found the first temple to the pre-Hispanic deity Xipe Totec, a god of fertility and war who was worshipped by sacrificing and skinning captives.
	Melting ice sheets release tons of methane into the atmosphere, study finds The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought.

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