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Here is your customized PHYSorg.com Newsletter for September 24, 2010:
PhysOrg.com is the official media sponsor of the 25th Anniversary of the Buckyball Disovery
Rice University is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Buckminsterfullerene Discovery presented by Lockheed Martin on October 10-14, 2010. Starting Monday, October 11, the Smalley Institute is hosting the Buckyball Discovery Conference. The first session Monday morning is a fireside chat with the buckyball discovery team including Nobel Laureates Robert Curl and Harold Kroto and then students Jim Heath and Sean O'Brien. You can get more details and register for the various events at http://buckyball.smalley.rice.edu or contact us at nanoevent@rice.edu
Spotlight Stories Headlines
- New ultracapacitor recharges in under a millisecond- Quantum physicists turn waste heat into power
- World's smallest animation character shot with smartphone camera and microscope (w/ Video)
- Leaf-like solar cells: Water-based 'artificial leaf' produces electricity
- Can't focus? Maybe it's the wrong time of month
- Longest dinosaur thigh bone in Europe found in Spain
- Glitch delays space station crew's return to Earth (Update)
- Destroyer of worlds
- Melanoma uses body's immune system to spread to lungs
- Researchers discover genetic clues to evolution of jaws in vertebrates
- Cassini captures new views of Saturn's aurora (w/ Video)
- Stomach-churning experiment not for the faint of heart
- CarTel project researching cars as mobile sensors
- New kind of fuel cell delivers energy and fine chemicals with no waste from renewable raw materials
- Flash for phones not quite up to snuff
Space & Earth news
Imagination Station to offer NASA's New Views of the Universe exhibition
NASA's traveling museum exhibition, New Views of the Universe, featuring the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, opens at Imagination Station museum in Toledo this Friday, Sept. 24.
Deforestation prevented, in part, by democracy: study
Democratic countries suffer less from deforestation. That seems logical enough. But forests also do well under a strong dictatorship. This remarkable conclusion was reached by Wageningen environmental scientists.
UK's shipping emissions 6 times higher than expected, says new report
As the shipping industry's emissions are predicted to continue to grow in the future, the UK will fail to meet its commitment to avoid dangerous climate change if additional cuts are not made to other sectors.
Glitch delays space station crew's return to Earth (Update)
The Soyuz capsule failed Friday to undock for the first time in a decade of flights to the International Space Station, forcing three crew members to remain an extra day in orbit.
Cassini captures new views of Saturn's aurora (w/ Video)
A new movie and images showing Saturn's shimmering aurora over a two-day period are helping scientists understand what drives some of the solar system's most impressive light shows.
Destroyer of worlds
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers, in addition to discovering extrasolar planets (about 500 of them currently have known orbital parameters), have detected excess, warm infrared dust emission around many stars.
Technology news
Industry's smallest photointerrupter to be introduced by Sharp
Sharp Corporation has developed and will introduce the industry's smallest photointerrupter, the GP1S396HCPSF, measuring just 2.26 × 1.4 × 1.6 H mm.
Facebook is up after glitchy afternoon
(AP) -- A technical glitch blocked or slowed access to Facebook for several hours Thursday, unplugging many of the social-networking site's 500 million users from the constant flow of updates from their friends.
Apple tops PetroChina in market capitalization
Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod, iPhone and iPad, surpassed Chinese oil giant PetroChina during trading on Thursday to become the world's second-largest company in terms of market value.
US reviewing ways to fight cyber attacks: general
The White House is looking at boosting the authority of the US military and other agencies to protect the country's infrastructure from possible cyber attack, a top general said Thursday.
Software smart bomb fired at Iranian nuclear plant: experts
Computer security experts are studying a scary new cyber weapon: a software smart bomb that may have been crafted to find and sabotage a nuclear facility in Iran.
Japan to pilot digital textbooks in classrooms
Japan will soon start trialling electronic textbooks in primary schools, enhancing the role of IT in the classroom for a generation of "digital natives" born in the wired age.
Hollywood sounds alarm on streaming piracy
University of Southern California student Elizabeth watched the season finale of HBO's lusty vampire drama "True Blood" along with about 5.4 million television viewers.
India's fraud-hit Satyam seeks delisting from NYSE
India's fraud-hit software firm Satyam Computers said on Friday it plans to delist from the New York stock exchange as it may not be able to meet the US deadline to file restated financial accounts.
Biometric ID technologies 'inherently fallible', new report says
Biometric systems -- designed to automatically recognize individuals based on biological and behavioral traits such as fingerprints, palm prints, or voice or face recognition -- are "inherently fallible," says a new report by the National Research Council, and no single trait has been identified that is stable and distinctive across all groups. To strengthen the science and improve system effectiveness, additional research is needed at virtually all levels of design and operation.
Social media users 50 and older are fastest-growing Web demographic
Awash in jargon -- "wall," "news feed," "tags," "defriend" -- social media can be intimidating for baby boomers and seniors who have spent most of their lives comfortably in an analog world.
As Android challenges smart-phone rivals, consumers benefit
The country is in the midst of an Android invasion, and there's no sign of it slowing down.
Flash for phones not quite up to snuff
At long last, Adobe's Flash Player is making its way out to modern smart phones. But consumers who have been itching to get Flash content on their phones may find themselves disappointed.
CarTel project researching cars as mobile sensors
Data about road and traffic conditions can come from radio stations' helicopters, the Department of Transportation's roadside sensors, or even, these days, updates from ordinary people with cell phones. But all of these approaches have limitations: Helicopters are costly to deploy and can observe only so many roads at once, and it could take a while for the effects of congestion to spread far enough that a road sensor will detect them.
World's smallest animation character shot with smartphone camera and microscope (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The title character in a 90-second film called "Dot" has broken the Guinness World Record for being the smallest stop-motion animation character in a film. The 9-mm-tall Dot (whose head is about the size of the tip of a pencil) is a young girl who wakes up in a magical world to find that the flannel shirt she has been sleeping on has begun to unravel. As loose threads threaten to swallow her up, she runs across tiny objects including coins, pencil shavings, and heads of pins to escape.
Medicine & Health news
Amgen recalls anemia drugs due to glass flakes
(AP) -- Amgen Inc. is recalling some lots of its Epogen and Procrit anemia treatments because they may contain glass flakes.
Study of bloodstream infections reveals inconsistent surveillance methods and reporting
A new study looking at how hospitals account for the number of pediatric patients who develop catheter-associated bloodstream infections (CA-BSIs) found substantial inconsistencies in the methods used to report the number of patients who develop these infections.
New invention could improve treatment for children with 'water on the brain'
Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) scientists participated in a study with researchers from the University of Utah that could help find ways to improve shunt systems used to treat the neurological disorder hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain," the leading cause of brain surgery for children in the United States. Researchers studied the shunt systems under a variety of conditions by creating a bioreactor that mimics the environment inside patients.
A new approach to medicine
(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Connecticut researchers are exploring how to take a patient's own cells, re-engineer them, and replace them in the body.
Vanderbilt cardiology team sets the rhythm of heart walk with youTube video
(PhysOrg.com) -- Keeping the beat has new meaning for Vanderbilt cardiologist, Mark Glazer, M.D., who, along with colleagues from the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute, has produced a music video to promote the American Heart Association's Heart Walk, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 2.
With MRSA more common outside of hospital, prevention is key
It used to be known as the bacteria you contracted after being admitted to the hospital.
Research team fully maps human proteome
A Swiss research team from ETH Zurich, led by Professor Ruedi Aebersold, and from the Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, has used mass spectroscopy methods to fully map the human proteome for the first time. The data is being made available to all researchers.
Malaria's newest pathway into human cells identified
Development of an effective vaccine for malaria is a step closer following identification of a key pathway used by the malaria parasite to infect human cells. The discovery, by researchers at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia, provides a new vaccine target through which infection with the deadly disease could be prevented.
Phantom limbs more common than previously thought
After the loss of a limb, most patients experience the feeling of a phantom limb - the vivid illusion that the amputated arm or leg is still present. Damage to the nervous system, such as stroke, may cause similar illusions in weakened limbs, whereby an arm or leg may feel as if it is in a completely different position or may even feel as if it is moving when it is not. Cases of phantom limbs in non-amputees have previously been considered rare events, but a new study published in the October 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex reports that more than half of patients recovering from stroke may in fact experience phantom limb sensations.
Video gaming prepares brain for bigger tasks
Playing video games for hours on end may prepare your child to become a laparoscopic surgeon one day, a new study has shown. Reorganisation of the brain's cortical network in young men with significant experience playing video games gives them an advantage not only in playing the games but also in performing other tasks requiring visuomotor skills. The findings are published in the October 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex.
Disparities in heart attack treatment may begin in the emergency room
The well-documented disparities in cardiac care may begin almost as soon as patients arrive at hospital emergency rooms. In a study published in Academic Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report that African-American and Hispanic patients assessed for chest pain were less likely than white patients to be categorized as requiring immediate care, despite a lack of significant differences in symptoms. Such practices directly violate American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines specifying immediate electrocardiogram (ECG) examination for any patient with chest pain.
Stress can control our genes
Stress has become one of the major disease states in the developed world. But what is stress? It depends on from where you look. You may experience stress as something that affects your entire body and mind, the causes of which are plentiful. But if we zoom in on the building bricks of the body, our cells, stress and its causes are defined somewhat differently. Stress can arise at the cellular level after exposure to pollution, tobacco smoke, bacterial toxins etc, where stressed cells have to react to survive and maintain their normal function. In worst case scenario, cellular stress can lead to development of disease.
National study: Abortion does not cause depression or low self-esteem in adolescents
A new study has determined that teenagers who have abortions are no more likely to become depressed or have low self-esteem than their peers whose pregnancies do not end in abortion.
Entirely new drug for Alzheimer's now being tested on patients
An entirely new type of pharmaceutical substance for Alzheimer's disease developed by Uppsala scientists is now starting to be clinically tested in the US. It attacks the early stage of the protein filaments that cause the disorder, so-called protofibrills.
Moving closer to outdoor recreation not a recipe for being more physically active
You'd think that people choosing to live near to outdoor recreation amenities would have a lower body mass index or BMI thanks to an increase in all that healthy outdoor activity right on one's doorstep. Yet a new University of Alberta study looking at the relationship between reasons for choosing a neighbourhood to live in, physical activity and BMI, shows that's simply not the case.
Surgery can lead to long-term reduction in stroke risk
(PhysOrg.com) -- Successful surgery for narrowed arteries in the neck halves the risk of having a stroke over the next 5 years, and benefit persists for at least 10 years, an Oxford-led study has shown.
Stomach-churning experiment not for the faint of heart
(PhysOrg.com) -- If someone is sick next to you on the bus, you'll probably feel disgusted, your stomach will turn and you will start to feel sick as well. But is your stomach churning because you feel disgusted, or is your sense of disgust caused by your stomach churning?
Can't focus? Maybe it's the wrong time of month
Feeling a little sluggish and having trouble concentrating? Hormones might be to blame according to new research from Concordia University published in the journal Brain and Cognition. The study shows that high estrogen levels are associated with an inability to pay attention and learn - the first such paper to report how this impediment can be due to a direct effect of the hormone on mature brain structures.
Melanoma uses body's immune system to spread to lungs
(PhysOrg.com) -- The way melanoma cells use the immune system to spread and develop into lung tumors may lead to a therapy to decrease development of these tumors, according to Penn State researchers.
Researchers create first molecule blocks key component of cancer genes' on-off switch
In the quest to arrest the growth and spread of tumors, there have been many attempts to get cancer genes to ignore their internal instruction manual. In a new study, a team led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists has created the first molecule able to prevent cancer genes from "hearing" those instructions, stifling the cancer process at its root.
Biology news
Building a digital library for life on Earth
The largest biodiversity genomics initiative ever undertaken - an international effort to build a digital identification system for all life on Earth - will be officially activated this week.
Scientists release first cultivated ohelo berry for Hawaii
The first cultivar of 'ohelo berry, a popular native Hawaiian fruit, has been released by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their university and industry cooperators.
Withering well can improve fertility
Contrary to a thousand face cream adverts, the secret of fertility might not be eternal youth. Research by the ecologist Dr. Carlos Herrera, a Professor of Research at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Seville, Spain has shown that the withering action of flowers may have evolved to protect their seeds. His research is published in the October 2010 issue of the Annals of Botany.
Wayward turtle gets TLC from wildlife vets
A female green sea turtle is being cared for at the Massey University's Wildlife Health Center in New Zealand after being found on Otaki Beach.
BASF says it has uncovered cause of Swedish potato mix-up
Chemical giant BASF said Friday it had found the cause of a co-mingling of seeds from two strains of GM potatoes in Sweden and pledged to take steps against a recurrence.
Scientists look at deodorant for New Zealand's smelly birds
Scientists say they are hoping to develop a deodorant for New Zealand's native birds to stop them falling prey to introduced predators.
Researchers discover genetic clues to evolution of jaws in vertebrates
(PhysOrg.com) -- A half-billion years ago, vertebrates lacked the ability to chew their food. They did not have jaws. Instead, their heads consisted of a flexible, fused basket of cartilage.
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