The EDGE: ScienceDaily Top Science Headlines -- for Saturday, June 2, 2012

ScienceDaily Top Science Headlines

for Saturday, June 2, 2012

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Plants previously thought to be 'stable' found to be responding to climate change (June 1, 2012) -- Many wild plant species thought to be "stable" in the face of climate change are actually responding to global warming, say researchers. ... > full story

Prototype device translates sign language (June 1, 2012) -- The hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language due to a new device. During the past semester, students in engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and prototype for MyVoice, a device that reads sign language and translates its motions into audible words. ... > full story

Alcohol may trigger serious palpitations in heart patients (June 1, 2012) -- The term “holiday heart syndrome” was coined in a 1978 study to describe patients with atrial fibrillation who experienced a common and potentially dangerous form of heart palpitation after excessive drinking, which can be common during the winter holiday season. The symptoms usually went away when the revelers stopped drinking. Now new research builds on that finding, establishing a stronger causal link between alcohol consumption and serious palpitations in patients with atrial fibrillation, the most common form of arrhythmia. ... > full story

Unmanned NASA storm sentinels set for hurricane study (June 1, 2012) -- Ah, June. It marks the end of school, the start of summer ... and the official start of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, which got off to an early start in May with the formation of Tropical Storms Alberto and Beryl. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters are calling for a near-normal hurricane season this year. But whether the season turns out to be wild or wimpy, understanding what makes these ferocious storms form and rapidly intensify is a continuing area of scientific research, and is the focus of the NASA-led Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission that kicks off this summer. ... > full story

Venus: Planetary portrait of inner beauty (June 1, 2012) -- A Venus transit across the face of the sun is a relatively rare event -- occurring in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. There have been all of 53 transits of Venus across the sun between 2000 B.C. and the last one in 2004. On Wednesday, June 6 (Tuesday, June 5 from the Western Hemisphere), Earth gets another shot at it -- and the last for a good long while. But beyond this uniquely celestial oddity, why has Venus been an object worthy of ogling for hundreds of centuries? ... > full story

Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus provides a new kind of plasma laboratory (June 1, 2012) -- Recent findings from NASA's Cassini mission reveal that Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus provides a special laboratory for watching unusual behavior of plasma, or hot ionized gas. In these recent findings, some Cassini scientists think they have observed "dusty plasma," a condition theorized but not previously observed on site, near Enceladus. Data from Cassini's fields and particles instruments also show that the usual "heavy" and "light" species of charged particles in normal plasma are actually reversed near the plume spraying from the moon's south polar region. ... > full story

Sierra Nevada 200-year megadroughts confirmed (June 1, 2012) -- The culmination of a comprehensive high-tech assessment of Fallen Leaf Lake -- a small moraine-bound lake at the south end of the Lake Tahoe Basin -- shows that stands of pre-Medieval trees in the lake suggest the region experienced severe drought at least every 650 to 1,150 years during the mid- and late-Holocene period. ... > full story

New compound could become 'cool blue' for energy efficiency in buildings (June 1, 2012) -- A new type of durable, environmentally-benign blue pigment has also been found to have unusual characteristics in reflecting heat -- it's a "cool blue" compound that could become important in new approaches to saving energy in buildings. ... > full story

Some butterfly species particularly vulnerable to climate change (June 1, 2012) -- A recent study of the impact of climate change on butterflies suggests that some species might adapt much better than others, with implications for the pollination and herbivory associated with these and other insect species. ... > full story

Unique approach to materials allows temperature-stable circuits (June 1, 2012) -- Scientists have developed a unique materials approach to multilayered, ceramic-based, 3-D microelectronics circuits, such as those used in cell phones. The approach compensates for how changes due to temperature fluctuations affect something called the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency, a critical property of materials used in radio and microwave frequency applications. ... > full story

Quantum computers will be able to simulate particle collisions (June 1, 2012) -- Quantum computers are still years away, but a trio of theoretical physicists can already make the claim "there's an app for that." The theorists have developed a mathematical algorithm that will be used by a future quantum computer to study the inner workings of the universe in ways that are far beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputers. ... > full story

Plate tectonics cannot explain dynamics of Earth and crust formation more than three billion years ago (June 1, 2012) -- The current theory of continental drift provides a good model for understanding terrestrial processes through history. However, while plate tectonics is able to successfully shed light on processes up to three billion years ago, the theory isn't sufficient in explaining the dynamics of Earth and crust formation before that point and through to the earliest formation of planet, some 4.6 billion years ago. ... > full story