Science X Newsletter Week 46

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Here is your customized Science X Newsletter for week 46:

	The mathematics of coffee extraction: Searching for the ideal brew Composed of over 1,800 chemical components, coffee is one of the most widely-consumed drinks in the world. The seeds (coffee beans) from the plant of the same name are roasted and ground, allowing a flow of hot water to extract their soluble content. Undissolved solids are filtered from the dissolved particles, and the resulting liquid becomes the concoction that much of the population drinks every day.
	Cough virus kills liver cancer cells and hepatitis virus A virus that causes childhood coughs and colds could help in the fight against primary liver cancer, according to a study.
	Distant star is roundest object ever observed in nature Stars are not perfect spheres. While they rotate, they become flat due to the centrifugal force. A team of researchers around Laurent Gizon from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen has now succeeded in measuring the oblateness of a slowly rotating star with unprecedented precision. The researchers have determined stellar oblateness using asteroseismology - the study of the oscillations of stars. The technique is applied to a star 5000 light years away from Earth and revealed that the difference between the equatorial and polar radii of the star is only 3 kilometers - a number that is astonishing small compared to the star's mean radius of 1.5 million kilometers; which means that the gas sphere is astonishingly round.
	NASA finds unusual origins of high-energy electrons High above the surface, Earth's magnetic field constantly deflects incoming supersonic particles from the sun. These particles are disturbed in regions just outside of Earth's magnetic field - and some are reflected into a turbulent region called the foreshock. New observations from NASA's THEMIS mission show that this turbulent region can accelerate electrons up to speeds approaching the speed of light. Such extremely fast particles have been observed in near-Earth space and many other places in the universe, but the mechanisms that accelerate them have not yet been concretely understood.
	Google, Facebook take aim at 'fake' news (Update) Google and Facebook moved Tuesday to cut off advertising revenue to fake news sites, after a wave of criticism over the role misinformation played in the US presidential election.
	Neurons in the human eye are organized for error correction Neurons found in the human eye naturally display a form of error correction in the collective visual signals they send to the brain, according to a new study in PLOS Computational Biology.
	Scientists tweak photosynthesis to boost crop yield Researchers report in the journal Science that they can increase plant productivity by boosting levels of three proteins involved in photosynthesis. In field trials, the scientists saw increases of 14 percent to 20 percent in the productivity of their modified tobacco plants. The work confirms that photosynthesis can be made more efficient to increase plant yield, a hypothesis some in the scientific community once doubted was possible.
	Slow motion waves of jumping genes in the human genome Nature is full of parasites—organisms that flourish and proliferate at the expense of another species. Surprisingly, these same competing roles of parasite and host can be found in the microscopic molecular world of the cell. A new study by two Illinois researchers has demonstrated that dynamic elements within the human genome interact with each other in a way that strongly resembles the patterns seen in populations of predators and prey.
	Data from New Horizons mission suggest a water-ice ocean lies beneath Pluto's heart-shaped basin Beneath Pluto's "heart" lies a cold, slushy ocean of water ice, according to data from NASA's New Horizons mission. In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the New Horizons team, including researchers from MIT, reports that the dwarf planet's most prominent surface feature—a heart-shaped region named Tombaugh Regio—may harbor a bulging, viscous, liquid ocean just below its surface.
	Quantum dot LEDs that can produce entangled photons Quantum computing is heralded as the next revolution in terms of global computing. Google, Intel and IBM are just some of the big names investing millions currently in the field of quantum computing which will enable faster, more efficient computing required to power the requirements of our future computing needs.
	World's fastest quantum simulator operating at the atomic level Kenji Ohmori (Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan) and a group of collaborators have developed the world's fastest simulator for the quantum mechanical dynamics of a large number of particles interacting with each other within one billionths of a second.
	Scientists discover a nearby superearth Ph.D. student Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), and his thesis director, Rafael Rebolo and Jonay Isaí González Hernández, have discovered a "superearth"-type planet, GJ 536 b, whose mass is around 5.4 Earth masses, in orbit around a nearby very bright star. The study has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics; researchers from several countries are involved.
	Owl-inspired wing design reduces wind turbine noise by 10 decibels Many species of owl are able to hunt in effective silence by suppressing their noise at sound frequencies above 1.6 kilohertz (kHz) - over the range that can be heard by humans.
	Controlling electrons in time and space In an electron microscope, electrons are emitted by pointy metal tips, so they can be steered and controlled with high precision. Recently, such metal tips have also been used as high precision electron sources for generating X-rays. A team of researchers at TU Wien (Vienna), together with colleagues from the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), have developed a method of controlling electron emissions with higher precision than ever before. With the help of two laser pulses, it is now possible to switch the flow of electrons on and off on extremely short time scales.
	Cannabinoids control memory through mitochondria (Medical Xpress)—Few classes of drugs have galvanized the pharmaceutical industry in recent times like the cannabinoids. This class of molecules includes not only the natural forms, but also a vast new treasury of powerful synthetic analogs with up to several hundred times the potency as measured by receptor activity and binding affinity. With the FDA now fast tracking all manner of injectables, topicals, and sprays promising everything from relief of nebulous cancer pain to anti-seizure neuroprotection, more than a few skeptics have been generated.
	New AI algorithm taught by humans learns beyond its training "Hey Siri, how's my hair?" Your smartphone may soon be able to give you an honest answer, thanks to a new machine learning algorithm designed by U of T Engineering researchers Parham Aarabi and Wenzhi Guo.
	Chinese group injects CRISPR edited cells into human test subject for first time (Phys.org)—A team of researchers working at West China Hospital in Chengdu has for the first time injected CRISPR–Cas9 edited cells into a human test subject. Nature reports that the procedure occurred on October 28, and that thus far, the patient is doing "fine."
	X-ray laser gets first real-time snapshots of a chemical flipping a biological switch Scientists have used the powerful X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to make the first snapshots of a chemical interaction between two biomolecules - one that flips an RNA "switch" that regulates production of proteins, the workhorse molecules of life.
	New study explains mysterious source of greenhouse gas methane in the ocean For decades, marine chemists have faced an elusive paradox. The surface waters of the world's oceans are supersaturated with the greenhouse gas methane, yet most species of microbes that can generate the gas can't survive in oxygen-rich surface waters. So where exactly does all the methane come from? This longstanding riddle, known as the "marine methane paradox," may have finally been cracked thanks to a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
	Team discovers major supercluster of galaxies hidden by Milky Way An international team of astronomers has discovered a previously unknown major concentration of galaxies in the constellation Vela, which they have dubbed the Vela supercluster. The gravitational attraction from this large mass concentration in our cosmic neighbourhood may have an important effect on the motion of our Local Group of galaxies including the Milky Way. It may also help to explain the direction and amplitude of the Local Group's peculiar velocity with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background.

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