News in Brief: Body & Brain

One defense against diarrhea and early hints of diabetes in obese children in this week’s newsWeb edition : Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Body’s diarrhea defense
The body has a biological mechanism tailor-made to fend off infections by Clostridium difficile, a bacterium responsible for many hospital-acquired diarrheal infections. Reporting online August 21 in Nature Medicine, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and colleagues from other institutions show that a compound called S-nitrosoglutathione can bind to toxins secreted by the microbe and neutralize them before they damage cells. Increased levels of S-nitrosoglutathione in the guts of mice protected them from C. difficile, the researchers report. —Nathan Seppa

Third graders en route to adult disease
Obese but apparently healthy children 7 to 9 years old were twice as likely to be insulin resistant (a hallmark of impending diabetes) as were normal weight children their age, a team of scientists from U.S. universities finds. The scientists compared a range of features characterizing the blood, vascular health and fat-processing in 123 children. A whole host of prediabetes and pre-heart disease changes were evident in the obese youngsters. These children also were beginning to store fat outside of normal sites, the researchers report online August 25 in Obesity. The results “highlight the importance of interventions to prevent and manage obesity” very early in life. —Janet Raloff

Found in: Body & Brain

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News in Brief: Molecules

Tracking the source of wines’ deep reds, fish oil goes to the brain and more in this week’s news. Web edition : Sunday, September 4th, 2011

Red, red wine
Scientists can now tell whether a glass of deep red vino acquires its color from grapes or rice. Deep reds can attract a higher price and winemakers will sometimes blend wines with Rossissimo, a wine that’s extra rich in red pigment. In some markets pigments extracted from black rice are also used as “correctors,” but in Italy this practice is frowned upon. Reporting in the Sept. 9 Analytica Chimica Acta, Italian researchers report that high-end spectroscopic techniques can discern rice red from Rossissimo red. —Rachel Ehrenberg

Omega-3s down, suicide risk up
The heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oils might also help keep the head healthy. A new study finds that U.S. military personnel who were at high risk for suicide also had low levels of DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid, the major omega-3 used by the brain. The study does not establish cause and effect, but it adds to a growing body of evidence linking low levels of omega-3s with mood problems including depression. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., report the work online August 23 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. —Rachel Ehrenberg

Wines’ notes
Descriptions of wine typically involve notes of fruit or musk, not piano or woodwind. But people do make associations between a wine’s scent and particular musical instruments, new research shows. When 30 study participants had to choose a sound to match a wine’s bouquet, five odors were consistently linked with particular instruments, scientists from the University of Oxford in England report in an upcoming Chemical Senses. Vanilla and apricot connoted woodwind and piano; blackberry also inspired primarily piano; and musky wines were linked to brass. —Rachel Ehrenberg

Found in: Molecules

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News in Brief: Earth & Environment

The supercontinent of the future, pollutants from laundry detergent and more in this week’s news Web edition : Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

Clouds intensify soot’s Arctic heating
Reining in soot production could dramatically slow Arctic warming, Mark Jacobson of Stanford University reported August 31 in Denver at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting. Soot’s presence in water droplets heats clouds much more than it does the black carbon particles between cloud droplets, new computer analyses show — which Jacobson says “helps to explain the burning off of clouds in polluted regions.” Once clouds disappear, more sunlight reaches the surface to melt sea ice and warm Arctic waters. But curbing all soot that now wafts into the Arctic could within 15 years eliminate 15 to 20 percent of the total warming contribution to the region, which could reduce the net temperature rise by 50 percent, his computer projections indicate. —Janet Raloff

Bedrock can help the climate
Researchers from the University of California, Davis offer data that could overturn the conventional wisdom about where new nitrogen in land-based ecosystems comes from. It’s supposed to come from the atmosphere. Butforests and local soils underlain with nitrogen-rich sedimentary rock contain 50 percent more nitrogen, a fertilizer, than do those atop nitrogen-poor rock, the scientists report in the Sept. 1 Nature. These researchers fingerprinted the bonus nitrogen to the weathering of bedrock below. Forests and soils over nitrogen-releasing rock also contained substantially more carbon than in nitrogen-poor areas, the scientists found, demonstrating that bedrock can dramatically boost the carbon-sequestering climate benefits of some forests. —Janet Raloff

Clean-smelling clothes dirty the air
Fragrance chemicals in detergents and dryer sheets can release toxic chemicals — none listed on product labels — especially into the air vented from a dryer. Anne Steinemann of the University of Washington in Seattle and her colleagues did laundry using no products, scented detergents, and detergents plus dryer sheets. The researchers report online August 19 in Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health finding substantial quantities of airborne organics including seven chemicals considered hazardous, two of which are potential carcinogens: acetaldehyde and benzene. Acetaldehyde measurements, if extrapolated to all users of the top five detergent brands throughout the county, could equal 6 percent of that toxic chemical’s releases from area cars if all the detergents produce the same levels the test detergent did, the researchers calculate. —Janet Raloff

Triggering earthquakes
Injecting carbon dioxide deep underground to keep it from entering the atmosphere can trigger earthquakes on local faults, a new study suggests. Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and the Côte d’Azur Observatory in France simulated what would happen if carbon dioxide entered an underground reservoir with a common kind of fault nearby. Depending on how and when the injection was done, an earthquake of up to magnitude 4.5 could occur, the team reports in a paper to appear in Geophysical Research Letters. Oil exploration, geothermal and other companies want to understand the conditions under which injections cause earthquakes. —Alexandra Witze

Supercontinent of the future
Continental drift, combined with heat from deep within Earth, could push North America, Eurasia, Australia and Africa together to form a new supercontinent in the Northern Hemisphere within the next 250 million years. Although scientists know about past supercontinents such as Pangaea, speculating about future landmasses has been something of a guessing game. Now, scientists in Japan have modeled heat welling up from Earth’s mantle and suggested exactly how that could drive today’s continents together. Antarctica and South America never join the future supercontinent, the team reports online August 17 in Terra Nova. —Alexandra Witze

Found in: Earth and Environment

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News in Brief: Life

Bird marriages hurt by city hubbub, tadpoles poison their own kind and more in this week's newsWeb edition : Thursday, September 1st, 2011 TURTLE TRACKINGHawksbill turtles like the one shown here are surprising researchers by heading into forested estuaries instead of reef waters.Aquaimages/Wikimedia Commons

Hawksbill turtles in funny places

Tracking imperiled hawksbill turtles in the eastern Pacific with satellite tags has left turtle biologists startled by locations in completely unexpected places. In the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific regions, hawksbills cruise reefs and waters near shore that face open ocean. Yet tag data revealed most of the 12 female turtles followed along the Pacific coast of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Ecuador were hanging out in shallower waters such as inshore estuaries and seemed to especially like mangrove forests. Turtle conservation strategies need rethinking, an international research team reports online August 31 in Biology Letters. —Susan Milius

Urban noise ruined my marriage

Traffic rumbling and other urban noise that prompt males of a European bird species called the great tit to cut back on sexy, low-pitched morning serenades may lead to more philandering by their female partners. In the latest twist in studies on how human noise affects city-dwelling animals, researchers at Leiden University and Gronigen University in the Netherlands experimented with sound and song at tit nest boxes. Female birds preferred deeper voices, and males that didn’t croon low as much were more likely to be cuckolded than those that did, Wouter Halfwerk and his colleagues report Aug. 30 in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. —Susan Milius

Tadpole-on-tadpole WMD

A new avenue for research on chemicals to control the massive, poisonous cane toads that are spreading across Australia has come from the tadpoles of the species. Chemical cues that the tadpoles release into the water can suppress the development of cane toad embryos still in eggs such that they hatch into punier tadpoles that don’t survive or grow well, report researchers from the University of Sydney online August 31 in Biology Letters. The toads, introduced in a regrettable attempt to control another pest, are disrupting the native ecosystems. —Susan Milius

Found in: Life

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News in Brief: Humans

Humans and Neandertals may not have interbred, after all, the backlash of selfishness and more in this week's news

No Neandertal hanky-panky
New mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that Neandertals didn’t occasionally interbreed with Stone Age humans, as proposed in a recent study of Neandertal nuclear DNA, say evolutionary biologist Guido Barbujani of the University of Ferrara in Italy and his colleagues. Barbujani’s team analyzed maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA from European Neandertals, Stone Age Europeans and living Europeans. If nuclear DNA lines leading to Neandertals and Europeans are older than corresponding mitochondrial DNA lines, then a long period of shared ancestry could explain why Neandertals and today’s Europeans share some nuclear DNA, the researchers propose online August 24 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. —Bruce Bower

Psychling dynamics
Although cyclist Alberto Contador won the 2009 Tour de France, he was criticized for defecting from his teammates and sprinting ahead when tactics demanded patience. A new analysis suggests that criticism was on mark. When strong riders break away from their companions, it helps the defector but hurts the team, researchers report in an upcoming issue of Complexity. University of Colorado at Boulder scientists and a sports psychologist from a professional team developed a bike racing model incorporating variables such as cooperation, defection, speed, distance and effort. The model nicely captures real racing dynamics: below-average riders fare better as defectors, above-average riders as cooperators, and when a strong rider does defect, it really screws his team. —Rachel Ehrenberg

Depression-fighting beliefs
Strong religious and spiritual beliefs may defend against recurrences of depression, especially if this mood disorder runs in a person’s family. Among individuals tracked for 10 years, those who considered religion and spirituality important in their lives displayed a markedly lower rate of major depression than those who didn’t, say psychologist Lisa Miller of Columbia University in New York City and her colleagues. Religion’s protective effect was greatest for those who had depressed mothers, the researchers  report online August 24in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Most of those high-risk individuals had been treated for bouts of depression before the study began. —Bruce Bower

Neandertals’ varied menu
Often portrayed as meat-obsessed big-game hunters, Neandertals may have had broader tastes. Neandertals that lived in southern France between 250,000 and 125,000 years ago ate fish, birds and starchy plants as well as wild cattle,  deer and wild horses, two anthropologists report online August 24 in PLoS ONE. Microscopic residue and edge-wear patterns on Neandertal stone tools previously unearthed at a French site called Payre reveal a varied diet that may have been missed in previous studies of butchered animal bones, say Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and Marie-Hélène Moncel of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. —Bruce Bower

Found in: Humans

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News in Brief: Genes & Cells

Bacterium’s DNA mostly unused, the death of Black Death and more in this week’s newsWeb edition : Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Life’s essentials
Most of the DNA in the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus really isn’t necessary. Researchers used genetic tricks to map out the pages of the bacterium’s genetic instruction book that are essential to life in the lab. Of Caulobacter’s 3,876 genes, only 480 are essential, Stanford microbiologist Lucy Shapiro  and her colleagues report online August 30 in Molecular Systems Biology. Also necessary are 402 pieces of DNA that govern activity of genes and 130 pieces of DNA that don’t encode proteins. Of the 130 “non-coding” bits, “90 don’t fit any of the categories we know about, and we don’t have a clue what they do,” Shapiro says. —Tina Hesman Saey

Black Death bacterium is extinct
Fear not. A version of the plague bacterium that wiped out at least 30 percent of Europe’s population between 1347 and 1351 is a goner. Scientists have debated whether the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis really caused the Black Death because that plague had different symptoms than modern outbreaks of bubonic or pneumonic plague. Now scientists from the University of Tübingen in Germany and McMaster University in Canada and colleagues have found traces of Y. pestis in skeletons of Black Death victims. The team reports online August 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the Black Death bacterium was genetically different from modern plague strains and probably no longer exists. —Tina Hesman Saey

Yellow eyes get less sleep
Elderly people’s sleeping problems may be due to a natural yellowing of the eyes with age, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen examined 970 Danish people between 30 and 60 years old. The team found that as people age, the lenses of their eyes yellow slightly, blocking out blue light wavelengths that help synchronize the body’s daily rhythms. The less blue light that got through to the retina, the more likely people were to have sleep disturbances, the researchers report in the Sept. 1 Sleep. Yellowing is sped up in smokers and people with diabetes and heart disease. —Tina Hesman Saey

Ancient antibiotic resistance
People have been fighting bacteria with antibiotics for more than 70 years, but a new study finds that the microbes have had at least a 30,000-year head start on building resistance. The finding, published online August 31 in Nature, contradicts the idea that resistance to antibiotics is a modern phenomenon brought about by misusing the drugs. Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and colleagues isolated ancient DNA about 30,000 years old from the permafrost near Dawson City, Canada, and found genes for proteins that work together to inactivate the antibiotic vancomycin. Resistance to that antibiotic was previously thought to have first arisen in the late 1980s. —Tina Hesman Saey

Found in: Genes & Cells

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News in Brief: Genes & Cells

A family without fingerprints and the long-term harm of sleep skimping in this week’s news Web edition : Friday, August 19th, 2011

No fingerprints
Members of a Swiss family who lack fingerprints have a mutation in a gene called SMARCAD1, Eli Sprecher of Tel Aviv University in Israel and colleagues report. The mutation, which also reduces the density of sweat glands in the hands, leads to a problem with a version of the gene’s protein that is made only in the skin, the team writes in the August 12 American Journal of Human Genetics. The researchers don’t yet know whether the gene is involved in creating the pattern of fingerprints or just in building the skin ridges that make up the print. —Tina Hesman Saey

Chronic sleep loss can cause permanent harm
Repeatedly skimping on sleep can add up to permanent health damage, a new study in rats suggests. Carol Everson and Aniko Szabo of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee restricted rats’ sleep in repeated 10-day bouts, with two days in between to rest up. The rats lost weight despite chowing down on far more food and water than usual. The animals’ hormones were messed up, and they developed other problems as well, the researchers report August 11 in PLoS ONE. Even after four months of recovery, the rats still had hormone imbalances and were eating 20 percent more and drinking 35 percent more than rested rats. —Tina Hesman Saey

Found in: Genes & Cells

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News in Brief: Molecules/Matter & Energy

Metamaterial warp drives, secrets of coffee rings and more in this week's newsWeb edition : Sunday, August 21st, 2011

Toy warp drive proposed
A physicist who previously created a toy universe out of metamaterials that bend light in unusual ways has now dreamed up a way to use those materials to build a warp drive. Simulations by Igor Smolyaninov at the University of Maryland in College Park show that moving faster than light is still impossible in toy universes, just as it is in the real one. But the right material should allow superspeed travel at up to one-quarter light speed — by riding in a moving spacetime bubble, he reports in an upcoming issue of Physical Review B. —Devin Powell.

Butterflies sip like sponges
To sip nectar, a butterfly uses a proboscis that looks like straw but also works like a sponge. At the small scales of butterfly existence, liquid is just too thick to be slurped, a team led by researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina reports. X-ray images of butterfly feeding tubes reveal pores that draw fluid upward by capillary action, the same process that pulls water through a paper towel. This anatomy may help butterflies dine on a greater variety of foods, and its principle could be borrowed to design probes that sample the liquid inside cells, the researchers report online August 17 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. —Devin Powell.

Coffee ring regulation
Starbucks tables everywhere rejoice: There’s a way to prevent the coffee ring effect. The quiet drying of spilled coffee on a countertop produces a crusty edge because round particles flee in a frenzy from the center of the spill. But oblong particles in the liquid can’t flee that well and end up spreading out uniformly, University of Pennsylvania scientists report in the Aug. 18 Nature. Upping the number of elongated particles compared to spherical ones can prevent ring formation, suggesting that particle shape influences fluid interactions. The finding could help in designing better inks, paints and even foams and lotions.—Rachel Ehrenberg

Found in: Matter & Energy and Molecules

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News in Brief: Body & Brain

Leukemia gene therapy, the brain tickle of beautiful voices and more in this week's newsWeb edition : Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Gene therapy for leukemia
Tweaking immune cells to attack cancer cells in leukemia patients can bring about remission, a small study shows. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania genetically altered immune T cells to target malignant cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients and mass produced the T cells before injecting them into three patients. The modified cells gravitated to bone marrow, where they killed malignant cells. In two of three patients tested the cancer went into remission, and a portion of the genetically modified T cells persisted, possibly as a cadre of defenders on standby. The researchers report the findings in the Aug. 10 Science Translational Medicine. —Nathan Seppa

Gout drug lessens flares
A drug approved in 2010 for treatment of gout has proved its worth, reducing symptoms over six months in many people who had failed to get relief from standard medications. The routine therapy for gout fails in about 3 percent of the 5 million to 6 million people in the United States who have it. A drug called pegloticase, which is given by intravenous infusion over two hours, gained approval last year for chronic gout. Two clinical trials in the United States, Canada and Mexico of people who had failed to improve? on standard drugs now show that of 65 of 169 patients getting pegloticase (Krystexxa) every two or four weeks for six months had reduced uric acid in the blood, a standard measure. The biweekly group had better symptom reduction. —Nathan Seppa

Live longer with exercise
Just 15 minutes of moderate daily exercise seems to extend life. A team of U.S. and Taiwanese researchers kept track of physical activity levels in more than 400,000 adults age 20 and older in Taiwan using questionnaires. Compared with sedentary people who didn’t exercise, those putting in 92 minutes a week — 15 minutes a day on average — were 14 percent less likely to die over an average follow-up period of eight years. The benefits applied to both sexes and to all age groups, the researchers report online August 16 in the Lancet.  —Nathan Seppa

Granddaddy’s stress changes grandson’s brain
What your grandfather experienced in the womb may change your brain. Grandfather mice who were stressed out in utero went on to produce grandsons with more feminine brains, a study in the Aug. 17 Journal of Neuroscience shows. In male descendents of stressed-out grandfathers, genes important for brain development switched their behavior to become more like the gene activity in female mice’s brains. These results may offer a way to link stress and neurological disorders that strike males and females differently, such as autism spectrum disorders, Christopher Morgan and Tracy Bale of the University of Pennsylvania write in the study. —Laura Sanders

Beautiful voices tickle the brain
From Laura: Attractive voices tickle the part of the brain that normally handles visual input, a new study finds. In the study, participants listened to different voices saying “had” and later rated how attractive the voices were. Voices rated more attractive were associated with greater brain activity in a region near the part of the brain that responds to faces, an international team of scientists reports in an upcoming Cerebral Cortex. That the brain detects and responds to vocal beauty suggests that people may be tuned in to hidden, nonverbal forms of communication. —Laura Sanders

Why autistic brains confuse pronouns
The brains of people with autism behave abnormally when grappling with pronouns such as “you” and “I.” While answering a question that contained the word “you,” adults with autism had a weaker connection between two key brain regions than unaffected participants, Akiko Mizuno of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and colleagues report in an upcoming Brain. This weak brain connection vanished when the question omitted pronouns and instead used people’s names. The results help explain why children with autism often have trouble with the concept of self-identity, sometimes referring to themselves as “you.” —Laura Sanders

Found in: Body & Brain

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News in Brief: Humans

Prehistoric assembly lines, a trigger for riots and more in this week's newsWeb edition : Monday, August 22nd, 2011

Early start for advanced tools
Large-scale production of sophisticated stone tools, using standardized assembly steps, emerged a surprisingly long time ago. Between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, unidentified members of the genus Homo regularly made slender, sharp-edged blades and other animal-butchery implements at Qesem Cave in what’s now Israel, say archaeologist Ron Shimelmitz of Tel Aviv University and his colleagues. Analyses of thousands of Qesem stone artifacts, and experimental reproductions of these finds, indicate that the implements were made in stages requiring as much planning as Neandertal tools that didn’t appear until 200,000 years ago, the researchers will report in the Journal of Human Evolution.  —Bruce Bower

A fate worse than death
Patients in persistent vegetative states often get tagged as having less mental capacity than the dead. Ending up in biological limbo is also regarded as a fate worse than death, say psychologist Kurt Gray of the University of Maryland in College Park and his colleagues. Religious and non-religious participants alike attributed less mental activity to vegetative patients than to the dead, due to afterlife beliefs and a tendency to assume that deceased but unseen people still have minds, the scientists will report in Cognition. Religious people also usually advocated life support for vegetative patients despite regarding such states as worse than death. —Bruce Bower

Food fights
Violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East in 2008 and 2011 coincided with large spikes in global food prices, a new study shows. The analysis, which spans January 1990 to May 2011, suggests that high global food prices are a precipitating condition for social unrest, say Yaneer Bar-Yam and colleagues at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Their study, posted at arXiv.org on August 11, also calculates a food price threshold above which vulnerable populations typically find themselves in desperate straits. This indicator could help guide policy interventions.—Rachel Ehrenberg

Found in: Humans

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News in Brief: Atom & Cosmos

Getting to supernova
White dwarf stars often don’t waltz together when they die. A new survey of 41 “Type Ia” supernovas, the explosions these dwarfs die in when they suck too much material off another star, found sodium gas flowing away from many of the explosions. But white dwarfs are mostly made of carbon and oxygen, so the sodium gas was probably thrown off by an ordinary or giant star. That suggests that the dwarfs weren’t eating their own kind. Knowing how Type Ia supernovas form is important because astronomers use their brightness to help measure cosmic distances. An international team of researchers reports the discovery in the Aug. 12 Science. —Alexandra Witze

Sunspots rising
Magnetic fields lurking deep beneath the sun’s surface could signal the imminent emergence of sunspots. Using the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satellite, scientists have spotted such fields, much stronger than models had predicted, up to 65,000 kilometers below the surface. Over the course of a day or two, the magnetic disturbances rise upward and eventually trigger the formation of sunspots. Knowing sunspots are coming could help people better prepare for telecommunications and other outages caused by space weather, Stathis Ilonidis of Stanford University and colleagues write in the Aug. 19 Science. —Alexandra Witze

Found in: Atom & Cosmos

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News in Brief: Earth & Environment

Antarctic ice flows, atmospheric response to nuclear fallout and more in this week's news Web edition : Saturday, August 20th, 2011 Moving Antarctic ice forms a tributary system across the continent in this map based on satellite radar.Science/AAAS

Icy flows

A new map of Antarctica assembled from satellite radar data reveals how ice shifted around on the frozen continent between 2007 and 2009. Ice flowing through narrow channels forms a river-like tributary system that accounts for much of the movement, a team led by Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine reports online August 18 in Science.  Researchers want to better understand how great ice sheets like Antarctica’s respond as global temperatures rise. —Alexandra Witze

Arctic may get breather in sea-ice losses

Roughly half of the recent loss of summertime Arctic sea ice appears to be due to greenhouse gas emissions as a result of human activity, the rest from natural climate variability, report scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Their new analyses also indicate that even as global warming continues, summer Arctic sea ice losses could pause. “We could see a 10-year period of stable ice or even an increase,” says lead author Jennifer Kay. Her team’s analyses appeared online August 11 in Geophysical Research Letters. —Janet Raloff

Japanese fallout left electric signature

Radioactive fallout from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima reactors in Japan caused a rapid and dramatic response in the atmosphere’s electric field. The effect, brought about by a change in the atmosphere’s charge, showed up 150 kilometers southwest of the nuclear facility. Similar changes have occurred elsewhere after nuclear weapons tests and the Chernobyl accident, usually as rain washed fallout from the air. The Japanese radiation signature instead marked the arrival of fallout carried by dry low-altitude winds, scientists from Japan and Sweden reported online August 12 in Geophysical Research Letters. They conclude that early-warning electrical sensors be installed around all reactors to detect fallout. —Janet Raloff

Found in: Earth and Environment

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News in Brief: Earth & Environment

Methane from rice, killer fungus and more in this week’s news Web edition : Saturday, August 13th, 2011

Methane puzzle
After years of climbing, atmospheric concentrations of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, have held steady for nearly 30 years — and for reasons that have not been obvious. Using different data and methods, two new papers in the Aug. 11 Nature link the arrested growth in atmospheric methane with human activities. Chemical markers studied by one U.S. team suggest the plateau traces to a larger global drop in the combustion of fossil fuels during the 1980s than had been recognized. Another group, at the University of California, Irvine, linked much of the change instead to reduced methane emissions from rice production in Asia. —Janet Raloff

 Pumping groundwater raises sea level
The removal of groundwater for drinking, irrigation and other uses appears to have contributed more than 6 percent of the global sea level rise incurred since 1900, a new study finds. Leonard Konikow of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., used data sources from around the world to show that over this time, groundwater extraction transferred some 4,500 cubic kilometers into the oceans. And the rate has increased since 1950 — and especially since 2000, when groundwater releases are estimated to have increased sea level some 0.40 millimeters per year. Konikow presents his analyses in a paper that will appear in Geophysical Research Letters. —Janet Raloff

Killer fungus caused extinction
A fungus may have contributed to the world’s great die-off some 250 million years ago. Paleontologists have puzzled over stringy-looking fossils called Reduviasporonites, which appear in rocks deposited worldwide during the mass extinction that ended the Permian period of geologic time. Now, scientists in the Netherlands, England and California suggest the fossils resemble modern-day soil fungi that include many plant pathogens. Fungi spreading through Permian-age plants may thus have helped kill off forests, the scientists proposed online in Geology on Aug. 5. —Alexandra Witze

Beyond Eyjafjallajökull
Europe had better be prepared for more volcanic ash clouds. Prompted by last year’s Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland, a team including Graeme Swindles of the University of Leeds in England searched for signs of volcanic ash that had fallen across northern Europe in the last 7,000 years. Over the last millennium, the team found, ash clouds arrived on average around every 56 years. For any given decade the chance of an ashfall is 16 percent, the scientists reported August 5 in Geology. —Alexandra Witze

Found in: Earth and Environment

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News in brief: genes and cells

Family relationship in breast cancer and memory, plus diagnosis of ancient death and more in this week's newsWeb edition: Friday, July 29, 2011

Working memory is genetic
People who can juggle a lot of information at the same time they should thank their parents, suggests new research. Working memory is used to store information in mind simultaneously, and some people have better memories than others. Gabriëlla Blokland University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and colleagues scanned the brains 319 twins who were carrying out the tasks of the working memory. Twin Sisters performed together more brains similarly than twin, suggesting that working memory is strongly influenced by genetic factors. The results are displayed in the July 27 Journal of Neuroscience. – Laura Sanders

Shorter telomeres, cancer, breast
Cut gradually turns off the ends of chromosomes can lead to progressively earlier breast cancer in families with inherited risk of disease. Women with breast cancer, mutations of the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, or from other Inherited mutations also had shorter telomeres — protective covers on chromosomes — than women in the public service, July 28, in PLoS Genetics researchers report in the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid. In families with hereditary breast cancer, breast cancer, the daughter of a younger age developed and had a shorter telomeres than their mothers. Measurement of Telomere length could help doctors better screening design plans. — Tina Hesman Saey

Quality over quantity in the conservation of avian influenza
The elderly provide for effective combating of avian influenza antibodies, but often do not make enough to keep the virus in check. This may explain why influenza vaccine work well in older people, researchers from Stanford and the University of Chicago report in the August Journal of clinical investigation. Study suggests that doctors, you can specify that generated the appropriate number of vaccinated patients safe from influenza antibodies. — Tina Hesman Saey

Diagnostics on CSI: Siberia
Thought that was a long time to come back for your lab tests consider the case of a man in Siberia. The man died in the late 17th century or beginning of the 18th century, but French and Russian scientists are only now finding how to diagnose the disease, which have killed him. DNA from the man's teeth and the lungs reveals that he was infected with a bacterium, which causes whooping cough. Teeth with other long-dead Siberians have shown that they were infected with bacteria that cause pneumonia and dysentery, researchers report online on July 13, in PLoS ONE. New technique may help scientists figure out where the disease had killed people in different times in history. — Tina Hesman Saey

Found in: genes and cells

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News in brief: Life

Flowers rely on advertising
Some unusual graffiti shows how important the advertising signs are among the wild flowers. Six white stripes on a dark Iris flower, a kind of a wild point of vital "proboscis here insert" opening at the saczy nectar. Erasing ink to some or all of these characters, the Guide did not make much difference in whether pollinators approached flower. However, a few pollinators of flowers defaced sipped and pollen spread dropped as low as zero, Dennis Hansen and colleagues report on the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa in the coming of the Royal Society b. — Susan Milius

Hope for the return of the cod
New data crunching four decades suggests that predatory fish such as cod finally may be able to increase their numbers. Far exceeded the Canadian East Coast Scotian Shelf has not returned despite the beginning of the closure of the fishery virtual in the early 1990s. For 15 years the numbers of cod and other species of predatory fish remain low during eating plankton and fish of larger invertebrates boomed. Now the plankton eaters seems to have outpaced food supply and reducing their predation as cod opportunity offers, Kenneth Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Frank in Nova Scotia and his colleagues argue online 27 July in nature. — Susan Milius

Fruit loo
One of the toilets of nature uses fruity smell to its furry critters to lure dangerous rims. Carnivorous pitcher plants of Borneo Nepenthes rajah is a favorite tree shrews and the throne for rats. While the Association of the Leading pool animals lick the lid at the plant and provide rich nutrient now poopy. And they occasionally drown in bowl, which is filled with digestive juices soupy, insects and fecal matter. Now, scientists from Germany and Malaysia think they know, which maintains a small mammals return to toilets: lid exudes hydrocarbons, esters, ketones and alcohols — compounds that produce tempting fruity or wonderful, the team reports in the journal of Tropical Ecology of July. Nadia – Drake

Deciduous beckon Bats transmitters
Although they are not as flashy as their neighbors kwiatowym, Plain old leaf could attract too pollinators. Bat Echolocation signals bounce off the leaves growing on bat pollinated Cuban rainforest Marcgravia vines, the evenia scientists from Germany and the U.K. Report 29 July in science. Strange, the dish-shaped leaf hangs above the vine ring of flowers. Shooting simulated animal echolocation calls of leaves produced a strong, multifaceted and invariant reflection. Deleting a leaf feeding Time doubled Nectar nectar bats, suggesting that in fact, ECHO is a significant pull nocturnal pollinators. Strange leaf shape and orientation affects the efficiency of the photosynthetic, but scientists think that the cost is offset by the benefits has registered the pollination of bat. Nadia – Drake

Found in: Life

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News in brief: Atom and Cosmos

Jupiter, black hole interactions and gargantuan hole watered this week newsWeb edition: Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The asteroid Trojan land
The Trojan may also sound like nikczemników-sneaky buggers ready for extraction of barrage meteorites — but don't have a lot more than tagalongs orbits. The scientists report in July 28 nature that Earth has one of these friends sharing its orbit of the Rocky Mountains, such as Mars, Jupiter and Neptune. Astronomers in Canada and the United States found a 300-meter, called TK7, 2010 data from the telescope Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer and confirms its presence in the ranges on Earth. Trojan horses are difficult to detect, because they usually dwell in the daylight sky but can produce good candidates to the asteroid Rendez-vous. Nadia – Drake

Not enough black hole
Small black holes may eschew innermost area around the gargantuan Black hole after the two galaxies merge. The result, reported online on July 21, Alessia Gualandris on arXiv.org through the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and David Merritt Rochester Institute of Technology, comes from a computer simulation as the stuff in the cores of galaxies reorganizes after the collision. Both galaxies began pressuring the central black hole, which coalesced into a single larger hole. However, after the beginning of everything, settling down, a number of smaller black holes, which stuck close to the newly formed beast was only 1 per cent to 10 per cent of what was expected. Astronomers suggest that real galaxies in this connection it may have populations of black holes with/"very uncertain". — Camille M. Carlisle

Galaxy watering hole
Astronomers detect the reservoir is the oldest and largest in the universe. Water, holed up in a cloud surrounding a gigantic black hole in our Galaxy, which blazed brightly about 1.6 billion years after the big bang. The water runs rampant in the cosmos, but this OASIS has water equal to the mass of at least 100 000 suns, fount stash Starfield approximately 4000 times. The results reported by two international teams in the two documents will appear in Astrophysical Journal, suggest a vapor almost 2,000 light years wide surrounds a central black hole. — Camille M. Carlisle

Found in: Atom and Cosmos

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News in brief: molecules/matter and energy

Clear slime busters, batteries, invisibility Cloak 3-and more in this week's newsWeb edition: Sunday, July 31, 2011

Breaking up is hard to Goo
Scientists have hit on several of the compounds to weaken the rigid mucus that occurs most often in breeds many patients by fibrosis of the lung. Slime is usually Sticky traps and blanket which helps clear inhaled particles, but they guys by fibrosis, fibrous bundle BED allow slime dense, thick and strong clear it. Two extracts from alginate, a primary ingredient in algal cell walls, disturb the mucous tissue interactions, Catherine Nordgård and Kurt Draget University Norwegian report, science and technology in the upcoming Biomacromolecules. Associations can be useful to modify the mucus in the respiratory tract and beyond — Rachel Ehrenberg

Bats filter out clutter
Like the students of universities echolocating bats can tolerate the clutter. Big brown bat trick evolved to ignore the potentially confusing acoustic leaves and trees, in pursuing its prey through foliage is dense. By recording conversations trained bats, complicated frequency and audio copies, Mary Bates Brown University and colleagues found that bats filter out certain sounds like human beings, by ignoring the distractions in their peripheral vision. Bats Ignore echo returning from objects on a page or a long distance, which seem to be missing in the higher frequencies. This technique, reported in July 29 Science, could be useful for designing better sonar technology. — Devin Powell

3-invisibility cloak
Newest invisibility Cloak to hide the object 3D seen from any direction. Previous cloaks carpet can hide just the something is sitting on the surface, like a bump on a log. David Rainwater and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin introduced the new Mask tubes with a diameter of 1.25 centimetres, out of plasmonic metamaterials — synthetic structures with wobbly electrons on the surface that bend electromagnetic radiation in unusual ways. This new Mask plasmonic manipulates the ovens, but the concepts should keep for as well as infrared and optical wavelengths researchers report online 19 July on arXiv.org. — Devin Powell

Transparent lithium-ion battery
New battery lithium ion is a transparent step towards making mobile phones, e-readers and other electronic devices fully transparent. While scientists already have transparent circuits, batteries remained opaque czlonowych. That's because the electrodes must be thick to store energy. Created Yuan Yang and colleagues at the University of Stanford new electrode out of strips of material large enough for the eye to see, arranged in a grid like Tic-Tac-Toe. Flexible prototype is 60 percent transparent. Its energy density — the amount of energy is stored in a given volume — only 3% of that of a typical cell phone batteries, but can theoretically be increased by a factor of 10, researchers report in the upcoming PNAS. — Devin Powell

Found in: matter and energy and molecules

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News in brief: genes and cells

Human liver implanted in a mouse plus new eye potato genome, Newt, and more in this week's news Web edition: Friday, July 15, 2011

New mutations in schizophrenia
New genetic errors have appeared more frequently in patients than their parents. The results may indicate that many cases of schizophrenia, new mutations arise spontaneously and are not the result of many inherited genes, working in concert. International Group of scientists decode genetic prior 14 sick and the parents of those persons. The team examined only for producing protein genes, which are a tiny fraction of genetic instructions, but found 15 new mutations in the eight people with schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia, develop new mutations in more than twice the height of the average, the researchers report online on July 10, in nature Genetics. — Tina Hesman Saey

Mice get human livers
The question of a mouse or a man just got a little fuzzy. The researchers, led by Sangeeta Bhatia MIT engineering artificial liver liver human cell on which the scaffold of the polymer, and then implanted liver packages under the skin or in the abdomens of the mouse. Mice with implants can break down drugs and protein product of the liver, just as humans do, the team reports online on July 11, in proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. Such "humanized" mice could be used to screen drugs and improve methods of treatment of diseases involving the liver. — Tina Hesman Saey

The Stroke Association be gone
Brains have a physical samonaprawiajaca of ingredients, which may help to prevent and redress from a blood clot caused by stroke. A piece of a protein called brain damage protects perlecan and helps cells, stimulation of the growth of new blood vessels, all without harmful side effects, an international group of researchers report online on July 11, in the journal of clinical investigation. Bit of a protein, called domain perlecan V restored the movement of the mouse and rat to prestroke levels when administered within 24 hours of the stroke. It is part of the brain's natural response of the stroke, the substance can be safely processed. — Tina Hesman Saey

The eye plays Newt
Shakespeare's witches can happy to learn that it is one of the Favorites of renewable resources of their components. Newts ' ability to regenerate the lens of the eye is not hampered by aging or repeated injury, an international team of scientists reports online 12 July as communications. Mammals, including humans, the loss of the possibility of renewal of the parts of the body to age but it seems that the newts don't have this problem. In the new study newts regrew lens 18 times in 16 years, without losing the quality of the lens. Learn how newts regenerate body parts can help improve human antiaging therapy. — Tina Hesman Saey

Potato genome
Po-tay-to, po-tah, however you pronounce, scientists are now calling the genome of the tubers (mainly) Done. Potatoes are 39,031 genes, an international group of scientists, known as the potato Genome Sequencing Consortium reports online on July 10, in nature. These genes are unique to 3,372 for potatoes. Analysis of the genetic potato liquid reveals that the plant made copies of his genetic instructions at least twice in the past. • Base of their resistance to disease and evolution of the bulbs may also be hidden between genes and the breeder may use the data to build better spuds. — Tina Hesman Saey

Found in: genes and cells

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News in brief: Atom and Cosmos

The planet Neptune, the return of the transient and cumbersome antineutrinos this week news Web edition: Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Transient planet
Some older stars can kick the planet from home and home, astronomers at the University of Cambridge in England in the forthcoming report of monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Several exoplanets were discovered around the star, appearing in the past their Prime, or even dead, and has been the secrets ... how to age stars affect the fate of planets. In the new research scientists found massive suffering the aging star could knock the planet off course an even eject them from orbit entirely. – Carlisle Camille

Neptune return statements
July 12, Neptune has reached the same hotfix, place where he was first discovered the 165 years ago. Runs slow gas giant so long to complete one revolution around the Sun, which orbits at a distance of 4.5 billion kilometres. German astronomer Johann Galle discovered the planet 23 September 1846, prompting predictions that are based on the orbits of Uranus and Newton's law of gravity. The planet was the first body is discovered, using mathematics, instead of serendipity. Astronomers because much learned about Neptune — such as finding the great dark spot and seeing the clouds changed from planet 40-year seasons. – Carlisle Camille

"Goodbye" electron antineutrino via an intermediate electron
This flighty particles called neutrinos have a new trick up their sleeve. One type, called electron antineutrino via an intermediate electron muon behaves differently than its counterpart, the muon neutrino. Physicists MINOS in collaboration with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, fig, turns along the path of the neutrinos and antineutrinos 735-kilometre and watch as they disappear, possibly by converting to other molecules. Scientists have now seen a muon and electron, and electron antineutrino via an intermediate disappear for the first time, to notify online 5 July physical review letters. Measurements of physical properties of its disappearance does not correspond to those of its counterpart. If the scientists cannot exclude several easy explanations, new physics can Play. — Alexandra Witze

Nazdarovya! Russia launches radio telescope
Russia launched radio telescope of space for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, 18 July. Flying in orbit of an elliptical, Telescope Spektr-R is the distance of the peak, more than 300 000 kilometres of distance from Earth to the Moon — almost. When the network from the ground detectors, the 10-meter Telescope and its partners will provide a virtual "dish" about 30 times the diameter of the Earth — the largest yet. Thousands of times more powerful than the Hubble space telescope will peer closely superdish, black holes, pulsars, neutron stars and other cosmic phenomena. Telescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, w. Va., and Arecibo, Puerto Rico, are expected to act as an Earth-bound partners. Nadia – Drake

Found in: Atom and Cosmos

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News in brief: molecules/matter and energy

Snake venom harrowing off, flexible display screens and detection of krill the penguins this week newsWeb edition: Sunday, 17 July 2011

Snake venom does not sweat for opossums

Pit viper venom is getting podpajeczynówkowy does not sweat for certain species of opossum, which devour snakes with impunity. Now finding Why opossums do not give a hoot about prepare bitten researchers at the University of Minnesota and the American Museum of natural history in New York. Snake venom aimed at important protein clotting of blood, but blood clotter opossums is chemically modified and penetrated the toxin molecular clutch, researchers report online on June 22 in PLoS ONE. Another retro, which eat snakes, such as the honey forest, mongooses and kune Desert, have different ideas for rozbrajania toxins, suggesting that strategies are themselves responsible for antivenom has evolved, since many times in animals. – Rachel Ehrenberg

Flexible screen

The scientists created a prototype of an electronic display screen, which is thinner than a dime, and can be folded up like a piece of paper. The device employs a flexible organic light-emitting diodes, color filter and a protective layer that can be made at low temperatures. After 10,000 bends to reduce display brightness was so low was indiscernible to the human eye, scientists from Samsung in Korea and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. report. When you bend deforms liquid crystal display, a new approach may make Paravane literally seamless. The prototype is described online July 7 in advanced materials. – Rachel Ehrenberg

Penguins Smells dinnertime

The smell of death is the dinner of the penguins. African penguins flock for Ocean spots which smell like dimethylsulfide, compound released when the krill and other small floaters meet their doom discovered the scientists in South Africa, from the University of Cape Town. Penguin for the presence of plankton dead or dying, it means that the feast of living fish eat krill in the vicinity. The penguins can track smell their prey food from two miles away, the team reports in the online journal of experimental biology, July 14. – Rachel Ehrenberg

Found in: matter and energy and molecules

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