Current Science News and Events
The following is a collection of the latest news available on the world wide web. These links will lead you to sites outside of Visionlearning.
Current feeds as of 5/22/13 04:00pm EST include the following.
BBC Science
Feet home to more than 100 fungi
Fungi live all over the human body but their favourite spots are the heel, under toenails and between the toes, according to a US study.
Solar plane sets off again across US
The Solar Impulse plane, which holds records including the longest manned zero-fuel flight, sets off on the second leg of a bid to cross the US.
Climate 'spurred human innovation'
Abrupt climate change in Africa helped trigger technological and cultural advances in early modern humans, according to new research.
'Worrying declines' for UK species
A stocktake of UK nature suggests 60% of animal and plant species studied have declined in the past 50 years.
2013 cold start may mean fruit boom
UK fruit growers could enjoy a much better harvest of apples and pears this year, following the dismal crop in 2012, experts believe.
Green light for 'biggest' wave farm
Plans for the world's largest commercial wave farm off the Western Isles move forward after minister give full consent for the project.
Science Daily News
Innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays
Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.
Small, speedy plant-eater extends knowledge of dinosaur ecosystems
Dinosaurs are often thought of as large, fierce animals, but new research highlights a previously overlooked diversity of small dinosaurs. Paleontologists have now described a new dinosaur, the smallest plant-eating dinosaur species known from Canada.
Children of married parents less likely to be obese
Children living in households where the parents are married are less likely to be obese, according to new research.
Overcoming resistance to anti-cancer drugs by targeting cell 'powerhouses'
Re-routing anti-cancer drugs to the "power plants" that make energy to keep cells alive is a promising but long-neglected approach to preventing emergence of the drug-resistant forms of cancer -- source of a serious medical problem, scientists are reporting.
Mosquito behavior may be immune response, not parasite manipulation
Malaria-carrying mosquitoes appear to be manipulated by the parasites they carry, but this manipulation may simply be part of the mosquitoes' immune response, according to entomologists.
Science Magazine News Summaries
[News of the Week] Random Sample
Last week, the National Science Foundation announced the winners of the unique Graduate 10K+ initiative addressing President Barack Obama’s call for U.S. high-tech companies to help train 1 million more STEM graduates by 2020. And according to a new study, the key to environmentally friendly sources of protein may be one that makes many Westerners squirm: edible insects.
R. Graham Cooks, a chemist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, has been awarded the 2013 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences. And biochemist Christian de Duve, who helped reveal the internal organization and operation of cells, died on 4 May.
[News & Analysis] Biomedicine: Human Stem Cells From Cloning, Finally
This time it looks like it's for real: Researchers have made personalized human embryonic stem cells with a method similar to how Dolly the sheep was cloned—though with an added jolt of caffeine.
Author: Gretchen Vogel
[News & Analysis] Influenza: Synthetic Vaccine Strain May Speed Up Pandemic Response
Researchers publish technique that could shave up to 4 weeks off vaccine production time, which during a pandemic could save tens of thousands of lives.
Author: Kai Kupferschmidt
[News & Analysis] Glaciology: Melting Glaciers, Not Just Ice Sheets, Stoking Sea-Level Rise
A new study says that although field measurements were painting an accurate picture of the few glaciers being monitored, they were not representative of the world's glaciers.
Author: Richard A. Kerr
Science Magazine This Week in Science
Hydraulic fracturing, widely known as "fracking," is a relatively inexpensive way to tap into what were previously inaccessible natural gas resources. Vidic et al. (p. 1235009) review the current status … [Read more]
Quartz is used industrially as an abrasive, as an inert glassy material, or for high-quality crystals in microelectronics. It is also valued for its piezoelectronic properties. However, it is hard … [Read more]
During simple precipitation, molecules fall out of solution from locations of highest concentration and, consequently, the shape of the precipitate will be dictated by its crystallization thermodynamics. Noorduin et al. … [Read more]
In Gram-negative bacteria, the integrity of the outer membrane is crucial for survival and is an important aspect of resistance to antibiotics. The biogenesis of the major components lipopolysaccharide (LPS) … [Read more]
Although core components of circadian clocks in flies and mammals are transcriptional circuits, recent evidence indicates posttranscriptional regulation of the clock occurs. Studies from Lim and Allada (p. 875) and … [Read more]
