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sciencehabit writes:
Where did the thief go? You might get a more accurate answer if you ask the question in German. How did she get away? Now you might want to switch to English. Speakers of the two languages put different emphasis on actions and their consequences, influencing the way they think about the world, according to a new study. The work also finds that bilinguals may get the best of both worldviews, as their thinking can be more flexible.
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sciencehabit writes:
A mysterious bright spot on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, is looking more and more like ice—and could even be emitting water vapor into space on a daily basis, researchers report. The bright spot, simply called feature #5, had been noticed before by the Hubble Space Telescope as sitting within an 80-kilometer-wide crater. But the Dawn spacecraft, which went into orbit around Ceres on 6 March, is now close to resolving the feature, which is less than 4 kilometers wide. Andreas Nathues, principal investigator for Dawn’s framing camera, says the feature has spectral characteristics that are consistent with ice. Intriguingly, the brightness can be seen even when the spacecraft is looking on edge at the crater rim, suggesting that the feature may be outgassing water vapor above the rim and into space.
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sciencehabit writes:
In 2013, the Syrian military allegedly launched sarin gas rockets into a rebel-held town, killing hundreds. After diplomats brokered a deal to eradicate the weapons, international organizations began the dangerous job of destroying them. One roadblock to chemical weapons disposal is that heat and humidity quickly break down enzymes that can disable the deadly chemicals. Now, researchers have developed a highly stable compound that can inactivate nerve agents like sarin in a matter of minutes.
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sciencehabit writes:
The origin of life on Earth is a set of paradoxes. In order for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule—something like DNA or RNA—capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins, the workhorse molecules of life. But modern cells can’t copy DNA and RNA without the help of proteins themselves. To make matters more vexing, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids, which provide the membranes that cells need to hold their contents inside. And in yet another chicken-and-egg complication, protein-based enzymes (encoded by genetic molecules) are needed to synthesize lipids.
Now, researchers say they may have solved these paradoxes. Chemists report today that a pair of simple compounds, which would have been abundant on early Earth, can give rise to a network of simple reactions that produce the three major classes of biomolecules—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—needed for the earliest form of life to get its start. Although the new work does not prove that this is how life started, it may eventually help explain one of the deepest mysteries in modern science.
70921239
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sciencehabit writes:
Deep brain stimulation, which now involves surgically inserting electrodes several inches into a person's brain and connecting them to a power source outside the skull, can be an extremely effective treatment for disorders such as Parkinson's disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression. The expensive, invasive procedure doesn't always work, however, and can be risky. Now, a study in mice points to a less invasive way to massage neuronal activity, by injecting metal nanoparticles into the brain and controlling them with magnetic fields. The technique could eventually provide a wireless, nonsurgical alternative to traditional deep brain stimulation surgery, researchers say.
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sciencehabit writes:
Years of psychological research have suggested that people who are politically conservative are happier than their liberal counterparts. This so-called “ideological happiness gap” has inspired elaborate theories for why conservatives enjoy life more than liberals do. But there may be no happiness gap at all. According to a new study published online today in Science, the tiny differences found in previous studies may have resulted from a slight tendency on the part of political conservatives to “self-enhance,” or view themselves in an unrealistically positive light.
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sciencehabit writes:
The solar system’s largest moon, Ganymede, in orbit around Jupiter, harbors an underground ocean containing more water than all the oceans on Earth, according to new observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. Ganymede now joins Jupiter’s Europa and two moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, as moons with subsurface oceans—and good places to look for life. Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, may also have a subsurface ocean. The Hubble study suggests that the ocean can be no deeper than 330 kilometers below the surface.
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sciencehabit writes:
Materials scientists often look to the natural world for inspiration, but usually it takes their inventions a while to catch up with biological discoveries. Not this time. Earlier this week, scientists in Switzerland revealed that chameleons change colors by expanding a lattice of tiny crystals just under their skin. Now, researchers in California are reporting that they’ve made a thin film that changes colors when they tug on it. Such films could produce color-changing sensors that give engineers a way to monitor potentially dangerous structural changes to everything from bridges to airplane wings.
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sciencehabit writes:
You’re not completely human, at least when it comes to the genetic material inside your cells. You—and everyone else—may harbor as many as 145 genes that have jumped from bacteria, other single-celled organisms, and viruses and made themselves at home in the human genome. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which provides some of the broadest evidence yet that, throughout evolutionary history, genes from other branches of life have become part of animal cells.
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sciencehabit writes:
In 2012, astronomers reported a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, an orange star that belongs to the closest star system to the sun, located a mere 4.3 light-years from Earth. But this detection, which must still be confirmed, left open a major question: Just how massive is this newfound neighbor of ours? Now astronomers report that computer simulations of the planet's history indicate that the world is only one to three times as massive as Earth. This implies that the planet may have a terrestrial composition.
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sciencehabit writes:
Like children playing a raucous game of tag, the brightly colored liquid drops shown in the video above chase each other wildly. They appear to know where they are going, but they're nothing more than water and food coloring. This mixture behaves unexpectedly, scientists have discovered, thanks to complicated vapor and surface tension interactions between drops.
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sciencehabit writes:
Almost half a billion years ago, the largest animal on Earth was a 2-meter-long, helmet-headed sea creature that fed on some of the ocean’s tiniest prey. The newly described species is one of the largest arthropods yet discovered, a class of animals that includes spiders and crabs. The well-preserved remains of the multisegmented creature are providing clues about how subsequent arthropods’ legs may have evolved from the dozens of stubby flaps used to propel this beast through the water.
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sciencehabit writes:
Researchers have nearly doubled the size of a handful of Florida ants by chemically modifying their DNA, rather than by changing its encoded information. The work may help explain how the insects—despite their high degree of genetic similarity—grow into the different varieties of workers needed in a colony.
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sciencehabit writes:
Researchers report that chameleons change colors by rearranging a lattice of nanocrystals in one of the top layers of skin cells. These cells, called iridophores, contain tiny crystals made from guanine, one of the nucleic acid building blocks of DNA. The nanocrystals have a highly ordered arrangement, which normally causes them to strongly reflect one color of light, such as green. But when another male enters their surroundings, the animals stretch their skin cells, broadening the nanocrystalline lattice, thereby causing it to reflect a longer wavelength of light, such as yellow. In addition, the team found that chameleons contain a second, deeper layer of iridophores that reflect heat-producing infrared light, which presumably helps the animals stay cool. The new insights could help scientists design novel materials that stretch to change colors.
70862689
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sciencehabit writes:
The sugar industry convinced the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) that studies that might persuade people to cut back on sugary foods should not be part of a national plan to fight childhood tooth decay, a new study of historical documents argues. The authors say the industry’s activities, which occurred more than 40 years ago, are reminiscent of the tobacco companies’ efforts to minimize the risks of smoking.
