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sciencehabit writes:
A 520-million-year-old shrimp-like creature known as Fuxianhuia protensa has the oldest known cardiovascular system, researchers report. It was both modern and unsophisticated. A simple, tubelike heart was buried in the creature’s belly—or thorax—and shot single blood vessels into the 20 or so segments of its primitive body. In contrast, x-ray scans of the specimen revealed profoundly intricate channels in the head and neck. The brain was well supplied with looping blood vessels, which extended branches into the arthropod’s alienlike eyestalks and antennae and rivaled the complexity of today’s crustaceans. From this Gordian architecture, the researchers can now speculate about the critter’s lifestyle. Its brain required abundant oxygen, so it presumably did a fair amount of thinking.
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sciencehabit writes:
If you know only one thing about violins, it is probably this: A 300-year-old Stradivarius supposedly possesses mysterious tonal qualities unmatched by modern instruments. However, even elite violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a top-quality modern violin, a new double-blind study suggests. Like the sound of coughing during the delicate second movement of Beethoven's violin concerto, the finding seems sure to annoy some people, especially dealers who broker the million-dollar sales of rare old Italian fiddles. But it may come as a relief to the many violinists who cannot afford such prices.
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sciencehabit writes:
A new study suggests that the tougher food is to eat, the less we consume—and the fewer pounds we pack on. On two consecutive days, scientists fed 50 healthy 20-somethings a lunch of hamburgers and a side of rice with vegetables. On one of the two days, each participant was served a soft bun and boiled vegetables, while on the other they ate a hard bun and raw vegetables. When they ate the tougher-to-chew lunch, participants consumed about 90 fewer calories on average, a drop of about 13% compared with the softer lunch. What’s more, they ate about the same amount for dinner both days, meaning they didn’t compensate with a larger dinner after a smaller, chewier lunch. The authors say their results suggest that slight changes in food texture could lead people to take in fewer calories in the long term, possibly helping them lose weight. Eating less, it turns out, might be as simple as eating hard.
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sciencehabit writes:
A scientist who has been trying to reproduce STAP cells--a new type of stem cells--and regularly blogging about his progress has given up. "I don’t think STAP cells exist and it will be a waste of manpower and research funding to carry on with this experiment any further," Kenneth Ka-Ho Lee, an embryologist and stem cell researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, wrote on his ResearchGate page yesterday. Though he is giving up, he hopes others will continue to investigate whether the new approach – which has dogged by controversy and claims of research misconduct — can really lead to stem cells.
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sciencehabit writes:
The U.S. Department of Defense’s research arm is making a concerted grasp at biotechnology. On 1 April, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a new division that will consolidate biology research scattered across its existing six divisions and possibly expand the arsenal of projects. “Researchers should see this move as a recognition of the enormous potential of biological technologies,” Alicia Jackson, deputy director of the new Biological Technologies Office (BTO), told ScienceInsider in an e-mail. Whether the agency will devote a larger chunk of the roughly $2.9 billion in its requested 2015 budget to biotech programs is not yet clear.
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sciencehabit writes:
Wood is great for building and heating homes, but it’s the bane of biofuels. When converting plants to fuels, engineers must remove a key component of wood, known as lignin, to get to the sugary cellulose that’s fermented into alcohols and other energy-rich compounds. That’s costly because it normally requires high temperatures and caustic chemicals. Now, researchers in the United States and Canada have modified the lignin in poplar trees to self-destruct under mild processing conditions—a trick that could slash the cost of turning plant biomass into biofuels.
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sciencehabit writes:
In two new studies, researchers have brought us closer to the day when wearable electronics could monitor our health and dispense medication. They could even remotely communicate our vitals to doctors. In the first patch, a small heater automatically warms nanoparticles at the skin-patch interface, causing them to release their drug payloads into the skin. The second study introduces a patch that looks a bit like a jelly donut, with a transparent outer shell of flexible silicone rubber that holds a small amount of silicone fluid similar in consistency to pancake syrup. When the patch stretches with the skin, snakelike wires connecting the components unfurl like origami, allowing the rigid components to glide freely for comfort.
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sciencehabit writes:
Walking backward may seem a simple task, but researchers don’t know how the mind controls this behavior. A study published online today in Science provides the first glimpse of the brain circuit responsible—at least in fruit flies. Geneticists created 3500 strains of the insects, each with a temperature-controlled switch that turned random networks of neurons on when the flies entered an incubator. One mutant batch of fruit flies started strolling in reverse when exposed to warmth, which the team dubbed “moonwalkers,” in honor of Michael Jackson’s famous dance. Two neurons were responsible for the behavior: Once acted like a reverse gear in a car; when turned on, it triggered reverse walking. The second neuron functioned as the brakes for forward motion, but it couldn’t compel the fly to moonwalk. It may serve as a fail-safe that reflexively prevents moving ahead, such as when the fly accidentally steps onto a very cold floor.
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sciencehabit writes:
Neandertals and modern Europeans had something in common: They were fatheads of the same ilk. A new genetic analysis reveals that our brawny cousins had a number of distinct genes involved in the buildup of certain types of fat in their brains and other tissues—a trait shared by today’s Europeans, but not Asians. Because two-thirds of our brains are built of fatty acids, or lipids, the differences in fat composition between Europeans and Asians might have functional consequences, perhaps in helping them adapt to colder climates or causing metabolic diseases.
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sciencehabit writes:
Zebras’ bold striped patterns have puzzled scientists for nearly 150 years. Researchers have offered a lengthy list of possible explanations, from confusing predators by creating a distracting dazzle when a herd gallops away, to helping the animals avoid biting flies. Now, a team of scientists reports online today in Nature Communications that it has tested these hypotheses—as well as suggestions that the stripes might cool zebras down or make them more attractive to mates—to see which one makes the most ecological sense. The winner: those pesky, blood-sucking, disease-carrying biting flies. The team discovered that the ranges of the horse fly and tsetse fly species and the three most distinctively striped zebra species overlap to a remarkable degree. They did not find a similar ecological match for any of the other hypotheses, not even those involving predators. The zebras’ black-and-white patterns, which others have shown seem to interfere with the flies’ vision, at least give them a bit of a break.
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sciencehabit writes:
Cosmologists sifting data from a landmark gravitational wave study have reconstructed a snapshot of our universe in the moments preceding the big bang. The controversial view has posed a fresh enigma—and ignited a firestorm of controversy. “It’s not every day that you wake up and find out what happened before the big bang,” says John Blutarsky, a cosmologist at Jersey University in Hoboken. Yet some physicists are skeptical. "It's one thing to talk about concrete concepts, such as dimensions too small to be detected and atomic-scale black holes," says Barbara Jansen, a string theorist at Idaho State University in Pocatello. "But to speculate about a time before time? Get real."
58270079
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sciencehabit writes:
Astronauts who go into space come back with rounder hearts. Scientists who had astronauts regularly take images of their hearts with ultrasound machines found that the organ becomes more spherical in space by a factor of 9.4%. The researchers believe the change in shape, which is temporary, indicates that the heart is performing less efficiently in zero gravity.
58261517
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sciencehabit writes:
Japan has to stop capturing and killing whales under its whaling program in the Antarctic, called JARPA II, the International Court of Justice has said. In a judgment issued in the Hague in the Netherlands today, the United Nations court has ordered Japan to revoke existing permits to catch whales for scientific purposes, and to stop granting such permits in the future. The ruling is a victory for Australia, which filed Court proceedings against Japan's whaling in 2010, arguing that it breached international obligations.
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sciencehabit writes:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised eyebrows, and concern among current and prospective parents, with a new report documenting that the rate of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in the United States jumped 30% between 2008 and 2010, from one in 88 to one in 68 children. CDC officials don’t know, however, whether the startling increase is due to skyrocketing rates of the disorder or more sensitive screening, or a combination of both.
58249461
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sciencehabit writes:
The windowpane oyster sports a shell so transparent and durable that some Indian and Philippine cities use the coverings as an affordable alternative to window glass. Yet windowpane oyster shells are made up of 99% calcite, a usually brittle material, with a small amount of organic material. A team of researchers wondered how the shellfish’s fingernail-thick armor could survive multiple blows while remaining transparent, a feat unmatched by humanmade materials. When forcefully jabbed with a diamond, the windowpane oyster shell resists shattering by dispersing 10 times more impact energy than raw calcite, the team reports . Peeking at the shell’s crystal structure using an electron microscope, the researchers discovered the oyster’s secret. When stressed, the shell’s crystal structure twists symmetrically, causing an atomic reorganization that forms a boundary quarantining any fractures that might form. This process, called deformation twinning, dissipates energy horizontally and allows the shell to survive multiple hits. The researchers say their work provides a natural template for developing sturdy, transparent materials for windshields and even see-through military armor.
