ScienceDaily: Latest Science News

'Mind's Eye' Influences Visual Perception Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research has found that mental imagery -- what we see with the "mind's eye" -- directly impacts our visual perception.

Circulating Tumor Cells Can Reveal Genetic Signature Of Dangerous Lung Cancers Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT A microchip-based device that detects and analyzes tumor cells in the bloodstream can be used to determine the genetic signature of lung tumors, allowing identification of those appropriate for targeted treatment and monitoring genetic changes that occur during therapy.

Bee Disease Still A Mystery, Despite New Advances In Undersanding Common Virus Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT Scientists are one step closer to understanding the recent demise of billions of honey bees after making an important discovery about the transmission of a common bee virus. Deformed wing virus is passed between adult bees and to their developing brood by a parasitic mite called Varroa destructor when it feeds. However, new research suggests that the virus does not replicate in Varroa, highlighting the need for further investigation.

Following Traumatic Brain Injury, Balanced Nutrition Saves Lives Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT Clinician-scientists are suggesting an immediate and important change to guidelines used in the care of patients with traumatic brain injury. The researchers say that following traumatic brain injury, patients should be given nutritional supplementation through a gastric feeding tube as soon as possible, which they say can improve their chances of survival by as much as four-fold.

Some Fundamental Interactions Of Matter Found To Be Fundamentally Different Than Thought Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT When an atom collides with a molecule, traditional wisdom said the atom had to strike one end of the molecule hard to deliver energy to it. People thought a glancing blow from an atom would be useless in terms of energy transfer, but that turns out not to be the case. "We have a new understanding of how energy can be transferred in collisions at the molecular scale," said Richard Zare, of Stanford University.

Experimental Philosophy Movement Explores Real-life Dilemmas Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT Imagine a business executive who thinks: "I know that this new policy will harm the environment, but I don't care at all about that -- I just want to increase profits." Is the business executive harming the environment intentionally? Faced with this question, 82 percent of people polled said yes.

Einstein Was Right, Astrophysicists Say Posted: 04 Jul 2008 01:00 PM CDT Researchers have confirmed a long-held prediction of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, via observations of a binary-pulsar star system. Eclipses in a unique system of two dead stars, called pulsars, has shown that one of the pair is 'wobbling' in space - just like a spinning top. The effect, called precession, is precisely as predicted by Albert Einstein and is thus a new and exciting confirmation of his theory.

Synthetic Molecules Emulate Enzyme Behavior For The First Time Posted: 04 Jul 2008 01:00 PM CDT When chemists want to produce a lot of a substance -- such as a newly designed drug -- they often turn to catalysts, molecules that speed chemical reactions. Many jobs require highly specialized catalysts, and finding one in just the right shape to connect with certain molecules can be difficult. Natural catalysts, such as enzymes in the human body that help us digest food, get around this problem by shape-shifting to suit the task at hand.

China Earthquake Rare And Unexpected, Says New Study Posted: 04 Jul 2008 01:00 PM CDT A new analysis of the setting for last month's devastating earthquake in China by a team of geoscientists shows that the quake resulted from faults with little seismic activity, and that similar events in that area occur only once in every 2,000 to 10,000 years, on average.

Invasive Treatment Appears Beneficial For Men And High-risk Women With Certain Coronary Syndromes Posted: 04 Jul 2008 01:00 PM CDT An analysis of previous studies indicates that among men and high-risk women with a certain type of heart attack or angina an invasive treatment strategy (such as cardiac catheterization) is associated with reduced risk of rehospitalization, heart attack or death, whereas low-risk women may have an increased risk of heart attack or death with this treatment.

New Pathway For Methane Production In The Oceans Discovered Posted: 04 Jul 2008 01:00 PM CDT A new pathway for methane production has been uncovered in the oceans, and this has a significant potential impact for the study of greenhouse gas production on our planet. The article reveals that aerobic decomposition of an organic, phosphorus-containing compound, methylphosphonate, may be responsible for the supersaturation of methane in ocean surface waters.

Attitudes Toward Consumption And Conservation Of Tigers In China Posted: 04 Jul 2008 01:00 PM CDT The potential market for tiger products in China is enormous, but a vast majority of the Chinese public would rather have wild tigers than tiger-bone wine, according to new research.

MESSENGER Settles Old Debates And Makes New Discoveries At Mercury Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 AM CDT Scientists have argued about the origins of Mercury's smooth plains and the source of its magnetic field for more than 30 years. Now, analyses of data from the January 2008 flyby of the planet by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft have shown that volcanoes were involved in plains formation and suggest that its magnetic field is actively produced in the planet's core.

In Vitro Fertilization: New Method Predicts Which Women WIll Get Pregnant Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 AM CDT Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a method that can predict with 70 percent accuracy whether a woman undergoing in vitro fertilization treatment will become pregnant. The researchers found that four factors - total number of embryos, number of eight-cell embryos, percentage of embryos that stopped dividing and would die, and the woman's follicle-stimulating hormone level, a measurement that estimates ovarian function - were most important in determining a woman's chance of becoming pregnant. The four together were 70 percent accurate in predicting whether the current IVF cycle would result in a pregnancy.

Lasers, Software And The Devil's Slide Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 AM CDT Running for more than 1,000 kilometers along picturesque coastline, California's Highway 1 is easy prey for many of the natural hazards plaguing the region, including landslides.

Death, Division Or Cancer? Newly Discovered Checkpoint Process Holds The Line In Cell Division Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 AM CDT Each day, a staggering number of cells perform a feat that still amazes researchers with its complexity: they divide to produce perfect replicas of each other. The process is called mitosis, and an inability to control it is one of the hallmarks of cancer. Researchers have discovered a novel biochemical activity involved in controlling cell division, which they've called the mitotic checkpoint factor 2. While the proteins involved in MCF2 remain to be determined, their findings offer insight into a fundamental question of biology, which may also help to increase the efficiency of cancer drugs like gemcitabine or paclitaxel.

Geologists Push Back Date Basins Formed, Supporting Frozen Earth Theory Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 AM CDT Even in geology, it's not often a date gets revised by 500 million years. But geologists now say they have found strong evidence that a half-dozen major basins in India were formed a billion or more years ago, making them at least 500 million years older than commonly thought.

Newborns In ICUs Often Undergo Painful Procedures, Most Without Pain Medication Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:00 AM CDT An examination of newborn intensive care finds that newborns undergo numerous procedures that are associated with pain and stress, and that many of these procedures are performed without medication or therapy to relieve pain.

Resveratrol, Found In Red Wine, Wards Off Effects Of Age On Heart, Bones, Eyes And Muscle Posted: 03 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT Scientists have found that the compound resveratrol, found in red wine and grape skin, slows age-related deterioration and functional decline of mice on a standard diet, but does not increase longevity when started at middle age. This study is a follow-up to 2006 findings that resveratrol improves health and longevity of overweight, aged mice.

New System Blocks HIV Transmission Via Breastfeeding Posted: 03 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT Researchers are developing a new technology that prevents the infection of HIV by breastfeeding.

Researchers Are First To Simulate The Binding Of Molecules To A Protein Posted: 03 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT You may not know what it is, but you burn more than your body weight of it every day. Adenosine triphosphate, a tiny molecule that packs a powerful punch, is the primary energy source for most of your cellular functions. Now researchers have identified a key step in the cellular recycling of ATP that allows your body to produce enough of it to survive.

Gender Differences And Heart Disease Posted: 03 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT Women may respond less favorably than men to cardiovascular disease drug-treatments for enlarged heart. For the first time, researchers have uncovered that women derive a lesser benefit than men from two common high-blood-pressure-lowering drugs — losartan and atenolol — for the reduction of left-ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). The condition is a thickening and enlargement of muscle of the left ventricle of the heart and a marker for future heart disease.

Phoenix To Bake Ice-Rich Sample Next Week Posted: 03 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT The next sample delivered to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) will be ice-rich. A team of engineers and scientists assembled to assess TEGA after a short circuit was discovered in the instrument has concluded that another short circuit could occur when the oven is used again.

Prevalence Of Religious Congregations Affects Mortality Rates Posted: 03 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT Researchers have recently found that a community's religious environment -- that is, the type of religious congregations within a locale -- affects mortality rates, often in a positive manner.

Long-sought Boyhood Home Of George Washington Found Posted: 03 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT Archaeologists working at the site of George Washington's childhood home have located and excavated the remains of the long-sought house where Washington was raised. The site was the setting of some of the best-known stories related to his youth, including tales of the cherry tree and throwing a stone across the Rappahannock River.

Discovery Of Gene Mechanism Could Bring About New Ways To Treat Metastatic Cancer Posted: 03 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT The molecular and biochemical mechanism of action of unique cytokine gene found to induce potent bystander antitumor effects in animal models and in Phase I clinical trials has been identified. Researchers have uncovered how a gene, melanoma differentiation associated gene-7/interleukin-24 (mda-7/IL-24), induces a bystander effect that kills cancer cells not directly receiving mda-7/IL-24 without harming healthy ones, a discovery that could lead to new therapeutic strategies to fight metastatic disease.

Asteroid Impacts On Earth: A Protection Plan Posted: 03 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT A century ago this week, an event in far-off Siberia rang a cosmic wake-up call for Earth. That explosive event over remote Tunguska is generally viewed by scientists as a large space rock that pierced through the atmosphere of Siberia, then detonated to flatten some 2,000 square kilometers of trees.

Sleep Problems Associated With Menopause Vary Among Ethnic Groups Posted: 03 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT Difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep increase as women go through menopause according to new research. Waking up earlier than planned also increases through late perimenopause but decreases when women become postmenopausal.

Printed Optical Electronics Come Into View Posted: 03 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT European researchers have taken a major step towards the goal of developing printable electronics that can be used for creating radio frequency identification tags and flexible watch displays. Researchers have long dreamed of being able to print electronic components directly onto organic materials such as paper, fabrics, or plastic.

Does This Make Me Look Fat? Posted: 03 Jul 2008 07:00 PM CDT The peer groups teenage girls identify with determine how they decide to control their own figure. Also influencing weight control behavior is girls' own definition of normal body weight and their perception of what others consider normal body weight.

First Measurements Of The Solar Wind Termination Shock By Voyager 2 Spacecraft Posted: 03 Jul 2008 04:00 PM CDT Space physicists report that the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which has been traveling outward from the sun for 31 years, has made the first direct observations of the solar wind termination shock, according to an article in the journal Nature.

Brain ‘trick’ Offers Treatment Hope For Alzheimer’s Posted: 03 Jul 2008 04:00 PM CDT Scientists have made a significant step forward in the search for new drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease. An aging population means that neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer's disease, is one of the major health problems in the developed world. But researchers have designed an enzyme inhibitor which could 'trick' the brain and so help to halt neurodegeneration.

Body's Own 'Cannabis (Marijuana)' Is Good For The Skin, Scientists Find Posted: 03 Jul 2008 04:00 PM CDT Scientists have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana, but these play an important part in maintaining healthy skin. This finding on "endocannabinoids" could lead to new drugs that treat skin conditions ranging from acne to dry skin, and even skin-related tumors.

Smokers Suffer More Back Pain, Survey Shows Posted: 03 Jul 2008 04:00 PM CDT Smokers suffer more chronic back pain according to a new survey. Researchers interviewed more than 8000 people in the course of a telephone health survey. This included questions on social and demographic themes, as well as health and life style.

New Tool Developed To Study Genes Posted: 03 Jul 2008 04:00 PM CDT Researchers have developed a computational tool that will help scientists more accurately study complex units of clustered genes, called operons, in bacteria. The tool, which allows scientists to analyze many bacterial genomes at once, is more accurate than previous methods because it starts from experimentally validated data instead of from statistical predictions, they say. The researchers hope their tool will lead to a better understanding of the complex genetic mechanisms involved in a cell's functioning.

Going Green: Savings And Comfort Are The Best Incentives Posted: 03 Jul 2008 04:00 PM CDT Would shrinking your carbon footprint, recycling more, and going green be easier if you could monitor your household's environmental impact? Researchers recorded and compared heating fuel, electricity, water, vehicle fuel costs and waste generation for each household and on the basis of this data recommended cost-effective measures to reduce consumption. The team found that, on average, just over 25% of the recommended measures were implemented, which resulted in an estimated greenhouse gas reduction of about two tonnes for each household.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Latest Science News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner
Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of ScienceDaily: Latest Science News in a feed reader.
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610