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Science Blog From Networlddirectory (10 unread)

Oil spill and microbes

Posted: October 5th, 2011, 12:01am EDT

In the results of a newly released study, researchers explain how they used DNA to identify microbes present in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill--and the particular microbes responsible for consuming natural gas immediately after the spill. Water temperature played a key role in the way bacteria reacted to the spill, the scientists found........
Cryogenic Catering Truck

Posted: September 1st, 2011, 8:10pm EDT

Until now, servicing the state-of-the-art superconducting receivers inside an ALMA telescope has mandatory hauling the entire 115-ton telescope from its observing site at 16,500 feet down to a support facility at 9,500 feet. The dangerous 40-mile roundtrip, atop a monster truck called the ALMA Transporter, uses hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel, and the telescope's absence from scientific observing can be as long as four days........
Math ability is inborn

Posted: August 9th, 2011, 1:10am EDT

We accept that some people are born with a talent for music or art or athletics. But what about mathematics? Do some of us just arrive in the world with better math skills than others? It seems we do, at least as per the results of a study by a team of Johns Hopkins University psychology experts. Led by Melissa Libertus, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the study -- published online in a recent issue of Developmental Science -- indicates that math ability in preschool children is strongly associated with their inborn and primitive "number sense," called an "Approximate Number System" or ANS........
Carbon hitches a ride from field to market

Posted: August 9th, 2011, 1:10am EDT

Today, farming often involves transporting crops long distances so consumers from Maine to California can enjoy Midwest corn, Northwest cherries and other produce when they are out of season locally. But it isn't just the fossil fuel needed to move food that contributes to agriculture's carbon footprint........
"Junk" Energy Into Useful Power

Posted: July 21st, 2011, 12:29am EDT

A University at Buffalo-led research team has developed a mathematical framework that could one day form the basis of technologies that turn road vibrations, airport runway noise and other "junk" energy into useful power. The concept all begins with a granular system comprising a chain of equal-sized particles -- spheres, for instance -- that touch one another........
A heavy relative of the neutron

Posted: July 21st, 2011, 12:29am EDT

Researchers of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the observation of a new particle, the neutral Xi-sub-b (?b0). This particle contains three quarks: a strange quark, an up quark and a bottom quark (s-u-b). While its existence was predicted by the Standard Model, the observation of the neutral Xi-sub-b is significant because it strengthens our understanding of how quarks form matter. Fermilab physicist Pat Lukens, a member of the CDF collaboration, presented the discovery at Fermilab on Wednesday, July 20........
What keeps the Earth cooking?

Posted: July 21st, 2011, 12:29am EDT

What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth's magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth's interior into space. Where does it come from?........
Non-Africans are part Neanderthal

Posted: July 21st, 2011, 12:29am EDT

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, as per an international team of scientists led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was reported in the recent issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. .......
Retired NFL players at higher risk for mild cognitive impairment

Posted: July 21st, 2011, 12:29am EDT

Retired NFL football players are at higher risk for mild cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to Alzheimer's disease, a Loyola University Health System study has observed. A screening survey of 513 retired players and their wives observed that 35 percent of the players had scores suggesting possible mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Their average age was 61........
wildfires: still a wide open climate question

Posted: July 7th, 2011, 11:06am EDT

How the frequency and intensity of wildfires and intentional biomass burning will change in a future climate requires closer scientific attention, as per CSIRO's Dr Melita Keywood. 5 July 2011. Dr Keywood said it is likely that fire - one of nature's primary carbon-cycling mechanisms - will become an increasingly important driver of atmospheric change as the world warms........