7 important science Stories
http://www.asianscientist.com/topnews/7-must-read-stories-november-...

'Science' named other word of the year for 2013 by Merriam-Webster

While Oxford University Press, the British publisher of the Oxford dictionaries, declared those little smartphone self-portraits its winner last month, the folks at Merriam-Webster announced "science" on Tuesday.

Oxford tracked a huge jump in overall usage of selfie, but Merriam-Webster stuck primarily to lookups on its website, recording a 176 per cent increase for science when compared to last year.

"The more we thought about it, the righter it seemed in that it does lurk behind a lot of big stories that we as a society are grappling with, whether it's climate change or environmental regulation or what's in our textbooks," said John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc, based in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Science, he said, is connected to broad cultural oppositions - science versus faith, for instance - along with the power of observation and intuition, reason and ideology, evidence and tradition. Of particular note, to Merriam-Webster, anyway, is fallout from the October release of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/science/science-named-other-...

Men And Women’s Brains Are ‘Strikingly’ Complimentary
Men and women have ‘striking’ differences in their neural wiring that might explain some of the behavioral differences between the two sexes, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

The study was one of the largest to date to create to compare the connectomes, neural maps of the brain, of men and women.

The results revealed that men have far greater neural connectivity from front to back and within one brain hemisphere, suggesting their brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action. However, in females, this wiring goes between the left and right brain hemispheres, suggesting that women facilitate communication between the analytic and intuitive parts of the brain, the researchers said.

“These maps show us a stark difference – and complementarity – in the architecture of the human brain that helps provide a potential neural basis as to why men excel at certain tasks, and women at others,” said study leader Ragini Verma, PhD, an associate professor in the department of Radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

For instance, on average, men are more likely better at learning and performing a single task at hand, like cycling or navigating directions, whereas women have superior memory and social cognition skills, making them better equipped for multitasking and creating solutions that work for a group. In other words, they have what’s called a mentalistic approach.

The human brain is a complex roadmap of neural pathways linking many networks that help us process information and react accordingly, with behavior controlled by several of these sub-networks working in conjunction.

Although previous research has revealed gender differences in the brain, the current study is the first to show the neural wiring connecting regions across the whole brain among a large population.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113017910/male-and-female-bra...

Study shows energy drinks 'significantly increased' heart contractions

A new study has showed that energy drinks can affect the heart beats of even healthy adults hours after consumption.
Test subjects were monitored using an MRI scanner after drinking the heavily caffeinated beverages, with researchers from the University of Bonn reporting the drinks “significantly increased” heart contraction rates.

"Until now, we haven't known exactly what effect these energy drinks have on the function of the heart," said Dr. Jonas Dörner, one of the study’s authors. “There are concerns about the products' potential adverse side effects on heart function, especially in adolescents and young adults, but there is little or no regulation of energy drink sales.”

"Usually energy drinks contain taurine and caffeine as their main pharmacological ingredients. The amount of caffeine is up to three times higher than in other caffeinated beverages like coffee or cola.”

Dörner also noted that the side-effects of consuming large amounts of caffeine could include “a rapid heart rate, palpitations, rise in blood pressure and, in the most severe cases, seizures or sudden death”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/study-shows-energy-drinks...

Just Thinking About Light Or Dark Can Change Your Pupil Size!
Animals involuntarily constrict or dilate their pupils if they are sensing either too much or not enough light entering the eye, respectively. Now, a new study from a pair of Norwegian researchers has found that simply imagining a scene that is either too brightly or dimly lit can affect the size of your pupils.

“Visual imagery is a private and subjective experience which is not accompanied by strongly felt or visible physiological changes,” explained study author Bruno Laeng, a psychological scientist from the University of Oslo. “It is a particularly difficult topic to research, as years of controversy about the nature of mental imagery testifies.”

Along with his University of Oslo colleague Unni Sulutvedt, Laeng performed a series of experiments to determine if they could access subjective mental imagery by tracking the size of pupils. The Norwegian team started by having participants look at a display while triangles of different degrees of brightness were shown. Later, participants were asked to actively imagine those triangles.

The researchers wrote in their report in the journal Psychological Science that participants’ pupils would vary in size according to an original triangle’s brightness. For example, when imagining brighter triangles, participants’ pupils were smaller and when imagining darker triangles, participants’ pupils were dilated.

In another series of experiments, participants’ pupils also dilated or constricted when they were told to picture a dark room or a face in the sun compared with a face in the shade. Additional experiments demonstrated that the results were not due to voluntary changes in pupil size or the mental effort spent imagining scenes, the researchers said.

“Because humans cannot voluntarily constrict the eyes’ pupils, the presence of pupillary adjustments to imaginary light presents a strong case for mental imagery as a process based on brain states similar to those which arise during actual perception,” Laeng said.

The research team suggested that their findings could be applied to future studies involving the mental experiences of animals, babies, and even patients with neurological problems.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113018564/mental-imagery-affec...

The Replication Myth: Shedding Light on One of Science’s Dirty Little Secrets
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/12/04/the-repli...

Study shows how water dissolves stone, molecule by molecule
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2013/12/05/study.shows.how.water.d...

How mosquitoes are drawn to human skin and breath
Part 1
Female mosquitoes, which can transmit deadly diseases like malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus and filariasis, are attracted to us by smelling the carbon dioxide we exhale, being capable of tracking us down even from a distance. But once they get close to us, they often steer away toward exposed areas such as ankles and feet, being drawn there by skin odors. Why does the mosquito change its track and fly towards skin? How does it detect our skin? What are the odors from skin that it detects? And can we block the mosquito skin odor sensors and reduce attractiveness?

Recent research done by scientists at the University of California, Riverside can now help address these questions. They report on Dec. 5 in the journal Cell that the very receptors in the mosquito's maxillary palp that detect carbon dioxide are ones that detect skin odors as well, thus explaining why mosquitoes are attracted to skin odor -- smelly socks, worn clothes, bedding -- even in the absence of CO2.
"It was a real surprise when we found that the mosquito's CO2 receptor neuron, designated cpA, is an extremely sensitive detector of several skin odorants as well, and is, in fact, far more sensitive to some of these odor molecules as compared to CO2," said Anandasankar Ray, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology and the project's principal investigator. "For many years we had primarily focused on the complex antennae of mosquitoes for our search for human-skin odor receptors, and ignored the simpler maxillary palp organs."
Until now, which mosquito olfactory neurons were required for attraction to skin odor remained a mystery. The new finding -- that the CO2-sensitive olfactory neuron is also a sensitive detector of human skin -- is critical not only for understanding the basis of the mosquito's host attraction and host preference, but also because it identifies this dual receptor of CO2 and skin-odorants as a key target that could be useful to disrupt host-seeking behavior and thus aid in the control of disease transmission.
To test whether cpA activation by human odor is important for attraction, the researchers devised a novel chemical-based strategy to shut down the activity of cpA in Aedes aegypti, the dengue-spreading mosquito. They then tested the mosquito's behavior on human foot odor -- specifically, on a dish of foot odor-laden beads placed in an experimental wind tunnel -- and found the mosquito's attraction to the odor was greatly reduced.
Next, using a chemical computational method they developed, the researchers screened nearly half a million compounds and identified thousands of predicted ligands. They then short-listed 138 compounds based on desirable characteristics such as smell, safety, cost and whether these occurred naturally. Several compounds either inhibited or activated cpA neurons of which nearly 85 percent were already approved for use as flavor, fragrance or cosmetic agents. Better still, several were pleasant-smelling, such as minty, raspberry, chocolate, etc., increasing their value for practical use in mosquito control.
The researchers then zeroed in on two compounds: ethyl pyruvate, a fruity-scented cpA inhibitor approved as a flavor agent in food; and cyclopentanone, a minty-smelling cpA activator approved as a flavor and fragrance agent. By inhibiting the cpA neuron, ethyl pyruvate was found in their experiments to substantially reduce the mosquito's attraction towards a human arm. By activating the cpA neuron, cyclopentanone served as a powerful lure, like CO2, attracting mosquitoes to a trap.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2013/12/05/how.mosquitoes.are.draw...

How mosquitoes are drawn to human skin and breath
Part 2
"Such compounds can play a significant role in the control of mosquito-borne diseases and open up very realistic possibilities of developing ways to use simple, natural, affordable and pleasant odors to prevent mosquitoes from finding humans," Ray said. "Odors that block this dual-receptor for CO2 and skin odor can be used as a way to mask us from mosquitoes. On the other hand, odors that can act as attractants can be used to lure mosquitoes away from us into traps. These potentially affordable 'mask' and 'pull' strategies could be used in a complementary manner, offering an ideal solution and much needed relief to people in Africa, Asia and South America -- indeed wherever mosquito-borne diseases are endemic. Further, these compounds could be developed into products that protect not just one individual at a time but larger areas, and need not have to be directly applied on the skin."

Currently, CO2 is the primary lure in mosquito traps. Generating CO2 requires burning fuel, evaporating dry ice, releasing compressed gas or fermentation of sugar -- all of which is expensive, cumbersome, and impractical for use in developing countries. Compounds identified in this study, like cyclopentanone, offer a safe, affordable and convenient alternative that can finally work with surveillance and control traps.
Source: University of California - Riverside

According to IUCN counts, the countries with the highest numbers of species at risk of extinction are Ecuador (2,301), the U.S., Malaysia (1,226), Indonesia (1,206) and Mexico (1,074). India, China, Brazil, Tanzania and Australia round out the top ten; each of those nations has more than 900 species at risk of extinction on the IUCN Red List.
What do those numbers actually tell us? Both a lot and not much. Ecuador has the highest number of endangered species — not because the species there are more threatened but because the country made an intense effort over the last 15 years to evaluate its biodiversity. You can see the result of this work most notably in the assessment of Ecuador’s plants, which revealed that 1,843 of its native species are at risk.
The results of similar assessments are visible in other countries’ data. The U.S., for example, has the highest numbers of fishes (236) and mollusks (301) known to be at risk, as well as the highest number of recorded extinctions (257) on the IUCN Red List. Indonesia has largest number of mammals at risk (185), Brazil has the most birds (151), and Madagascar has the highest number of at-risk reptiles (136).

Of course numbers alone don’t tell the full story. Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List Unit, cautions that “you cannot use any of the country totals to show reliably which country has more threatened species than another” as they don’t reflect a country’s size, biodiversity levels, or other factors.
Meanwhile, an awful lot of species haven’t been assessed at all, or have only been assessed at national levels and not throughout their range, which may include several countries. Projects underway around the world will eventually help to fill that knowledge gap. “Brazil and South Africa are busy assessing all of their species,” Hilton-Taylor reports, “so those countries will suddenly have much higher numbers of threatened plants than all others because of the size of their respective floras.” Brazil is home to about 30,000 species and South African almost 20,000, so the Red List numbers will probably swell over the next few years.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2013/12/05...

Coldest place on earth is at 'soul crushing' -93.2°C
Nasa satellites have found the coldest place on earth. At a desolate and remote ice plateau in East Antarctica, temperatures hit a "soul-crushing" -93.2 degrees Celsius (-135 degrees Fahrenheit). This beat the previous record of -89.2 degrees Celsius measured at the Vostok Research Station in East Antarctica on July 21, 1983.

"I've never been in conditions that cold and I hope I never am," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said. "I am told that every breath is painful and you have to be extremely careful not to freeze part of your throat or lungs when inhaling."

The measurements were made between 2003 and 2013 by the MODIS sensor on board Nasa's Aqua satellite and during the 2013 Southern Hemisphere winter by Landsat 8, a new satellite launched early this year by Nasa and the US Geological Survey.

Scientists were puzzled by the fact that these very low temperature spots were found in a 1,000-kilometer long swath on the highest section of the East Antarctic ice divide.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Coldest-place-on-ea...

Women Make Science More Creative
New research into how scientists look at art contradicts stereotypes and uncovers significant gender differences
Female scientists are more receptive of abstract artworks than their male counterparts, suggesting that they are likely to be open to a more ‘anarchic, creative and radical’ approach to science, according to new research released today.

‘How Scientists Look At Art’, a study conducted by University of Reading and commissioned by Bayer to mark its 150th anniversary, suggests that women may bring added creativity and a more challenging approach to science, adding weight to the ongoing, global drive to encourage more women to enter the profession

http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2013/12/10/3156905/women-make-science-...

http://pegasuscomps.com/bayer150art/

How Nuclear Power Can Stop Global Warming

Nuclear power is one of the few technologies that can quickly combat climate change, experts argue

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-nuclear-power-...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-power-plan...
Atomic Weight: Balancing the Risks and Rewards of a Power Source

Nuclear power--like most forms of electricity generation--carries inherent risks. Is it worth the minor chance of a major catastrophe?

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/12/12/how-much-...
How Much Nature Do We Have to Use?

Source:   http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott...

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/female-scientists-are-mo...
Female scientists are 'more creative'
Female scientists may be more creative and ground-breaking than their male colleagues judging by the way they view abstract art, according to psychologists.
Experts tested scientists and non-scientists who were asked to look at a range of art works, classified as either "abstract" or "figurative".

Participants filled in questionnaires designed to explore art they preferred.

Analysis of the results revealed a "significant difference" in how male and female scientists responded to abstract art, said the University of Reading team.

Women seemed to prefer abstract works, such as Picasso's cubist paintings, and were more at ease with the moody or "affective" aspects of this kind of art.

Men, in contrast, were more drawn to realistic figurative artworks such as portraits and landscapes.

Researchers said women's responses were evidence of a "better balance between different ways of thinking".

In a report entitled 'How Scientists Look At Art', they wrote: "We might even speculate . . . that women scientists are more likely to be open to a more anarchic, creative and radical approach to science."

The study also found that common perceptions about the gap between science and the humanities were false. Overall, scientists and non-scientists regarded art in much the same way.

(I was one of the participants in this research  and filled in the questionnaires  - Krishna)

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270122.php
Scientists discover way to enhance self-control
Some people lack self-control. A habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is one example. But now, scientists have developed a way of improving a person's self-control through electrical brain stimulation. This is according to a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth) at Houston and the University of California, San Diego, say their findings could be useful for future treatments of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Tourette's syndrome, among other self-control disorders.

Polynesian People Used Binary Numbers 600 Years Ago
The base-2 system helped to simplify calculations centuries before Europeans discovered it
Binary arithmetic, the basis of all virtually digital computation today, is usually said to have been invented at the start of the eighteenth century by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz. But a study now shows that a kind of binary system was already in use 300 years earlier among the people of the tiny Pacific island of Mangareva in French Polynesia.

The discovery, made by analysing historical records of the now almost wholly assimilated Mangarevan culture and language and reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that some of the advantages of the binary system adduced by Leibniz might create a cognitive motivation for this system to arise spontaneously, even in a society without advanced science and technology.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=polynesian-people-...

https://peerj.com/articles/19/
Perceptual elements in Penn & Teller’s “Cups and Balls” magic trick
Magic illusions provide the perceptual and cognitive scientist with a toolbox of experimental manipulations and testable hypotheses about the building blocks of conscious experience. Here we studied several sleight-of-hand manipulations in the performance of the classic “Cups and Balls” magic trick (where balls appear and disappear inside upside-down opaque cups). We examined a version inspired by the entertainment duo Penn & Teller, conducted with three opaque and subsequently with three transparent cups. Magician Teller used his right hand to load (i.e. introduce surreptitiously) a small ball inside each of two upside-down cups, one at a time, while using his left hand to remove a different ball from the upside-down bottom of the cup. The sleight at the third cup involved one of six manipulations: (a) standard maneuver, (b) standard maneuver without a third ball, (c) ball placed on the table, (d) ball lifted, (e) ball dropped to the floor, and (f) ball stuck to the cup. Seven subjects watched the videos of the performances while reporting, via button press, whenever balls were removed from the cups/table (button “1”) or placed inside the cups/on the table (button “2”). Subjects’ perception was more accurate with transparent than with opaque cups. Perceptual performance was worse for the conditions where the ball was placed on the table, or stuck to the cup, than for the standard maneuver. The condition in which the ball was lifted displaced the subjects’ gaze position the most, whereas the condition in which there was no ball caused the smallest gaze displacement. Training improved the subjects’ perceptual performance. Occlusion of the magician’s face did not affect the subjects’ perception, suggesting that gaze misdirection does not play a strong role in the Cups and Balls illusion. Our results have implications for how to optimize the performance of this classic magic trick, and for the types of hand and object motion that maximize magic misdirection.
Rieiro H, Martinez-Conde S, Macknik SL. (2013) Perceptual elements in Penn & Teller’s “Cups and Balls” magic trick. PeerJ 1:e19 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.19

http://blog.peerj.com/post/69605870494/ask-me-anything-the-neurosci...
Ask Me Anything - The Neuroscience of Magic Illusions

Live Event – ‘Ask Me Anything’ session with Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde, and Mr. Hector Rieiro

Who & What: Ask Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde and Mr. Rieiro about visual neuroscience, magic illusions, or anything else relevance to their field!

When: Tuesday, December 17, 8am-10am PST

Where: Visit https://www.peerj.com/ask/VisualNeuroscience

They are pleased to announce that Tuesday, December 17, from 8 am – 10 am PST (4 pm – 6 pm UK time), they will be holding their second ‘Ask Me Anything’ live session, with Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde and Mr. Rieiro.

In a recent study, Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde and Mr. Rieiro reported on a magic trick filmed in magician duo Penn & Teller’s theater in Las Vegas, to illuminate the neuroscience of illusion. “Cups and Balls,” a magic illusion in which balls appear and disappear under the cover of cups, is one of the oldest magic tricks in history, with documented descriptions going back to Roman conjurors in 3 B.C. The trick has many variations, but the most common one uses three balls and three cups. The magician makes the balls pass through the bottom of cups, jump from cup to cup, disappear from a cup and turn up elsewhere, turn into other objects, and so on. The cups are usually opaque and the balls brightly colored.

In this study, Penn & Teller’s variant is performed with three opaque and then with three transparent cups. The transparent cups mean that visual information about the loading of the balls is readily available to the brain, yet still the spectators cannot see how the trick is done! The authors tracked when and where observers looked during some of Teller’s signature moves. By quantifying how well observers tracked the loading and unloading of balls with and without transparent cups, they determined that some aspects of the illusion were even more powerful at controlling attention than those originally predicted by Teller.

Their results advance our understanding of how observers can be misdirected and will aid magicians as they work to improve their art.

If you want to learn how magic tricks hack your neural wiring, or if you are just curious about visual neuroscience in general, visit https://www.peerj.com/ask/VisualNeuroscience, leave your questions at any time - before, during, and after the event - and get all your questions answered by three world-experts in this field!

Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde and Mr. Rieiro will be online and interacting on Tuesday, December 17, 8am-10am PST.

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/bacteria-turn-threa...
In less than 30 days, nonthreatening E. coli can transform into dangerous microbes in mice.

As benign E. coli continuously faced immune system cells, the bacteria began to grow in small colonies and develop genetic mutations that could help them survive immune cells' attacks. The mutant E. coli were more resistant to being engulfed by the immune cells and were also more likely to cause disease in infected mice than the original strains, researchers report December 12 in PLOS Pathogens.

The results could help scientists develop ways to combat the disease-causing bacteria.

Study: Probiotics Not Effective For Preventing Childhood Asthma
Taking probiotics during pregnancy or giving them to infants doesn’t prevent asthma, according to a new study.

http://www.asianscientist.com/health-medicine/study-probiotics-effe...

India’s Blood Pressure Skyrockets
Hypertension is skyrocketing in India, with rural-to-urban migrants at especially high risk.
Cardiological Society of India

A 40-year-old theory in evolutionary biology: The Trivers-Willard hypothesis states that natural selection favors parental investment in daughters when times are hard and in sons when times are easy.
And here is an example:
Boys and Girls May Get Different Breast Milk
Milk composition differs based on a baby's sex and a mother's wealth

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=boys-and-girls-may...

Pain Now Is Easier Than Pain Later

Delaying inevitable pain may not be the best route when it comes to decreasing your anxiety.
Standard theories of decision-making involving delayed outcomes predict that people should defer a punishment, whilst advancing a reward. In some cases, such as pain, people seem to prefer to expedite punishment, implying that its anticipation carries a cost, often conceptualized as ‘dread’. Despite empirical support for the existence of dread, whether and how it depends on prospective delay is unknown. Furthermore, it is unclear whether dread represents a stable component of value, or is modulated by biases such as framing effects. Here, we examine choices made between different numbers of painful shocks to be delivered faithfully at different time points up to 15 minutes in the future, as well as choices between hypothetical painful dental appointments at time points of up to approximately eight months in the future, to test alternative models for how future pain is disvalued. We show that future pain initially becomes increasingly aversive with increasing delay, but does so at a decreasing rate. This is consistent with a value model in which moment-by-moment dread increases up to the time of expected pain, such that dread becomes equivalent to the discounted expectation of pain. For a minority of individuals pain has maximum negative value at intermediate delay, suggesting that the dread function may itself be prospectively discounted in time. Framing an outcome as relief reduces the overall preference to expedite pain, which can be parameterized by reducing the rate of the dread-discounting function. Our data support an account of disvaluation for primary punishments such as pain, which differs fundamentally from existing models applied to financial punishments, in which dread exerts a powerful but time-dependent influence over choice.
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal....

Glaxo Says It Will Stop Paying Doctors to Promote Drugs
The British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline will no longer pay doctors to promote its products and will stop tying compensation of sales representatives to the number of prescriptions doctors write, its chief executive said Monday, effectively ending two common industry practices that critics have long assailed as troublesome conflicts of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/business/glaxo-says-it-will-stop-...;

Human Exposure to Possibly Neurotoxic Pesticides Should Be Reduced, E.U. Safety Agency Recommends

Two neonicotinoids, a class of insecticide linked to bee declines and to disruptions to rat neurons, "may affect the developing human nervous system," the safety agency states
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-exposure-to-...

http://www.newscientist.com/special/reality?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2013-1219-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&

What is reality - a series of articles on reality

Nicotine may damage arteries
Other chemicals in cigarettes may not be to blame
Even smokeless cigarettes may cause damage that can lead to hardening of the arteries, a new study implies.

Vascular smooth muscle cells wrap around blood vessels and help control blood flow and pressure. But inflammation and chemicals, such as those found in cigarette smoke, can turn the cells into miniature drills that chew through connective tissue, allowing muscle cells to burrow into blood vessels. Once inside, the cells and other debris clump into artery-clogging plaques.

Nicotine is one chemical that helps turn normal muscle cells into invaders...
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nicotine-may-damage-arteries

Nicotine may damage arteries
Other chemicals in cigarettes may not be to blame
Even smokeless cigarettes may cause damage that can lead to hardening of the arteries, a new study implies.

Vascular smooth muscle cells wrap around blood vessels and help control blood flow and pressure. But inflammation and chemicals, such as those found in cigarette smoke, can turn the cells into miniature drills that chew through connective tissue, allowing muscle cells to burrow into blood vessels. Once inside, the cells and other debris clump into artery-clogging plaques.

Nicotine is one chemical that helps turn normal muscle cells into invaders...
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nicotine-may-damage-arteries

Ancient bond holds life together, literally
Animal tissues and organs may require a specific link between sulfur and nitrogen
The rise of multicellular structures in animals may have hinged on a chemical link between sulfur and nitrogen atoms.

In animal tissues and organs, cells lock into a scaffold of collagen proteins that allows the cells to stick together and coordinate activities, such as tissue repair. Sulfur-nitrogen connections called sulfilimine bonds form essential links that keep the protein scaffold together, researchers have now discovered.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-bond-holds-life-togethe...

Dog dust may benefit infant immune systems
Microbes from pet-owning houses protected mice against allergy, infection

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dog-dust-may-benefit-infant-imm...

Scientists Discover New Surprising Details About Table Salt
An international team of scientists has discovered a surprise hidden in the first chemical compound that children learn about: table salt.

Under certain high pressure conditions, table salt, scientifically known as sodium chloride, can take on some surprising forms that violate standard chemistry predictions. The findings, published in Science, may hold the key to answering lingering questions about planet formation.

The researchers used advanced algorithms to predict an array of possible stable structural outcomes that would result from compressing rock salt. Using a diamond anvil at DESY’s X-ray source PETRA III, they put the salt under high pressure of 200,000 atmospheres. They added an extra “dash” of either sodium or chlorine, creating new “forbidden” compounds like Na3Cl and NaCl3.
Such compounds require a completely different form of chemical bonding with higher energy. Because nature always favors the lowest state of energy, such compounds should not happen.
These compounds are thermodynamically stable and once made, remain so indefinitely,” says Zhang. “Classical chemistry forbids their very existence. Classical chemistry also says atoms try to fulfil the octet rule – elements gain or lose electrons to attain an electron configuration of the nearest noble gas, with complete outer electron shells that make them very stable. Well, here that rule is not satisfied.”

The results of these experiments help to explore a broader view of chemistry. “I think this work is the beginning of a revolution in chemistry,” Oganov says. “We found, at low pressures achievable in the lab, perfectly stable compounds that contradict the classical rules of chemistry. If you apply rather modest pressure, 200,000 atmospheres – for comparison purposes, the pressure at the centre of the Earth is 3.6 million atmospheres – much of what we know from chemistry textbooks falls apart.”

“Here on the surface of the earth, these conditions might be default, but they are rather special if you look at the universe as a whole,” Konôpková explains. What may be “forbidden” under ambient conditions on earth, can become possible under more extreme conditions.
This discovery could lead to new, practical applications, say the researchers.

“When you change the theoretical underpinnings of chemistry, that’s a big deal,” Goncharov says. “But what it also means is that we can make new materials with exotic properties.”

Among the compounds Oganov and his team created are two-dimensional metals, where electricity is conducted along the layers of the structure.

“One of these materials – Na3Cl – has a fascinating structure,” Oganov says. “It is comprised of layers of NaCl and layers of pure sodium. The NaCl layers act as insulators; the pure sodium layers conduct electricity. Systems with two-dimensional electrical conductivity have attracted a lot interest.”

The research team hopes that the table salt experiments will only be the beginning of the discovery of completely new compounds. “If this simple system is capable of turning into such a diverse array of compounds under high-pressure conditions, then others likely are, too,” Goncharov explains. “This could help answer outstanding questions about early planetary cores, as well as to create new materials with practical uses.”

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113033114/salt-chemistry-surp...

Gaia 'billion-star surveyor' lifts off

The Gaia mission will make a very precise 3D map of our Milky Way galaxy
It is Europe's successor to the Hipparcos satellite which mapped some 100,000 stars
The one billion to be catalogued by Gaia is still only 1% of the Milky Way's total
But the quality of the new survey promises a raft of discoveries beyond just the stars themselves
Gaia will find new asteroids, failed stars, and allow tests of physical constants and theories
Its map of the sky will be a reference frame to guide the investigations of future telescopes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25426424#!

‘Science’ also tops for 2013
While Oxford University Press, the British publisher of the Oxford dictionaries, declared those little smartphone self-portraits its winner last month, the folks at Merriam-Webster announced “science” on Tuesday.
“The more we thought about it, the righter it seemed in that it does lurk behind a lot of big stories that we as a society are grappling with, whether it’s climate change or environmental regulation or what’s in our textbooks,” said John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc., based in Springfield, Mass.

Science, he said, is connected to broad cultural oppositions — science versus faith, for instance — along with the power of observation and intuition, reason and ideology, evidence and tradition. Of particular note, to Merriam-Webster, anyway, is fallout from the October release of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.”

Gladwell, a popularizer of scientific thought and research in best-sellers and The New Yorker magazine, takes on the challenges of obstacles and the nature of disabilities and setbacks in the book. But he leaves science itself — according to some critics — as a rhetorical device for his main mission of storytelling.
With the explosion of information and technology, are we all scientists?

“You have scientists writing long pieces, purportedly reviews of his new book, basically criticizing him, and then his response is: ‘Hey, buddy. I’m not a scientist. I’m a writer who’s trying to promote the work of scientists. To contextualize it. To make it accessible.’ You know, ‘Don’t blame me for not being a scientist’ is basically his response,” Sokolowski said.

Jason Silva is neither scientist nor academic. He’s a “techno optimist,” filmmaker, “performance philosopher” and host of the popular “Brain Games” show on the National Geographic Channel.

“Ooh, that’s awesome,” he said upon learning of science’s dictionary shout-out. “People are increasingly scientifically minded, and that makes me very happy.”
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/entertainment/in-your-face-self...

Reward scientists working for human rights

Many efforts to support human rights require voluntary contributions by experts

Scientists have volunteered to assess reports of chemical attacks in Syria

Scientists should be rewarded for such public work as well as for publishing research

http://www.scidev.net/global/human-rights/opinion/reward-scientists...

A Call for Urgent Talks on Mutant Flu-Strain Research

The benefits and risks of "gain-of-function" research into highly pathogenic microbes with pandemic potential must be evaluated, scientists say
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-call-for-urgent-...

Parasitic DNA Multiplies In Aging Tissues
The genomes of organisms from humans to corn are replete with “parasitic” strands of DNA that, when not suppressed, copy themselves and spread throughout the genome, potentially affecting health. Earlier this year Brown University researchers found that these “retrotransposable elements” were increasingly able to break free of the genome’s control in cultures of human cells. Now in a new paper in the journal Aging, they show that RTEs are increasingly able to break free and copy themselves in the tissues of mice as the animals aged. In further experiments the biologists showed that this activity was readily apparent in cancerous tumors, but that it also could be reduced by restricting calories.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113034106/parasitic-dna-multi...

Confirmed: Girls Mature Faster
British scientists say female human brains do, in fact, mature faster than male brains do -- and they know why.

In a study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, researchers announced the reorganization of brain connections, as an individual transitions from childhood to adulthood, begins earlier in girls and is a likely reason girls mature faster than boys during their teen years.

The study was part of the Human Green Brain project funded by the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which provides government funding for research. The project examines human brain development.

http://www.latinpost.com/articles/5087/20131222/its-been-confirmed-...

Creatures Living Together Don’t Have To Evolve Differently After All
Evolutionary scientists have long argued that species that live together must evolve in different ways in order to avoid direct competition with each other, but new research published Sunday in the journal Nature suggests otherwise.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Joe Tobias of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology studied ovenbirds, one of the most diverse families of birds in the world, in order to conduct an in-depth analysis of the processes that result in the evolution of species differences.

They found that even though bird species that occurred together were typically more varied than those that lived apart, this was “simply an artifact of species being old by the time they meet,” the researchers said. Once differences in the age of species was accounted for, they found that coexisting species tended to be more similar than those types of birds that evolved separately – the opposite of what Charles Darwin claimed in Origin of Species.

“It’s not so much a case of Darwin being wrong, as there is no shortage of evidence for competition driving divergent evolution in some very young lineages,” Dr. Tobias said in a statement. “But we found no evidence that this process explains differences across a much larger sample of species.”

“The reason seems to be linked to the way new species originate in animals, which almost always requires a period of geographic separation,” he added. “By using genetic techniques to establish the age of lineages, we found that most ovenbird species only meet their closest relatives several million years after they separated from a common ancestor. This gives them plenty of time to develop differences by evolving separately.”

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113034219/evolution-of-specie...

Baby Boys Prefer Dolls To Trucks!
Infants of both sexes are most interested in objects with faces, contrary to common belief that boys prefer more “macho” vehicle and construction toys.
Researchers have found that infants of both sexes are most interested in objects with faces, contrary to common belief that boys prefer more “macho” vehicle and construction toys.

In the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, researchers tested multiple pictures of humans (men and women), dolls, stoves and cars on 48 four and five-month-old infants (24 girls and 24 boys) and 48 young adults (24 women and 24 men). Each trial contained a relevant pair of faces and objects.

The infant results showed no sex-related preferences, but they preferred faces of men and women regardless of whether they were real or doll faces over objects. Similarly, adults preferred faces to objects, but unlike infants they preferred faces of the opposite sex.

The finding adds an interesting dimension to the nature versus nurture debate around gender construction, dispelling the theory that boys prefer male-associated toys from birth.

The article can be found at: Escudero P et al. (2013) Sex-related preferences for real and doll faces versus real and toy objects in young infants and adults.

http://www.asianscientist.com/in-the-lab/baby-boys-prefer-dolls-tru...