Nobel prize should only be for 'best of the best'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25468115

A Solar Boom So Successful, It's Been Halted!

Photovoltaics proved so successful in Hawaii that the local utility, HECO, has instituted policies to block further expansion
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-boom-so-su...

Dentists Make Larger Holes in Teeth Than They Need to If the Teeth Present a Visual Illusion of Size
Health care depends, in part, on the ability of a practitioner to see signs of disease and to see how to treat it. Visual illusions, therefore, could affect health care. Yet there is very little prospective evidence that illusions can influence treatment.
The visual context in which treatment takes place can influence the treatment. Undesirable effects of visual illusions could be counteracted by a health practitioner’s being aware of them and by using measurement.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0077343

True or another gimmick?

http://www.quantumjumping.com/lp/subconscious?sr=1&cid=[QJ-TB]-Content-WW-Kw-Shamanic&aid=[Text-Ad]-Shamanic-Meditation&placement=www.livescience.com&otag=[QJ-TB]#sthash.eZ3mEtjX.dpbs

7 Foods You Can Overdose On

http://www.livescience.com/35430-seven-good-foods-you-can-overdose-...

Sleeping Beauty: Science Proves Beauty Rest Is Real
The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine: Scientists have confirmed that when you sleep better, you look better.

http://www.livescience.com/39669-sleep-beauty-science-look-attracti...

How Wintry Weather Affects Emotions

Scientists investigate the effects of low temperatures on the brain

Multiple studies have proposed a link between hot weather and violent crime rates. Yet debate rages over whether aggression wanes at very high temperatures. Some interpretations of data for U.S. cities suggest temperature and violent crimes such as aggravated assault share a linear relation, with violence increasing at ever hotter temperatures. Other researchers argue that crime curves level off or even dip in supersweltering situations in ways that can vary with the time of day, the nature of the crime and even the season studied.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-wintry-weather...

A science news preview of 2014
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25301485

‘Body atlas’ heatmaps reveal where we feel different emotions
Study shows how humans all feel certain emotions in specific body parts, regardless of language or location
According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, such feelings of “somatosensation” could be “at the core of the emotional experience”.

A team from the Biomedical Engineering department at Aalto University, Finland, conducted the experiment using more than 700 volunteers from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan.
Even when controlling for different language-specific expressions like “heart-ache” for sadness or “cold feet” for nervousness, the results showed that “consistent patterns of bodily sensations are associated with each of the six basic emotions”.
They noted that many of the basic emotions involved increased activity in the upper chest area, “likely corresponding to changes in breathing and heart rate”. Sensations in the upper limbs tended to go hand in hand with “approach-oriented emotions, such as anger and happiness”, while decreased, “heavy” limbs related to sadness.
While changes in the face were linked to many emotions, throat and belly sensations only really appeared in participants feeling disgust.

“In contrast with all of the other emotions”, the study says, “happiness was associated with enhanced sensations all over the body.”
“Unravelling the subjective bodily sensations associated with human emotions may help us to better understand mood disorders such as depression and anxiety,” they wrote.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/racing-pulse-glowing-chee...

Artificially Sweeteners ‘Neutral’ To The Gut: Study
Artificially sweetened drinks produced no different response in the healthy human gut to a glass of water, according to a study.

http://www.asianscientist.com/health-medicine/artificially-sweetene...

Do Brain Training Programs Really Make You Smarter?
Apps for ‘brain training’ claim to use games or tasks as a way of enhancing cognitive abilities. However, a new study the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that these games may only improve a person’s capacity to perform the specific training task and lack evidence that this skill translates to other cognitive abilities.

Study researchers looked specifically at a brain training program that caused a positive shift in inhibitory control. Because the team only looked at the effects on inhibitory control, they said they were unable to determine if any improvement extends to other kinds of cognitive abilities such as working memory.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113038003/do-brain-training-p...

Three-Dimensional Mid-Air Acoustic Manipulation (2013,2014-) Yoichi Ochiai
Sound wave 3Dvolution: Japanese scientists move objects using acoustic levitation
In order to move expanded polystyrene particles of 0.6 mm and 2 mm in diameter, the Japanese scientists at the University of Tokyo and the Nagoya Institute of Technology had to place the objects inside a complex set-up of four arrays of speakers. Using a refinement of the existing technology of sound wave management, bubbles, a screw and a tiny piece of wood were airlifted and moved around in all direction within the experiment’s confines.
“The essence of levitation technology is the countervailing of gravity. It is known that an ultrasound standing wave is capable of suspending small particles at its sound pressure nodes,” Yoichi Ochiai from University of Tokyo said.

Currently, acoustic levitators are used mostly in industry and for researchers of anti-gravity effects such as at NASA.

Now vegetable milk for lactose intolerant people!
scientists have formulated substitutes for yoghurt from grain and nuts using probiotic bacteria.

Researchers at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia have obtained new products fermented with probiotic bacteria from grains and nuts - what is known as plant-based or vegetable "milks" - are an alternative to conventional yoghurts.

The products are specially designed for people with allergies to cow's milk, lactose or gluten intolerance, as well as children and pregnant women, reports Science Daily.

From the laboratories at the Institute of Food Engineering for Development, a team worked with almonds, oats and hazelnuts and will soon evaluate the use of walnuts and chestnuts as raw material for these new products.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/vegetable-milk-f...

Scientists have made a breakthrough in their efforts to understand what causes so-called supervolcanoes to erupt.
Supervolcanoes are capable of eruptions thousands of times larger than normal outpourings.

It was thought that an external trigger, such as an earthquake, was needed to bring about a giant blast.

But tests at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble show the sheer volume of liquid magma is enough to cause a catastrophic super-eruption.
There are about 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth - including Lake Toba in Indonesia, Lake Taupo in New Zealand, and the somewhat smaller Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy.

Super-eruptions occur rarely - only once every 100,000 years on average. But when they do occur, they have a devastating impact on Earth's climate and ecology.

When a supervolcano erupted 600,000 years ago in Wyoming, in what today is Yellowstone National Park, it ejected more than 1,000 cubic km of ash and lava into the atmosphere - enough to bury a large city to a depth of a few kilometres. This ejection was 100 times bigger than Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1992 and dwarfs even historic eruptions like Krakatoa (1883).
Being able to predict such a catastrophe is obviously critical. But the trigger has remained elusive - because the process is different from conventional volcanoes like Pinatubo and Mt St Helens.

One possible mechanism was thought to be the overpressure in the magma chamber generated by differences between the less dense molten magma and more dense rock surrounding it.
But whether this buoyancy effect alone was enough was not known. It could be that an an additional trigger - such as a sudden injection of magma, an infusion of water vapour, or an earthquake - was required.
the transition from solid to liquid magma creates a pressure which can crack more than 10 kilometres of Earth's crust above the volcano chamber.

"Magma penetrating into the cracks will eventually reach the Earth's surface. And as it rises, it will expand violently - causing an explosion,"

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2042.html

Google search fails to find any sign of time travelers
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/google-search-fails-find-a...

GPS satellites suggest Earth is heavy with dark matter
GPS is handy for finding a route, but it might be able to solve fundamental questions in physics too. An analysis of GPS satellite orbits hints that Earth is heavier than thought, perhaps due to a halo of dark matter.

Dark matter is thought to make up about 80 per cent of the universe's matter, but little else is known about it, including its distribution in the solar system. Hints that the stuff might surround Earth come from observations of space probes, several of which changed their speeds in unexpected ways as they flew past Earth. In 2009, Steve Adler of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, showed how dark matter bound by Earth's gravity could explain these anomalies.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129503.100?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2014-0109-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&#.Us9Z0Pvngb4

Blame slow jet stream for US deep freeze not Polar Vortex!
As temperatures fell in North America, some blamed a mysterious polar vortex, but this is a system of winds in the stratosphere that spins around the Arctic and Antarctic during their respective winters, many kilometres above the weather. There is nothing unusual about the polar vortex, according to the UK Met Office. Instead, cold Arctic air has reached North America thanks to a weakened jet stream – the continent's atmospheric conveyor belt.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24824?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2014-0109-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&#.Us9aq_vngb4

New clues to how bacteria evade antibiotics
Scientists have made an important advance in understanding how a subset of bacterial cells escape being killed by many antibiotics. Cells become "persisters" by entering a state in which they stop replicating and are able to tolerate antibiotics. Unlike antibiotic resistance, which arises because of genetic mutations and is passed on to later generations, this tolerant phase is only temporary, but it may contribute to the later development of resistance.

In a new study in the journal Science, researchers from the MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection at Imperial College London have succeeded in visualising persister cells in infected tissues for the first time, and have identified signals that lead to their formation.

Virtually all bacterial species form subpopulations of persisters that are tolerant to many antibiotics. Persisters are likely to be a cause of many recurrent infections, but little is known about how they arise.

The team developed a method for tracking single cells using a fluorescent protein produced by the bacteria. They showed that Salmonella, which causes gastroenteritis and typhoid fever, forms large numbers of non-replicating persisters after being engulfed by immune cells called macrophages. By adopting this non-replicating mode, Salmonella survives antibiotic treatment and lingers in the host, accounting for its ability to cause recurrent infections.

The researchers also identified factors produced by human cells that trigger bacteria to become persisters.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/01/09/new.clues.how.bacteria....

Study dispels theories of Y chromosome's demise
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/01/09/study.dispels.theories....!+Science+News+-+Popular%29

Competition Between Coral, Seaweed Occurs On A Chemical Level
Scientists investigating the chemical warfare that takes place on Fijian coral reefs have discovered that one species of seaweed increases its production of noxious anti-coral compounds when placed in contact with reef-building corals.

The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that as this seaweed competes chemically with the corals, its growth slows. The seaweed becomes more attractive to herbivorous fish, which boost their consumption of the skirmishing seaweed by 80 percent.

The findings are the first to demonstrate that seaweeds can boost their chemical defenses in response to competition from corals. Whether such responses are common or rare, however, will take further study with a broader range or seaweeds and corals.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113042729/seaweed-chemical-wa...

Effect of Gravitational Focusing on Annual Modulation in Dark-Matter Direct-Detection Experiments

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v112/i1/e011301

A New Method to Measure Consciousness Proposed

It's an important new tool for doctors, but what is it actually measuring?
Leonardo Da Vinci, in his Treatise on Painting (Trattato della Pittura), advises painters to pay particular attention to the motions of the mind, moti mentali. “The movement which is depicted must be appropriate to the mental state of the figure,” he advises; otherwise the figure will be considered twice dead: “dead because it is a depiction, and dead yet again in not exhibiting motion either of the mind or of the body.” Francesco Melzi, student and friend to Da Vinci, compiled the Treatise posthumously from fragmented notes left to him. The vivid portrayal of emotions in the paintings from Leonardo’s school shows that his students learned to read the moti mentali of their subjects in exquisite detail.

Associating an emotional expression of the face with a “motion of the mind” was an astonishing insight by Da Vinci and a surprisingly modern metaphor. Today we correlate specific patterns of electrochemical dynamics (i.e. “motions”) of the central nervous system, with emotional feelings. Consciousness, the substrate for any emotional feeling, is itself a “motion of the mind,” an ephemeral state characterized by certain dynamical patterns of electrical activity. Even if all the neurons, their constituent parts and neuronal circuitry remained structurally the same, a change in the dynamics can mean the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness.

But what kind of motion is it? What are the patterns of electrical activity that correspond to our subjective state of being conscious, and why? Can they be measured and quantified? This is not only a theoretical or philosophical question but also one that is of vital interest to the anesthesiologist trying to regulate the level of consciousness during surgery, or for the neurologist trying to differentiate between different states of consciousness following brain trauma.

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-new-method-to-measure-c...

Q. If global warming exists then how is there a January 2014 North American polar vortex?
A. Well, actually it is the global warming that has caused the January 2014 polar vortex descent on North America.

Let me explain. First of all, global warming is a global event, whereas January 2014 North American Polar Vortex is a local temperature drop. Even if it has affected a large territory, it is in fact counter-balanced by a way more warm weather on the North Pole, so that the overall, the North Hemisphere is still warmer than usual.

Here is a visual image of more or less what is going on right now (actually what was going on in the late November, except that now the temperatures are way lower):
As you can see, the cold air from the north pole is pouring down onto the Canada and US territory, leading to a lower temperature in the USA, but a higher temperature in Europe/England/Norway/Siberia, but especially on the North Pole.

Now, the air from the North Pole doesn't usually pour down to the south, because it is contained by circular winds around the North Pole. These winds are due to the fact that the earth rotates on itself and are generated by the so-called Coriolis effect:

To displace the cold air from the North Pole so that it goes down, something has to destabilize it and push it out of it's place. More precisely, the only thing that would be able to do it is a huge convective force rising from a warm water and into the cold air. Pretty much in the same way the convective force creates the hurricanes:

Usually, this convective force doesn't exist on the North Pole, because of a huge sheet of ice, that protects the cold air from warm water and avoids convection. However, with global warming, this is less and less true. This is particularly untrue this year: according to NASA, in 2013 the Arctic Sea Ice Minimum is Sixth Lowest on Record). Thus this year this protection is particularly thin and and this protection is right now very thin. Coupled with the Gulfstream bringing up lots of warm water from equator, this leads to a massive convective cell over Arctic, leading to a cold air warming up over (relatively) warm thin ice and pushing out the masses of cold air over it to the regions where such warming does not occur, i.e. Canada, USA and Siberia.

Just like this:

http://www.quora.com/January-2014-North-American-Polar-Vortex/If-gl...

Migraines respond to great expectations
Meds and placebos both fight pain better when patients anticipate getting active drug
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/migraines-respond-great-expecta...
When it comes to pain, what migraine-headache sufferers think about their pills’ identities matters nearly as much as whether or not those pills contain active medication, a new study suggests.

Migraine meds labeled as placebos dull headache pain less effectively than the same pills identified either as the real deal or as possibly a genuine drug, say neuroscientist Rami Burstein of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues. Placebo pills given to migraine patients worked the same way, easing headache pain better when labeled as definitely or possibly containing active medication, the researchers report in the Jan. 8 Science Translational Medicine.

Placebo pills mislabeled as the migraine drug Maxalt provided close to as much pain relief as Maxalt mislabeled as a placebo. Overall, though, Maxalt eased migraine pain better than placebos did.

How Can One Parasitic Species Have Two Different Outcomes?
Head louse and body louse
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113044473/one-parasitic-speci...

Loss of large predators likely destroying ecosystems: Study

A drop in the numbers of fierce beasts worldwide might seem like good news for deer and antelope.

http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/decline-of-carnivorous-species-...

What You Should and Shouldn’t Worry about after the Fukushima Nuclear Meltdowns

Fresh meltdowns at the devastated nuclear facility are unlikely but years of slow, dangerous labor to repair the existing damage are guaranteed

By David Biello
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-to-worry-abou...

Distractions Lower Our IQs
A preoccupation with scarcity diminishes IQ and self-control. Simple measures can help us counteract this cognitive tax
An involuntary preoccupation with an unmet need, such as a shortage of money or time, can capture our attention and impede our ability to focus on other things.
A fixation on scarcity taxes our cognitive capacity and executive control, thus diminishing intelligence and impulse control, among other things.
We can free up cognitive bandwidth by converting recurring demands into one-time actions.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=distractions-lower...

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140102-a-missing-genetic-...
A Missing Genetic Link in Human Evolution

Alternate treatments and their consequences:
The woman had abnormally high cesium levels in her blood from oral cesium chloride supplements she took for many months. The metal can cause an abnormal heart rhythm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=womans-death-linke...

Supervolcanoes Erupt by Their Own Rules

Mega-eruptions and smaller volcanoes are triggered by different mechanisms
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=supervolcanoes-eru...

Evolving proteins – no DNA required
Prions are the infective agents that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Mad Cow Disease in humans. All prions affect the brain or neural tissues and are currently untreatable. What makes them particularly fascinating is that unlike other infective agents such as bacteria, protozoa, and viruses, they don’t contain any genetic material. No DNA or RNA. Prions are just misfolded proteins but they are capable of spreading, causing disease, and evolving.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/lab-rat/2014/01/05/evolving-pro...

Our Instant Egghead presenters are asked to memorize and recite short snippets of text on the spot, which we later stitch together in editing. But sometimes things go wrong: a botched word, a slipped smile or an awkward moment of amnesia. We've conveniently gathered up all of these bloopers and spliced together for your personal entertainment.

80-Year-Old Murder Mystery Solved With DNA Analysis
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113046212/80-year-old-mystery...

Chinese Scientist Proposes Spraying Water Into The Air To Curb Pollution
http://www.asianscientist.com/in-the-lab/scientist-proposes-sprayin...

Can a Blind Person Be a Racist?
In this adapted excerpt from a new book, a legal scholar and social critic documents that racist attitudes are not rooted in the ability to actually "see" the color of someone’s skin

By Osagie Obasogie
It seems racism is a social problem not a visual one according to this one!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-a-blind-person...

V-flying birds pick efficient flapping pattern
Timing is everything to catch a boost from a neighbor’s wing

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/v-flying-birds-pick-efficient-f...

Researchers Find New Form Of Quantum Matter
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113049585/new-form-of-quantum...

There is no sixth sense!

Yes, without invoking a sixth sense, people can reliably sense when a change had occurred even when they could not see exactly what had changed.

People can reliably sense when a change had occurred even when they could not see exactly what had changed, according to a new study by researchers in Australia.

However, the researchers concluded that this is not due to extrasensory perception (ESP) or having a sixth sense. Rather they do this by picking up cues from more conventional senses such as sight.

Lead researcher Dr Piers Howe said the research is the first to show in a scientific study that people can reliably sense changes that they cannot visually identify.

In the study, published in PLOS ONE, observers were presented with pairs of color photographs, both of the same female. In some cases, her appearance would be different in the two photographs. For example, the individual might have a different hairstyle.

Each photograph was presented for 1.5 seconds with a 1 second break between them. After the last photograph, the observer was asked whether a change had occurred and, if so, identify the change from a list of nine possible changes.

Results showed study participants could generally detect when a change had occurred even when they could not identify exactly what had changed.

For example, they might notice that the two photographs had different amounts of red or green but not be able to use this information to determine that the person had changed the color of their hat. This resulted in the observer “feeling” or “sensing” that a change had occurred without being able to visually identify the change.

According to the researchers, this is evidence that people can receive information through their senses that they are unable to describe verbally. However, people often attribute this “feeling” or “sensing” to an extrasensory ability.

“There is a common belief that observers can experience changes directly with their mind, without needing to rely on the traditional physical senses such as vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch to identify it. This alleged ability is sometimes referred to as a sixth sense or ESP,” said Dr Howe.

“We were able to show that while observers could reliably sense changes that they could not visually identify, this ability was not due to extrasensory perception or a sixth sense.”

Source: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

Plants like animals can learn things!
Researchers in Australia have published evidence that plants can learn and remember just as well as it would be expected of animals.
After publishing a study about plants being able to ‘talk’ using sound, a researcher in Australia has now discovered that they can ‘learn’ as well.

While this may sound stranger than fiction, Dr Monica Gagliano has solid evidence to support her theories, the latest of which is published in Oecologia.

In the new article, Dr Gagliano and her team show that Mimosa pudica plants can learn and remember just as well as it would be expected of animals, but of course, they do it all without a brain.

Using the same experimental framework normally applied to test learnt behavioral responses and trade-offs in animals, they designed their experiments as if Mimosa was indeed an animal.

Dr Gagliano and her colleagues trained Mimosa plants’ short- and long-term memories under both high and low-light environments by repeatedly dropping water on them using a custom-designed apparatus (Mimosa folds its leaves in response to the drop).

In their experiments, Mimosa plants stopped closing their leaves when they learnt that the repeated disturbance had no real damaging consequence. Mimosa plants were able to acquire the learnt behavior in a matter of seconds and as in animals, learning was faster in a less favorable environment (i.e. low light).

Most remarkably, these plants were able to remember what had been learned for several weeks, even after environmental conditions had changed.

Although plants lack brains and neural tissues, they do possess a sophisticated calcium-based signaling network in their cells that is similar to animals’ memory processes.

While the researchers do not yet understand the biological basis for this learning mechanism, their findings may radically change the way we perceive plants and the boundaries between plants and animals. This includes our definition of learning (and hence memory) as a unique property of organisms with functioning nervous systems.
Source:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00442-013-2873-7
The nervous system of animals serves the acquisition, memorization and recollection of information. Like animals, plants also acquire a huge amount of information from their environment, yet their capacity to memorize and organize learned behavioral responses has not been demonstrated. In Mimosa pudica—the sensitive plant—the defensive leaf-folding behaviour in response to repeated physical disturbance exhibits clear habituation, suggesting some elementary form of learning. Applying the theory and the analytical methods usually employed in animal learning research, we show that leaf-folding habituation is more pronounced and persistent for plants growing in energetically costly environments. Astonishingly, Mimosa can display the learned response even when left undisturbed in a more favourable environment for a month. This relatively long-lasting learned behavioural change as a result of previous experience matches the persistence of habituation effects observed in many animals.

Scientific acronyms:
CuNT - unfortunate shorthand for Copper NanoTube
One of the ISS flight controller positions has the following console tools:

APU, BART, HOMER, LISA, MARGE, MAGGIE, MOE, PATI, and DUFFman.

APU: Attitude Planning Utility
BART: Basic Attitude Replication Tool
LISA: Library for ISP, SODF, and Applications
astronomy!

BIGASS: Bright Infrared Galaxy All Sky Survey
FLAMINGOS: FLoridA Multi-object Imaging Near-infrared Grism Observational Spectrometer
GANDALF: Gas AND Absorption Line Fitting algorithm
LUCIFER: LBT near infrared spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research
WISEASS: Weizmann Institute of Science Experimental Astrophysics Spectroscopy System
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~gpetitpas/Links/Astroacro.html
Bra in Quantum Mechanics, used for dual vectors!

Creating Tastier and Healthier Fruits and Veggies with a Modern Alternative to GMOs
By combining traditional plant breeding with ever-faster genetic sequencing tools, researchers are making fruits and vegetables more flavorful, colorful, shapely and nutritious
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/creating-tastier-and-heal...