Controlled dreams:
Scientists led by psychologist Ursula Voss of J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, built on lab studies in which research volunteers in the REM (rapid-eye movement) stage of sleep experienced a lucid dream, as they reported when they awoke. Electroencephalograms showed that those dreams were accompanied by telltale electrical activity called gamma waves.

Those brain-waves are related to executive functions such as higher-order thinking, as well as awareness of one's mental state. But they are almost unheard of in REM sleep.

Voss and her colleagues therefore asked, if gamma waves occur naturally during lucid dreaming, what would happen if they induced a current with the same frequency as gamma waves in dreaming brains?

When they did, via electrodes on the scalp in a technique called transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), the 27 volunteers reported that they were aware that they were dreaming. The volunteers were also able to control the dream plot by, say, throwing some clothes on their dream self before going to work. They also felt as if their dream self was a third party whom they were merely observing.

Voss does not foresee a commercial market in lucid-dreaming machines. Devices currently sold "do not work well," she said in an interview, and those that deliver electrical stimulation to the brain, like the one in her study, "should always be monitored by a physician."

But if the results hold up, the technique might help people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, who often have terrifying dreams in which they re-play the traumatic experience. If they can dream lucidly, they might be able to bring about a different outcome, such as turning down a different street than the one with the roadside bomb or ducking into a restaurant before the rapist attacks them.

"By learning how to control the dream and distance oneself from the dream," Voss said, PTSD patients could reduce the emotional impact and begin to recover.
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Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition
Researchers have found that the elevated carbon dioxide levels of 2050 could lead to lower levels of micronutrients and protein in staple crops.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13179...

What Makes Congress’s Latest Effort to Curb Science Funding So Dangerous?
A bill making its way through the House Science, Space and Technology Committee would set the country’s science agenda by favoring certain disciplines
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-congress-s-lat...

Assemblage Time Series Reveal Biodiversity Change but Not Systematic Loss
The extent to which biodiversity change in local assemblages contributes to global biodiversity loss is poorly understood. We analyzed 100 time series from biomes across Earth to ask how diversity within assemblages is changing through time. We quantified patterns of temporal α diversity, measured as change in local diversity, and temporal β diversity, measured as change in community composition. Contrary to our expectations, we did not detect systematic loss of α diversity. However, community composition changed systematically through time, in excess of predictions from null models. Heterogeneous rates of environmental change, species range shifts associated with climate change, and biotic homogenization may explain the different patterns of temporal α and β diversity. Monitoring and understanding change in species composition should be a conservation priority.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6181/296.abstract

Environmental conditions may impact bird migration
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/14/environmental.condition...

Tiny earthquakes may follow groundwater loss
Tiny earthquakes may follow groundwater loss because of over use
As humans drain aquifers in the state’s Central Valley, the land — free of water weight — flexes upward, lifting the surrounding mountain ranges and possibly triggering tiny earthquakes, researchers suggest May 14 in Nature.

It’s the first time scientists have linked the region’s extensive groundwater pumping to mountain uplift and seismic activity, says geophysicist Kristy Tiampo of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.
and people say men are not responsible for all this mess:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tiny-earthquakes-may-follow-gro...

Scientists have discovered that children who are given antibiotics before their first birthday have an increased risk of developing asthma.

UK researchers examined data from the Manchester Asthma and Allergy Study (MAAS) which has followed over 1000 children from birth to 11 years.

Antibiotics are routinely given to children to treat respiratory infections, ear infections, and bronchitis.

The study's findings are believed to be the first to show that children with wheezing who were treated with an antibiotic in the first year of life were more than twice as likely as untreated children to experience severe wheeze or asthma exacerbations and be hospitalized for asthma.

Of particular interest was that these children also showed significantly lower induction of cytokines which are the bodies' key defence against virus infections such as the common cold. The researchers also identified two genes in the 17q21 region that were associated with an increased risk of early life antibiotic prescription.

Water extraction for human use boosts California quakes

Extracting water for human activities is increasing the number of small earthquakes being triggered in California.

A new study suggests that the heavy use of ground water for pumping and irrigation is causing mountains to lift and valleys to subside.

The scientists say this depletion of the water is increasing seismic activity along the San Andreas fault.

They worry that over time this will hasten the occurrence of large quakes.

The report has been published in the journal Nature.

Few consumers realise that many cosmetic products, such as facial scrubs, toothpastes and shower gels, now contain many thousands of microplastic beads which have been deliberately added by the manufacturers of more than 100 consumer products over the past two decades.

Plastic microbeads, which are typically less than a millimetre wide and are too small to be filtered by sewage-treatment plants, are able to carry deadly toxins into the animals that ingest them, including those in the human food chain such as fish, mussels and crabs, scientists said.

While many people have assiduously tried to recycle their plastic waste, cosmetics companies have at the same time been quietly adding hundreds of cubic metres of plastics such as polyethylene to products that are deliberately designed to be washed into waste-water systems – one estimate suggests that, in the US alone, up to 1,200 cubic metres of microplastic beads are washed down the drains each year.

Scientists and environmentalists have started lobbying the industry to stop using plastic microbeads in exfoliant skin creams and washes, but with limited success – a relatively small number of firms have publicly agreed to phase them out, and even then have given themselves several years to do so.
These can persist in the environment for more than 100 years, and have been found to contaminate a wide variety of freshwater and marine wildlife.
Originally, the cosmetics industry used natural ingredients such as ground-up apricot kernels, crushed walnut shells and dried coconut as skin exfoliants – gentle abrasives that can remove dirt and dead layers of cells.

However, at some point in the late 1990s some companies quietly switched to plastic microbeads and the practice quickly spread to other firms and now includes most skin scrubs, polishes and soaps, even when they are not sold as skin exfoliants,

Microbeads, which are often labelled simply as "PE", "PP" or "PMMA" in the product ingredients, are now found in more than 100 toiletries and cosmetics. They are made by companies ranging from the big chemicals giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, and supermarket chains such as Sainsbury's, Tesco and Marks and Spencer, to high-end cosmetics firms such as Clarins and L'Oréal.

Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at Plymouth University, said that plastic microbeads washed into waste water are a needless source of contamination given that there are viable alternatives which have already been used to do much the same job in terms of skin exfoliation.
Microplastic beads may also lead to the transfer of chemical contaminants into the animals that ingest the plastic. This is in addition to the physical damage done by the plastic itself. sometimes it's difficult to predict their effect until it begins to happen.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-tiny-plastic-ti...

Sleeping pills increase the risk of cardiovascular events in heart failure patients by 8-fold, according to research from Japan. The study was presented today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. Dr Masahiko Setoguchi said: "Sleeping problems are a frequent side effect of heart failure and it is common for patients to be prescribed sleeping pills when they are discharged from hospital. They also have other comorbidities and may be prescribed diuretics, antiplatelets, antihypertensives, anticoagulants and anti-arrhythmics.
The researchers retrospectively examined the medical records of 111 heart failure patients admitted to Tokyo Yamate Medical Center from 2011 to 2013. Information was collected on the presence of coexisting cardiovascular and other medical conditions, medications administered during hospitalization and those prescribed at discharge, laboratory test results, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and chest radiographic data and vital signs at admission and discharge.

Study participants were followed up for 180 days after they were discharged from hospital. The study endpoint was readmission for heart failure, or cardiovascular related death.
Multivariate analysis showed that HFpEF patients who were prescribed sleeping pills were at eight times greater risk of rehospitalisation for heart failure or cardiovascular related death than HFpEF patients who were not prescribed sleeping pills (hazard ratio [HR]=8.063, p=0.010).
Dr Setoguchi said: "Our study clearly shows that sleeping pills dramatically increase the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with HFpEF. The finding was consistent across univariate and multivariate analyses. Given that many heart failure patients have difficulty sleeping, this is an issue that needs further investigation in larger studies."
- http://www.escardio.org/Pages/index.aspx

Scientists discover how to turn light into matter

After an 80-year-long quest, British scientists have discovered how to turn light into matter. Scientists G Breit and John A Wheeler suggested in 193 4 the simplest method of turning light into matter — by smashing together only two particles of light (photons ), to create an electron and a positron. But has never been observed in a lab and past experiments to test it have required the addition of massive high-energy particles.

Physicists from Imperial College London have cracked the theory in the college's Blackett Physics Laboratory. The experiment would recreate a process that was critical in the first 100 seconds of the universe, also seen in gamma ray bursts — the biggest explosions in the universe and one of physics' greatest unsolved mysteries.

The collider experiment has two key steps. First, the scientists would use an extremely powerful high-intensity laser to speed up electrons to just below the speed of light. These electrons would be fired at a slab of gold to create a beam of photons a billion times more energetic than visible light. The next stage involves a tiny gold can called a hohlraum. Scientists would fire a high-energy laser at the inner surface of this can, to create a thermal radiation field, generating light similar to the light emitted by stars.

The photon beam from the first stage of the experiment would be directed through the centre of the can, causing the photons from the two sources to collide and form electrons and positrons.Itwouldthen be possible to detect the formation of the electrons and positronswhen they exitedthecan.

Professor Steve Rose from the department of physics, Imperial College, said, "When Breit and Wheeler proposed the theory, physicists said that they never expected it be shown in the lab. Today we prove them wrong. What was so surprising to us was the discovery of how we can create matter directly from light using the technology that we have today in the UK."

This'photon-photon collider',which wouldconvertlightdirectly into matter using technology, would be a new type of high-energy physics experiment.

http://phys.org/news/2014-05-scientists-year-quest.html

Radio signals skew birds’ internal navigation

Migrating birds might lose their way when exposed to the electromagnetic noise from radio signals and electronic devices, researchers have found.

Birds that fly north or south with the seasons rely on Earth’s magnetic field to sense where they’re going. Even birds placed in windowless rooms will try to fly in their preferred migratory direction.

But when researchers placed European robins in wooden huts on the University of Oldenburg campus in densely populated northwestern Germany, the birds were unable to orient themselves.

Suspecting that electromagnetic signals were confounding the robins’ magnetic compasses, the researchers moved them to electrically grounded, aluminum-screened huts that blocked noise between 50 kHz and 5 MHz. The birds regained their sense of direction.

The researchers repeated the experiments during migrating seasons for seven years, before publishing in the journal Nature.

Organisations that fund agricultural research for development often see initiatives that work with local expertise as unscientific, and this pervasive view is stifling collaboration with other development actors, experts say.

Working with local farmers, NGOs and civil society is vital to ensure that advances in ‘hard science’ truly boost development, attendees of the first annual meeting of Agrinatura — an alliance of European institutions that work on agricultural research for development — heard last week (5-7 May) in Austria. Some said funders should do more to support such efforts.

Many scientists involved in funding decisions prize focused research

But this can sideline local knowledge and collaboration with social science

It may also suit agribusinesses more than smallholder farmers

Peer reviewers ‘harming alliances with local expertise’
http://www.scidev.net/global/funding/news/peer-reviewers-local-expe...

UK’s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science
The influential media centre has inspired a range of others around the world

But researchers say it offers a biased, industrial-science view of issues

The findings could help avoid similar pitfalls if any developing world centre is set
http://www.scidev.net/global/journalism/feature/uk-s-science-media-...

Massive dose of measles vaccine clears woman's cancer
US doctors claim to have wiped out a woman's advanced blood cancer with a massive dose of the measles vaccine, enough to inoculate 10 million people.
The woman was part of a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic demonstrating that cancer cells can be killed with injections of a genetically-engineered virus through a process known as virotherapy.

Two patients in the study received a single intravenous dose of an engineered measles virus (MV-NIS ) that is selectively toxic to myeloma plasma cells. Stacy Erholtz, 49, from Minnesota, was one of the two patients in the study who received the dose last year, and after ten years with multiple myeloma, she has been clear of the disease for over six months now.

"It was the easiest treatment by far with very few side effects", say the researchers

Surgical Infections Fly under the Radar at Outpatient Clinics
Outpatient surgeries at freestanding medical centers are growing in popularity, but for all their promise, gaps in tracking superbugs and other infections fuel concern
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/under-the-knife-where-inf...

New Meta-analysis Confirms: No Association between Vaccines and Autism

Analysis of 10 studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism; MMR shot may actually decrease risk
A meta-analysis of ten studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism. If anything, immunization was associated with decreased risk that children would develop autism, a possibility that’s strongest with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

The report appears online in the journal Vaccine as an “uncorrected proof.” This means that it has passed through peer review and been accepted for publication, but may still undergo proof-reading changes.
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/new-meta-analysis-...

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

As government financing of basic science research has plunged, private donors have filled the void, raising questions about the future of research for the public good.
To show that private science has roots in the first gilded age, though, is not to dismiss Americans’ perceptions that there is something new in the way science is now being funded. Unlike their early-20th-century predecessors, for example, philanthropists today are targeting particular fields themselves and bypassing traditional intermediaries such as trustees, federal actors, and research experts. On the one hand, these intermediaries can be perceived as an unnecessary and time-consuming bureaucratic hurdle that not only stands in the way of donors’ passionate inspirations, but also stalls innovation and avoids risk-taking. On the other hand, their presence can facilitate informed decision-making and serve as a democratizing element, ensuring that several groups of Americans besides the private-sector elite have a say in the course and development of American science.
https://news.yahoo.com/way-wrong-way-privatize-science-121500191.html
One important distinction, however, exists between these two earlier philanthropists and the philanthropists funding private science today. With the Carnegie Institution and the NRC, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller had invested in building up American science as a holistic unit and leaving it up to foundation trustees, federal actors, and their expert advisers to decide which particular fields and projects to support. By contrast, it seems that philanthropists today are invested in deciding for themselves which particular strands of research in American science are worthy of their funds. As the Times journalist Broad reminds us: “[T]he new science philanthropy is personal, antibureaucratic, inspirational.”

The question is whether we—as Americans—welcome this new model of private science as is, or whether we find something valuable in its older form. More specifically, we need to ask ourselves whether we welcome a world where individual philanthropists decide for themselves which research fields in American science to fund. This contemporary model might encourage funders’ enthusiasm, clear the way for innovation, and encourage risk-taking, but at the very cost of silencing the voices of American trustees, research experts, and policymakers. This second model is perhaps more expedient than the first, but also less democratic.

Such a conversation should not lead us to bemoan one period of private science and celebrate another; but rather, to think critically about the model of private science that we would like to see take shape in the 21st century.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ide...

Diverse gene pool critical for tigers' survival: Stanford scholars
Increasing tigers' genetic diversity – via interbreeding and other methods – and not just their population numbers may be the best solution to saving this endangered species, according to Stanford research.
a new research by Stanford scholars shows that increasing genetic diversity among the 3,000 or so tigers left on the planet is the key to their survival as a species. That research shows that the more gene flow there is among tiger populations, the more genetic diversity is maintained and the higher the chances of species survival become. In fact, it might be possible to maintain tiger populations that preserve about 90 percent of genetic diversity. The research focused on the Indian subcontinent, home to about 65 percent of the world's wild tigers. The scientists found that as populations become more fragmented and the pools of each tiger subspecies shrink, so does genetic diversity. This loss of diversity can lead to lower reproduction rates, faster spread of disease and more cardiac defects, among other problems."Genetic diversity is the basis for adaptation."
The results showed that for tiger populations to maintain their current genetic diversity 150 years from now, the tiger population would have to expand to about 98,000 individuals if gene flow across species were delayed 25 years. By comparison, the population would need to grow to about 60,000 if gene flow were achieved immediately. Neither of these numbers is realistic, considering the limited size of protected tiger habitat and availability of prey, among other factors, according to the researchers.

"Since genetic variability is the raw material for future evolution, our results suggest that without interbreeding sub-populations of tigers, the genetic future for tigers is not viable," said co-author Uma Ramakrishnan, a former Stanford postdoctoral scholar in biology and current researcher at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.

Because migration and interbreeding among subspecies appear to be "much more important" for maintaining genetic diversity than increasing population numbers, the researchers recommend focusing conservation efforts on creating ways for tigers to travel longer distances, such as wildlife corridors, and potentially crossbreeding wild and captive tiger subspecies.

"This is very much counter to the ideas that many managers and countries have now - that tigers in zoos are almost useless and that interbreeding tigers from multiple countries is akin to genetic pollution," said Hadly. "In this case, survival of the species matters more than does survival of the exclusive traits of individual populations," says the report.

Understanding these factors can help decision-makers better address how development affects populations of tigers and other animals, the study noted.

Iconic symbols of power and beauty, wild tigers may roam only in stories someday soon. Their historical range has been reduced by more than 90 percent. But conservation plans that focus only on increasing numbers and preserving distinct subspecies ignore genetic diversity, according to the study. In fact, under that approach, the tiger could vanish entirely.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/tigers-genetic-diversity-0...

Biomechanics of ants: New Research: The neck joints of ants could withstand loads of about 5,000 times the ant's body weight, and that the ant's neck-joint structure produced the highest strength when its head was aligned straight, as opposed to turned to either side.
"The design and structure of this interface is critical for the performance of the neck joint. The unique interface between hard and soft materials likely strengthens the adhesion and may be a key structural design feature that enables the large load capacity of the neck joint."
The simulations confirmed the joint's directional strength and, consistent with the experimental results, indicated that the critical point for failure of the neck joint is at the neck-to-head transition, where soft membrane meets the hard exoskeleton. The neck joint [of the ant] is a complex and highly integrated mechanical system. Efforts to understand the structure-function relationship in this system will contribute to the understanding of the design paradigms for optimized exoskeleton mechanisms.
'' Scientists study biomechanics behind amazing ant strength''
https://www.osc.edu/press/scientists_study_biomechanics_behind_amaz...

Training The Immune System To Target Brain Cancer
By exploiting the fact that many brain tumors harbor cytomegalovirus, scientists have used the patient’s immune system to target brain cancer.
Scientists have made headway in the treatment of the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) with the use of immunotherapy. This study was published in the journal Cancer Research.
Researchers developed a technique to modify the patients’ T-cells in the laboratory, effectively “training” them to attack the virus, and then returned them to the patient’s body while keeping them on chemotherapy. It is thought that the killer T-cells destroy the cancer cells along with the virus-infected cells.
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/07/0008-547...

Scientists Uncover How EBV Hides
A new study has shown that the Epstein-Barr virus flies below the immune system’s radar by restricting the production of the protein EBNA1.
Epstein-Barr virus infects more than 90 percent of the world’s population and is linked to a number of cancers including Burkitt’s lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are currently no vaccines to prevent EBV and other herpes virus-associated cancers.
http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v10/n5/full/nchembio.1479.html

Dustup emerges over gravitational waves discovery

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dustup-emerges-over-gravitation...

Backlash to Big Bang Discovery Gathers Steam
Physicists cast doubt on a landmark experiment’s claim to have observed gravity waves from the big bang
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/backlash-to-big-bang-disc...

How Gut Bacteria Help Make Us Fat and Thin
Intestinal bacteria may help determine whether we are lean or obese
Adults who do daily battle with obesity, the main causes of their condition are all too familiar: an unhealthy diet, a sedentary lifestyle and perhaps some unlucky genes. In recent years, however, researchers have become increasingly convinced that important hidden players literally lurk in human bowels: billions on billions of gut microbes.

New evidence indicates that gut bacteria alter the way we store fat, how we balance levels of glucose in the blood, and how we respond to hormones that make us feel hungry or full. The wrong mix of microbes, it seems, can help set the stage for obesity and diabetes from the moment of birth.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-mak...

A slow heartbeat in athletes is not so funny
Changes in the ‘funny channel’ of heart’s pacemaker may be behind sinus bradycardia
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/slow-heartbeat-athletes...

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing-part1
Dongshan He, Dongfeng Gao, Qing-yu Cai
(Submitted on 4 Apr 2014)

An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given. In this paper, we present such a proof based on the analytic solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDWE). Explicit solutions of the WDWE for the special operator ordering factor p=-2 (or 4) show that, once a small true vacuum bubble is created by quantum fluctuations of the metastable false vacuum, it can expand exponentially no matter whether the bubble is closed, flat or open. The exponential expansion will end when the bubble becomes large and thus the early universe appears. With the de Broglie-Bohm quantum trajectory theory, we show explicitly that it is the quantum potential that plays the role of the cosmological constant and provides the power for the exponential expansion of the true vacuum bubble. So it is clear that the birth of the early universe completely depends on the quantum nature of the theory.

Comments: The problem of singularity can be avoided naturally as the universe can be spontaneously created from nothing
Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Journal reference: Phys. Rev. D 89, 083510 (2014)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.89.083510
Cite as: arXiv:1404.1207 [gr-qc]
(or arXiv:1404.1207v1 [gr-qc] for this version)
Submission history
From: Qing-Yu Cai [view email]
[v1] Fri, 4 Apr 2014 10:09:09 GMT (9kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.1207

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing-part 2

According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, quantum fluctuations in the metastable false vacuum – a state absent of space, time or matter – can give rise to virtual particle pairs. Ordinarily these pairs self-annihilate almost instantly, but if these virtual particles separate immediately, they can avoid annihilation, creating a true vacuum bubble. The Wuhan team’s equations show that such a bubble has the potential to expand exponentially, causing a new universe to appear. All of this begins from quantum behavior and leads to the creation of a tremendous amount of matter and energy during the inflation stage. (Note that as stated in this paper, the metastable false vacuum has “neither matter nor space or time,” but is a form of wavefunction referred to as “quantum potential.” While most of us wouldn’t be inclined to call this “nothing,” physicists do refer to it as such.)
This description of exponential growth of a true vacuum bubble corresponds directly to the period of cosmic inflation resulting from the Big Bang. According to this proof, the bubble even stops expanding – or else it may continue to expand at a constant velocity – once it reaches a certain size. Nevertheless, this is a very different version of inflation than those proposed by Guth, Linde and others, in that it doesn’t rely on scalar fields, only quantum effects. Still, this work dovetails well with that of the BICEP2 team, both discoveries having significant implications for our understanding of the universe and our future should they stand up to further inquiry.

This description of exponential growth of a true vacuum bubble corresponds directly to the period of cosmic inflation resulting from the Big Bang. According to this proof, the bubble even stops expanding – or else it may continue to expand at a constant velocity – once it reaches a certain size. Nevertheless, this is a very different version of inflation than those proposed by Guth, Linde and others, in that it doesn’t rely on scalar fields, only quantum effects. Still, this work dovetails well with that of the BICEP2 team, both discoveries having significant implications for our understanding of the universe and our future should they stand up to further inquiry.

How the escape from gravity works: The plane flies a series of parabolas. From an altitude of about 20,000 feet (6,100 meters), the aircraft quickly ascends maybe another 20,000 feet into the sky and then plummets. It climbs and drops over and over again — 30 times — creating short periods of weightlessness at the crest.

Visual Cortex Found To Process Sound As Well As Sight
''Decoding Sound and Imagery Content in Early Visual Cortex''
Human early visual cortex was traditionally thought to process simple visual features such as orientation, contrast, and spatial frequency via feedforward input from the lateral geniculate nucleus. However, the role of nonretinal influence on early visual cortex is so far insufficiently investigated despite much evidence that feedback connections greatly outnumber feedforward connections. Here, the researchers explored in five fMRI experiments how information originating from audition and imagery affects the brain activity patterns in early visual cortex in the absence of any feedforward visual stimulation. They show that category-specific information from both complex natural sounds and imagery can be read out from early visual cortex activity in blindfolded participants. The coding of nonretinal information in the activity patterns of early visual cortex is common across actual auditory perception and imagery and may be mediated by higher-level multisensory areas. Furthermore, this coding is robust to mild manipulations of attention and working memory but affected by orthogonal, cognitively demanding visuospatial processing. Crucially, the information fed down to early visual cortex is category specific and generalizes to sound exemplars of the same category, providing evidence for abstract information feedback rather than precise pictorial feedback. The results suggest that early visual cortex receives nonretinal input from other brain areas when it is generated by auditory perception and/or imagery, and this input carries common abstract information. The findings are compatible with feedback of predictive information to the earliest visual input level, in line with predictive coding models.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2814%2900458-8

Microbes defy rules of DNA code

Researchers find widespread 'recoding'.
The instructions encoded into DNA are thought to follow a universal set of rules across all domains of life. But researchers report today in Science1 that organisms routinely break these rules.

The finding has implications for the design of synthetic life: by designing organisms that break the rules, researchers may be able to make novel life forms resistant to viral infection. Making these organisms also been proposed as a way to stop synthetic life forms from infecting unintended hosts. Widespread exceptions to these rules, however, could make it difficult to engineer organisms that will not pass on their DNA to those in the wild.
http://www.nature.com/news/microbes-defy-rules-of-dna-code-1.15283

climate-smart rice to save farmers in flood-prone areas
Farmers in India’s eastern region, prone for flash floods, are now shifting to flood-tolerant variety of rice, developed by Manila-based International Rice Research Institute, IRRI. The variety – Swarna-SUB1, is bread from a popular Indian variety of rice Swarna by upgrading it with SUB1, the gene for flood tolerance. Swarna was developed by Andhra Pradesh Agriculture University.

The new variety can withstand floods for two weeks, unlike existing varieties which would wilt if remained under water even for a few days resulting in economic loss to farmers. However, Swarna-SUB1 can rise back to life after having submerged for two weeks.

“The demand for this variety is increasing and we are readying 300 quintal breeder seed this year,” said Dr. O.N. Singh, Head of Crop Improvement Division of Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack Odhisa. He told Indian Science Journal, after successful experimental crop, Swarna-SUB1 would now be distributed for cultivation in flood-prone areas of eastern India – Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Odhisa and Andhra Pradesh.

Climate-smart rice varieties are made to especially thrive in environments affected by flooding, drought, cold temperatures, and soils that are too salty or contain too much iron that leads to iron toxicity. IRRI has distributed the climate-smart rice varieties to about 10 million of the poorest and most disadvantaged rice farmers in various countries in South Asia under Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) project promoted by IRRI. The STRASA project was initiated in 2007, with its first two phases funded with about USD 20 million each.

“Under the past phases of the project, 16 climate-smart rice varieties tolerant of flood, drought, and salinity were released in various countries in South Asia; about 14 such varieties were released in sub-Saharan Africa. Several more are in the process of being released,” said Abdelbagi Ismail, IRRI scientist and STRASA project leader.

In addition to improving varieties and distributing seeds, the STRASA project also trains farmers and scientists in producing good-quality seeds. Through the project’s capacity-building component, 74,000 farmers—including 19,400 women farmers—underwent training in seed production.

“An estimated 140,000 tons of seed of these varieties were produced between 2011 and 2013. These seed releases are estimated to have reached over ten million farmers, covering over 2.5 million hectares of rice land.” said Dr. Ismail. This is double the initial target of 5 million farmers reached.

IRRI collaborates with more than 550 partners in getting climate-smart rice varieties to farmers in South Asia and Africa. These partners include national agricultural research and extension programs, government agencies, nongovernment organizations, and private sector actors, including seed producers.

Nobel laureates offer new interpretations of quantum mysteries

http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548

The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. A View on the Quantum Nature of our Universe, Compulsory or Impossible?

When investigating theories at the tiniest conceivable scales in nature, "quantum logic" is taking over from "classical logic" in the minds of almost all researchers today. Dissatisfied, the author investigated how one can look at things differently. This report is an overview of older material, but also contains many new observations and calculations. Quantum mechanics is looked upon as a tool, not as a theory. Examples are displayed of models that are classical in essence, but can be analysed by the use of quantum techniques, and we argue that even the Standard Model, together with gravitational interactions, may be viewed as a quantum mechanical approach to analyse a system that could be classical at its core. We then explain how these apparently heretic thoughts can be reconciled with Bell's theorem and the usual objections voiced against the notion of 'super determinism'. Our proposal would eradicate the collapse problem and the measurement problem.

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/nobel-laureates-offer-new-...

Scientists develop new hybrid energy transfer system
Scientists from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield and Crete, have developed a new hybrid energy transfer system, which mimics the processes responsible for photosynthesis. From photosynthesis to respiration, the processes of light absorption and its transfer into energy represent elementary and essential reactions that occur in any biological living system.

This energy transfer is known as Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), a radiationless transmission of energy that occurs on the nanometer scale from a donor molecule to an acceptor molecule. The donor molecule is the dye or chromophore that initially absorbs the energy and the acceptor is the chromophore to which the energy is subsequently transferred without any molecular collision. However, FRET is a strongly distance dependent process which occurs over a scale of typically 1 to 10 nm.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature Materials, the researchers demonstrate an alternate non-radiative, intermolecular energy transfer that exploits the intermediating role of light confined in an optical cavity. The advantage of this new technique which exploits the formation of quantum states admixture of light and matter, is the length over which the interaction takes places, that is in fact, considerably longer than conventional FRET-type processes.

Using thoughts to control airplanes
Pilots of the future may be able to control their aircraft by merely thinking commands, scientists say.

Researchers at the Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM) in Germany have demonstrated the feasibility of flying via brain control - with astonishing accuracy.
The scientists have logged their first breakthrough: They succeeded in demonstrating that brain-controlled flight is indeed possible -- with amazing precision. Seven subjects took part in the flight simulator tests. They had varying levels of flight experience, including one person without any practical cockpit experience whatsoever. The accuracy with which the test subjects stayed on course by merely thinking commands would have sufficed, in part, to fulfill the requirements of a flying license test. "One of the subjects was able to follow eight out of ten target headings with a deviation of only 10 degrees," reports Fricke. Several of the subjects also managed the landing approach under poor visibility. One test pilot even landed within only few meters of the centerline.

The TU München scientists are now focusing in particular on the question of how the requirements for the control system and flight dynamics need to be altered to accommodate the new control method. Normally, pilots feel resistance in steering and must exert significant force when the loads induced on the aircraft become too large. This feedback is missing when using brain control. The researchers are thus looking for alternative methods of feedback to signal when the envelope is pushed too hard, for example.

Electrical potentials are converted into control commands

In order for humans and machines to communicate, brain waves of the pilots are measured using electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes connected to a cap. An algorithm developed by scientists from the Department of Biological Psychology and Neuroergonomics at the Berlin Institute of Technology allows the program to decipher electrical potentials and convert them into useful control commands.

Only the very clearly defined electrical brain impulses required for control are recognized by the brain-computer interface. "This is pure signal processing," emphasizes Fricke. Mind reading is not possible.

The researchers will present their results end of September at the "Deutscher Luft- und Raumfahrtkongress."

Protection against chemical weapons
Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that some compounds called polyoxoniobates can degrade and decontaminate nerve agents such as the deadly sarin gas, and have other characteristics that may make them ideal for protective suits, masks or other clothing. The use of polyoxoniobates for this purpose had never before been demonstrated, scientists said, and the discovery could have important implications for both military and civilian protection.
The study findings were just published in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry.

Some other compounds exist that can decontaminate nerve gases, researchers said, but they are organic, unstable, degraded by sunlight and have other characteristics that make them undesirable for protective clothing -- or they are inorganic, but cannot be used on fabrics or surfaces.

By contrast, the polyoxoniobates are inorganic, do not degrade in normal environmental conditions, dissolve easily and it should be able to incorporate them onto surfaces, fabrics and other material.
"As stable, inorganic compounds they have an important potential to decontaminate and protect against these deadly nerve gases."
Besides protection against nerve gas, their chemistry might allow them to function as a catalyst that could absorb carbon dioxide and find use in carbon sequestration at fossil-fuel power plants -- but little has been done yet to explore that potential.

Carbon in deeper soil threatening our climate
Deep soils can contain long-buried stocks of organic carbon which could, through erosion, agriculture, deforestation, mining and other human activities, contribute to global climate change.

"There is a lot of carbon at depths where nobody is measuring," said Erika Marin-Spiotta, assistant professor of geography at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

It was assumed that there was little carbon in deeper soils and so most studies so far focused only the top 30 centimetres.

"Our study is showing that we are potentially grossly underestimating carbon in soils," Marin-Spiotta added.

The soil studied by Marin-Spiotta and her colleagues, known as the Brady soil, formed between 15,000 and 13,500 years ago in what is now Nebraska, Kansas and other parts of the Great Plains.

It lies up to six-and-a-half metres below the present-day surface and was buried by a vast accumulation of windborne dust known as loess beginning about 10,000 years ago, when the glaciers that covered much of North America began to retreat.

The study appeared in the journal Nature Geoscience.

30% of world is now fat - and I am not one among them!
Almost a third of the world is now fat, and no country has been able to curb obesity rates in the last three decades, according to a new global analysis.

Researchers found more than 2 billion people worldwide are now overweight or obese. The highest rates were in the Middle East and North Africa, where nearly 60 percent of men and 65 percent of women are heavy. The U.S. has about 13 percent of the world's fat population, a greater percentage than any other country. China and India combined have about 15 percent.
There was a strong link between income and obesity; as people get richer, their waistlines also tend to start bulging. He said scientists have noticed accompanying spikes in diabetes and that rates of cancers linked to weight, like pancreatic cancer, are also rising.

The new report was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet.

What is Quantum Tunneling?
Scientists from Japan have demonstrated that an important physical effect accounts for the dynamics of a quantum tunneling system
A team of Japanese scientists has found new experimental evidence for a fundamental quantum mechanical phenomenon, resolving previously unverified hypotheses about the dynamics of quantum tunneling.

In quantum mechanics, the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect describes the observation in which an electrically charged particle is affected by an electromagnetic field despite lying outside its region. A fundamental phenomenon believed to be caused by interactions between the electromagnetic field potential and the particle’s wavefunction, the AB effect has been used by physicists to explain and make predictions about the behavior of particles.

Led by Shinji Urabe, professor at Osaka University, the team investigated quantum tunneling using two-dimensional ionic structures in a “linear Paul trap” that captures ions into a region. Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon describing how particles can be transmitted across a supposedly insurmountable barrier.

By manipulating the ground state of an ion using laser cooling and arranging three calcium ions in a triangular structure, the research, which was published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the charged particles contained in the quantum tunneling system behave in accordance to the AB effect.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140513/ncomms4868/full/ncomms4868...

Fast Growing Bornean Trees Important For Carbon Cycling
Rainforests in Borneo produce 50 percent more wood biomass than comparable forests in the Amazon, scientists say.
An international collaboration including scientists from Taiwan and Malaysia has found that certain species of trees in Bornean rainforests achieve faster wood growth rates than even the most productive forests in the Amazon. The research, published in the Journal of Ecology, suggests that these trees may play an important role in mitigating global warming through carbon sequestration
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.12263/abstract...

A new study finds that shining a low-power laser on damaged rat teeth activates molecular growth factors already present in the tissue. These growth factors cue stem cells to generate dentin, the bonelike substance that teeth are mostly made of.

Researchers also found that when mice were missing those growth factors or when the factors were blocked from working, the stem cells would not regenerate dentin when exposed to laser light. That finding confirms the important role these signaling pathways play in dental development. The study, led by David Mooney at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, is in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Laser Light Coaxes Damaged Rodent Tooth Repair
Low-power laser light shined on damaged rat teeth activates growth factors that cue stem cells to generate the tooth constituent dentin, leading to regeneration.
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/238/238ra69

Have been waiting to have one, love this self driving car Designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention. They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Google's software and sensors will do all the work. They will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And that's an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people.