Vision Involves a Bit of Hearing, Too
Researchers could tell what sounds blindfolded volunters were hearing by analyzing activity in their visual cortexes.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/vision-involves-h...

Drug Developers Take a Second Look at Herbal Medicines
Desperate to develop new drugs for malaria and other ailments, researchers are running clinical trials with traditional herbal medicines—and generating promising leads

A Swedish-German research team has successfully tested a new method for the production of ultra-strong cellulose fibers at DESY’s research light source PETRA III. The novel procedure spins extremely tough filaments from tiny cellulose fibrils by aligning them all in parallel during the production process. The new method is reported in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
Hydrodynamic alignment and assembly of nanofibrils resulting in strong cellulose filaments
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140602/ncomms5018/full/ncomms5018...
Cellulose nanofibrils can be obtained from trees and have considerable potential as a building block for biobased materials. In order to achieve good properties of these materials, the nanostructure must be controlled. Here we present a process combining hydrodynamic alignment with a dispersion–gel transition that produces homogeneous and smooth filaments from a low-concentration dispersion of cellulose nanofibrils in water. The preferential fibril orientation along the filament direction can be controlled by the process parameters. The specific ultimate strength is considerably higher than previously reported filaments made of cellulose nanofibrils. The strength is even in line with the strongest cellulose pulp fibres extracted from wood with the same degree of fibril alignment. Successful nanoscale alignment before gelation demands a proper separation of the timescales involved. Somewhat surprisingly, the device must not be too small if this is to be achieved.

A failed replication draws a scathing personal attack from a psychology professor
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/10/failed-replicati...

Science sometimes gets things wrong. Scientists often get things wrong. But what makes science so powerful is how it responds to new evidence and how scientists learn from their mistakes.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-science-trust-and-psychology-in...

Anti-science politics in the US:

Democrats Have a Problem With Science, Too

We shouldn't let them off the hook just because Republicans are worse.

Take anti-GMO sentiment, for example. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) notes in its statement on the issue that “25 years of research involving more than 500 independent research groups” has found genetically modified foods to be no riskier than foods resulting from conventional breeding. Eating a GM tomato is just as safe as eating a non-GM tomato. The AAAS therefore opposes GMO labeling because it could “mislead and falsely alarm customers.” Though some polling has shown GMO labeling support to be about equal among Republicans, Democrats and Independents, looking at GMO-related legislation tells another story

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/democrats-have-a-pro...

Media Coverage of Medical Journals: Do the Best Articles Make the News?

Newspapers were more likely to cover observational studies and less likely to cover RCTs than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology.
--
Newspapers were more likely to cover observational studies and less likely to cover randomized trials than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. We present evidence that newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology. Our findings add to the understanding of how journalists and medical researchers weight studies. Ultimately such understanding may facilitate communication between researchers and the media and promote coverage that is in the greatest interest of the public health.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

How to report on foreign aid for science

Journalists should go beyond aid announcements and follow up results

Ask who is involved, not just who benefits — science aid should build capacity

Aid is important and complex: your job is to keep asking the tough questions
http://www.scidev.net/global/journalism/practical-guide/how-to-repo...

How genomics can tackle antimicrobial resistance
By decoding the genomes of a large number of bacteria, scientists will be able to understand how common pathogens respond to antibiotics and what genetic changes drive them to become resistant. They can therefore predict how resistance will develop and design strategies that could save millions of people, particularly in vulnerable areas such as developing countries, where healthcare infrastructure is more basic.
http://www.scidev.net/global/genomics/multimedia/genomics-antimicro...

Indian frogs kick up their heels
Some new species impress a potential mate with a dance
Some frogs use a little fancy footwork to get attention during mating season. A 12-year search of a 1,600-kilometer-long mountain range on India’s west coast has turned up 14 new frog species, including at least four “dancing frogs,” Indian researchers report May 8 in the Ceylon Journal of Science (Biological Sciences). This finding more than doubles the number of species in the genus Micrixalus, a group of frogs known for their dance moves. The amphibian boogie starts off with Micrixalus males calling to females, showing off their bright white throats. Then males tap their feet and finish off by stretching out a hind leg and whipping it around behind them. Called foot-flagging, this pretty maneuver isn’t just for show. Should a rival male intrude on the display, he may get kicked.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/indian-frogs-kick-their-heels

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found people who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive skills later in life
(Wow! I speak five languages! - K)
Learning a second language slows the speed at which brains age, a study has found, even if it learned in adulthood.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found people who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive skills later in life compared with what would be predicted from their IQ results in childhood.

The team, led by Dr Thomas Bak, from the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, looked at data taken from intelligence tests on 262 English people at 11-years-old who could all speak at least two languages.

The tests were then repeated when they were in their seventies.

From that group, 195 learned a second language before turning 18 and 65 had acquired a second language after that age.

Researchers found that reading, verbal fluency and intelligence were better than what was expected from their test in childhood, particularly with reading and intelligence.

This was the case even if the second language was acquired in adulthood.
The study was published in the journal Annals of Neurology

Scientists prove bees make mental maps
Previous theory indicated that bees oriented themselves only by noting their relative position to the Sun. New research shows that bees produce cognitive maps of the area they inhabit much like mammals do. The research was conducted led by James F. Cheeseman from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues from New Zealand, Germany, and the United States. The study was presented in the June 2, 2014, edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Spiders could be the key to saving bees from harmful toxins after researchers found a bio-pesticide created using spider venom and a plant protein is highly toxic to a number of insect pests – but safe for honeybees.
Common neonicotinoid pesticides are believed to be behind the catastrophic decline in honeybees and this decline could have a serious impact on food production.

A team at Newcastle University tested a combination of a natural toxin from the venom of an Australian funnel web spider and snowdrop lectin called Hv1a/GNA fusion protein bio-pesticide.

The researchers found this new pesticide allows honeybees to forage without harm, even when they received unusually high doses of it. Honeybees perform sophisticated behaviours while foraging that require them to learn and remember floral traits associated with food.
The team’s findings have been published this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The secret to baby girls’ enhanced ability to survive to birth could lie in a risk-averse strategy, according to a study of placental gene expression.

Integrative transcriptome meta-analysis reveals widespread sex-biased gene expression at the human fetal–maternal interface

Abstract

As males and females share highly similar genomes, the regulation of many sexually dimorphic traits is constrained to occur through sex-biased gene regulation. There is strong evidence that human males and females differ in terms of growth and development in utero and that these divergent growth strategies appear to place males at increased risk when in sub-optimal conditions. Since the placenta is the interface of maternal–fetal exchange throughout pregnancy, these developmental differences are most likely orchestrated by differential placental function. To date, progress in this field has been hampered by a lack of genome-wide information on sex differences in placental gene expression. Therefore, our motivation in this study was to characterize sex-biased gene expression in the human placenta. We obtained gene expression data for >300 non-pathological placenta samples from 11 microarray datasets and applied mapping-based array probe re-annotation and inverse-variance meta-analysis methods which showed that >140 genes (false discovery rate (FDR) <0.05) are differentially expressed between male and female placentae. A majority of these genes (>60%) are autosomal, many of which are involved in high-level regulatory processes such as gene transcription, cell growth and proliferation and hormonal function. Of particular interest, we detected higher female expression from all seven genes in the LHB-CGB cluster, which includes genes involved in placental development, the maintenance of pregnancy and maternal immune tolerance of the conceptus. These results demonstrate that sex-biased gene expression in the normal human placenta occurs across the genome and includes genes that are central to growth, development and the maintenance of pregnancy

http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/20/molehr.ga...

Antibiotic Resistance Revitalizes Century-Old Virus Therapy
The use of viruses that kill bacteria as a tool for treating infections are under study again by Western researchers and governments
http://www.nature.com/news/phage-therapy-gets-revitalized-1.15348

Climate change will make food less nutritious: Study
Plants make food from carbon dioxide in the air, using energy from sunlight. So, if carbon dioxide levels in the air are going up due to climate change, plants should be making more food, right? Wrong, says a new study published last week in the science journal Nature.

According to the study conducted by a team of US, Australian and Japanese scientists, carbon dioxide emissions are slowly making the world's staple food crops less nutritious. Wheat, maize, soybeans and rice will see their levels of nutrients iron and zinc, as well as proteins, go down between now and 2050.

Rice, maize, soybeans and wheat are the main source of nutrients for over 2 billion people living in poor countries. But with climate change and the rising amount of CO2 in the air we breathe, their already low nutrient value compared to meat, for instance, is set to decrease.

Probiotics prevent deadly complications of liver disease
Probiotics are effective in preventing hepatic encephalopathy in patients with cirrhosis of the liver, according to a study by the Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, New Delhi.

Hepatic encephalopathy is the deterioration of brain function — a serious complication of liver disease.

The research shows that probiotics modify the gut microbiota to prevent hepatic encephalopathy.

According to experts, the results offer a safe, well tolerated and a cheaper alternative to current treatments.

Is de-extinction a real possibility?
Yes, says, this article:
Fact or Fiction?: Mammoths Can Be Brought Back from Extinction
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-mammoths-...

Scientists find world's highest number of song birds in the Himalayas
On 9 June 2014 India's Endangered reported: There is a new song they sing and that's what makes them unique. The results of the first ever mapping of birds in the eastern Himalayan region of India has confirmed that there are more than 360 different songbird species in the regions, most of which are not found anywhere else on the planet. Scientists add that the presence of so many species within this small geographical location may be the highest diversity of song birds in the world
http://www.globalgoodnews.com/science-news-a.html?art=1402261051292...

GM strains crash mosquito population in lab
Scientists have created mosquitoes that produce 95% male offspring, with the aim of helping control malaria.

Flooding cages of normal mosquitoes with the new strain caused a shortage of females and a population crash.

The system works by shredding the X chromosome during sperm production, leaving very few X-carrying sperm to produce female embryos.

In the wild it could slash numbers of malaria-spreading mosquitoes, reports the journal Nature Communications.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27765974

Classroom Decorations Can Distract Young Students
Five-year-olds in highly decorated classrooms were less able to hold their focus, spent more time off-task and had smaller learning gains than kids in bare rooms
''Visual Environment, Attention Allocation, and Learning in Young Children
When Too Much of a Good Thing May Be Bad''

A large body of evidence supports the importance of focused attention for encoding and task performance. Yet young children with immature regulation of focused attention are often placed in elementary-school classrooms containing many displays that are not relevant to ongoing instruction. We investigated whether such displays can affect children’s ability to maintain focused attention during instruction and to learn the lesson content. We placed kindergarten children in a laboratory classroom for six introductory science lessons, and we experimentally manipulated the visual environment in the classroom. Children were more distracted by the visual environment, spent more time off task, and demonstrated smaller learning gains when the walls were highly decorated than when the decorations were removed.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/05/20/0956797614533801.ab...

Microwave-based stroke diagnosis making global pre-hospital thrombolytic treatment possible
A helmet placed on the head of a stroke victim sends low-intensity microwaves through the brain to quickly determine whether a blockage or hemorrhage is taking place, making faster treatment possible.
When a person suffers a stroke quick treatment is crucial. But there are two very different kinds of strokes: some result from blood clots that block circulation within the brain, others are caused by ruptured vessels that spill blood into surrounding tissue. The use of clot-busting drugs when a hemorrhage is happening can cause additional injury or death. So doctors lose precious time waiting for stroke victims to get MRIs or CAT scans before they start treatment.

But soon EMT’s might be able to quickly tell whether patients have a blockage or a bleed—by having them wear a high-tech helmet.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden developed the prototype helmet and tested it on 45 stroke patients.

The gadget covers the head with a patchwork of antennas. As each antenna beams low-intensity microwaves through the head in sequence, the other antennas detect how the waves scatter. Any pooling blood from a hemorrhage causes deflections easily spotted on an attached computer.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&a...

How Data Beats Intuition at Making Selection Decisions
A recent meta-analysis by Kuncel, Klieger, Connelly and Ones found that, across multiple criteria in work and academic settings, when people combined hard data with their judgments, and those of others, their predictions were always less valid, and less predictive of real outcomes, than those generated by hard data alone.

“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge,” Confucius once said. Algorithms using objective data lead to much greater accuracy in predicting widely valued outcomes such as job and academic performance. A true expert is someone who knows what they do not know—namely, that our intuition can fail us.
http://www.decisionsciencenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Kunce...

A study in Neurology  suggests that eating a lot of sugar or other carbohydrates can be hazardous to both brain structure and function.

Findings indicate that even in the absence of diabetes or glucose intolerance, higher blood sugar may harm the brain and disrupt memory function.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sugar-may-harm-brain-heal...

Magnetic Levitation Lifts Impurities from Pharmaceuticals
Separating therapeutic molecules from nonhelpful "twins" is tough, but a new magnetic method that can pull them apart may be the answer
''Separation and enrichment of enantiopure from racemic compounds using magnetic levitation ''
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/CC/c4cc02604g#!divAbstract

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/06/magnetic-levitation-separ...

The Science of Genius
Outstanding creativity in all domains may stem from shared attributes and a common process of discovery
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-genius-cre...

http://listverse.com/2007/10/06/top-10-geniuses/

Fatal toxins found in ‘edible’ wild mushrooms
A wild mushroom eaten by foraging enthusiasts across Europe has been found to contain dangerous and potentially lethal toxins. Chinese scientists believe they have identified the mushroom toxins that cause rhabdomyolysis – a sometimes fatal disease that can irreparably damages the kidneys – that was first reported 15 years ago in France. However, the toxins were not isolated from the mushroom Tricholoma equestre that was thought to be responsible for the deaths, but from Tricholoma terreum, its close relative, highlighting the complexity of fungus toxicology. These scientists are recommending that people who forage for mushrooms avoid eating both of these species.
The two new compounds are of medium toxicity, so it is possible that they work together, perhaps with other unknown mushroom toxins, in a cumulative way to cause lethal rhabdomyolysis.
A person would have to eat a portion of T. terreum every day for several days before the dose would be deadly. He says that it is fortunate that T. terreum, prized for its flavour, is only eaten in small quantities or there might have been more fatalities.
A combination of three types of mushroom toxins may have been responsible for more than 200 deaths in China.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/06/fatal-toxins-identified-e...

 Antimatter: Have you ever heard about Antimatter? You may have probably not heard of it much. Antimatter is basically a mirror image of existing matter and it is very difficult to make. This can be created by physicists at the world’s largest particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, Switzerland. This material is scarcely available, only about a billionth of a gram can be made per year. It is so rare that even its potential uses are still largely not known. One of its explored uses is that antimatter shows some possibility of practical application in treating cancer. Not only can it be used as medicine, it can also be possibly used to fuel spaceships to the planets in future. Its price is nearly $62.5 trillion/gram.

 Californium 252: Californium is a radioactive transuranic element with its atomic number as 98 is a man-made element. It was discovered in 1950. It was created by scientists by bombarding the chemical element curium with alpha particles which resulted into a radioactive material. There are almost ten known versions, or isotopes of this material that exist. Few of its uses include treating certain forms of cancer and detecting gold and silver in ore or oil at the bottom of a well. It is true that californium is artificially made on Earth, but it is also said that certain stars that explode as super-novae may produce californium in space too. The actual price of californium is $27 million/gram.

Autoimmune diseases stopped in mice
Experimental treatment halted diabetes, MS without ruining rodents’ ability to fight infection
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/autoimmune-diseases-stopped-mice

In Pursuit of Truth:
Good Science / Bad Science
http://prointellects.com/goodbadscience.html

10 Scientific Ideas That Scientists Wish You Would Stop Misusing
http://io9.com/10-scientific-ideas-that-scientists-wish-you-would-s...

There is a difference in using words in science and art/literature. In art and literature perceptions differ from person to person depending on the region , culture etc. people are associated with and therefore usage can also differ. But in science the perception is based on facts and there can be only one fact given the conditions in which it is sought are same. You cannot give several names to it.  I think science has a universal language unlike other subjects. Therefore one has to follow it to avoid misconceptions.

The United Nations will seek ways to toughen environmental laws this week to crack down on everything from illegal trade in wildlife to mercury poisoning and hazardous waste.

The UN environment assembly (UNEA), a new forum of all nations including environment ministers, business leaders and civil society, will meet in Nairobi from June 23-27 to work on ways to promote greener economic growth.

That drive includes giving environmental laws more teeth.
- Reuters

Autism Risk Higher Near Pesticide-Treated Fields
Babies whose moms lived within a mile of crops treated with widely used pesticides were more likely to develop autism, according to new research
Organophosphates, pyrethroids near pregnant women raises risk 60-87 percent
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2014/jun/autism-and...
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/

Want To Protect Your PCs For Free? Go For Namo Anti-Virus Software
Homegrown IT firm Innovazion which has named its new antivirus software ‘NaMo’, the popular short name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will provide free protection to PC users against malware and virus attacks.

While the current version offers basic protection, the company plans to launch advanced versions of the software as well as those for Apple’s Mac PCs. The current software will also get regular updates.
http://www.siliconindia.com/news/technology/Want-To-Protect-Your-PC...

The calorie free sweetener erythritol is widely used in Asia; it is also gaining popularity in Europe and America. At the Vienna University of Technology, a new cheap method has been developed to produce erythritol from straw with the help of mould fungi.
Erythritol has many great advantages: it does not make you fat, it does not cause tooth decay, it has no effect on the blood sugar and, unlike other sweeteners, it does not have a laxative effect. In Asia it is already widely used and it is becoming more and more common in other parts of the world too. Up until now, erythritol could only be produced with the help of special kinds of yeast in highly concentrated molasses. At the TU Vienna, a method has now been developed to produce the sweetener from ordinary straw with the help of a mould fungus. The experiments have been a big success, and now the procedure will be optimized for industry.

From Straw via Sugar to Erythritol
Straw is often considered to be worthless and is therfore burnt, but it can be a precious resource. Some of its chemical components can be made into valuable products. First, the finely chopped straw has to be “opened up”: with the help of solvents, the cell walls are broken, the lignin is dissolved away. The remaining xylan and cellulose are then processed further.
“Usually the straw has to be treated with expensive enzymes to break it down into sugar”, says Professor Robert Mach (Vienna University of Technology). “In highly concentrated molasses, special strains of yeast can then turn the sugar into erythritol, if they are placed under extreme osmotic stress.”
Mould Fungus Makes Intermediate Step Obsolete
The enzymes opening up the straw can be obtained with the help of the mould fungus Trichoderma reesei. This kind of mould also plays the leading role in the new production process developed at the Vienna University of Technology.

Two big advantages have been achieved by genetically modifying the fungus: the process of obtaining the enzymes from mould cultures and chemically cleaning them used to be cumbersome – now the improved strain can be directly applied to the straw. Secondly, the mould can now produce erythritol directly from the straw. The intermediate step of producing molasses is not necessary any more and no yeast has to be used.
- http://www.tuwien.ac.at/en/news/news_detail/article/8864/

New Neurons In the Brain Keep Anxiety at Bay
The adult brain generates neurons every day. These cells help us to distinguish one memory from another—a finding that could lead to novel treatments for anxiety disorders

A study in the journal Cell reveals that a significant number of new neurons in the hippocampus — a brain region crucial for memory and learning — are generated in adult humans.

“It was thought for a long time that we are born with a certain number of neurons, and that it is not possible to get new neurons after birth,” says senior study author Jonas Frisén of the Karolinska Institute.

By Carbon-dating neurons the researchers measured the carbon-14 concentration in DNA from  the hippocampal neurons of deceased humans. They found that 1,400 new neurons in the dentate gyrus.area are added each day — 1.75% per year — during adulthood, and that this rate declines only modestly with age, suggesting that adult hippocampal neurogenesis may contribute to human brain function.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/atomic-bombs-help-solve-mystery-does-the-...

Top 9 Causes of Fatigue
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/prevention/medical-...

'Biggest prize in science' announced
The Breakthrough Prizes are awarded for recent achievements in fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics.

The organisers describe them as the "biggest science awards in the world" as they offer the most prize money - $3m (£1.76m) for each.
such awards were important because they help to attract the "the best brains into science".

"Science has an undeserved reputation of being dry and unglamorous so anything that can be done to change that image is to be welcomed.
The Breakthrough Prizes were launched by a group of philanthropic technology billionaires including Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, and Yuri Milner, founder of investment firm Digital Sky Technologies.

Mr Milner said the aim of the prize was to "cultivate a positive image of science and rationalism, and an optimistic view of humanity's future".

"Outside the field of entertainment, intellectual brilliance is under-capitalized in our society. 58 years ago, one of the most famous men on earth was not an actor, athlete or musician, but a theoretical physicist. Albert Einstein's face was on magazine covers, in newspapers and on television, worldwide,"
His name was synonymous with genius. Yet most of today's top scientists - despite opening new windows onto the Universe, curing intractable diseases and extending human life - are unknown to the general public. The greatest thinkers of our age should be superstars, like the geniuses of screen and stadium."
- http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27926950
( I have been saying these words ever since I entered the field of science. Now others too realized the importance of science and scientists.  A recognition of value of  both! What a wonderful news! - Krishna)

With Prizes Like This, Who Needs a Nobel?

Tech titans  to make winners of the 'Oscars of science' into instant millionaires - but is it the right thing to do?
Silicon Valley hosts lavish ceremony for Breakthrough prize that aims to give scientists celebrity status and inspire interest in life's 'big questions'.

Now a handful of billionaire engineers have turned their attention to a social blight that affects their own kind: the lack of appreciation (and funding) for scientists.

This is among the most lucrative awards in science, almost triple the size of the Nobel prize, and bigger than the $1.7m Templeton prize. It's expected to be bigger and bolder than the last similar ceremony.

Breakthrough prize and the Fundamental Physics prize

with focus on the very short-term problems that have an immediate impact on our lives.

It's easy to see why science has struggled to get the public recognition it deserves till now: much of it goes over everyone's heads.

With the right combination of celebrity endorsement and cash, scientists touting the most complex theories can become modern-day celebrities - making people realize the importance of science.

However, there is criticism too:

Perhaps not surprisingly, Milner's prizes have come under some criticism from scientists and even a few Nobel prizewinners, who claim they benefit the egos of their founders more than anything else. They are, says one physicist quoted in Nature magazine, "buying the prestige of Nobel". After scientist Alexander Polyakov received his orb-like Fundamental Physics prize from Morgan Freeman last March, and instantly became a millionaire, he told Nature backstage that it was all an "interesting experiment. Such big prizes could have a positive impact," he added, "or they can be very dangerous."

Some also complain that these well-heeled prizes focus on established researchers who don't need lavish funding as much as peers in other, more obscure realms of science. They also don't give credit to the wide, collaborative networks of researchers whose collective efforts lead to breakthroughs as much as the work of lone geniuses. Criticism for lavishing so much money on a few researchers  rather than spreading the money more widely, and for downplaying collaboration is the main objection.

But the supporters say- these prizes inspire young people to follow in these scientists' footsteps. If they know recognition and large sums of money are within their grasp, even if it does take a big stroke of luck, they'll be more likely to start exploring those big questions themselves.

Mobile phones carry the personal microbiome of their owners

Most people on the planet own mobile phones, and these devices are increasingly being utilized to gather data relevant to our personal health, behavior, and environment. During an educational workshop, we investigated the utility of mobile phones to gather data about the personal microbiome — the collection of microorganisms associated with the personal effects of an individual. We characterized microbial communities on smartphone touchscreens to determine whether there was significant overlap with the skin microbiome sampled directly from their owners. We found that about 22% of the bacterial taxa on participants’ fingers were also present on their own phones, as compared to 17% they shared on average with other people’s phones. When considered as a group, bacterial communities on men’s phones were significantly different from those on their fingers, while women’s were not. Yet when considered on an individual level, men and women both shared significantly more of their bacterial communities with their own phones than with anyone else’s. In fact, 82% of the OTUs were shared between a person’s index and phone when considering the dominant taxa (OTUs with more than 0.1% of the sequences in an individual’s dataset). Our results suggest that mobile phones hold untapped potential as personal microbiome sensors.

Meadow JF, Altrichter AE, Green JL. (2014) Mobile phones carry the personal microbiome of their owners. PeerJ 2:e447 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.447

Scientists have discovered the secrets behind electric fish, using genetic studies that revealed how these exotic creatures developed an organ that can unleash a wicked jolt.

Researchers on 26th June, 2014, unveiled a genetic blueprint of the electric eel - a fearsome denizen of South America that can zap you with an electric field of up to 600 volts - as well as detailed genetic data on two other types of electric fish.
Even though six groups of electric fish have evolved independently in far-flung locales like the muddy waters of the Amazon and murky marine environments, they all seem to have reached into the same "genetic toolbox" to fashion their electricity-generating organ, they said.

The new study found that various electric fish rely on the same genes and biological pathways to build their electric organs from skeletal muscle despite the different appearance and body location of their organs.

Their electrical abilities stand as one of the wonders of nature alongside traits like bioluminescence in some insects and sea creatures and echolocation in bats and whales.
"This only arose in fish because water is a conductor of electricity while air is not. Thus, birds or terrestrial animals could not come up with this''.
There are hundreds of species of electric fish worldwide, with varying degrees of electric power.

Fish with weak electric power use it to navigate in dim waters and communicate with one another. Those like the electric eel - a serpentine freshwater predator up to 8 feet long (2.4 meters) that is not a true eel but rather a catfish relative - possessing a powerful jolt use it to stun or kill prey and repel enemies.
"Electric organs start out their lives as muscle precursor cells. Through a series of developmental steps, they become larger, more electrically excitable and lose their ability to contract".
All muscle cells have electrical potential because any muscle contraction releases a small amount of voltage. Certain fish exploited that by transforming ordinary muscle cells into a larger type of cell called an electrocyte that generates vastly higher voltages. The electric organ is made of these cells.

"Each electric organ cell makes only a small voltage, similar in magnitude to our own muscles. The secret of electric organs is that the cells are aligned in stacks and electrically insulated so that the voltages add like batteries in a series," University of Texas neuroscience professor Harold Zakon said.

The six groups include: South American knife fishes, African electric catfish, African elephant fish, stargazers, some skates and some rays. Scientists think the electric organ first appeared in a fish 150 million to 200 million years ago.

The study was published in the journal Science.

Smallest Force Ever Measured

Why we should trust scientists
Many of the world's biggest problems require asking questions of scientists — but why should we believe what they say? Historian of science Naomi Oreskes thinks deeply about our relationship to belief and draws out three problems with common attitudes toward scientific inquiry — and gives her own reasoning for why we ought to trust science.
http://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_oreskes_why_we_should_believe_in_sci...