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Statistical analysis unveils the hidden patterns in Eurovision voting

By Guest PostMay 2, 2014Media, Sciencechristoph grosse steffen, conflicting, discrimination, imperial college London, ireland, kirsten bibbins domingo, kosmischer strahlung, mark defrancesco, peptide nanotubes, realist, revolutionist, Scandinavia, screening guidelines, southern europe, soviet bloc, statistical analysis, turkey, turkish, ucl, uk, us notenbank, zentrum der milchstrasse

Voting for the Eurovision Song Contest has been scrutinised by statistics experts at UCL and Imperial College London, who have found that musical talent is unlikely to be the only element that wins scores – but that the contest is not ‘stitched up’ at the UK’s expense.

The analysis of voting patterns over the past two decades suggests that widespread support for certain countries’ acts is, however, not driven by prejudice, as the media periodically suggests, but by positive loyalties based on culture, geography, history and migration. But these effects are relatively small – and the team found no evidence to support Sir Terry Wogan’s criticism that the contest is marred by blatant bias and discrimination. (more…)

Bright Future for Protein Nanoprobes

By Guest PostMay 2, 2014Sciencealexis ostrowski, berkeley lab, biology, brighter future, bruce cohen, building blocks, daniel gargas, doe, elektronische fussfessel, emory chan, erbium, fluorescent, free asymmetric, future, gewaltdelikte, heterocontact, james schuck, joerg kinzig, laboratory, mexican men, mexico murder rate, molecular foundry, nanocrystals, photobleach, polly myer, single molecules, sodium yttrium fluoride, ytterbium

Berkeley Lab Researchers Discover New Rules for Single-Particle Imaging with Light-Emitting Nanocrystals

The term a “brighter future” might be a cliché, but in the case of ultra-small probes for lighting up individual proteins, it is now most appropriate. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered surprising new rules for creating ultra-bright light-emitting crystals that are less than 10 nanometers in diameter. These ultra-tiny but ultra-bright nanoprobes should be a big asset for biological imaging, especially deep-tissue optical imaging of neurons in the brain.

Working at the Molecular Foundry, a DOE national nanoscience center hosted at Berkeley Lab, a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by James Schuck and Bruce Cohen, both with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, used advanced single-particle characterization and theoretical modeling to study what are known as “upconverting nanoparticles” or UCNPs. Upconversion is the process by which a molecule absorbs two or more photons at a lower energy and emits them at higher energies. The research team determined that the rules governing the design of UCNP probes for ensembles of molecules do not apply to UCNP probes designed for single-molecules. (more…)

Anthropozän: Das Erdzeitalter der menschlichen Einflussnahme

By Guest PostMay 1, 2014Sciencean bord, bak usa, cancer seed, christian bak, erosion, european geosciences union, kai arras, lauren ehrlich, lymphoblastic leukemia, mensch, prototyp, rene de groot, roboter spencer, salah macheremo, surroundings key, tagpfauenauge, umwelt, universitaet wien

Geograph Ronald Pöppl zu landschaftlichen Eingriffen und deren geomorphologischen Konsequenzen mit Beispielen aus Niederösterreich

Die Auswirkungen menschlichen Handelns auf die geologischen, biologischen und atmosphärischen Prozesse haben insbesondere seit Beginn der Industrialisierung enorme Ausmaße angenommen. WissenschafterInnen haben deshalb das Zeitalter des “Anthropozäns” ausgerufen. Ronald Pöppl, Geograph an der Universität Wien, zeigt anhand von Beispielen aus Niederösterreich auf, wie sehr die Menschheit mit flussbaulichen Maßnahmen und durch Veränderung der Vegetationsbedeckung das Erdrelief verändert. Im Rahmen der heuer in Wien stattfindenden Konferenz der “European Geosciences Union” liefert Pöppl im Rahmen einer Pressekonferenz zum Thema “The Anthropocene: are we living in the age of humans?” einen Beitrag zum geomorphologischen Erbe von Staudämmen. (more…)

Solar System’s Edge Redefined

By Guest PostMay 1, 2014Scienceantibody staining techniques, berghexe, bioassays, brain inspired, chazara briseis, dark energy camera, dharmendra s modha, earth, gemini observatory, gewaessertyp, giant planets, gravity, jim brase, johannes robalotoff, jupiter, kuiper belt, lawrence livermore, linda elkins tanton, llnl program, mars, neptune, noao, saturn, scott sheppard, sean james, sequoia supercomputer, solar system, stickstoffbelastung, uranus

Washington, D.C.—The Solar System has a new most-distant member, bringing its outer frontier into focus.

New work from Carnegie’s Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory reports the discovery of a distant dwarf planet, called 2012 VP113, which was found beyond the known edge of the Solar System. This is likely one of thousands of distant objects that are thought to form the so-called inner Oort cloud. What’s more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects. (more…)

New book explores ‘frontier’ metaphor in science

By Guest PostMay 1, 2014Sciencebiologist, boris stromar, cyverse, dunkle materie, endangered species, erin fuller, exploitation, exploration, gopherus evgoodei, kiesgepraegter strom, new book, taylor edwards, thornscrub tortoise, vermessung des weltalls, weltraum

Leah Ceccarelli is a professor of communication and author of the book “On the Frontier of Science: An American Rhetoric of Exploration and Exploitation.” She answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.

Q: What’s the concept behind this book? Why did you write it?

A: I kept seeing appeals to the American frontier spirit in the public arguments of scientists. That rhetoric was often inspiring, giving scientists an exciting image of their work across the metaphorical “boundaries” of knowledge. But it was also troubling in the expectations it set out about the manifest destiny of scientists to push forward at all costs, and in the way it reinforced their separation from a public that funds their endeavors. (more…)

Eu:CROPIS: Tomatenzucht im Weltall

By Guest PostMay 1, 2014Science2042, atmosphaere, blogscopia, coincide, dev millstein, dlr, doschdesign, eu, fau, finding life, leslie rogers, mars, meichun cao, mikroorganismen, mond, olaf stursberg, other planets, pablo rosado, ronnen levinson, rotation

Eine Überlebensgemeinschaft aus Bakterien, Tomaten und einzelligen Algen, künstlicher Urin und ein Satellit, der mit seiner Rotation um seine Achse die Schwerkraft von Mond und Mars simulieren kann – das sind die Bestandteile der Mission Eu:CROPIS (Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-Food Production in Space) des Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR). 2016 sollen zwei Gewächshäuser ins Weltall starten, in denen ein kombiniertes Lebenserhaltungssystem das Abfallprodukt Urin zu Dünger verwertet und so das Wachstum von Tomaten für Mond- und Marshabitate sowie Langzeitmissionen ermöglicht. Die Mission wird über ein Jahr laufen, anschließend verglüht der Satellit in der Atmosphäre. (more…)

Misleading mineral may have led to overestimate of water in moon

By Guest PostApril 30, 2014Scienceandrew dunn, apatite, apatite crystals, autonomes fahren, autos, bubble pen, bubble pen lithography, carrolls katze, chlorine, crystallization, deanna janzen, deji akinwande, katze zeta, kooperieren, margret boysen, nanofabrication, overestimate, p53 mutations, sanaz memarzadeh, ucla, write with nanoparticles

Discovery of hydrogen-rich apatite in lunar rocks hinted at more watery past. Think again, says UCLA’s Jeremy Boyce.

The amount of water present in the moon may have been overestimated by scientists studying the mineral apatite, says a team of researchers led by Jeremy Boyce of the UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences.

Boyce and his colleagues created a computer model to accurately predict how apatite would have crystallized from cooling bodies of lunar magma early in the moon’s history. Their simulations revealed that the unusually hydrogen-rich apatite crystals observed in many lunar rock samples may not have formed within a water-rich environment, as was originally expected. (more…)

Bei befürchteter Strafe steigt die Kooperationsbereitschaft

By Guest PostApril 29, 2014Sciencechristian melaun, durch, flickr, gemeine holzbock, ixodes ricinus, kreisrunde, lyme borreliose, menschen, mueckenstich, pnas, sina zotzmann, solving the mystery, tully monster

Menschen neigen dazu, einander zu helfen – zumindest wesentlich öfter und stärker als Tiere. Warum das so ist, haben Innsbrucker Ökonomen untersucht. In einem Aufsatz für das Fachjournal PNAS zeigen sie nun: Die Bereitschaft zur Kooperation ist dann hoch, wenn Menschen bei Nicht-Kooperation Strafen befürchten.

Für die Kooperationsbereitschaft von Menschen sind soziale Normen verantwortlich, das ist in der Literatur unbestritten. Diese Normen sorgen auch dafür, dass Menschen, anders als die meisten Tiere, auch Personen helfen, die genetisch nicht mit ihnen verwandt sind und die sie mitunter nicht einmal kennen. Dr. Daniela Glätzle-Rützler, Mag. Philipp Lergetporer und Mag. Silvia Angerer vom Institut für Finanzwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck haben sich unter der Leitung von Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Sutter nun die Kooperationsbereitschaft von Kindern in Experimenten angesehen. Teilgenommen haben rund 1.100 Kinder zwischen 7 und 11 Jahren aus Meran in Südtirol. Das Ergebnis: Allein schon die Befürchtung von Strafe reicht, um die Kooperationsbereitschaft zu steigern. (more…)

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