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Flies of the World Embrace Vegetarianism

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Nature, Scienceagricultural pests, animal kingdom, australia, bracken ferns, brassicas, canolas, change of lifestyle, convergent phenotypes, cyanogenic compounds, detoxify the plants, earth, evolutionary biologists, Facebook, family drosophilidae, fly detectives, genetic changes, genetic pathways, genome biology evolution, good model organisms, hawaii, hawaiian lineage, herbivores, herbivorous fly species, insects, levels of alcohol, microbe eating flies, mt lemmon, mustard plants, new zealand, noah whiteman, North America, north american flies, organisms, papua new guinea, richard lapoint, scaptomyza nigrita, South Pacific, toxic plants, united kingdom, university of arizona, vegetarianism

Microbe-eating flies from at least three different locations around the world recently have evolved into herbivores, feeding on some of the most toxic plants on Earth. Fly detectives and UA evolutionary biologists Noah Whiteman and Richard Lapoint are trying to find out what genetic pathways led the flies to such a major change of lifestyle.

For millennia, they buzzed through the woods, contentedly munching yeasts off the surfaces of leaves, bracken and rotting duff on the forest floor. But now, flies in the family Drosophilidae, whose disparate members dwell in areas all across the planet, have evolved into all-out vegetarians with a wicked diet of plants that are deadly to most other organisms.

What, University of Arizona scientists would like to know, has caused these flies, yeast-feeders for nearly 80 million years, to independently go cold turkey with respect to their formerly meaty diets? (more…)

Ridges on Mars Suggest Ancient Flowing Water

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Scienceactive hydrology, ancient martian subsurface, applied physics lab, biosphere, brown university, craters on mars, curiosity rover, flowing water, fluid flow, fossils of cracks, fracture conduits, gale crater, habitable environment, hydrothermal fluid, hypothesis, jack mustard, johns hopkins university, landing site, lee saper, mars reconnaissance orbiter, martian surface, mineral hardened material, minerals, NASA, nili fossae, nilosyrtis, orientation data, planetary exploration, regional scale volcanism, ridges, subsurface hydrology, surrounding rocks

Ridges in impact craters on Mars appear to be fossils of cracks in the Martian surface, formed by minerals deposited by flowing water. Water flowing beneath the surface suggests life may once have been possible on Mars.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Networks of narrow ridges found in impact craters on Mars appear to be the fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed, according to a new analysis by researchers from Brown University.

The study, in press in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The research was conducted by Lee Saper, a recent Brown graduate, with Jack Mustard, professor of geological sciences. (more…)

Motion Control Keeps Electric Car’s Four Wheels—and Four Motors—on the Road

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Science, Technologybrake, built in, central computer, city car, columbus metro school, east liberty, electric car, electric motor, electrical cable, experimental car, fishtailing, fiwa, freedom of movement, future vehicle architectures, gas pedal, junmin wang, lithium-ion battery, motion control system, ohio state university, rongrong wang, sports car, steering wheel, stem, traction

COLUMBUS, Ohio — It weighs half as much as a sports car, and turns on a dime—so its no surprise that the electric car being developed at Ohio State University needs an exceptional traction and motion control system to keep it on the road.

With four wheels that turn independently, each with its own built-in electric motor and set of batteries, the experimental car is the only one of its kind outside of commercial carmakers’ laboratories. (more…)

Organic Ferroelectric Molecule Shows Promise for Memory Chips, Sensors

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 2013Sciencebarium titanate, brittle materials, carbon based material, China, da wei fu, digital information, diisopropylammonium bromide, electrical field, energy storage, ferroelectric, future of hardware, gianluca giovannetti, hard, heart of computing, inorganic crystals, jiangyu li, low cost, massimo capone, memory, natural polarization, natural vibrations, negatively charged, nontoxic organic molecules, organic alternative, piezoelectric, positively charged, ren gen xiong, room temperature, seattle, sensing, silicon based semiconductors, southeast university, store energy, synthetic ferroelectrics, tiny crystals, titanium, toxicity, university of washington, yuanming liu

At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information’s ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware.

A team led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Southeast University in China discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today’s silicon-based semiconductors. The findings, published this week in the journal Science, display properties that make it well suited to a wide range of applications in memory, sensing and low-cost energy storage. (more…)

Reconcilable Differences: Study Uncovers the Common Ground of Scientific Opposites

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 2013Science20th century, activity, austrian physicist, chaotic motion, classical, common ground, denys bondar, english scientist, experimental data, herschel rabitz, imperial college London, isaac newton, laws of motion, mathematical framework, mathematical model, microscopic particles, misha ivanov, novel theories, observed data, odds physics equations, operational dynamic modeling, paul ehrenfest, princeton model, princeton university, quantum elements, quantum mechanics, reconcilable differences, renan cabrera, robert gilmore, scientific laws, scientific opposites, shakespearean sounding crossroads, study, theoretical roof, theories, ukraine, uzhgorod national university

Searching for common elements in seemingly incompatible scientific theories may lead to the discovery of new ones that revolutionize our understanding of the world.

Such is the idea behind a mathematical framework Princeton University researchers developed that strips away the differences between scientific laws and theories to reveal how the ideas are compatible. In a recent report in the journal Physical Review Letters, the authors explain how the mathematical model finds common ground between the famously at-odds physics equations that govern classical and quantum mechanics. (more…)

A Better Way to Culture Central Nervous Cells

By Guest PostJanuary 31, 2013Sciencealzheimers patients, cell culture, central nervous system, cns neurons, nerve cells, nerve signals, neuron damage

A protein associated with neuron damage in Alzheimer’s patients provides a superior scaffold for growing central nervous system cells in the lab. The findings could have clinical implications for producing neural implants and offers new insights on the complex link between the apoE4 apolipoprotein and Alzheimer’s disease. Results appear in the journal Biomaterials. (more…)

Synchrotron Infrared Unveils a Mysterious Microbial Community

By Guest PostJanuary 31, 2013Science16s rrna gene, acid mine runoff, advanced light source, alexander probst, als, ancient things, another amazing lifestyle, archaea, bacteria, barbs, berkeley lab, biochemistry, biofilm, black smokers, boiling hot springs, bsisb, carbon, christine moissl eichinger, common hydrocarbon, deep sea, deepwater horizon, dna microarray, extremophiles, fatty acids, fourier transform, functional groups, giovanni birarda, gulf of mexico, hami, hami protein, hoi-ying Holman, hooks, hydrogen atoms, infrared spectromicroscopy, inhospitable environments, jet propulsion laboratory, kasthuri venkateswaran, latin, long alkylic chains, lovers, membrane lipids, microbe samples, muehlbacher schwefelquelle, mysterious microbial community, NASA, oil plume, oil spill research, phylochip, protein strands, second genome, sippenauer moor, sm1 euryarchaeon, sm1 research team, southern germany, sr ftir, strings of pearls, sulfur springs, synchrotron ftir, synchrotron infrared, synchrotron radiation, syntrophic, todd desantis, university of regensburg

Berkeley Lab scientists join an international collaboration to understand how archaea and bacteria work together deep in a cold sulfur spring

In the fall of 2010, Hoi-Ying Holman of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) was approached by an international team researching a mysterious microbial community discovered deep in cold sulfur springs in southern Germany.

“They told me what they were doing and said, ‘We know what you contributed to the oil-spill research,’” recalls Holman, who heads the Chemical Ecology group in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division. “They wondered if I could help them determine the biochemistry of their microbe samples.” (more…)

Brain Structure of Infants Predicts Language Skills at 1 Year

By Guest PostJanuary 29, 2013Sciencebrain of baby, brain structures, infant brain, language learning, language mastery, language skills, postnatal brain, sound patterns

Using a brain-imaging technique that examines the entire infant brain, researchers have found that the anatomy of certain brain areas – the hippocampus and cerebellum – can predict children’s language abilities at 1 year of age. (more…)

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