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Search for Life Suggests Solar Systems More Habitable than Ours

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2012Sciencecayman unterborn, Chile, dataset, dynamic, earth, european southern observatory, Galaxy, geologically active, habitable, habitable zone, heat source, jennifer johnson, microbial form, Milky Way, ohio state university, planet, plate tectonics, potassium, radioactive decay, radioactive element, san francisco, search for life, solar systems, solar twin, subsurface heat, terrestrial planet, thorium, uranium, wendy panero

SAN FRANCISCO — Scattered around the Milky Way are stars that resemble our own sun—but a new study is finding that any planets orbiting those stars may very well be hotter and more dynamic than Earth.

That’s because the interiors of any terrestrial planets in these systems are likely warmer than Earth—up to 25 percent warmer, which would make them more geologically active and more likely to retain enough liquid water to support life, at least in its microbial form.

The preliminary finding comes from geologists and astronomers at Ohio State University who have teamed up to search for alien life in a new way. (more…)

Learning to Control Brain Activity Improves Visual Sensitivity

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2012Scienceabnormal patterns, brain activity, brain function, control, electrical activity, emotional response, fmri, frank scharnowski, geneva, human volunteer, neurofeedback approach, stroke patients, training, university, visual cortex, visual information, visual perception, visual sensitivity

Training human volunteers to control their own brain activity in precise areas of the brain can enhance fundamental aspects of their visual sensitivity, according to a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience.

This non-invasive ‘neurofeedback’approach could one day be used to improve brain function in patients with abnormal patterns of activity, for example stroke patients. (more…)

Space Life

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2012Scienceask magazine, astrobiology, biology, c elegans, chandran sabanayagam, cubesat projects, dbi, desg, DNA, does life exist, earth, Environment, evolution, microbes, microscopic worms, NASA, physicist, proteins, space life, space research, telemetry, trl3, universe, zero gravity

NASA funds astrobiology research by Delaware Biotechnology Institute scientist

Does life exist anywhere else in the universe? That’s the type of broad but poignant question NASA likes to ask, according to Chandran Sabanayagam, associate scientist in the Bioimaging Center at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute (DBI). And he would know, because he’s preparing to help answer it.

NASA will receive $100 billion from the federal government over the next five years to assure America is number one in space exploration, according to Astrobiology.com. As part of its push to seek new partnerships and broaden its vision, NASA is offering grants to people conducting transformational science. With this opportunity, Sabanayagam is merging his love of physics and biology. (more…)

Why Older Adults Become Fraud Victims More Often

By Guest PostDecember 6, 2012Scienceanterior insula, brain, brain mechanism, brain scan, dishonest, early warning, elizabeth castle, face, financial exploitation, financial scam, financial swindles, fmri, fraud, functional, ian boggero, imaging, magnetic, mark grinblatt, money, naomi eisenberger, older people, photograph, region, resonance, shelley e taylor, signal, ucla study, untrustworthy face, victim, vulnerable

Brain shows diminished response to untrustworthiness, UCLA scientists report

Why are older people especially vulnerable to becoming victims of fraud? A new UCLA study indicates that an important clue may lie in a particular region of the brain that influences the ability to discern who is honest and who is trying to deceive us.

Older people, more than younger adults, may fail to interpret an untrustworthy face as potentially dishonest, the study shows. The reason for this, the UCLA life scientists found, seems to be that a brain region called the anterior insula, which is linked to disgust and is important for discerning untrustworthy faces, is less active in older adults. (more…)

Next Scientific Fashion Could be Designer Nanocrystals

By Guest PostDecember 6, 2012Sciencedesigner atoms, electronic glue, keck project, nanocrystalline arrays, nanocrystals, quantum phenomena

Three University of Chicago chemistry professors hope that their separate research trajectories will converge to create a new way of assembling what they call “designer atoms” into materials with a broad array of potentially useful properties and functions. (more…)

Grand Canyon as Old as the Dinosaurs, Suggests New Study Led by CU-Boulder

By Guest PostDecember 6, 2012Scienceage, canyon in arizona, evolution of landscapes, grand canyon, helium dating technique, western grand canyon

An analysis of mineral grains from the bottom of the western Grand Canyon indicates it was largely carved out by about 70 million years ago — a time when dinosaurs were around and may have even peeked over the rim, says a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. (more…)

Promising Nanotechnology

By Guest PostDecember 5, 2012Sciencea k rajasekaran, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, all, alternative, biomedical engineering, cancer cell, chemotherapy, childhood leukemia, delaware scientist, dex, drug treatment, encapsulated dexamethasone, healthy cell, mouse model, Nanotechnology, normal cell, pediatric leukemia, side effect, treatment, university of delaware, vinu krishnan, xian xu, xiaowei yang, xinqiao jia

Nanotechnology for drug delivery shows promise in treatment of pediatric leukemia

Nanotechnology developed by Delaware scientists could potentially deliver chemotherapy to children in a way that attacks cancer cells without harming healthy cells, greatly reducing side effects.

The work, conducted by researchers in the University of Delaware’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research, was published this month in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics. (more…)

First Measurements Made of Key Brain Links

By Guest PostDecember 5, 2012Scienceamalia gonzalez, axons, barry connors, behavioral significance, brain scientists, brown university, consciousness, cortex cells, excitatory cells, fundamental functions, inhibitory neurons, margot elmaleh, mental arousal, milliseconds, nonspecific thalamus, omar ahmed, optogenetics, outermost layer, prefrontal cortex, saundra patrick, scott cruikshank, sensory signals, tanya stevens, thalamic signals, thalamocortical partnership

Until now, brain scientists have been almost completely in the dark about how most of the nonspecific thalamus interacts with the prefrontal cortex, a relationship believed to be key in such fundamental functions as maintaining consciousness and mental arousal. Brown University researchers performed a set of experiments, described in the Journal of Neuroscience, to explore and measure those circuits for the first time.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Inside the brains of mice and men alike, a relatively big football-shaped region called the thalamus acts like a switchboard, providing the prefrontal cortex, the part that does abstract thinking and decision-making, with most of its information. The thalamus’s responsibility even includes helping the prefrontal cortex to maintain consciousness and arousal. (more…)

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