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Organics Probably Formed Easily in Early Solar System

By Guest PostApril 4, 2012Scienceamino acids, amphiphiles, bombard, building blocks, cellular membrane, cometary, computer simulation, DNA, dynamics, fred ciesla, life on earth, meteorite, nasa ames, nucleobases, organic compound, planet, proteins, rna, science express, scott sandford, solar nebula, uchicago, ultraviolet radiation, uv radiation

Complex organic compounds, including many important to life on Earth, were readily produced under conditions that likely prevailed in the primordial solar system. Scientists at the University of Chicago and NASA Ames Research Center came to this conclusion after linking computer simulations to laboratory experiments.

Fred Ciesla, assistant professor in geophysical sciences at UChicago, simulated the dynamics of the solar nebula, the cloud of gas and dust from which the sun and the planets formed. Although every dust particle within the nebula behaved differently, they all experienced the conditions needed for organics to form over a simulated million-year period. (more…)

Clocking an Accelerating Universe: First Results from BOSS

By Guest PostApril 4, 2012Scienceaccelerate, adam riess, apache point observatory, bao, baryon acoustic oscillation, berkeley lab, beth reid, big bang, brian schmidt, cmb, cosmic microwave background, dan long, dark energy, david schlegel, density peak, einstein, eric huff, euclidean universe, Galaxy, george smoot, gravitational attraction, gravity, high z supernova, hubble, martin white, megaparsecs, Milky Way, new mexico, nobel prize, phenomenon, redshifts, saul perlmutter, scp, sdss, sloan telescope, spectrograph, statistical analysis, universe, zosia rostomian

Berkeley Lab scientists are the leaders of BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. They and their colleagues in the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey have announced the most precise measurements ever made of the era when dark energy turned on.

Some six billion light years distant, almost halfway from now back to the big bang, the universe was undergoing an elemental change. Held back until then by the mutual gravitational attraction of all the matter it contained, the universe had been expanding ever more slowly. Then, as matter spread out and its density decreased, dark energy took over and expansion began to accelerate.

Today BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, the largest component of the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), announced the most accurate measurement yet of the distance scale of the universe during the era when dark energy turned on. (more…)

UCLA Engineering Researchers Use Electricity to Generate Alternative Fuel

By Guest PostApril 3, 2012Sciencecar, carbon dioxide, carbon source, chemical batteries, chemical energy, CO2, co2 fixation, dark reaction, electric vehicle, electrical energy, electricity, electro bioreactor, hydraulic pumping, hydrogen, isobutanol, james liao, liquid fuel, lithoautotrophic microorganism, photosynthesis, ralstonia eutropha h16, solar panels

Imagine being able to use electricity to power your car — even if it’s not an electric vehicle. Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity.

Today, electrical energy generated by various methods is still difficult to store efficiently. Chemical batteries, hydraulic pumping and water splitting suffer from low energy-density storage or incompatibility with current transportation infrastructure. (more…)

Scientists Find Evidence That Human Ancestors Used Fire One Million Years Ago

By Guest PostApril 3, 2012Scienceanimal bones, ari matmon, boston university, excavation, francesco berna, hagai ron, hebrew university, homo erectus, human ancestors, james brink, kalahari, kimberley, liora kolska horwitz, marion bamford, mcgregor museum, michael chazan, microscopic traces, paul goldberg, peter beaumont, sharon holt, South Africa, stone tools, university of toronto, wonderwerk cave, wood ash

300,000 years earlier than believed

An international team led by the University of Toronto and Hebrew University has identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors. Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. (more…)

Rare Animal-Shaped Mounds Discovered in Peru by MU Anthropologist

By Guest PostApril 3, 2012Scienceandres ocas, animal shaped, bernardino ojeda, chan chan, charcoal eye, chillon valley, condor, egypt, google earth, image, june solstice, lucio laura, Milky Way, monstrous caiman, mounds, nazca, North America, ohio, omar ventocilla, peru, peruvian mounds, pyramids, robert benfer, serpent mound, south america, university of missouri

*Anthropology Helps Us Understand the Past and Allows for a Deeper Understanding of the Future.*

COLUMBIA, Mo. — For more than a century and a half, scientists and tourists have visited massive animal-shaped mounds, such as Serpent Mound in Ohio, created by the indigenous people of North America. But few animal effigy mounds had been found in South America until University of Missouri anthropology professor emeritus Robert Benfer identified numerous earthen animals rising above the coastal plains of Peru, a region already renowned for the Nazca lines, the ruined city of Chan Chan, and other cultural treasures.

“The mounds will draw tourists, one day,” Benfer said. “Some of them are more than 4,000 years old. Compare that to the effigy mounds of North America, which date to between 400 and 1200 AD. The oldest Peruvian mounds were being built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt.” (more…)

Scientists Identify Novel Pathway for T Cell Activation in Leprosy

By Guest PostApril 2, 2012Sciencecell signaling molecule, delphine j lee, dendritic cells, immune cells, infection, interleukin 32, lepromatous leprosy, leprosy, leprosy pathogen, mirjam schenk, monocytes, mycobacteria, mycobacterium leprae, nod2, peter a sieling, protein, robert modlin, skin, stephan r krutzik, t cells, tlr2, tuberloid leprosy, white blood cell

*Findings may help lead to new treatments for infectious diseases, cancer*

UCLA researchers have pinpointed a new mechanism that potently activates T cells, the group of white blood cells that plays a major role in fighting infections.

The team specifically studied how dendritic cells, immune cells located at the site of an infection, become more specialized to fight the leprosy pathogen known as Mycobacterium leprae. Dendritic cells, like scouts in the field of a military operation, deliver key information about an invading pathogen that helps activate the T cells in launching a more effective attack. (more…)

Newly Found Protein Helps Cells Build Tissues

By Guest PostApril 2, 2012Scienceantibody, bmps, bone morphogenic proteins, brown university, enzyme, fruit flies, gbb, gbb38, glass bottom boat, guillermo marques, kristi wharton, molecule, protein, signaling molecule, takuya akiyama, wing tissue

University biologists have found a new molecule in fruit flies that is key to the information exchange needed to build wings properly. They have also uncovered evidence that an analogous protein may exist in people and may be associated with problems such as cleft lip, or premature ovarian failure.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As they work together to form body parts, cells in developing organisms communicate like workers at a construction site. The discovery of a new signaling molecule in flies by Brown University biologists not only helps explain how cells send many long-haul messages, but also provides new clues for researchers who study how human development goes awry, for instance in cases of cleft lip and palate. (more…)

‘Mount Sharp’ on Mars Links Geology’s Past and Future

By Guest PostApril 1, 2012Sciencearizona, bob sharp, curiosity, edward stolper, gale crater, geological sciences, grand canyon, john grotzinger, ken edgett, life magazine, liquid water, mars, michael malin, mount rainier, mount sharp, NASA, robert p sharp, san diego, seattle, spacecraft

One particular mountain on Mars, bigger than Colorado’s grandest, has been beckoning would-be explorers since it was first sighted from orbit in the 1970s. Scientists have ideas about how it took shape in the middle of ancient Gale Crater and hopes for what evidence it could yield about whether conditions on Mars have favored life.

No mission to Mars dared approach it, though, until NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, which this August will attempt to place its one-ton rover, Curiosity, at the foot of the mountain. The moat of flatter ground between the mountain and the crater rim encircling it makes too small a touchdown target to have been considered safe without precision-landing innovations used by this mission. (more…)

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