EAST LANSING, Mich. — A team of researchers at Michigan State University has documented the step-by-step process in which organisms evolve new functions.
The results, published in the current issue of Nature, are revealed through an in-depth, genomics-based analysis that decodes how E. coli bacteria figured out how to supplement a traditional diet of glucose with an extra course of citrate. (more…)
Analysis of data from the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope, for the first time, more precisely defines the period of cosmological evolution when the first stars and galaxies formed and gradually illuminated the universe. The data indicate that this period, called the epoch of reionization, was shorter than theorists speculated — and that it ended early.
“We find that the epoch of reionization lasted less than 500 million years and began when the universe was at least 250 million years old,” said Oliver Zahn, a postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study. “Before this measurement, scientists believed that reionization lasted 750 million years or longer, and had no evidence as to when reionization began.” (more…)
A University of Colorado analysis of state-by-state factors leading to the Electoral College selection of every U.S. president since 1980 forecasts that the 2012 winner will be Mitt Romney.
The key is the economy, say political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver. Their prediction model stresses economic data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors.
“Based on our forecasting model, it becomes clear that the president is in electoral trouble,” said Bickers, also director of the CU in DC Internship Program. (more…)
*More than 50 Percent of All E-Commerce Transactions for the First Five Weeks of the Holiday Season Have Included Free Shipping*
RESTON, VA, December 8, 2010 – comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 35 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, more than $17.5 billion has been spent online, marking a 12-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week saw four individual days eclipse $800 million in spending, led by Cyber Monday, which became the heaviest online spending day on record at $1.028 billion. Tuesday, November 30 reached $911 million, making it the third heaviest online spending day on record, with Wednesday ($868 million) and Thursday ($850 million) also reaching high levels, although growth rates for the season subsided in the latter half of the week and through the weekend. (more…)
RESTON, VA, August 17, 2010 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. With the July 2010 qSearch data release, comScore will now be reporting “Explicit Core Search” results alongside its standard “Total Core Search” results in order to provide transparency around the impact of contextually driven searches.
