http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Boston College researchers have observed the "hot electron" effect in a solar cell for the first time and successfully harvested the elusive charges using ultra-thin solar cells, opening a potential avenue to improved solar power efficiency, the authors report in the current online edition of Applied Physics Letters. http://www.physorg.com/news179739056.html Physics Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:31:22 EST news179739056 Chemotherapy generally improves survival in postmenopausal breast cancer patients, according to a landmark study led by Dr. Kathy Albain of Loyola University Health System. http://www.physorg.com/news179737360.html Medicine & Health Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:04:22 EST news179737360 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Glasgow Science Centre in Scotland is exhibiting a computer that makes up jokes using its database of simple language rules and a large vocabulary. http://www.physorg.com/news179736700.html Technology Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:52:14 EST news179736700 (AP) -- On a mountaintop clearing in the Sierra Nevada stands a tall metal platform holding a crude furnace and a box of silver iodide solution that some scientists believe could help offer relief from searing droughts. http://www.physorg.com/news179691518.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:19:33 EST news179691518 The slogan is "one laptop per child." But it will be a long time before that is true everywhere in the world. Meanwhile, a new device aims to make a situation that is common in poor areas - one computer shared among many children - work better in school settings. http://www.physorg.com/news179690698.html Electronics Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:05:32 EST news179690698 (PhysOrg.com) -- Results of diagnostic tests on Spirit's right-rear wheel on Sol 2109 (Dec. 8, 2009) continue to indicate a troubled wheel, which may leave the rover with only four operable wheels. http://www.physorg.com/news179689932.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:52:47 EST news179689932 Thursday's Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing featured testimony from experts about the power industry's need to develop systems capable of storing large amounts of electricity if the nation's power grid intends to utilize the expected increase of energy produced by renewable resources. http://www.physorg.com/news179688592.html Technology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:30:20 EST news179688592 (PhysOrg.com) -- Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish? http://www.physorg.com/news179688441.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:27:50 EST news179688441 Shrink a human being down to the size of an insect, and you would no longer be able to sip lemonade from a straw. The forces that hold liquid together would simply be too great to overcome at that tiny scale. http://www.physorg.com/news179688348.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:26:33 EST news179688348 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Stanford researchers has developed a new generation of retinal implants that aims to provide higher resolution and make artificial vision more natural. http://www.physorg.com/news179686378.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:54:18 EST news179686378 (PhysOrg.com) -- The genetically modified cyanobacterium consumes carbon dioxide and produces the liquid fuel isobutanol by using energy from sunlight. http://www.physorg.com/news179683624.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:07:55 EST news179683624 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Princeton University scientists has produced a systematic listing of the ways a particular cancerous cell has "gone wrong," giving researchers a powerful tool that eventually could make possible new, more targeted therapies for patients. http://www.physorg.com/news179683447.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:04:58 EST news179683447 Scientists have discovered a signaling pathway that tuberculosis bacteria use to coerce disease-fighting cells to switch allegiance and work on their behalf. Epithelial cells line the airways and other surfaces to protect and defend the body. Tuberculosis bacteria co-opt these epithelial cells into helping create tubercles: the small, rounded masses characteristic of TB. The tubercles enable the bacteria to expand their numbers and spread to other locations. http://www.physorg.com/news179677469.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:10:09 EST news179677469 (AP) -- Swine flu has sickened about 50 million Americans, and killed about 10,000, according to new estimates released by federal health officials on Thursday. http://www.physorg.com/news179679161.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:53:19 EST news179679161 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Maryland researchers have developed and successfully tested new computer software and computational techniques to analyze patterns of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan or other locations and predict the locations of weapons caches that are used by insurgents to support those attacks. http://www.physorg.com/news179677568.html Technology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:51:36 EST news179677568 It's no secret that the emissions leaving a car tailpipe or factory smokestack affect climate and air quality. Even trees release chemicals that influence the atmosphere. But until now, scientists have struggled to know where these organic molecules go and what happens to them once they leave their source, leading to models for predicting climate and air quality that are incomplete or less than accurate. http://www.physorg.com/news179677214.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:50:04 EST news179677214 Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that a molecule produced naturally by muscles in response to nerve damage can reduce symptoms and prolong life in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). http://www.physorg.com/news179676993.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:19:34 EST news179676993 Extensive analyses and modeling of Cassini imaging and heat-mapping data have confirmed and extended previous ideas that migrating ice, triggered by infalling reddish dust that darkens and warms the surface, may explain the mysterious two-toned "yin-yang" appearance of Saturn's moon Iapetus. The results, published online Dec. 10 in a pair of papers in the journal Science, provide what may be the most plausible explanation to date for the moon's bizarre appearance, which has puzzled astronomers for more than 300 years. http://www.physorg.com/news179677088.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:18:55 EST news179677088 (PhysOrg.com) -- The gases which formed the Earth's atmosphere - and probably its oceans - did not come from inside the Earth but from outer space, according to a study by University of Manchester and University of Houston scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news179676765.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:13:36 EST news179676765 Observers were able to accurately judge some aspects of a stranger's personality from looking at photographs, according to a study in the current issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSBP), the official monthly journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Self-esteem, ratings of extraversion and religiosity were correctly judged from physical appearance. http://www.physorg.com/news179674450.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:10:01 EST news179674450 When given the chance to consume alcohol at will, fruit flies behave in ways that look an awful lot like human alcoholism. That's according to a study published online on December 10th in Current Biology that is one of the first to consider alcohol self-administration in the insects. http://www.physorg.com/news179674844.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:50:02 EST news179674844 For an ovary to remain an ovary, the female organ has to continuously suppress its inner capacity to become male. That's the conclusion of a study in the December 11th issue of the journal Cell revealing that the ovaries of mice can be reprogrammed into testes (minus the sperm) by silencing a single gene. http://www.physorg.com/news179673591.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:20:55 EST news179673591 (PhysOrg.com) -- With its complete lack of atoms, a vacuum is often considered to be the best known insulator. For this reason, vacuums are regularly used to reduce heat transfer, such as in the lining of a thermos to keep beverages hot or cold. However, in a recent study scientists have found a material even less able to conduct heat: a stack of photonic crystals layered within a vacuum can create a material with a thermal conductance just half that of empty space alone. http://www.physorg.com/news179672831.html Physics Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:07:50 EST news179672831 Russia's new nuclear-capable missile suffered another failed test launch, the defence ministry said Thursday, solving the mystery of a spectacular plume of white light that appeared over Norway. http://www.physorg.com/news179671318.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:43:24 EST news179671318 Aging is the single greatest risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. In their latest study, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that simply slowing the aging process in mice prone to develop Alzheimer's disease prevented their brains from turning into a neuronal wasteland. http://www.physorg.com/news179670676.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:34:18 EST news179670676 (PhysOrg.com) -- Paleontologists have unearthed a previously unknown meat-eating dinosaur in New Mexico, settling a debate about early dinosaur evolution, revealing a period of explosive diversification and hinting at how dinosaurs spread across the supercontinent Pangaea. http://www.physorg.com/news179656826.html Other Sciences Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:20:02 EST news179656826 The H1N1 influenza virus has been keeping a secret that may be the key to defeating it and other flu viruses as well. http://www.physorg.com/news179668960.html Medicine & Health Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:03:55 EST news179668960 Scientists have designed a synthetic protein that is both a structural model and a functional model of a native protein, nitric-oxide reductase. http://www.physorg.com/news179667132.html Chemistry Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:34:48 EST news179667132 (PhysOrg.com) -- Studies of one of the galaxy's most active black-hole binaries reveal a dramatic change that will help scientists better understand how these systems expel fast-moving particle jets. http://www.physorg.com/news179665092.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:59:29 EST news179665092 The sequences of nonsense DNA that interrupt genes could be far more important to the evolution of genomes than previously thought, according to a recent Science report by Indiana University Bloomington and University of New Hampshire biologists. http://www.physorg.com/news179664799.html Biology Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:54:30 EST news179664799