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. (PhysOrg.com) -- Venus and Earth have long been thought of as sister planets. Given its similar size and proximity to Earth in the inner Solar System, Venus might seem like a promising candidate for having a surface that evolves through a tectonic process similar to what occurs on Earth, where rigid plates slowly shift across the underlying mantle. http://www.physorg.com/news188466638.html Space & Earth Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:20:01 EST news188466638 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have succeeded in creating a synthetic crystal that can very effectively control the transmission of heat -- stopping it in its tracks and reflecting it back. This advance could lead to insulating materials that could block the escape of heat more effectively than any present insulator. http://www.physorg.com/news188466491.html Physics Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:50:02 EST news188466491 (PhysOrg.com) -- About 23% of the Universe is made up of mysterious ‘dark matter`, invisible material only detected through its gravitational influence on its surroundings. Now two astronomers based at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) have found a hint of the way it behaves near black holes. Their results appear in a letter in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://www.physorg.com/news188466334.html Space & Earth Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:40:01 EST news188466334 (PhysOrg.com) -- The general theory of cancer development holds that malignancies occur because of the presence of certain genetic elements within the affected cells. http://www.physorg.com/news188466202.html Medicine & Health Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:20:01 EST news188466202 A team led by researchers from North Carolina State University has published a paper that describes the use of a technique called atomic layer deposition to incorporate "biological functionality" into complex nanomaterials, which could lead to a new generation of medical and environmental health applications. For example, the researchers show how the technology can be used to develop effective, low-cost water purification devices that could be used in developing countries. http://www.physorg.com/news188464650.html Nanotechnology Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:10:01 EST news188464650 (PhysOrg.com) -- A group of scientists from the University of Minnesota say that Fe16N2 crystals are more magnetic than the most magnetic material previously known, and its magnetism exceeds the predicted limit of magnetism for a material. http://www.physorg.com/news188458077.html Physics Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:30:02 EST news188458077 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have found that, by removing individual atoms from a graphite surface, they can create local magnetic moments in the graphite. The discovery could lead to techniques to artificially create magnets that are nonmetallic and biocompatible, as well as cheaper and lighter than current magnets. http://www.physorg.com/news188460209.html Nanotechnology Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:04:35 EST news188460209 (PhysOrg.com) -- Apple has applied for a patent on its 'iGroups' mobile social networking technology, making it the fourth social patent Apple has announced so far this year, according to Patently Apple, which keeps track of Apple`s patent applications. http://www.physorg.com/news188457717.html Technology Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:50:01 EST news188457717 A five-center collaborative study that scanned the genomes of thousands of "never smokers" diagnosed with lung cancer as well as healthy never smokers has found a gene they say could be responsible for a significant number of those cancers. http://www.physorg.com/news188457265.html Medicine & Health Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:16:01 EST news188457265 A recent advance by Arizona State University researchers in developing nanowires could lead to more efficient photovoltaic cells for generating energy from sunlight, and to better light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that could replace less energy-efficient incandescent light bulbs. http://www.physorg.com/news188456533.html Nanotechnology Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:02:39 EST news188456533 Top a building with a light-colored "cool roof," and it reflects sunlight, cutting air conditioning bills in summer, but increasing winter heating costs. Choose black shingles, and the roof soaks up sunlight to cut winter heating costs but makes the roof bake in the summer sun. One or the other. You can't have it both ways. Until now. http://www.physorg.com/news188454975.html Chemistry Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:50:01 EST news188454975 The US Congress passed an historic health care overhaul late Sunday, handing President Barack Obama a landmark win and taking the United States closer than ever to guaranteed coverage for all Americans. http://www.physorg.com/news188453698.html Medicine & Health Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:15:30 EST news188453698 Ever paid top dollar for a bottle of wine that says on the label it's from a much-sought-after year, only to find that it tasted like cheap, non-vintage plonk? http://www.physorg.com/news188453382.html Chemistry Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:10:29 EST news188453382 Almost every worker has done it: gotten in a little Facebook updating, personal e-mailing, YouTube watching and friend calling while on the clock. http://www.physorg.com/news188402349.html Technology Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:59:39 EST news188402349 (AP) -- A volcano in southern Iceland has erupted for the first time in almost 200 years, raising concerns that it could trigger a larger and potentially more dangerous eruption at a volatile volcano nearby. http://www.physorg.com/news188401590.html Space & Earth Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:47:03 EST news188401590 Scientists said on Sunday they had made a nanotech device to strip salt from seawater, paving the way to small-scale or even battery-powered desalination for drought-hit regions and disaster zones. http://www.physorg.com/news188399888.html Nanotechnology Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:18:36 EST news188399888 The brains of males and females, and how they use them, may be far more different then previously thought, at least in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust. http://www.physorg.com/news188378068.html Medicine & Health Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:17 EST news188378068 Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have identified a new growth factor that stimulates the expansion and regeneration of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells in culture and in laboratory animals. The discovery, appearing in the journal Nature Medicine, may help researchers overcome one of the most frustrating barriers to cellular therapy: the fact that stem cells are so few in number and so stubbornly resistant to expansion. http://www.physorg.com/news188378377.html Medicine & Health Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:12 EST news188378377 Like a film director cutting out extraneous footage to create a blockbuster, the cellular machine called the spliceosome snips out unwanted stretches of genetic material and joins the remaining pieces to fashion a template for protein production. http://www.physorg.com/news188377919.html Biology Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:11 EST news188377919 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have found a massive galaxy in the early Universe creating stars like our sun up to 100 times faster than the modern-day Milky Way. http://www.physorg.com/news188379319.html Space & Earth Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:11 EST news188379319 Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found two novel ways of killing the bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB), a disease responsible for an estimated two million deaths each year. The findings, published in the March 21 online issue of Nature Chemical Biology, could lead to a potent TB therapy that would also prevent resistant TB strains from developing. http://www.physorg.com/news188378522.html Chemistry Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:08 EST news188378522 A California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle -- used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient's bloodstream -- can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), and turn off an important cancer gene using a mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi). Moreover, the team provided the first demonstration that this new type of therapy, infused into the bloodstream, can make its way to human tumors in a dose-dependent fashion -- i.e., a higher number of nanoparticles sent into the body leads to a higher number of nanoparticles in the tumor cells. http://www.physorg.com/news188378267.html Nanotechnology Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:01 EST news188378267 A potential new energy source so controversial that people once regarded it as junk science is moving closer to acceptance by the mainstream scientific community. That's the conclusion of the organizer of one of the largest scientific sessions on the topic -- "cold fusion" -- being held in San Francisco for the next two days in the Moscone Center during the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). http://www.physorg.com/news188377829.html Chemistry Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:50:01 EST news188377829 (AP) -- When snow falls on this downtown of brick buildings and glass storefronts in southern Oregon, it piles up everywhere but the sidewalks. It's the first sign that this timber and ranching town is like few others. http://www.physorg.com/news188315245.html Technology Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:47:48 EST news188315245 Beijingers woke up Saturday to find the Chinese capital blanketed in yellow dust, as a sandstorm caused by a severe drought in the north and in Mongolia swept into the city. http://www.physorg.com/news188288848.html Space & Earth Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:20:01 EST news188288848 (PhysOrg.com) -- Recent studies have shown that behaviors such as happiness, obesity, smoking and altruism are "contagious" within adult social networks. In other words, your behavior not only influences your friends, but also their friends and so on. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and Harvard University have taken this a step farther and found that the spread of one behavior in social networks - in this case, poor sleep patterns - influences the spread of another behavior, adolescent drug use. http://www.physorg.com/news188289315.html Medicine & Health Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:36:22 EST news188289315 (PhysOrg.com) -- More than three million years ago, the ancestors of modern humans were still spending a considerable amount of their lives in trees, but something new was happening. http://www.physorg.com/news188289229.html Other Sciences Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:34:29 EST news188289229 YouTube's creators walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars after the startup was bought by Google in 2006, according to documents released in a copyright brawl between Viacom and Google. http://www.physorg.com/news188241062.html Technology Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:11:17 EST news188241062 Johns Hopkins scientists have found that a safe and inexpensive antibiotic in use since the 1970s for treating acne effectively targets infected immune cells in which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, lies dormant and prevents them from reactivating and replicating. http://www.physorg.com/news188240911.html Medicine & Health Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:08:55 EST news188240911 Composites are combinations of materials that produce properties inaccessible in any one material. A classic example of a composite is fiberglass - plastic fibers woven with glass to add strength to hockey sticks or the hull of a boat. Unlike the well-established techniques for producing fiberglass and other macroscale composites, however, there aren't general schemes available for making nanoscale composites. http://www.physorg.com/news188240753.html Nanotechnology Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:06:12 EST news188240753