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) -- Which come first, the supermassive black holes that frantically devour matter or the enormous galaxies where they reside? A brand new scenario has emerged from a recent set of outstanding observations of a black hole without a home: black holes may be `building` their own host galaxy. This could be the long-sought missing link to understanding why the masses of black holes are larger in galaxies that contain more stars. http://www.physorg.com/news178804126.html Space & Earth Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:49:22 EST news178804126 Humans use their whole bodies, not just their ears, to understand speech, according to University of British Columbia linguistics research. http://www.physorg.com/news178803034.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:31:11 EST news178803034 (PhysOrg.com) -- The findings of a Spanish study claiming that Wikipedia's editors are leaving at an alarming rate have been refuted by the Wikimedia Foundation and by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. http://www.physorg.com/news178787309.html Technology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:40:01 EST news178787309 (PhysOrg.com) -- While quantum dots have existed since the 1980s, only in the past decade have physicists successfully created lateral few-electron single quantum dots. These quantum dots enable physicists to manipulate quantum spins, which could be used as qubits for quantum information applications. Along these lines, a team of physicists from the National Research Council in Canada who were responsible for the original lateral few-electron single quantum dot have recently designed a new few-electron triple quantum dot circuit, and demonstrated that all three quantum dots can be tuned in resonance. http://www.physorg.com/news178789034.html Nanotechnology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:10:01 EST news178789034 (AP) -- There's an intriguing idea floating around the media: Microsoft Corp. wants to undercut Google so badly in Internet search that it might pay newspapers to withhold their content from Google. Just don't count on that turning into a lucrative plan for newspapers. http://www.physorg.com/news178784890.html Technology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:20:01 EST news178784890 (PhysOrg.com) -- Like most animals, snails have either left- or right-handed asymmetry (chirality), both internally and externally, and the handedness is hereditary. A new study has for the first time found that handedness, as seen in the direction of a snail shell spiral, can be reversed by manual manipulation of eight cell stage embryos, which is much earlier than previously thought. http://www.physorg.com/news178786914.html Biology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:03:02 EST news178786914 Kangaroos may provide the key to a potential treatment to prevent skin cancer, Australian scientists said Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news178782503.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:26:17 EST news178782503 Historic manuscripts by Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and other ground-breaking scientists will be published online for the first time, Britain's Royal Society said Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news178782363.html Technology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:46:30 EST news178782363 (PhysOrg.com) -- CERN's Large Hadron Collider has today become the world's highest energy particle accelerator, having accelerated its twin beams of protons to an energy of 1.18 TeV in the early hours of the morning. This exceeds the previous world record of 0.98 TeV, which had been held by the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory`s Tevatron collider since 2001. It marks another important milestone on the road to first physics at the LHC in 2010. http://www.physorg.com/news178781372.html Physics Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:44:16 EST news178781372 Tiny magnetic discs just a millionth of a metre in diameter could be used to used to kill cancer cells, according to a study published on Sunday. http://www.physorg.com/news178725200.html Nanotechnology Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:59:24 EST news178725200 New connections begin to form between brain cells almost immediately as animals learn a new task, according to a study published this week in Nature. Led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the study involved detailed observations of the rewiring processes that take place in the brain during motor learning. http://www.physorg.com/news178725126.html Medicine & Health Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:52:39 EST news178725126 The concept of confinement is one of the central ideas in modern physics. The most famous example is that of quarks which bind together to form protons and neutrons. Now Prof. Bella Lake from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Germany) together with an international team of scientists report for the first time an experimental realization and a proof of confinement phenomenon observed in a condensed matter system. http://www.physorg.com/news178724926.html Physics Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:49:37 EST news178724926 Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of methane and ethane lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet's largest moon, Titan. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles. http://www.physorg.com/news178724806.html Space & Earth Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:49:18 EST news178724806 Researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activation have found that men and women respond differently to positive and negative stimuli, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). http://www.physorg.com/news178722072.html Medicine & Health Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:30:01 EST news178722072 Australian scientists are working to breed a sheep that belches less, as they look for ways to reduce harmful methane emissions from the country's woolly flocks, a researcher said Sunday. http://www.physorg.com/news178722388.html Biology Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:20:01 EST news178722388 (AP) -- Naked mole rats don't get cancer. They shrug off brushes with acid and age so well, some are older than the college-aged researchers handling them. http://www.physorg.com/news178645682.html Biology Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:20:01 EST news178645682 (AP) -- NASA says a piece of old space junk that it's been tracking for a few days is no threat to the International Space Station. http://www.physorg.com/news178645573.html Space & Earth Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:46:33 EST news178645573 (AP) -- The growth of cell phones with global-positioning technology is making life uncertain for the makers of personal navigational devices that help drivers figure out where they are and where to go. http://www.physorg.com/news178644619.html Electronics Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:44:33 EST news178644619 (AP) -- Japan launched its fifth spy satellite into orbit Saturday in a bid to boost its ability to independently gather intelligence, the government said. http://www.physorg.com/news178615475.html Space & Earth Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:26:34 EST news178615475 The discovery that an ancient light harvesting protein plays a pivotal role in the photosynthesis of green algae should help the effort to develop algae as a biofuels feedstock. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have identified the protein LHCSR as the molecular "dimmer switch" that acts to prevent green algae from absorbing too much sunlight during photosynthesis and suffering oxidation damage as a consequence. http://www.physorg.com/news178555031.html Biology Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:10:01 EST news178555031 (AP) -- The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are giving U.S. financial institutions an additional six months to comply with regulations designed to ban Internet gambling. http://www.physorg.com/news178551993.html Technology Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:10:01 EST news178551993 Fujitsu Laboratories today announced, as a world first, the development of a novel technology for forming graphene transistors directly on the entire surface of large-scale insulating substrates at low temperatures while employing chemical-vapor deposition (CVD) techniques which are in widespread use in semiconductor manufacturing. http://www.physorg.com/news178552799.html Technology Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:00:59 EST news178552799 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has made the first unambiguous detection of high-energy gamma-rays from an enigmatic binary system known as Cygnus X-3. The system pairs a hot, massive star with a compact object -- either a neutron star or a black hole -- that blasts twin radio-emitting jets of matter into space at more than half the speed of light. http://www.physorg.com/news178547547.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:34:14 EST news178547547 (PhysOrg.com) -- Is it possible to make even more compact digital memories for portable electronic devices and which consume even less energy? A team of French researchers has recently demonstrated that it is feasible, thanks to a new class of materials known as multiferroics, which combine unusual electric and magnetic properties. http://www.physorg.com/news178546236.html Physics Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:15:20 EST news178546236 (PhysOrg.com) -- Ultraluminous infrared galaxies ((ULIRGs) are galaxies whose luminosity exceeds that of a trillion suns; for comparison, the Milky Way galaxy has a typical (and much more modest) luminosity of only about ten billion suns. ULIRGs were discovered by an all-sky infrared survey satellite in the 1980's, and since then the origin(s) of their huge infrared emission has been widely debated. Extreme infrared activity is known to be associated with interacting galaxies, and optical imaging indeed shows that many ULIRGs are in collision, but this fact does not answer the question of what physical mechanism powers the luminosity. Might the same process be underway at a low level in our galaxy? http://www.physorg.com/news178544948.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:55:01 EST news178544948 (AP) -- Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts returned to Earth with a smooth touchdown Friday to end an 11-day flight that resupplied the International Space Station. http://www.physorg.com/news178530037.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:58:45 EST news178530037 (AP) -- Indonesia has rejected a push by the resort island of Bali for rare turtles to be legally slain in Hindu ceremonies, siding with conservationists of the protected reptiles against religious advocates, an official said Friday. http://www.physorg.com/news178530601.html Biology Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:50:01 EST news178530601 (PhysOrg.com) -- The use of antibiotic eye drops for conjunctivitis has increased by almost half since they became available over the counter at chemists in 2005, data obtained by Oxford University researchers has shown. http://www.physorg.com/news178529794.html Medicine & Health Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:37:01 EST news178529794 (PhysOrg.com) -- European researchers have created new tools for semantic technology development which are helping to set the next generation of official standards. The tools also unblock some key bottlenecks in semantic technology. http://www.physorg.com/news178529295.html Technology Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:28:55 EST news178529295 China will launch its second moon orbiter next October, state media reported Friday, as it powers ahead with a space programme that has sparked concerns abroad. http://www.physorg.com/news178527266.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:55:20 EST news178527266