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. Humans have the same receptors for detecting odors related to sex as do other apes and primates. But each species uses them in different ways, stemming from the way the genes for these receptors have evolved over time, according to Duke University researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news179507288.html Biology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:40:13 EST news179507288 (PhysOrg.com) -- Australian astronomers have released the first set of data from the first project to look at the effects of "dark energy" halfway back in the Universe's lifetime. http://www.physorg.com/news179508040.html Space & Earth Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:21:06 EST news179508040 New scientific evidence refutes the preconception that testosterone causes aggressive, egocentric, and risky behavior. A study at the Universities of Zurich and Royal Holloway London with more than 120 experimental subjects has shown that the sexual hormone with the poor reputation can encourage fair behaviors if this serves to ensure one's own status. http://www.physorg.com/news179504442.html Medicine & Health Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:50:04 EST news179504442 Estrogen seems to act like a middleman in its positive effect on the brain, raising the possibility that future drugs may bypass the carcinogenic hormone altogether while reaping its benefits. http://www.physorg.com/news179505580.html Medicine & Health Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:40:42 EST news179505580 Females can be too attractive to the opposite sex -- too attractive for their own good -- say biologists at UC Santa Barbara. They found that, among fruit flies, too much male attention directed toward attractive females leads to smaller families and, ultimately, to a reduced rate of population-wide adaptive evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news179502397.html Biology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:20:01 EST news179502397 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Rochester optics professor Chunlei Guo made headlines in the past couple of years when he changed the color of everyday metals by scouring their surfaces with precise, high-intensity laser bursts. http://www.physorg.com/news179504199.html Physics Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:17:11 EST news179504199 Researchers have discovered how the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas' disease, prolongs its survival in infected cells. A protein on the parasite activates the enzyme Akt, which blocks cell death signals, preventing cell destruction and parasite elimination. Chagas' disease affects some 8 to 11 million people throughout Latin America and even the United States. http://www.physorg.com/news179502191.html Chemistry Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:45:49 EST news179502191 Although politicians are often criticized for making empty promises, when it comes to their voting records, their words may carry more weight than previously thought, according to findings by two Penn State information technology scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news179500357.html Other Sciences Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:30:20 EST news179500357 In the pipefish, the male cares for the offspring. Apart from the ones he sucks the life out of. The discovery of filial cannibalism in the pipefish is now creating a stir in the research world. http://www.physorg.com/news179499885.html Biology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:06:59 EST news179499885 Scientists have ruled out the possibility that methane is delivered to Mars by meteorites, raising fresh hopes that the gas might be generated by life on the red planet, in research published tomorrow in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. http://www.physorg.com/news179499648.html Space & Earth Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:02:06 EST news179499648 (AP) -- Five of the nation's largest publishers of newspapers and magazines plan to challenge Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle electronic-book reader with their own digital format that would display in color and work on a variety of devices. http://www.physorg.com/news179497893.html Technology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:32:13 EST news179497893 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 2004, Hubble created the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), the deepest visible-light image of the Universe, and now, with its brand-new camera, Hubble is seeing even farther. This image was taken in the same region as the visible HUDF, but is taken at longer wavelengths. http://www.physorg.com/news179489629.html Space & Earth Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:14:38 EST news179489629 An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have found no evidence supporting an extraterrestrial impact event at the onset of the Younger Dryas ~13000 years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news179489405.html Space & Earth Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:10:36 EST news179489405 (PhysOrg.com) -- One of the givens in physics is the weak equivalence principle. This principle has been considered solid since Einstein proposed that it is not possible to detect the difference between uniform acceleration and a uniform static gravitational field. The uniqueness of freefall allows uniform acceleration, even between masses that are different, according to Einstein's postulate in the theory of General Relativity. The weak equivalence principle is well established amongst the science community, but it has yet to be demonstrated completely. This is where Phillippe Bouyer at Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l`Institut d`Optique, Campus Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, and his colleagues are attempting to go. http://www.physorg.com/news179481148.html Physics Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:00:01 EST news179481148 (PhysOrg.com) -- Research scientists in California and elsewhere are deliberately setting out to compromise the mobile phone system used by around three billion people. The system uses Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) encryption technology to prevent eavesdropping. http://www.physorg.com/news179479214.html Technology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:50:01 EST news179479214 (PhysOrg.com) -- The deadly bacterium behind cholera epidemics spends only a fraction of its life infecting humans. Most of the time, Vibrio cholerae lurks in estuaries and other semisalty aquatic habitats. http://www.physorg.com/news179483903.html Biology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:10:03 EST news179483903 (PhysOrg.com) -- Blue whales, the largest animals on earth, are singing with deeper voices every year, but scientists are unsure of the reason. http://www.physorg.com/news179478332.html Biology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:40:03 EST news179478332 (PhysOrg.com) -- UCLA AIDS Institute researchers have for the first time demonstrated that human blood stem cells can be engineered to target and kill HIV-infected cells. http://www.physorg.com/news179483720.html Medicine & Health Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:35:54 EST news179483720 An Arizona State University research team has developed a process that removes a key obstacle to producing lower-cost, renewable biofuels. The team has programmed a photosynthetic microbe to self-destruct, making the recovery of high-energy fats--and their biofuel byproducts--easier and potentially less costly. http://www.physorg.com/news179483099.html Biology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:26:13 EST news179483099 Google search is getting eyes and ears, moving beyond typed key words to let people scour the Internet with mobile telephone cameras or spoken words in multiple languages. http://www.physorg.com/news179482371.html Technology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:13:38 EST news179482371 (PhysOrg.com) -- Google recently sent out 100,000 stickers to selected US businesses for use on their storefront windows. The stickers have the Google Maps logo and a QR code that can be scanned by smart phone cameras and display Google listings for the business on the phone screen. http://www.physorg.com/news179477830.html Technology Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:57:47 EST news179477830 (PhysOrg.com) -- A serendipitous discovery of deaf zebra fish larvae has helped narrow down the function of an elusive protein necessary for hearing and balance. The work, led by Rockefeller University`s A. James Hudspeth, suggests that hearing loss may arise from a faulty pathway that translates sound waves into electrical impulses the brain can understand. http://www.physorg.com/news179470963.html Medicine & Health Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:03:48 EST news179470963 (PhysOrg.com) -- While it is too early for physicians to start advising their male patients to take up the habit of regular coffee drinking, data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers. http://www.physorg.com/news179436072.html Medicine & Health Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:00:03 EST news179436072 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new University of Pittsburgh study reveals that craving a cigarette while performing a cognitive task not only increases the chances of a person's mind wandering, but also makes that person less likely to notice when his or her mind has wandered. http://www.physorg.com/news179430373.html Medicine & Health Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:10:02 EST news179430373 (PhysOrg.com) -- An ancestor of the AIDS virus hijacked an entire gene, perhaps from some prehistoric cat it had infected, a gene that makes it much better able to infect humans, according to a study published online today in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. The discovery represents the first instance in which researchers have found an entire animal gene within the genome of the human immunodeficiency virus despite 30 years of intense analyses. http://www.physorg.com/news179433709.html Biology Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:01:34 EST news179433709 (PhysOrg.com) -- MIT chemists have developed a new platinum compound that is as powerful as the commonly used anticancer drug cisplatin but better able to destroy tumor cells. http://www.physorg.com/news179426472.html Chemistry Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:00:03 EST news179426472 (AP) -- Fresh information from blogs, news sites, Twitter and other popular hangouts will appear in Google's search results more quickly as the company aims to give people a more comprehensive look at what's happening on the Web. http://www.physorg.com/news179428078.html Technology Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:40:02 EST news179428078 (PhysOrg.com) -- A thin rain of charged particles continually bombards our atmosphere from outer space. The mysterious particles were first detected 100 years ago but until 10 years ago when a new type of telescope began to come online physicists weren't sure where the "cosmic rays" came from or how they were generated. They suspected the particles were accelerated by supernova shockwaves, but suspicions aren't proof. http://www.physorg.com/news179427195.html Space & Earth Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:30:01 EST news179427195 A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has won a 40,000-dollar prize for using social networking tools to identify the locations of 10 large weather balloons in a contest sponsored by the Pentagon's research agency. http://www.physorg.com/news179430944.html Technology Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:56:21 EST news179430944 University of Georgia scientists looking to understand the genetic mechanisms of plant defense and growth have found for the first time in plants an inverse relationship between gene duplication and alternative splicing. The finding has implications for diversity not only in plants, but in animals and humans. http://www.physorg.com/news179424298.html Biology Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:40:04 EST news179424298