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) -- The interplay of human mobility patterns like those between local metropolitan commuters and long-range airline travelers during a global epidemic can be modeled in such detail so as to offer refined views of epidemics that could aid in public health emergency decision making, according to new research published by a team led by informaticists at Indiana University. http://www.physorg.com/news180292371.html Technology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:00:01 EST news180292371 (AP) -- Archaeologists on Thursday hoisted a 9-ton temple pylon from the waters of the Mediterranean that was part of the palace complex of the fabled Cleopatra before it became submerged for centuries in the harbor of Alexandria. http://www.physorg.com/news180291107.html Other Sciences Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:40:06 EST news180291107 A new study reveals the reason why orchids use sexual trickery to lure insect pollinators. The study, published in the January issue of The American Naturalist, finds that sexual deception in orchids leads to a more efficient pollinating system. http://www.physorg.com/news180289024.html Biology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:10:03 EST news180289024 Human activity is increasing the supply of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, to stream systems all over the world. The conventional wisdom -- bolstered by earlier research -- has held that these additional nutrients cause an increase in production all along the food chain, from the tiniest organisms up to the largest predators. A long-term, ecosystem-scale study by a team of University of Georgia researchers, however, has thrown this assumption into question. http://www.physorg.com/news180289199.html Biology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:10:02 EST news180289199 In some ways a cell in your body or an organelle in that cell is like an ancient walled town. Life inside either depends critically on the intelligence of the gatekeepers. http://www.physorg.com/news180288888.html Biology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:00:17 EST news180288888 In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact. If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger shows that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to study their atmospheres and detect key gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor. http://www.physorg.com/news180288713.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:50:03 EST news180288713 When bombs and bullets left 37 dead during Friday prayers at a mosque in Pakistan, earlier this month, the insurgency was using the element of surprise. Unpredictability is the hallmark of modern insurgent attacks such as this one. However, the likelihood of such events, their timing and strength can now be estimated and managed before occurring, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Miami. The study entitled "Common Ecology Quantifies Human Insurgency" is featured as the cover of the December 17, 2009 issue of the scientific journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news180284932.html Other Sciences Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:30:11 EST news180284932 (PhysOrg.com) -- Those seeking to understand and predict climate change can now use an additional tool to calculate carbon dioxide exchanges on land, according to a scientific journal article co-authored by a University of Alabama researcher and publishing this week. http://www.physorg.com/news180285034.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:30:02 EST news180285034 Oceanographers using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason discovered and recorded the first video and still images of a deep-sea volcano actively erupting molten lava on the seafloor. http://www.physorg.com/news180289662.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:28:41 EST news180289662 (PhysOrg.com) -- A first-of-its-kind computer simulation that mirrors real-world observations of methane bubbling up from a seabed in the Arctic Ocean provides further evidence that warming oceans may unleash vast quantities of methane trapped in hydrate deposits buried beneath the seafloor. http://www.physorg.com/news180288229.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:05:17 EST news180288229 Subtle patterns of nonverbal behavior that appear on popular television programs influence racial bias among viewers, according to research from Tufts University to appear in the December 18, 2009, issue of the journal Science. http://www.physorg.com/news180284463.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:50:04 EST news180284463 New research by the UK's University of Warwick and Hamilton College in the US into the happiness levels of a million individual US citizens have revealed their personal happiness levels closely correlate with earlier research that ranked the quality of life available in the US's 50 states plus the District of Columbia. This research provides a unique external validation of people's self reported levels of happiness and will be of great value to future economic and clinical research in this field. http://www.physorg.com/news180284820.html Other Sciences Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:40:10 EST news180284820 For decades, science texts have told a simple and straightforward story about a particular protein -a transcription factor -that helps the embryo of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, pattern tissues in a manner that depends on the levels of this factor within individual cells. http://www.physorg.com/news180283760.html Biology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:40:06 EST news180283760 Contrary to popular belief, some very smart, accomplished people cannot read well. This unexpected difficulty in reading in relation to intelligence, education and professional status is called dyslexia, and researchers at Yale School of Medicine and University of California Davis, have presented new data that explain how otherwise bright and intelligent people struggle to read. http://www.physorg.com/news180283007.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:30:01 EST news180283007 (PhysOrg.com) -- The use and control of fire are behavioral characteristics that distinguish humans from other animals. Now, a new study by Iowa State University anthropologist Jill Pruetz reports that savanna chimpanzees in Senegal have a near human understanding of wildfires and change their behavior in anticipation of the fire's movement. http://www.physorg.com/news180285365.html Biology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:16:50 EST news180285365 The research that brought to light the fossils of Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia, has topped Science's list of this year's most significant scientific breakthroughs. The monumental find predates "Lucy," -- previously the most ancient partial skeleton of a hominid on record -- by more than one million years, and it inches researchers ever-closer to the last common ancestor shared by humans and chimpanzees. http://www.physorg.com/news180282874.html Other Sciences Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:35:25 EST news180282874 Society will be unable to take full advantage of real-time data analysis technologies that might improve health, reduce traffic congestion and give scientists new insights into human behavior until it resolves questions about how much of a person's life can be observed and by whom, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist contends in a commentary published Friday in the journal Science. http://www.physorg.com/news180282545.html Technology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:29:58 EST news180282545 The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to a University of Calgary archaeologist who has found the oldest example of extensive reliance on cereal and root staples in the diet of early Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news180282295.html Other Sciences Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:28:06 EST news180282295 (PhysOrg.com) -- A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission has made a startling discovery about the Northern Lights. Sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing spectacular outbursts of light. Movies of the phenomenon were unveiled at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union today in San Francisco. http://www.physorg.com/news180282059.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:21:57 EST news180282059 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using new technology developed in his University of Oregon lab, chemist Andrew H. Marcus and his doctoral student Eric N. Senning have captured what they describe as well-orchestrated, actin-driven, mitochondrial movement within a single cell. http://www.physorg.com/news180279074.html Chemistry Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:43:27 EST news180279074 Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have identified a naturally occurring human protein that helps prevent infection by H1N1 influenza and other viruses, including West Nile and dengue virus. http://www.physorg.com/news180275831.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:41:54 EST news180275831 If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, then North American mammals are one-fifth to one-half the way there, according to a University of California, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania State University analysis. http://www.physorg.com/news180273689.html Biology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:02:16 EST news180273689 Maternal behavior itself can trigger the development of new neurons in the maternal brain independent of whether the female was pregnant or has nursed, according to a study released by researchers at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. These findings performed in adult, virgin rats were published in Brain Research Bulletin. http://www.physorg.com/news180272844.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:49:01 EST news180272844 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Harvard University have used light and genetic trickery to trace out neurons' ability to excite or inhibit one another, literally shedding new light on the question of how neurons interact with one another in live animals. http://www.physorg.com/news180269148.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:20:05 EST news180269148 Two common forms of cancer have been genetically mapped for the first time, British scientists announced, in a major breakthrough in understanding the diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news180267050.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:04 EST news180267050 At a very early age, children learn how to classify objects according to their shape. Now, new research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas may allow astronomers to do the same. http://www.physorg.com/news180269012.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:44:41 EST news180269012 (PhysOrg.com) -- Robovie-II, a retail-assistant robot designed to help elderly and disabled people shop in supermarkets, is being tested in Kyoto, in Japan. http://www.physorg.com/news180261433.html Electronics Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:10:05 EST news180261433 Seeking to turn an environmental problem into an economic opportunity, high-tech companies in resource-poor Japan are mining mountains of toxic e-waste for precious materials. http://www.physorg.com/news180266038.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:10:01 EST news180266038 (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the first $182 million in federal stimulus money for 18 projects to expand high-speed Internet networks in rural areas and other underserved communities. http://www.physorg.com/news180265315.html Technology Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:47:26 EST news180265315 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 1996, when scientists examined a meteorite from Mars previously uncovered in Antarctica, they were intrigued by what looked like microscopic fossils of ancient Martian life forms. Now, using new technology that wasn't available 13 years ago, NASA scientists have found further evidence that the materials and structures in the meteorite are likely signs of ancient life, rather than the results of inorganic processes. http://www.physorg.com/news180264793.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:33:52 EST news180264793