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. Personalized newscasts culled from the Web and presented by digital avatars. Baseball stories written by computers using raw data. http://www.physorg.com/news180165769.html Technology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:03:31 EST news180165769 The DNA of a shrouded man from the first century found in Jerusalem has revealed the earliest proven case of leprosy, Israel's Hebrew university announced on Wednesday. http://www.physorg.com/news180165623.html Other Sciences Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:01:01 EST news180165623 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Georgia Tech have developed a nanolithographic technique that can produce high-resolution patterns of at least three different chemicals on a single chip at writing speeds of up to one millimeter per second. The chemical nanopatterns can be tailor-designed with any desired shape and have been shown to be sufficiently stable so that they can be stored for weeks and then used elsewhere. The technique, known as Thermochemical Nanolithography is detailed in the December 2009 edition of the journal Advanced Functional Materials. The research has applications in a number of scientific fields from electronics to medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news180162467.html Nanotechnology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:08:15 EST news180162467 The conversations neurons have as they form and recall memories have been decoded by Medical College of Georgia scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news180162150.html Medicine & Health Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:03:53 EST news180162150 A University of Florida researcher has co-authored a study tracing the evolution of the modern opossum back to the extinction of the dinosaurs and finding evidence to support North America as the center of origin for all living marsupials. http://www.physorg.com/news180161821.html Other Sciences Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:58:16 EST news180161821 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists once thought that life could originate only within a solar system's "habitable zone," where a planet would be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on its surface. But according to planetary scientist Francis Nimmo, evidence from recent NASA missions suggests that conditions necessary for life may exist on the icy satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. http://www.physorg.com/news180112635.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:55:19 EST news180112635 An experimental device that uses the tongue instead of the eyes to "see" could be on the market next year, and a blind Fresno, Calif., teen hopes to be among the first to take one home. http://www.physorg.com/news180125418.html Technology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:51:11 EST news180125418 Next year will mark the 50th birthday of the laser, one of the most productive and widely used mega-inventions of the last century. Scientists hope that 2010 also will see the launch of laser technology's greatest challenge: creating an inexhaustible supply of clean, carbon-free energy. http://www.physorg.com/news180125332.html Technology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:50:47 EST news180125332 For the first time, a piezoelectric harvesting device fabricated by MEMS technology generates a record of 85μW electrical power from vibrations. A wafer level packaging method was developed for robustness. The packaged MEMS-based harvester is used to power a wireless sensor node. Within the Holst Centre program on Micropower Generation and Storage, imec researchers developed a temperature sensor that can wirelessly transmit data in a fully autonomous way. http://www.physorg.com/news180120643.html Technology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:40:05 EST news180120643 (PhysOrg.com) -- Diagnostic tests were run on Spirit's right-rear wheel and right-front wheel on Sol 2013 (Dec. 12, 2009). http://www.physorg.com/news180119338.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:20:04 EST news180119338 (PhysOrg.com) -- Archaeologists from the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen have found proof that pre-historic people laid flowers at the graves of their dead. http://www.physorg.com/news180119116.html Other Sciences Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:05:55 EST news180119116 (AP) -- Ten years ago, we would have been blown away by a cell phone with far more computing power and memory than the average PC had in 1999, along with a built-in camera and programs to manage every aspect of our lives. Ten years from now, the iPhone and its ilk will be antiques. http://www.physorg.com/news180117034.html Electronics Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:46:34 EST news180117034 Toshiba Corporation today announced the launch of a 64 gigabyte (GB) embedded NAND flash memory module, the highest capacity yet achieved in the industry. http://www.physorg.com/news180115490.html Technology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:30:14 EST news180115490 Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers, working with colleagues in Korea, have produced a laboratory chip with nanoscopic grooves and ridges capable of growing cardiac tissue that more closely resembles natural heart muscle. http://www.physorg.com/news180116595.html Nanotechnology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:24:23 EST news180116595 (PhysOrg.com) -- Lead levels that are "off the scale" have been confirmed after tests were done this morning on the lid of a soup can dating back more than 150 years. The findings reopen the mystery surrounding the cause of death of Sir John Franklin and his doomed crew as they searched for the Northwest Passage. http://www.physorg.com/news180115596.html Other Sciences Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:07:28 EST news180115596 (PhysOrg.com) -- Bacteria dance the electric slide, officially named electrokinesis by the USC geobiologists who discovered the phenomenon. http://www.physorg.com/news180112213.html Biology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:00:01 EST news180112213 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's MESSENGER mission team and cartographic experts from the U. S. Geological Survey have created a critical tool for planning the first orbital observations of the planet Mercury - a global mosaic of the planet that will help scientists pinpoint craters, faults and other features for observation. The map was created from images taken during the MESSENGER spacecraft's three flybys of the planet and those of Mariner 10 in the 1970s. A presentation on the new global mosaic is being given today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. http://www.physorg.com/news180114935.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:56:12 EST news180114935 New climate research reveals how wind shear -- the same atmospheric conditions that cause bumpy airplane rides -- affects how pollution contributes to isolated thunderstorm clouds. Under strong wind shear conditions, pollution hampers thunderhead formation. But with weak wind shear, pollution does the opposite and makes storms stronger. http://www.physorg.com/news180111002.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:51:08 EST news180111002 Experts on prehistoric man are rethinking their dates after a find in a southern French valley suggested our ancestors may have reached Europe 1.57 million years ago: 200,000 years earlier than we thought. http://www.physorg.com/news180110953.html Other Sciences Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:50:41 EST news180110953 (AP) -- Federal regulators are seeking to close a loophole that allows cable TV operators to withhold sporting events and other popular programming that they own from rival providers such as satellite TV. http://www.physorg.com/news180110779.html Technology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:47:06 EST news180110779 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Early Cretaceous sauropod Paluxysaurus jonesi weighed 20 tons, was 60 feet long and had a neck 26 feet long, according to scientists who prepared the world's first full skeletal mount of the dinosaur. http://www.physorg.com/news180109544.html Other Sciences Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:28:01 EST news180109544 (PhysOrg.com) -- Always on the cutting edge of new computing technologies, Google has recently announced that it is investigating the use of quantum computing schemes to achieve faster image recognition rates. Last week, at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference (NIPS 2009) in Vancouver, Canada, the company demonstrated that their new search technology outperforms the algorithms used on the computers running in its data centers today. http://www.physorg.com/news180107947.html Physics Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:00:29 EST news180107947 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers from The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and other universities have captured the first direct image of a young binary star system. Using the Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics (CIAO) mounted on the Subaru Telescope, the team observed the young binary star SR24, which is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, 520 light years away. http://www.physorg.com/news180107005.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:44:28 EST news180107005 (PhysOrg.com) -- With its flamboyantly decorated plumage, the peacock is a classic example of how males among many bird species are more visually eye-catching than their female partners. But new research, led by Columbia biologist Dustin Rubenstein, shows that, in some cases, females living in family groups are just as showy as males. The findings, which appear in the Dec. 10 issue of the journal Nature, shed new light on Darwin`s theory of sexual selection. http://www.physorg.com/news180104802.html Biology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:17:51 EST news180104802 (PhysOrg.com) -- For most of a decade, scientists have documented unfelt and slow-moving seismic events, called episodic tremor and slip, showing up in regular cycles under the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state and Vancouver Island in British Columbia. They last three weeks on average and release as much energy as a magnitude 6.5 earthquake. http://www.physorg.com/news180103695.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:48:55 EST news180103695 The analysis of microfossils found in ocean sediment cores is illuminating the environmental conditions that prevailed at high latitudes during a critical period of Earth history. http://www.physorg.com/news180096839.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:30:01 EST news180096839 (PhysOrg.com) -- About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet out to Mars in our solar system. Moreover, it has begun to pulse dramatically in and out, beating like a giant heart. New close-up photos of the surface of this distant star show its throbbing motions in unprecedented detail. http://www.physorg.com/news180098305.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:10:01 EST news180098305 A new study published by The University of Western Ontario reveals that couples who share the responsibility for paid and unpaid work report higher average measures of happiness and life satisfaction than those in other family models. http://www.physorg.com/news180096693.html Other Sciences Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:40:02 EST news180096693 Do good-looking people really benefit from their looks, and in what ways? A team of researchers from the University of Georgia and the University of Kansas found that yes; attractive people do tend to have more social relationships and therefore an increased sense of psychological well-being. This seems like common sense, and might be why we spend billions of dollars each year trying to become more attractive. However, the study, published in this month's issue of Personal Relationships, also determines that the importance of attractiveness is not universal; rather, it is determined by where we live. http://www.physorg.com/news180098203.html Medicine & Health Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:30:07 EST news180098203 Scientists seeking to understand how to make an AIDS vaccine have found the cause of a major roadblock. It turns out that the immune system can indeed produce cells with the potential to manufacture powerful HIV-blocking antibodies - but at the same time, the immune system works equally hard to make sure these cells are eliminated before they have a chance to mature. http://www.physorg.com/news180095962.html Medicine & Health Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:30:02 EST news180095962