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) -- Scientists at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston recently discovered a simple gene mutation that decreases the chance people will get a flesh-eating disease called necrotizing fasciitis. Further, they proved that inactivating this section of the gene lessens the devastating disease in humans. http://www.physorg.com/news181410123.html Biology Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:42:38 EST news181410123 A vascular surgical technique pioneered at UT Southwestern Medical Center and designed to replace infected aortic grafts with the body's own veins has proved more durable and less prone to new infection than similar procedures using synthetic and cadaver grafts. http://www.physorg.com/news181399154.html Medicine & Health Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:39:53 EST news181399154 (AP) -- A German security expert has raised the ire of the cell phone industry after he and a group of researchers posted online a how-to guide for cracking the encryption that keeps the calls of GSM-standard cell phone users secret. http://www.physorg.com/news181399011.html Technology Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:37:28 EST news181399011 Consumers will be able to fix their automobiles while the car gives step-by-step advice, attack their ailments by making computer models of various treatments to find the best one, and duck into virtual fitting rooms to try on a store's clothes without leaving home. http://www.physorg.com/news181389485.html Technology Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:58:42 EST news181389485 (PhysOrg.com) -- Engineers and scientists say the maneuver went off without a hitch, and everything is working properly. The mission's "first-light" images of the sky will be released to the public in about a month, after the telescope has been fully calibrated. http://www.physorg.com/news181381778.html Space & Earth Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:34:06 EST news181381778 (PhysOrg.com) -- The new year approaches with New Horizons zooming past another milestone: the NASA spacecraft is now closer to target planet Pluto than its home planet, Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news181381526.html Space & Earth Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:47:04 EST news181381526 (PhysOrg.com) -- Does it matter if nature solves the same problem multiple ways? A NSF-supported study of lizard populations in White Sands, New Mexico has helped researcher Erica Rosenblum of the University of Idaho begin to answer that question. http://www.physorg.com/news181374684.html Biology Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:51:53 EST news181374684 (AP) -- It's 8 a.m. and Dr. Theresa Rossouw is already drowning behind a cluttered desk of handwritten HIV charts - new, perplexing cases of patients whose lifesaving drugs have turned against them. http://www.physorg.com/news181373310.html Medicine & Health Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:29:03 EST news181373310 In the Japan of 2020 a stressed-out salaryman may unwind from his hectic futuristic lifestyle by time-travelling back a few centuries and taking a virtual stroll through medieval Tokyo. http://www.physorg.com/news181373015.html Technology Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:24:40 EST news181373015 Google announced plans on Tuesday to hold a press event next month about its Android mobile phone operating system amid speculation the Internet giant plans to release its own smartphone. http://www.physorg.com/news181334902.html Technology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:49:12 EST news181334902 An international team of scientists led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute has developed a straightforward technique to determine the ethnic origin of stem cells. http://www.physorg.com/news181334699.html Biology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:45:55 EST news181334699 A 28-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to hacking into corporate computer networks and carrying out what US officials have described as the largest credit card theft in US history. http://www.physorg.com/news181327248.html Technology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:41:06 EST news181327248 (PhysOrg.com) -- A pair of University of Massachusetts Amherst chemists believe they have for the first time explained how the main players in transcription -- RNA polymerase, RNA (red in illustration) and the DNA template (blue) -- come together and link tightly enough to create a stable complex while DNA unwinds to pass crucial genetic information to RNA, but not so tightly that they can't come apart easily once transcription is complete. This transcription process takes place in all cells and is essential for making the proteins that carry out almost every process important to life. http://www.physorg.com/news181325837.html Chemistry Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:17:56 EST news181325837 (AP) -- Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue - the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor. http://www.physorg.com/news181316313.html Space & Earth Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:38:52 EST news181316313 (AP) -- For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer. http://www.physorg.com/news181312392.html Technology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:00:08 EST news181312392 We see the popular "captcha" security mechanism often ― wavy letters websites ask us to type into a box. It's used by web pages and newsletter sign-up forms to prevent computer robots from hacking into servers and databases. But these codes, which are becoming increasingly complicated for an average person to use, are not immune to security holes. http://www.physorg.com/news181311669.html Technology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:21:43 EST news181311669 2009 may well be remembered for its scandal-ridden headlines, from admissions of extramarital affairs by governors and senators, to corporate executives flying private jets while cutting employee benefits, and most recently, to a mysterious early morning car crash in Florida. The past year has been marked by a series of moral transgressions by powerful figures in political, business and celebrity circles. New research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University explores why powerful people - many of whom take a moral high ground - don't practice what they preach. http://www.physorg.com/news181311436.html Medicine & Health Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:18:06 EST news181311436 (PhysOrg.com) -- Finding watermelon genes that confer resistance to the devastating zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) has just been made easier, thanks to molecular markers developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and university and international cooperators. http://www.physorg.com/news181310172.html Biology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:58:28 EST news181310172 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the University of East Anglia, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Pennsylvania State University have demonstrated for the first time the mechanism by which some bacteria can transfer electrons across a membrane to the cell exterior, allowing them to "breathe" metals. These iron-respiring bacteria link the cycling of iron and carbon in subsurface and surface sediments and can catalyze the immobilization of subsurface contaminants such as uranium. http://www.physorg.com/news181309967.html Chemistry Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:53:48 EST news181309967 (PhysOrg.com) -- In an annual supplement to the journal Diabetes Care, published Dec. 29 by the American Diabetes Association, the A1C test is given a prominent role in the 2010 guidelines for diabetes screening, diagnosis and prevention. http://www.physorg.com/news181306439.html Medicine & Health Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:10:05 EST news181306439 (PhysOrg.com) -- Shareholders of Nike, Gatorade and other Tiger Woods sponsors lost a collective $5 to $12 billion in the wake of the scandal involving his extramarital affairs, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis. http://www.physorg.com/news181305893.html Other Sciences Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:45:41 EST news181305893 (PhysOrg.com) -- The University of Colorado at Boulder has been awarded $840,000 from the National Science Foundation for students to build a tiny spacecraft to observe energetic particles in space that should give scientists a better understanding of solar flares and their interaction with Earth's atmosphere. http://www.physorg.com/news181305800.html Space & Earth Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:45:15 EST news181305800 It's the ultimate goal in the treatment of cancer: tailoring a person's therapy based on his or her genetic makeup. While a lofty goal, scientists are steadily moving forward, rapidly exploiting new technologies. Researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center report a significant advance in this field of research using a new chip that looks for hundreds of mutations in dozen of genes. http://www.physorg.com/news181295454.html Medicine & Health Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:51:33 EST news181295454 As US lawmakers demand to know how a would-be attacker smuggled explosives aboard a plane on Christmas Day, the use of body scanners at airport security points is likely to be revisited. http://www.physorg.com/news181288691.html Technology Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:20:02 EST news181288691 Experts are studying the first Mayan hieroglyphic script dealing with the life of a high priest, his blood sacrifices and acts of penance, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said. http://www.physorg.com/news181288215.html Other Sciences Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:55:46 EST news181288215 US researchers have found an antibody that hunts down prostate cancer cells in mice and can destroy the killer disease even in an advanced stage, a study showed Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news181245375.html Medicine & Health Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:56:53 EST news181245375 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have identified mutations in the gene for TRPV4 that cause two related degenerative motor nerve disorders, scapuloperoneal spinal muscular atrophy (SPSMA) and hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy type IIC (CMT2C). http://www.physorg.com/news181242749.html Medicine & Health Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:13:48 EST news181242749 By combining a research technique that dates back 136 years with modern molecular genetics, a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist has been able to see how a mammal's brain shrewdly revisits and reuses the same molecular cues to control the complex design of its circuits. http://www.physorg.com/news181241784.html Medicine & Health Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:57:14 EST news181241784 (PhysOrg.com) -- Moving pictures are more suitable to interpret the mood of a person than a static photograph. http://www.physorg.com/news181240600.html Medicine & Health Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:37:32 EST news181240600 (PhysOrg.com) -- The timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by two scientists at Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins in the Dec. 28 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). http://www.physorg.com/news181237351.html Biology Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:20:02 EST news181237351