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) -- A University of Manchester scientist, working as part of an international team, has uncovered an unexpectedly rich trove of relicts from the ancient cosmos. http://www.physorg.com/news180032250.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:00:16 EST news180032250 A discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) could contribute to the development of systems that use domestic or agricultural waste to generate clean electricity. http://www.physorg.com/news180028197.html Biology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:40:01 EST news180028197 As the national discussion of health care focuses on costs, a new study from North Carolina State University shows that it might be more accurate to think of health care spending as an investment that can spur economic growth. The study also shows that government projections of health care costs and financing may be unduly pessimistic. http://www.physorg.com/news180027478.html Other Sciences Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:30:03 EST news180027478 (PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny nanoprobes have shown to be effective in delivering cancer drugs more directly to tumor cells - mitigating the damage to nearby healthy cells - and Purdue University research has shown that the nanoprobes are getting the drugs to right cellular compartments. http://www.physorg.com/news180027243.html Nanotechnology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:10:05 EST news180027243 A new microscopic system devised by researchers in MIT's department of materials science and engineering could provide a novel method for moving tiny objects inside a microchip, and could also provide new insights into how cells and other objects are propelled around within the body. http://www.physorg.com/news180029015.html Physics Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:08:06 EST news180029015 (PhysOrg.com) -- U.S. households consumed approximately 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008, according to the "How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers," released today by the University of California, San Diego. One zettabyte is 1,000,000,000 trillion bytes, and total bytes consumed last year were the equivalent of the information in thick paperback novels stacked seven feet high over the entire United States, including Alaska. http://www.physorg.com/news180028010.html Other Sciences Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:48:16 EST news180028010 Genes that don't themselves directly affect the inherited characteristics of an organism but leave them increasingly open to variation may be a significant driving force of evolution, say two Johns Hopkins scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news180027625.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:41:51 EST news180027625 (PhysOrg.com) -- In real estate, it's location, location, location. And when it comes to why girls and women shy away from careers in computer science, a key reason is environment, environment, environment. http://www.physorg.com/news180024084.html Other Sciences Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:20:01 EST news180024084 This is shown by samples of ancient DNA, analysed by an international team of research scientists under the leadership of Professor Eske Willerslev from Copenhagen University. Analyses of ancient DNA thereby once again revoke results of more common methods of dating, such as carbon 14 analysis of bone and tooth remains from extinct animals. These methods which had previously dated the extinction of mammoths and prehistoric horses in Central Asia to within 13-15,000 years ago. But with the DNA-test methods of Eske Willerslev and his colleagues, this boundary has now moved between 2,600 and 5,600 years closer to our time and has thus revised our previous opinion of when the last mammoths and prehistoric horses grazed on the North American Plains. http://www.physorg.com/news180026128.html Other Sciences Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:17:25 EST news180026128 In the minutes after a strong earthquake struck offshore of the Indonesian city of Padang on Sept. 30, fears of a tsunami prompted hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate the coastal city. Or try to. http://www.physorg.com/news180022388.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:00:01 EST news180022388 Imagine a huge spool of film containing thousands of sequences of random scenes. Without a talented editor, a screening would have no meaning. http://www.physorg.com/news180024852.html Biology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:54:56 EST news180024852 Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have created a single nanoparticle that can be tracked in real time with MRI as it homes in on cancer cells, tags them with a fluorescent dye and kills them with heat. The all-in-one particle is one of the first examples from a growing field called "theranostics" that develops technologies physicians can use to diagnose and treat diseases in a single procedure. http://www.physorg.com/news180022136.html Nanotechnology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:09:22 EST news180022136 Dying, for stars, has just gotten more complicated. For some stellar objects, the final phase before or instead of collapsing into a black hole may be what a group of physicists is calling an electroweak star. http://www.physorg.com/news180021867.html Physics Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:05:03 EST news180021867 Scientists have identified a novel antifreeze molecule in a freeze-tolerant Alaska beetle able to survive temperatures below minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike all previously described biological antifreezes that contain protein, this new molecule, called xylomannan, has little or no protein. It is composed of a sugar and a fatty acid and may exist in new places within the cells of organisms. http://www.physorg.com/news180021715.html Chemistry Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:02:30 EST news180021715 Even the way people remember dance moves depends on the culture they come from, according to a report in the December 14th issue of Current Biology. Whereas a German or other Westerner might think in terms of "step to the right, step to the left," a nomadic hunter-gatherer from Namibia might think something more like "step to the east, step to the west." http://www.physorg.com/news180021084.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:52:14 EST news180021084 (PhysOrg.com) -- Department store competition is fierce in Japan during the winter holidays, with every store trying to come up with the most attention-catching promotional campaign. This year, the department store Sogo & Seibu may top them all with its offer of robots that are custom-made to look just like their owners. http://www.physorg.com/news180018368.html Electronics Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:06:20 EST news180018368 (PhysOrg.com) -- A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation. Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation. Only the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with its high resolution and sensitivity, can take such detailed pictures of circumstellar discs at optical wavelengths. http://www.physorg.com/news180018260.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:05:25 EST news180018260 Monash University aeronautical engineers are working with the world's leading aerospace company to fast-track the design and construction of a new generation of super lightweight and efficient passenger airplanes. http://www.physorg.com/news180018138.html Technology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:04:53 EST news180018138 (PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. The researchers, led by Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said the two "super-Earths" are the first ones found around Sun-like stars. http://www.physorg.com/news180016985.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:43:48 EST news180016985 The study, led by Dr. Shiela Strauss, Associate Professor of Nursing and Co-Director of the Statistics and Data Management Core for NYU's Colleges of Dentistry and Nursing, examined data from 2,923 adult participants in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who had not been diagnosed with diabetes. The survey, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. http://www.physorg.com/news180015527.html Medicine & Health Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:40:01 EST news180015527 There are approximately 1,200 species of bats worldwide. Of that total, only six are known to roost with their heads pointed upward. Investigators did not know why, because they knew next to nothing about one key group. http://www.physorg.com/news180015500.html Biology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:19:47 EST news180015500 Picture the following hypothetical scenario: A trolley is headed toward five helpless victims. The trolley can be redirected so that only one person's life is at stake. Psychologists and philosophers have been using moral dilemmas like this for years asking, would you redirect the train? Is it morally acceptable to do this? Experts usually switch up the details to see how different sub-scenarios affect moral judgment. Many researchers have come to the conclusion that an individual's moral judgment in this type of scenario is strongly guided by abstract moral principles. http://www.physorg.com/news180015364.html Other Sciences Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:17:04 EST news180015364 Ethanol, often promoted as a clean-burning, renewable fuel that could help wean the nation from oil, would likely worsen health problems caused by ozone, compared with gasoline, especially in winter, according to a new study led by Stanford researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news180011426.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:11:32 EST news180011426 NASA launched Monday a new breed of satellite called WISE on a mission to orbit Earth and map the skies to find elusive cosmic objects, including potentially dangerous asteroids. http://www.physorg.com/news180010326.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:52:57 EST news180010326 (PhysOrg.com) -- There are an estimated 6,500 languages in the world, with around fifty percent of them endangered and likely to cease to exist by 2100, but efforts are now being made to save them from extinction. http://www.physorg.com/news179999981.html Other Sciences Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:10:01 EST news179999981 (PhysOrg.com) -- A technique developed by a Californian company, Simbol Mining, will enable the valuable mineral lithium, widely used in high-density batteries, to be reclaimed from the hot waste water produced by a geothermal power plant in California. http://www.physorg.com/news179999592.html Technology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:55:05 EST news179999592 Nordic telecom operator TeliaSonera announced Monday the launch in Stockholm and Oslo of the world's first commercial 4G/LTE mobile network, up to 10 times faster than current networks. http://www.physorg.com/news179995754.html Technology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:20:02 EST news179995754 (PhysOrg.com) -- The most detailed seismic images yet published of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano shows a plume of hot and molten rock rising at an angle from the northwest at a depth of at least 410 miles, contradicting claims that there is no deep plume, only shallow hot rock moving like slowly boiling soup. http://www.physorg.com/news179994313.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:10:32 EST news179994313 Toyota Motor said Monday that it plans to begin commercial sales of its first plug-in hybrid vehicle in about two years, aiming to meet growing demand for fuel-efficient cars. http://www.physorg.com/news179994170.html Technology Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:23:41 EST news179994170 It's the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plunges from outer space into the Earth's atmosphere, splitting the sky with a devastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes the countryside. http://www.physorg.com/news179994144.html Space & Earth Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:23:19 EST news179994144