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) -- "In many ways, the standard model of cosmology works very well," Jose Cembranos tells PhysOrg. "However, there are very basic features that we just do not know. We have dark energy and dark matter. They dictate the evolution of late time cosmology. They both together constitute more than 95 percent of the energy content of the present Universe." If this is the case, why do we trust the standard model? It can`t explain such a large portion of the universe. http://www.physorg.com/news159444907.html Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:17:07 EST news159444907 The most crowded collision of galaxy clusters has been identified by combining information from three different telescopes. This result gives scientists a chance to learn what happens when some of the largest objects in the Universe go at each other in a cosmic free-for-all. http://www.physorg.com/news159100327.html Space & Earth Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:32:30 EST news159100327 A first of its kind study examining the effects of methamphetamine use during pregnancy has found the drug appears to cause abnormal brain development in children. The research is published in the April 15, 2009, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://www.physorg.com/news159037630.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:07:37 EST news159037630 Driveways and parking lots may look better with a layer of sealcoat applied to the pavement, but the water running off the surface into nearby streams will be carrying more than just oxygen and hydrogen molecules. New research conducted at the University of New Hampshire Stormwater Center (UNHSC) indicates that sealcoat may contribute to increasingly significant amounts of polyaromatic hydrocarbons entering waterways from stormwater runoff. http://www.physorg.com/news158419495.html Space & Earth Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:25:41 EST news158419495 (PhysOrg.com) -- Some of the brightest colors in nature are created by tiny nanostructures with a structure similar to beer foam or a sponge, according to Yale University researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news157914340.html Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:06:05 EST news157914340 European astronomers said on Wednesday that an anomalous energy signal detected by an orbiting satellite could be a telltale of the enigmatic substance known as dark matter. http://www.physorg.com/news157814632.html Physics Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:24:17 EST news157814632 February's brutal chimpanzee attack, during which a pet chimp inflicted devastating injuries on a Connecticut woman, was a stark reminder that chimps are much stronger than humans -as much as four-times stronger, some researchers believe. But what is it that makes our closest primate cousins so much stronger than we are? One possible explanation is that great apes simply have more powerful muscles. Indeed, biologists have uncovered differences in muscle architecture between chimpanzees and humans. But evolutionary biologist Alan Walker, a professor at Penn State University, thinks muscles may only be part of the story. http://www.physorg.com/news157653323.html Biology Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:38:03 EST news157653323 (PhysOrg.com) -- `The concept of matter waves is at the heart of quantum mechanics,` Oliver Morsch tells PhysOrg.com. `At the beginning of the last century, scientists discovered that solid particles could exhibit properties of waves, such as interference and diffraction. Until then, it was assumed that only light behaved as a wave. But in the quantum world everything is basically a wave.` http://www.physorg.com/news157375449.html Physics Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:25:06 EST news157375449 (PhysOrg.com) -- No one knows exactly what a `fifth force` might be, but studies have shown that, if a long-range fifth force does exist, it could have surprising effects on the universe`s structure formation. A fifth force could reduce discrepancies between theory and observation in several areas of cosmology. http://www.physorg.com/news157292373.html Physics Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:20:41 EST news157292373 Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is largely responsible for recent global warming and the rise in sea levels. However, a team of scientists, including two Smithsonian ecologists, have found that this same increase in CO2 may ironically counterbalance some of its negative effects on one of the planet's most valuable ecosystems -wetlands. The team's findings are being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of March 23. http://www.physorg.com/news157050125.html Space & Earth Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:05:38 EST news157050125 They say a picture tells a thousand stories, but can it also tell how smart you are? Actually, say UCLA researchers, it can. http://www.physorg.com/news156519927.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:46:10 EST news156519927 Carnegie Mellon University's Cliff I. Davidson, Joseph B. Kadane and Nanjun Chu have found that polluted air in the highly populated East End areas of Pittsburgh are more affected by major sources to the city's southeast than previously thought. http://www.physorg.com/news156519054.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:32:20 EST news156519054 Peering into the tumultuous heart of the nearby Perseus galaxy cluster, Hubble discovered a large population of small galaxies that have remained intact while larger galaxies around them are being ripped apart by the gravitational tug of other galaxies. http://www.physorg.com/news156075674.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:21:35 EST news156075674 Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the pathogen that causes mononucleosis, appears to play a role in the neurodegeneration that occurs in persons with multiple sclerosis, researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Trieste, Italy, have shown. http://www.physorg.com/news155229747.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:22:54 EST news155229747 The practice of no-till has increased considerably during the past 20 yr. Soils under no-till usually host a more abundant and diverse biota and are less prone to erosion, water loss, and structural breakdown than tilled soils. Their organic matter content is also often increased and consequently, no-till is proposed as a measure to mitigate the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. However, recent studies show that the effect of no-till on carbon sequestration can be variable depending on soil and climatic conditions, and nutrient management practices. http://www.physorg.com/news154780086.html Space & Earth Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:28:28 EST news154780086 Scientists are harnessing the cosmos as a scientific 'instrument' in their quest to determine the makeup of the universe. http://www.physorg.com/news154357589.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:07:11 EST news154357589 (PhysOrg.com) -- Evidence of star birth within a cloud of primordial gas has given astronomers a glimpse of a previously unknown mode of galaxy formation. The cloud, known as the Leo Ring, appears to lack the dark matter and heavy elements normally found in galaxies today. The unexpected discovery comes thanks to instruments aboard NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) spacecraft which are sensitive to the ultraviolet radiation emitted by newly formed stars. http://www.physorg.com/news154186484.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:35:40 EST news154186484 During a research trip to Puerto Rico, ecologist James Porter took samples from underwater nuclear bomb target USS Killen, expecting to find evidence of radioactive matter - instead he found a link to cancer. Data revealed that the closer corals and marine life were to unexploded bombs from the World War II vessel and the surrounding target range, the higher the rates of carcinogenic materials. http://www.physorg.com/news154171806.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:32:30 EST news154171806 NASA has awarded Clemson astronomers $244,000 to use data from several space-based gamma-ray telescopes to study a mysterious emission coming from the central regions of the Milky Way galaxy. http://www.physorg.com/news154008823.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:14:49 EST news154008823 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the early Universe, some galaxies may have had stars packed together a hundred times more closely than in the present day, according to research by a University of Bonn team to be published in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.( http://www.physorg.com/news153679859.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:51:37 EST news153679859 (PhysOrg.com) -- Cotton candy has delighted children for a century. Now it may have found a new role: helping scientists grow replacement tissues for people. The flossy stuff may be just right for creating networks of blood vessels within laboratory-grown bone, skin, muscle or fat for breast reconstruction, researchers suggest. http://www.physorg.com/news153589816.html Chemistry Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:50:55 EST news153589816 (PhysOrg.com) -- The images, produced by scientists at Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology, show the "Cosmic Dawn" - the formation of the first big galaxies in the Universe. http://www.physorg.com/news153549252.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:34:50 EST news153549252 Adolescents and young adults who are heavy users of marijuana are more likely than non-users to have disrupted brain development, according to a new study. Pediatric researchers found abnormalities in areas of the brain that interconnect brain regions involved in memory, attention, decision-making, language and executive functioning skills. The findings are of particular concern because adolescence is a crucial period for brain development and maturation. http://www.physorg.com/news152807191.html Medicine & Health Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:27:08 EST news152807191 In the tiny world of amino acids and proteins and in the helical shape of DNA, a biological phenomenon abounds. http://www.physorg.com/news152796745.html Nanotechnology Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:32:52 EST news152796745 (PhysOrg.com) -- An alternative proposal to dark energy in which the Earth sits near the center of a large void is undergoing scrutiny, and the results show that void models fit poorly with observed data. Nevertheless, scientists say that more research will be needed to determine if void models, dark energy, or something else can accurately explain how the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. http://www.physorg.com/news152374990.html Physics Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:23:51 EST news152374990 (PhysOrg.com) -- Determining the identity of dark matter, the mysterious stuff thought to make up the vast majority of matter in the universe, is one of the most fundamental challenges facing modern physics. Through theory and experiment, scientists have been gradually determining what dark matter probably isn't composed of, and now recent results from one collaboration have ruled out another possibility. http://www.physorg.com/news152284387.html Physics Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:13:52 EST news152284387 (PhysOrg.com) -- A recent study has confirmed that although there was a large reduction of organic carbon and total nitrogen pools when prairies were first cultivated and drained, there has been no consistent pattern in these organic matter pools during the period of synthetic fertilizer use, that is, from 1957-2002. http://www.physorg.com/news151261782.html Space & Earth Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:09:42 EST news151261782 Physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland have proposed a recipe for turning ultracold `boson` atoms -the ingredients of Bose-Einstein condensates -into a `supersolid,` an exotic state of matter that behaves simultaneously as a solid and a friction-free superfluid. While scientists have found evidence for supersolids in complex liquid helium mixtures, a supersolid formed from such weakly interacting gas atoms would be simpler to understand, potentially providing clues for making a host of new `quantum materials` whose bizarre properties could expand physicists` notions of what is possible with matter. http://www.physorg.com/news151090051.html Physics Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:27:31 EST news151090051 Cloaked in the clouds of emissions and exhaust that hang over the city are clues that lead back to the polluting culprits, and a research team led by the University of Houston is hot on their trails. http://www.physorg.com/news151001439.html Space & Earth Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:50:39 EST news151001439 (PhysOrg.com) -- As people age, memory and the ability to carry out tasks often decline. Scientists looking for ways to lessen that decline often have focused on the "gray matter" -- the cortical regions where high-level functions such as memory are located. http://www.physorg.com/news150562618.html Medicine & Health Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:56:58 EST news150562618