ScienceDaily: Latest Science News

---

• NASA's Cassini delivers holiday treats from Saturn
• WISE presents a cosmic wreath
• Shearing triggers odd behavior in microscopic particles
• New method for watching proteins fold
• Millipede border control better than ours
• Viagra against heart failure: Researchers throw light on the mechanism
• More accurate than Santa Claus: First Galileo satellite orbit determination with high precision
• A new way of approaching the early detection of Alzheimer's disease
• Go to work on a Christmas card: UK's wrapping paper and festive cards could provide energy to send a bus to the moon more than 20 times
• New sensor to detect lung cancer from exhaled breath
• Noise-free spectroscopy: Reversing the problem clarifies molecular structure
• Multiple sclerosis linked to different area of brain
• Genetic study of black chickens shed light on mechanisms causing rapid evolution in domestic animals

NASA's Cassini delivers holiday treats from Saturn Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:54 AM PST No team of reindeer, but radio signals flying clear across the solar system from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have delivered a holiday package of glorious images. The pictures, from Cassini's imaging team, show Saturn's largest, most colorful ornament, Titan, and other icy baubles in orbit around this splendid planet.

WISE presents a cosmic wreath Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:53 AM PST Just in time for the holidays, astronomers have come across a new image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, that some say resembles a wreath. You might even think of the red dust cloud as a cheery red bow, and the bluish-white stars as silver bells. This star-forming nebula is named Barnard 3. Baby stars are being born throughout the dusty region, while the "silver bell" stars are located both in front of, and behind, the nebula.

Shearing triggers odd behavior in microscopic particles Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:15 AM PST Microscopic spheres form strings in surprising alignments when suspended in a viscous fluid and sheared between two plates, a finding that will affect the way scientists think about the properties of such wide-ranging substances as shampoo and futuristic computer chips.

New method for watching proteins fold Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:14 AM PST A protein's function depends on both the chains of molecules it is made of and the way those chains are folded. And while figuring out the former is relatively easy, the latter represents a huge challenge with serious implications because many diseases are the result of misfolded proteins. Now, a team of chemists has devised a way to watch proteins fold in "real-time," which could lead to a better understanding of protein folding and misfolding in general.

Millipede border control better than ours Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:14 AM PST An Australian zoologist has documented a remarkably sharp boundary between two species of millipede in northwest Tasmania. The boundary is more than 200 km long and apparently less than 100 m wide.

Viagra against heart failure: Researchers throw light on the mechanism Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:14 AM PST Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, can alleviate heart problems, and now researchers can explain why. They studied dogs with diastolic heart failure, a condition in which the heart chamber does not sufficiently fill with blood. The scientists showed that sildenafil makes stiffened cardiac walls more elastic again. The drug activates an enzyme that causes the giant protein titin in the myocardial cells to relax.

More accurate than Santa Claus: First Galileo satellite orbit determination with high precision Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:14 AM PST Every year for Christmas, the North American Air Defense Command NORAD posts an animation on their website, in which the exact flight path of Santa Claus' sled led by reindeer Rudolf is precisely located. By analyzing observational data, the GFZ scientists were able to determine the orbit of satellites, which are flying at an altitude of 23222 km, for the first time to a few decimeters.

A new way of approaching the early detection of Alzheimer's disease Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:14 AM PST One of our genes is apolipoprotein E, which often appears with a variation which nobody would want to have: APOEµ4, the main genetic risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer's disease. It is estimated that at least 40 percent of the sporadic patients affected by this disease are carriers of APOEµ4, but this also means that much more still remains to be studied.

Go to work on a Christmas card: UK's wrapping paper and festive cards could provide energy to send a bus to the moon more than 20 times Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:13 AM PST If all the UK's discarded wrapping paper and Christmas cards were collected and fermented, they could make enough biofuel to run a double-decker bus to the moon and back more than 20 times, according to the researchers behind a new scientific study.

New sensor to detect lung cancer from exhaled breath Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:13 AM PST Scientists are developing biosensors capable of detecting the presence of tumor markers of lung cancer in exhaled breath. This is possible because of the changes produced within the organism of an ill person, changes reflected in the exhaled breath of the patient and which enable determining the presence of this type of marker during the initial stages of the disease.

Noise-free spectroscopy: Reversing the problem clarifies molecular structure Posted: 23 Dec 2011 06:13 AM PST Optical techniques enable us to examine single molecules, but do we really understand what we are seeing? After all, the fuzziness caused by effects such as light interference makes these images very difficult to interpret. Researchers have now adopted a "reverse" approach to spectroscopy which cleaned up images by eliminating background noise.

Multiple sclerosis linked to different area of brain Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:50 PM PST Radiology researchers have found evidence that multiple sclerosis affects an area of the brain that controls cognitive, sensory and motor functioning apart from the disabling damage caused by the disease's visible lesions.

Genetic study of black chickens shed light on mechanisms causing rapid evolution in domestic animals Posted: 22 Dec 2011 04:50 PM PST The genetic changes underlying the evolution of new species are still poorly understood. For instance, we know little about critical changes that have happened during human evolution. Genetic studies in domestic animals can shed light on this process due to the rapid evolution they have undergone over the last 10,000 years. A new study describes how a complex genomic rearrangement causes a fascinating phenotype in chickens.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Latest Science News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610