ScienceDaily: Latest Science News

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• Rocket sled tests are technology pathway to safely land humans, habitats and cargo on Mars
• WISE finds few brown dwarfs close to home
• Neutrinos sent from CERN to Gran Sasso respect the cosmic speed limit, experiments confirm
• More people staying connected on vacation
• Engineered robot interacts with live fish
• Parasitic plants steal genes from their hosts
• Does cooperation require both reciprocity and alike neighbors?
• Oceanic circulation: Heat loss strengthens the gyre circulation
• Environmental benefit of biofuels is overestimated, new study reveals
• Novel brain imaging technique explains why concussions affect people differently
• Should spinal manipulation for neck pain be abandoned?
• Rain may not always be a welcome thing to waterbirds
• Pregnancy: Why mother's immune system does not reject developing fetus as foreign tissue
• New property of flames sparks advances in technology

Rocket sled tests are technology pathway to safely land humans, habitats and cargo on Mars Posted: 08 Jun 2012 03:41 PM PDT Traveling 300 million miles through deep space to reach the planet Mars is difficult; successfully landing there is even harder. The process of entering the Red Planet's atmosphere and slowing down to land has been described as "six minutes of terror."

WISE finds few brown dwarfs close to home Posted: 08 Jun 2012 03:36 PM PDT Astronomers are getting to know the neighbors better. Our sun resides within a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy about two-thirds of the way out from the center. It lives in a fairly calm, suburb-like area with an average number of stellar residents. Recently, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has been turning up a new crowd of stars close to home: the coldest of the brown dwarf family of "failed" stars.

Neutrinos sent from CERN to Gran Sasso respect the cosmic speed limit, experiments confirm Posted: 08 Jun 2012 12:23 PM PDT The latest results on the time of flight of neutrinos from CERN to the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory have just been presented. Four experiments -- Borexino, ICARUS, LVD and OPERA -- all measure a neutrino time of flight consistent with the speed of light. This is at odds with a measurement that the OPERA collaboration put up for scrutiny last September, indicating that the original OPERA measurement can be attributed to a faulty element of the experiment's fibre optic timing system.

More people staying connected on vacation Posted: 08 Jun 2012 08:46 AM PDT Scanning smartphones, tablets and laptops is as much a part of vacations as slathering on sunscreen, according to a new study.

Engineered robot interacts with live fish Posted: 08 Jun 2012 07:08 AM PDT A bioinspired robot has provided the first experimental evidence that live zebrafish can be influenced by engineered robots.

Parasitic plants steal genes from their hosts Posted: 08 Jun 2012 07:08 AM PDT The Malaysian parasitic plant Rafflesia cantleyi, with its 50cm diameter flowers, has 'stolen' genes from its host Tetrastigma rafflesiae. Analysis of these genes shows that their functions range from respiration to metabolism, and that some of them have even replaced the parasites own gene activity.

Does cooperation require both reciprocity and alike neighbors? Posted: 08 Jun 2012 07:05 AM PDT Scientists have developed a new theoretical model on the evolution of cooperation. Evolution by definition is cold and merciless: it selects for success and weeds out failure. It seems only natural to expect that such a process would simply favour genes that help themselves and not others. Yet cooperative behaviour can be observed in many areas, and humans helping each other are a common phenomenon. Thus, one of the major questions in science today is how cooperative behaviour could evolve.

Oceanic circulation: Heat loss strengthens the gyre circulation Posted: 08 Jun 2012 07:05 AM PDT A new study explains decadal variations in the oceanic circulation south of Greenland and Iceland.

Environmental benefit of biofuels is overestimated, new study reveals Posted: 08 Jun 2012 07:05 AM PDT Two scientists are challenging the currently accepted norms of biofuel production. Calculations of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions from bioenergy production are neglecting crucial information that has led to the overestimation of the benefits of biofuels compared to fossil fuels, a new analysis shows.

Novel brain imaging technique explains why concussions affect people differently Posted: 08 Jun 2012 06:56 AM PDT Patients vary widely in their response to concussion, but scientists haven't understood why. Now, using a new technique for analyzing data from brain imaging studies, researchers have found that concussion victims have unique spatial patterns of brain abnormalities that change over time.

Should spinal manipulation for neck pain be abandoned? Posted: 07 Jun 2012 04:08 PM PDT The effectiveness of spinal manipulation divides medical opinion. Experts debate whether spinal manipulation for neck pain should be abandoned.

Rain may not always be a welcome thing to waterbirds Posted: 07 Jun 2012 03:02 PM PDT Scientists have found that waterbird communities can be the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to detecting the health of urban estuary ecosystems. Their research revealed that the types of waterbirds that inhabit urban estuaries are influenced not only by urban development, but also by a far more natural process -- rain.

Pregnancy: Why mother's immune system does not reject developing fetus as foreign tissue Posted: 07 Jun 2012 11:22 AM PDT Researchers have made an important discovery that partially answers the long-standing question of why a mother's immune system does not reject a developing fetus as foreign tissue.

New property of flames sparks advances in technology Posted: 07 Jun 2012 09:23 AM PDT Chemists have discovered a new property of flames, which allows them to control reactions at a solid surface in a flame and opens up a whole new field of chemical innovation.

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