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News | Archive (18 September 2010)
Argentina puts legal muscle behind Atlantic Forest protection
— 09:13 GMT | EnvironmentThe Argentinean province of Misiones has approved a major new land use law for native forests in that area, legally backing a commitment last year to help save the Atlantic Forest and move toward a goal of zero net deforestation by 2020…
Targeted therapy decreases progression rate in thyroid cancer
— 09:10 GMT | HealthThe drug pazopanib may help revolutionize the care of patients with metastatic, rapidly progressive differentiated thyroid cancers, say researchers at Mayo Clinic who are publishing findings of a phase II clinical trial in The Lancet Oncology…
Light is the friend of lovers
— 09:07 GMT | BiologyThe increase of artificial night lighting is only one of the consequences of intense urbanisation. There is no doubt that chemical and noise pollution can have a strong impact on ecosystems. To date, however, the more subtle consequences of light pollution on wild populations of animals have not received enough attention. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology have now shown that permanent night lighting alters the reproductive behaviour of birds. In those habitats that are affected by artificial light, males started to sing earlier and females advanced the onset of breeding activities. Moreover, males occupying territories with street lights had a higher number of extra-pair mates than males living in dark forests…
Tick tock: Rods help set internal clocks, biologist says
— 09:04 GMT | BiologyWe run our modern lives largely by the clock, from the alarms that startle us out of our slumbers and herald each new workday to the watches and clocks that remind us when it's time for meals, after-school pick-up and the like…
Emotional robot pets
— 09:01 GMT | TechnologyDesigners of robot pets are fighting a never-ending battle with consumers to provide entertaining and realistic gadgets that respond to human interaction in ever more nuanced ways, mimicking the behaviour of real pet animals or even people. Researchers in Taiwan are now looking at a new design paradigm that could see the development of a robot vision module that might one-day recognise human facial expressions and respond appropriately…
Teenagers are more sedentary on weekends
— 08:58 GMT | Health'A sedentary lifestyle has become one of the major public health problems in developed countries,' Juan P. Rey-Lopez, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR), tells SINC. 'During the week, one-third of teenagers said the watched more than two hours of television per day. At weekends, this figure exceeds 60%.'…
Gene limits learning and memory in mice
— 08:55 GMT | HealthDeleting a certain gene in mice can make them smarter by unlocking a mysterious region of the brain considered to be relatively inflexible, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found…
When the Earth mantle finds its core
— 08:52 GMT | Geology and palaeontologyThe Earth's mantle and its core mix at a distance of 2900 km under our feet in a mysterious zone. A team of geophysicists has just verified that the partial fusion of the mantle is possible in this area when the temperature reaches 4200 Kelvin. This reinforces the hypothesis of the presence of a deep magma ocean. The originality of this work, carried out by the scientists of the Institut de mineralogie et de physique des milieux condenses (UPMC/Universite Paris Diderot/Institut de Physique du Globe/CNRS/IRD), lies in the use of X-ray diffraction at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble (France). The results will have an effect in the understanding of the dynamics, composition and the formation of the depths of our planet…
Physicists cross hurdle in quantum manipulation of matter
— 08:49 GMT | PhysicsFinding ways to control matter at the level of single atoms and electrons fascinates many scientists and engineers because the ability to manipulate single charges and single magnetic moments (spins) may help researchers penetrate deep into the mysteries of quantum mechanics and modern solid-state physics. It may also allow development of new, highly sensitive magnetometers with nanometre resolution, single-spin transistors for coherent spintronics, and solid-state devices for quantum information processing…
Magical BEANs: New nano-sized particles could provide mega-sized data storage
— 08:46 GMT | TechnologyThe ability of phase-change materials to readily and swiftly transition between different phases has made them valuable as a low-power source of non-volatile or 'flash' memory and data storage. Now an entire new class of phase-change materials has been discovered by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley that could be applied to phase change random access memory (PCM) technologies and possibly optical data storage as well. The new phase-change materials - nanocrystal alloys of a metal and semiconductor - are called 'BEANs,' for binary eutectic-alloy nanostructures…
Astronomers re-discover an ignored celestial gem
New catfish species named after Frank Gallagher