ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Physicists detect process even rarer than the long-sought Higgs particle
• Does cat poop parasite play a role in curing cancer?
• Ötzi's non-human DNA: Opportunistic pathogen discovered in Iceman tissue biopsy
• Bones of elephant ancestor unearthed: Meet the gomphothere
• Running for life: How speed restricts evolutionary change of the vertebral column
• Genome-wide analysis reveals genetic similarities among friends: Study finds truth to 'friends are the family you choose'
• Months before their first words, babies' brains rehearse speech mechanics
• Squishy robots: Phase-changing material could allow even low-cost robots to switch between hard and soft states
• Quantum computers? First photonic router demonstrated
• Prehistoric ‘bookkeeping’ tokens continued long after invention of writing
• Cause of mysterious food allergy found, new treatment strategy suggested
• Researchers discover boron 'buckyball'
• Exercise is the best medicine, study shows
• Sun-like stars reveal their ages

Physicists detect process even rarer than the long-sought Higgs particle Posted: 15 Jul 2014 06:55 AM PDT Scientists running the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and most powerful "atom smasher," report the first evidence of a process that can be used to test the mechanism by which the recently discovered Higgs particle imparts mass to other fundamental particles.

Does cat poop parasite play a role in curing cancer? Posted: 15 Jul 2014 06:55 AM PDT From the litter box to the laboratory, a microscopic organism native to cats shows promise in treating cancer. Researchers' mutated strain of T. gondii has been found to reprogram the natural power of the immune system to kill cells. Found worldwide, T. gondii affects about one-third of the world's population, 60 million of which are Americans.

Ötzi's non-human DNA: Opportunistic pathogen discovered in Iceman tissue biopsy Posted: 15 Jul 2014 05:50 AM PDT Ötzi's human genome was decoded from a hip bone sample taken from the 5,300 year old mummy. However the tiny sample weighing no more than 0.1 g provides so much more information. A team of scientists analyzed the non-human DNA in the sample. They found evidence for the presence of Treponema denticola, an opportunistic pathogen involved in the development of periodontal disease.

Bones of elephant ancestor unearthed: Meet the gomphothere Posted: 14 Jul 2014 12:24 PM PDT An ancient ancestor of the elephant, once believed to have disappeared from North America before humans ever arrived there, might actually have roamed the continent longer than previously thought. Archaeologists have uncovered the first evidence that gomphotheres were once hunted in North America.

Running for life: How speed restricts evolutionary change of the vertebral column Posted: 14 Jul 2014 12:24 PM PDT One of the riddles of mammal evolution is explained: the conservation of the number of trunk vertebrae. Dutch and American researchers have shown that this conservation is due to the role of speed in survival of fast running mammals. They measured variation of 774 skeletons of fast and slow species. The researchers found that a combination of developmental and biomechanical problems prevents evolutionary change in the number of trunk vertebrae in fast, but not in slow mammals.

Genome-wide analysis reveals genetic similarities among friends: Study finds truth to 'friends are the family you choose' Posted: 14 Jul 2014 12:23 PM PDT If you consider your friends family, you may be on to something. A new study finds that friends who are not biologically related still resemble each other genetically.

Months before their first words, babies' brains rehearse speech mechanics Posted: 14 Jul 2014 12:23 PM PDT New research in 7- and 11-month-old infants shows that speech sounds stimulate areas of the brain that coordinate and plan motor movements for speech. The study suggests that baby brains start laying down the groundwork of how to form words long before they actually begin to speak.

Squishy robots: Phase-changing material could allow even low-cost robots to switch between hard and soft states Posted: 14 Jul 2014 09:28 AM PDT In the movie 'Terminator 2,' the shape-shifting T-1000 robot morphs into a liquid state to squeeze through tight spaces or to repair itself when harmed. Now a phase-changing material built from wax and foam, and capable of switching between hard and soft states, could allow even low-cost robots to perform the same feat.

Quantum computers? First photonic router demonstrated Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:41 AM PDT Scientists have demonstrated for the first time a photonic router -- a quantum device based on a single atom that enables routing of single photons by single photons. This achievement is another step toward overcoming the difficulties in building quantum computers.

Prehistoric ‘bookkeeping’ tokens continued long after invention of writing Posted: 14 Jul 2014 07:04 AM PDT An archaeological dig in southeast Turkey has uncovered a large number of clay tokens that were used as records of trade until the advent of writing, or so it had been believed. But the new find of tokens dates from a time when writing was commonplace -- thousands of years after it was previously assumed this technology had become obsolete. Researchers compare it to the continued use of pens in the age of the word processor.

Cause of mysterious food allergy found, new treatment strategy suggested Posted: 13 Jul 2014 12:55 PM PDT A novel genetic and molecular pathway in the esophagus that causes eosinophillic esophagitis has been identified by researchers, opening up potential new therapeutic strategies for an enigmatic and hard-to-treat food allergy. The condition is triggered by allergic hypersensitivity to certain foods and an over-accumulation in the esophagus of white blood cells called eosinophils (part of the body's immune system).

Researchers discover boron 'buckyball' Posted: 13 Jul 2014 12:55 PM PDT The discovery of buckyballs -- soccer-ball-shaped molecules of carbon -- helped usher in the nanotechnology era. Now, researchers have shown that boron, carbon's neighbor on the periodic table, can form a cage-like molecule similar to the buckyball. Until now, such a boron structure had only been a theoretical speculation. The researchers dubbed their new-found nanostructure 'borospherene.'

Exercise is the best medicine, study shows Posted: 11 Jul 2014 07:13 AM PDT Women would benefit from being prescribed exercise as medicine, according to a study that revealed moderate to high intensity activity is essential to reducing the risk of death in older women. "What we are saying is that high-intensity exercise is not only good for your physical health but also your brain health. Doctors should be developing exercise programs that are home-based and easy to incorporate as part of everyday activities," authors say.

Sun-like stars reveal their ages Posted: 10 Jul 2014 10:10 AM PDT A new technique for measuring the age of a star using its spin -- gyrochronology -- is coming into its own. Today astronomers are presenting the gyrochronological ages of 22 sun-like stars. Before this, only two sun-like stars had measured spins and ages.

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