ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Link between vitamin D, dementia risk confirmed
• Hubble finds supernova star system linked to potential 'zombie star'
• Burrowing animals may have been key to stabilizing Earth's oxygen
• Could your brain be reprogrammed to work better?
• Our brains judge a face's trustworthiness, even when we can’t see it
• Scientists change butterflies wing color in just six generations
• How spiders spin silk: Mechanism elegantly explains how spider silk can form so quickly and smoothly

Link between vitamin D, dementia risk confirmed Posted: 06 Aug 2014 01:16 PM PDT Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a substantially increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in older people, according to the most robust study of its kind ever conducted. An international team found that study participants who were severely vitamin D deficient were more than twice as likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Hubble finds supernova star system linked to potential 'zombie star' Posted: 06 Aug 2014 11:21 AM PDT Astronomers have spotted a star system that could have left behind a "zombie star" after an unusually weak supernova explosion. A supernova typically obliterates the exploding white dwarf, or dying star. On this occasion, scientists believe this faint supernova may have left behind a surviving portion of the dwarf star -- a sort of zombie star.

Burrowing animals may have been key to stabilizing Earth's oxygen Posted: 06 Aug 2014 06:51 AM PDT Evolution of the first burrowing animals may have played a major role in stabilizing the Earth's oxygen reservoir, researchers hypothesize. The first burrowing animals significantly increased the extent to which oxygenated waters came into contact with ocean sediments. Exposure to oxygenated conditions caused the bacteria that inhabit such sediments to store phosphate in their cells. This caused an increase in phosphorus burial in sediments that had been mixed up by burrowing animals. This in turn triggered decreases in marine phosphate concentrations, productivity, organic carbon burial and ultimately oxygen.

Could your brain be reprogrammed to work better? Posted: 05 Aug 2014 11:53 PM PDT Scientists from Australia and France have shown that electromagnetic stimulation can alter brain organization, which may make your brain work better. In a new study, the researchers demonstrated that weak sequential electromagnetic pulses (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation -- or rTMS) on mice can shift abnormal neural connections to more normal locations.

Our brains judge a face's trustworthiness, even when we can’t see it Posted: 05 Aug 2014 07:07 PM PDT Our brains are able to judge the trustworthiness of a face even when we cannot consciously see it, a team of scientists has found. Their findings shed new light on how we form snap judgments of others.

Scientists change butterflies wing color in just six generations Posted: 05 Aug 2014 12:10 PM PDT Scientists have chosen the most fleeting of mediums for their groundbreaking work on biomimicry: They've changed the color of butterfly wings. In so doing, they produced the first structural color change in an animal by influencing evolution. The discovery may have implications for physicists and engineers trying to use evolutionary principles in the design of new materials and devices.

How spiders spin silk: Mechanism elegantly explains how spider silk can form so quickly and smoothly Posted: 05 Aug 2014 12:08 PM PDT Spider silk is an impressive material; lightweight and stretchy yet stronger than steel. But the challenge that spiders face to produce this substance is even more formidable. Silk proteins, called spidroins, must convert from a soluble form to solid fibers at ambient temperatures, with water as a solvent, and at high speed. How do spiders achieve this astounding feat? New research shows how the silk formation process is regulated.

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