Feb. 03, 2012

Habitable Super-Earth Found

An international team of scientists has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. With an orbital period of about 28 days and a minimum mass 4.5 times that of the Earth, the planet orbits within the star's "habitable zone," where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface. The researchers found evidence of at least one and possibly two or three additional planets orbiting the star, which is about 22 light years from Earth. moreFeb. 03, 2012

University of York: How Sugars Developed

Organic chemists at the University of York have made a significant advance towards establishing the origin of the carbohydrates (sugars) that form the building blocks of life. A team led by Dr Paul Clarke in the Department of Chemistry at York have re-created a process which could have occurred in the prebiotic world. moreJan. 31, 2012

Chemists Reveal How Algae Delete Unwanted 'Competitors'

Every morning when the sun comes up, the ocean ground is radically cleaned. As soon as the first rays of sunlight find their way into the water, the microalgae "Nitzschia cf pellucida" start their deadly 'morning hygiene'. The algae, the size of only some few micrometers, wrap themselves and their surroundings in a highly toxic poison: cyanogen bromide, a chemical relative of hydrocyanic acid, although much more toxic. moreJan. 25, 2012

Swine Flu: Survey on Generation X's Response

About one in five young adults in their late 30's received a flu shot during the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic, a University of Michigan (U-M) study released says. But about 65 percent were at least moderately concerned about the flu, and nearly 60 percent said they were following the issue very or moderately closely. moreJan. 23, 2012

CatApp: Designing Chemical Catalysts

CatApp: A big reason for publishing scientific results is to inform others who can then use your data and conclusions to make additional discoveries, technologies or products. But what good are findings if they are, well, hard to find - buried in tables in the pages of technical journals? moreJan. 23, 2012

Max-Planck Research: Pictures of Food Create Feelings of Hunger

Max Planck researchers have proven something scientifically for the first time that laypeople have always known: the mere sight of delicious food stimulates the appetite. A study on healthy young men has documented that the amount of the neurosecretory protein hormone ghrelin in the blood increases as a result of visual stimulation through images of food. As a main regulator, ghrelin controls both eating behaviour and the physical processes involved in food metabolism. moreJan. 23, 2012

C. elegans: Alcohol Extends Life Span

Caenorhabditis elegans: Minuscule amounts of ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, can more than double the life span of this tiny worm, which is used frequently as a model in aging studies, UCLA biochemists report. The scientists said they find their discovery difficult to explain.

"This finding floored us - it's shocking," said Steven Clarke, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and the senior author of the study, published Jan. 18 in the online journal PLoS ONE, a publication of the Public Library of Science.
moreJan. 20, 2012

EMBL and DKFZ: Inherited Mutation Links Exploding Chromosomes to Cancer

At the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) and the University Hospital, all in Heidelberg, Germany, scientists have discovered an inherited mutation in a gene known as the guardian of the genome is likely the link between exploding chromosomes and some particularly aggressive types of cancer. more