Space Season: ScienceDaily Top Science Headlines -- for Sunday, February 20, 2011

ScienceDaily Top Science Headlines

for Sunday, February 20, 2011

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Oldest fossils of large seaweeds, possible animals tell story about oxygen in an ancient ocean (February 19, 2011) -- Almost 600 million years ago, before the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche under the sea near what is now Anhui Province of South China. Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free waters. Scientists report the discovery of the fossils and the mystery. ... > full story

Asthma tied to bacterial communities in the airway (February 19, 2011) -- Asthma may have a surprising relationship with the composition of the species of bacteria that inhabit bronchial airways, a finding that could suggest new treatment or even potential cures for the common inflammatory disease, according to a new study. ... > full story

Mind over matter: EECoG may finally allow enduring control of a prosthetic or a paralyzed arm by thought alone (February 19, 2011) -- A biomedical engineer is developing brain-computer interfaces based on grids of electrodes that lie beneath the skull but outside the dura mater, the protective membrane that covers the brain. His next project is to slip a thin 32-electrode grid he designed with a colleague under a macaque's skill and to train the monkey to control -- strictly by thinking about it -- a computational model of a macaque arm. ... > full story

Efficacy of tuberculosis vaccine enhanced thanks to new research (February 19, 2011) -- Researchers in Belgium have improved the efficacy of the vaccine for tuberculosis. The new vaccine affords, as already demonstrated in mice, better protection against the disease. The development of a new tuberculosis vaccine is a priority in the fight against the disease, which claims the lives of 1.7 million people each year. The current vaccine provides only partial protection. ... > full story

Biologists use GPS to 'map' bat teeth to explore evolutionary adaptations to diet (February 19, 2011) -- In a clever use of GPS technology, biologists have "mapped" the topography of bat teeth as if they were uncharted mountain ranges, in order to better understand how toothy ridges, peaks and valleys have evolved to allow different species to eat everything from hard-shelled insects to blood and nectar. ... > full story

Women are better at forgiving, Spanish study finds (February 19, 2011) -- A new study into the emotional differences between the sexes and generations in terms of forgiveness has found that parents forgive more than children, while women are better at forgiving than men. ... > full story

Conventional wisdom of how neurons operate challenged: Axons can work in reverse (February 19, 2011) -- Neurons are complicated, but the basic functional concept is that synapses transmit electrical signals to the dendrites and cell body, and axons carry signals away. In one of many surprise findings, scientists have discovered that axons can operate in reverse: they can send signals to the cell body, too. They also found axons can talk to each other and that neural computations performed in axons are thousands of times slower than those occurring in dendrites. ... > full story

Research predicts future evolution of flu viruses (February 19, 2011) -- New research is beginning to crack the code of which strain of flu will be prevalent in a given year, with major implications for global public health preparedness. ... > full story

Augmented reality system for learning chess (February 19, 2011) -- Students in Spain have designed an innovative augmented reality system for learning to play chess. The system architecture, which combines augmented reality, computer vision and artificial intelligence, includes an application that tracks the movements of each piece, generates an audible description of each move, saves games automatically and can broadcast matches online, making it ideal for a wide range of users, including the visually impaired. ... > full story

Scheduled deliveries raise risks for mothers, do not benefit newborns, study finds (February 19, 2011) -- Inducing labor without a medical reason is associated with negative outcomes for the mother, including increased rates of cesarean delivery, greater blood loss and an extended length of stay in the hospital, and does not provide any benefit for the newborn, according to a new study. As the number of scheduled deliveries continues to climb, it is important for physicians and mothers-to-be to understand the risks associated with elective induction. The new findings only apply to women having their first child, and may not pertain to women having their second or third child. ... > full story

Fishing down food web leaves fewer big fish, more small fish in past century (February 19, 2011) -- Predatory fish such as cod, tuna and groupers have declined by two-thirds over the past 100 years, while small forage fish such as sardine, anchovy and capelin have more than doubled over the same period, according to researchers. ... > full story

How couples recover after an argument stems from their infant relationships (February 19, 2011) -- When studying relationships, psychological scientists have often focused on how couples fight. But how they recover from a fight is important, too. According to a new study, couples' abilities to bounce back from conflict may depend on what both partners were like as infants. ... > full story