Fire ants float

Some fire ants clump to one another to construct living rafts. A new study demonstrates how the fire ants can form a floating structure where they would sink if alone. They grip one another in just the right structure to remain afloat. In floods, they adhere to one another to become buoyant, such as during Hurricane Katrina. The colonies also transform into ladders, chains and walls.

- NPR

Sleep remains difficult to define

Parts of an individual’s brain can go to sleep even while the organism is awake, according to scientists in Wisconsin. Some cells in rats’ brains go “offline” in a way that resembled sleep when the animal had been awake for a long time. Scientists compared the phenomenon to boiling water: the animal was awake, then slowly “bubbles” of sleeping cells popped up, impossible to predict and increasing as the rat stayed awake. Eventually, the rats had trouble performing tasks. During regular sleep, not all cells were sleeping, so not all cells are active or inactive while an individual is asleep or awake.

- Nature News

Turtles indirectly consume pesticides

A South Carolina graduate student tracked loggerhead sea turtles up the East Coast and discovered the chemicals they ran into along the way. When the group took blood samples from the turtles at the beginning of the study, they found 67 different types of industrial products, including pesticides. The turtles started out in Florida, and those that traveled up to New England had more pollutants than those that stayed in Florida. Perhaps the New England fish are a more polluted food source, or perhaps the migrating turtles need to eat more to offset the energy they spend on their journeys, the scientists said. The adults were able to reproduce and appeared healthy.

- New York Times

Gulf restoration kicks off

BP agreed to provide $1 billion to the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, though the company may be responsible for up to $21 billion. The oil spill pumped nearly 5 million barrels of oil over 87 days in 2010. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, the Department of the Interior, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will receive $100 million, with the remaining money used for other federally-selected projects. Because the entire gulf was impacted, the cleanup will encompass many different aspects of the ecosystem to guarantee restoration of wildlife and habitat.

- New York Times

Plastic heals itself

Swiss researchers invented a new rubbery plastic that self-heals under ultraviolet light. Up until now, some plastics can be melted to form a smooth surface again, but this old approach may be impossible if the material cannot be removed from the device. Ultraviolet light heats only the scratch. The plastic responds to ultraviolet light because metal ions are interspersed into polymer chains, plastic’s backbone. The metals heat up under light and the chain melts, filling in the scratch. The plastic could be used in cell phone covers or paints.

- Nature

Malaria-resistant mosquitoes reproduce effectively

A new study describes how to quickly disseminate a gene in a mosquito population as scientists continue trying to genetically modify mosquitoes to be less likely to carry malaria. Mosquitoes have already been modified to be resistant to malaria, but until now, there has been no way to ensure the resistant genes will spread through wild populations. The new gene appears in all the male mosquito’s sperm, and thus passes on to its entire offspring. Half the experiment’s mosquitoes had the gene after 12 generations.

- BBC

Scientists see slippery spill results

Researchers returned to the decimated ecosystem surrounding the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The April 20, 2010 explosion killed 11 people and allowed more than 4 million barrels of oil to pump into the Gulf of Mexico. Although the most memorable photos of last year include pelicans and oil-caked shorelines, the greatest loss may be in the species-rich depths of the Gulf of Mexico. Oil had never been spilled so far below the surface. Cleanup efforts collected a quarter of the oil, whereas much of the leftovers combined with plantlike phytoplankton to form a curious slop. BP expected the oil to float, but microbes digested any lighter components, so leftover oil lost buoyancy and sank.

- Nature News

Economics endanger wolves

For the first time since the installation of the Endangered Species Act, Congress directly removed an animal from the endangered species list. Wolves in Montana and Idaho are now managed by their respective states, rather than federally. In the past, as with the Tennessee snail darter, Congress indirectly stunted federal jurisdiction over habitat by authorizing development. The removal came in the form of the new Congressional budget. The sciences with heaviest cuts include $49 million from climate change, $438 million from sustainable energy, $638 million from the Defense Department’s environmental cleanup, and $997 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s water and pollution treatment.

- New York Times

Cosmonaut celebrated

Fifty years ago, humans sent one of their own into space. Russia hails Yuri Gagarin as a cosmonaut hero. Gagarin’s successful mission in 1961 teetered on precarious as problem mounted upon problem from takeoff to landing. After being shot into a potentially lethal orbit, Gagarin weighed 30 pounds too much in his spacesuit, and he landed 370 miles off target.

- Discovery News

Bog buries beheaded brain

Archaeologists discovered Europe and Asia’s oldest preserved human brain in a bog in Yorkshire, UK. The 2,600-year-old brain, dating back to the Iron Age, didn’t come with a body. It didn’t smell. In the air, the organ would have liquefied relatively quickly. In this bog environment, bacteria and fungi couldn’t reach the brain to break it down. The brain’s original owner was hanged and decapitated, according to damage and cuts to bones in the neck. The study also discusses other historically mind-boggling finds, such as London’s preserved brains in crypts and Incan human tissues in the Andes.

- Discovery News

Clouds can’t consistently cool climate

Thick, white clouds can reduce Earth’s warming by reflecting solar energy, and its heat, into space. One way to thicken clouds: spray seawater into them. Scientists have suggested this fix since 1990. No one hoses clouds with seawater yet, but people have suggested wind-powered marine ships could continuously shoot water into the air. A new study from the University of Oslo shows that sending the wrong size of water droplets into the air can actually warm the Earth, not cool it. Proponents argue that this is a quick fix by manipulating nozzle size. The study also showed seawater doesn’t naturally have enough salt to thicken the clouds.

- BBC

Fossil found in floodplain
Tyrannasaurus rex’s new Chinese cousin weighed the same as a schoolbus, at 36 feet long and 13 feet tall. Zhuchengtyrannus magnus, or “great tyrant from Zucheng,” is one of the top five carnivorous birdlike dinosaurs. Z. magnus is found only in China, though other Zuchengtyrannus species are found in North America. The great tyrant’s body washed into a floodplain with other dead dinosaurs, which now contains the world’s largest concentration of fossilized dinosaur bones.

- Huffington Post

Leaves inspire cheap energy

Solar energy that draws inspiration from leaves may become more affordable for India and China in the future. Plants are powered by photosynthesis, and a step in that process is water splicing. When water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, the molecules can be stored as future energy. Just add water and catalysts, and silicon-based solar devices could also store energy for fuel cells. The hydrogen and oxygen would transport the energy, rather than expensive wires. The technology has been around since 1998, but never this inexpensively. Water doesn’t need to be purified in the new system and could cover rooftops much like conventional-wired solar panels.

Discovery News

Iran leads world in science

Iran’s scientific renown grows faster than any other country as scientists in Iran plug away at research and international collaborations. Iran churned out more than 13,000 scientific publications in 2008, up from less than 800 in 1996, according to the UK’s Royal Society. That rate of increase trumped the rest of the world. Iran isn’t the only country to stake its place on the scientific playing field. Turkey quadrupled its output. Tunisia, Singapore, and Qatar joined China, India, and Brazil in growth of peer-reviewed publications. The growth allows studies across the world to unify their data into a global mosaic of similar findings.

New Scientist

Mercury ready for close-up

The Messenger spacecraft reached Mercury’s orbit and began sending back photographs of the planet’s surface March 29. Mercury’s pockmarked poles could house frozen water in craters cast in unending shadow. The planet splits into rudimentary tectonic plates, which do not move as Earth’s do, but differ from Mars’s unified crust. Mercury also has a magnetic field, unlike Mars. The Messenger will pass as close as 160 miles to the surface in its elliptical orbit. It will take more than 75,000 photographs over the course of a year, the longest visit any spacecraft has paid Mercury. No other craft entered the planet’s orbit, and until now, scientists have had to settle for flybys. It took six and a half years to reach Mercury.

New York Times

High-rise produces energy

Floridian credit union Community First changed its name to Magnify when it drafted plans for an energy-saving building to stand out against competitors. The building, which opened in 2009, is Florida’s first net-zero structure, meaning it produces as much energy as it consumes. Forty-five percent of the solar panel energy goes back to the Lakeland, Fl. grid. President Obama signed the Better Buildings Initiative last month, requiring structures to consume 20 percent less energy by 2020, but companies like Magnify try to pursue net zero energy and reduce consumption by 80 percent. Magnify estimates the building should pay for itself in 15 years.

Scientific American

Oil spill coats penguins

A shipwreck on Nightingale Island in the South Atlantic Ocean covered up to 20,000 endangered penguins with oil. The British territory houses half the world’s rockhopper penguins, an endangered species. Not only penguins were affected – the spill could have devastating consequences for the ecosystem and island residents, whose economy depends on fisheries. The MS Olivia’s 22 crewmembers were rescued before the wreck. The ship carried more than 1500 tons of crude oil when it ran aground.

NPR

Algae meets dermatology

Cosmetic company Sephora introduced a new like of algae-based balms, Algenist. The skin care products use algae’s shielding alguronic acid to protect skin, executives said. The research company Solazyme supplies the algae, but this type of partnership isn’t groundbreaking. The blending of cosmetics with other industries, such as food and health care, is already common in Japan because shared ingredients and suppliers is common. Worldwide, 100 cosmetic products use algal derivatives. Algenist is the first to use alguronic acid, which Sephora purports to be more active. The line isn’t a science-approved product yet: none of the experimental results have been published in peer-reviewed journals. The preliminary results look promising, according to biochemist Tony Day of Solazyme.

New York Times

Angolan dinosaur discovered

Scientists in the central African country of Angola discovered fossilized pieces of a 90 million year old new dinosaur species, according to a paper published March 16. This dinosaur, Angolatitan adamastor, was found in an area that would have been underwater back then. It may have been washed to sea and killed by sharks, the scientists said, because they found shark teeth and fish remains with the fossil. The dinosaur was among the largest to walk the earth. The scientists unearthed the fossil in 2005 as part of a collaborative project to Angola, PaleoAngola, after decades of the country being closed because of civil war. The fighting didn’t end until 2002, and discovery of oil led to interest in the area. Despite dangers of land mines in the past, the team said they were safe when visiting.

Source: Mail Online

Agriculture meets ecology

The United Nations (U.N.) released a report on the state of global food production March 8. The primary investigator, Olivier De Schutter, addressed the concept of peak oil, or the idea that oil will reach a maximum rate of extraction. Agriculture needs to be less based in oil, he said. Oil prices have soared from turmoil in the Middle East, and this will lead to higher food prices, the senior economist of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Abdolreza Abbassian, said. Food production will need to rise by 70 percent before 2050 to keep up with demand. Last century, this was solved through new methods of production such as genetically modifying crops in the “Green Revolution.” The report suggests that this is not the way forward, but instead farmers should implement “agro-ecology,” by relying on ecosystems and benefiting organisms to control problems, rather than chemical supplements. The process is cheaper and increased yield 80 percent in 57 developing countries.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Discovery grounded

The space shuttle Discovery landed one last time at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) after 27 years of service to astronauts and cargo. NASA will launch two more orbiters before its space shuttle program retires, ending 7,000 jobs at KSC. In the near future, astronauts will ride in Russian rockets and commercial rockets will ferry cargo. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum will likely end up with Discovery.

Source: Discovery News

Climate crushes coffee

Coffee crops plummet in mountainous Cauca, Colombia as rising temperatures and unpredictable rains threaten the harvest. Coffee needs the right climate cocktail of dry spells, while this wet weather promotes fungal pests. The shade-grown Arabica coffee grows in Cauca, and is already in short supply. This shortage comes at a time when coffee addiction is proliferating in new markets like Brazil, India, and China. Peter Baker, coffee scientists, said the world may reach “peak coffee,” a phenomenon similar to the concept of peak oil, where production reaches a maximum rate. Colombian farmers react by working with scientists to control pests, predict the weather, and grow fungus-resistant plant strains.

Source: New York Times

Congressman questions EPA

Representative Fred Upton (R – MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Commitee, introduced a bill that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. He said EPA greenhouse gas legislation would raise gas prices and hurt jobs. In response, more than 160 Michigan scientists protested the bill in a letter to Upton. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said EPA regulations on air pollutants fall under the Clean Air Act. Upton said his bill is not an attack on the politics and science of climate change or the Clean Air Act, but a push to safeguard jobs from the negative economic impacts on tighter regulation.

Source: Detroit News

Damsels outsmart males

Female damselflies avoid unwanted males through sexual camouflage, according to a new study. While most females are khaki in color, females avoiding male attention masquerade as masculine with bright blue colors. These blue females are often ignored by males and can act bullish toward males. The males eventually pick up on the ruse as it becomes more common and the females become better mimics. This phenomenon may not be limited to damselflies, as it is one of the first case studies of an older mathematical model, and this tricking mechanism may pop up again in other organisms.

Source: Discovery News

Protein bait lures viruses

On the theme of masquerades, scientists built a fake cell that smells like the microscopic victims of mumps and measles. This trap, called a “protocell,” is coated in proteins that a class of viruses known as henipaviruses uses to track down their prey. The viruses sniff out the protein, then stab their victims — but, like bees, can only do this once. These traps keep viruses away from real cells. Viruses can’t evolve a resistance to the traps as well as they can to other antivirals.

Source: Popular Science

Plague scientist succumbs to Black Death

Malcolm Casadaban died in 2009, and now it surfaces that his death was caused by the plague. He contracted the bubonic plague in the workplace: he studied it. Casadaban worked with bacteria that had been weakened to the point of not even being able to kill a mouse. The bacteria was deemed so safe that safety precautions may have been ignored. Unfortunately for Casadaban, these bacteria’s weakness was their inability to absorb much iron, an enzyme building block — and Casadaban happened to have a disease where he was awash in extra iron. Saturated in one of their nutrients, the bacteria took hold.

Source: New Scientist

Bears hibernate cozily

Black bears drop their metabolism instead of their temperatures when they hibernate. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game captured nuisance black bears and brought them to artificial dens to be studied. While metabolism dropped to 25 percent the normal rate, the bears’ temperature only barely dipped, the study found. A reduced metabolism normally brings temperature down with it. If science can unlock how bears can lower their body temperature so minutely, the findings could solve the mystery of how to induce short-term body temperature decreases in stroke patients.

Source: New York Times

Carbon spikes when permafrost melts

In 20 years, permafrost that’s stuck around since the Ice Age will begin to melt. In 210 years, 60 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s permafrost will have melted. Scientists in Boulder, CO stamped these numbers onto a phenomenon that once again brings the Arctic to the forefront of climate change concerns. As permafrost melts, frozen roots begin to decay and release carbon. This will release amounts equivalent to a fifth of the carbon that is in the atmosphere today. The process will add to the world’s warming trend, and is irreversible.

Source: Discovery News

Coral reefs bleach under pressure

Thirteen years of fishing noticeably destroyed polyp communities responsible for the health of coral reefs. Researchers recently revisited coral reef sites from the 1998 Reefs at Risk project. Warming temperatures and ocean acidification will play a part in the death toll soon. Both the temperature and ocean pH changes are side effects of high atmospheric carbon dioxide. Only five percent of the world’s coral reefs will remain unbleached 40 years from now.

Source: BBC

Camera changes focus after shot

A cell phone camera in development by Pelican Imaging will rescue image quality by holding to the adage of safety in numbers. The new camera splits up the work by taking 25 overlapping fragment photographs of a larger picture. This method makes it possible to adjust a photo’s focus after taking the shot.

Source: Popular Science

Scientists encrypt messages into bacteria

Students at Chinese University in Hong Kong encrypt information in bacteria, winning a gold medal in the Michigan Institute of Technology’s iGEM competition. The method uses similar DNA removal and manipulation methods as genetically modified foods. The students encode a piece of a larger message into different E. coli cells. One gram of bacteria could hold 900,000 gigabytes of information. The bacteria are more secure storage devices than computers. This encryption also safeguards the data from mutations in the bacteria’s genetic code. The storage device could be used as a copyright label on genetically modified crops. Although E. coli can be a harmful bacterium, the organisms that might make it to market will be a form  that can’t exist outside of their pteri dishes.

Source: The Jakarta Globe

Computer wins Jeopardy!

The IBM supercomputer Watson bested “Jeopardy!” champions in a three day battle on the show. “Jeopardy!” is known for its puns, a concept that computers usually can’t grasp. The computer’s algorithms could ignore puns and focus on context, and double-check its answers before buzzing in an answer. Watson won with a cumulative score of $77,147, compared to the $24,000 and $21,600 of its human opponents. Watson’s software, DeepQA, allows it to deduce the answer to clues without connecting to the Internet. IBM also engineered Deep Blue, the computer that beat the chess world champion in 1997.

Source: Information Week and Mashable

Cro-Magnons used skulls as cups

Ancient Britons manufactured skulls into drinking cups, paleontologists discovered. Scientists found the skulls in a cave in England’s Somerset County. They could have been used in a ritual nearly 15,000 years ago. The skulls were carefully opened, so these Cro-Magnons couldn’t have just had a thirst for brains. The paper on the skull-cups was just published, but scientists excavated these skulls back in 1987.

Source: BBC

Operation repairs babies before birth

The infant spinal disease Spina bifida gives rise to fewer complications if babies get an operation before they’re born.  Otherwise, an improperly sealed spine exposes the spinal cord. This can lead to paralysis and learning difficulties. Normally, this sort of surgery is risky for babies and mothers. Fetal surgery doesn’t usually happen unless the baby would die otherwise. Operating before the fetus has fully developed doesn’t eliminate all the complications of Spina bifida, but the medical trials have guided doctors closer to that goal. The surgery still carries a lot of risk, but some post-birth surgeries have already been rescheduled.

Source: New York Times

Amazonian droughts spit out CO2

If the Amazon’s droughts continue, as they have twice in a decade, they may revert the rain forest from a sink to a source of carbon dioxide. These droughts should only happen once a century.  Last year’s drought had three epicenters that lowered rainfall over 1.16 million square miles. The dying trees will not be able to absorb carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, and would end up releasing the gas during their death throes. This would lead to a total of 8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the coming years, a study showed. The U.S. uses 5.4 billion metric tons in a year.

Source: Huffington Post

Plants: the new bomb-sniffers

Within the next four years, innocuous plants in airports may visibly change color in the presence of pollution, biological weapons, or bombs. Scientists engineered plants to respond to the “threat” of some chemical compounds by turning white.  Under laboratory conditions, these plants bleach themselves in the presence of TNT. The proteins they use aren’t specific to any particular species.  If the vegetative bomb detectors do appear in public events any time soon, it’s likely that they still won’t be able to detect bombs made out of the same ingredients as fertilizer.

Source: Wired

Mismatched mates stress out birds

Female finches face consequences when choosing a life partner, and these findings may reverberate into human society. Black-headed Gouldian finches don’t get along well with hot-tempered red-headed males. When forced to cohabitate with the less desirable partners, females laid eggs a month later than usual and blood tests showed they were more stressed. The researchers suggested that, at least in finches, the teamwork of monogamy flows well when it works. Working together is energy-intensive when your mate isn’t a good match.

- Discovery News

Google provides tweets from Egypt

Google launched a “speak-to-tweet” service, lending a voice to a muted nation in the midst of upheaval. Egypt’s Internet providers have shut down to varying degrees in the wake of the protests. About the time the unrest began, Google acquired the company SayNow. The resulting software instantaneously converts voicemails from Egypt into tweets for the outside world to digest despite the country’s Internet closure.

- New Zealand Herald

Tally of known planets triples

NASA’s Kepler satellite discovered 1,235 new planets, possibly tripling previous records. Astronomers still need to sift through the data to check where Kepler may have made a mistake, but 80 to 95 percent of the new planets should check out. Usually new planets are Jupiter-sized, but 68 celestial bodies in this batch are about Earth’s size. About 54 of those are in a temperature comfort zone. No new Earths yet, but astronomers still need to sift through three more years of data.

- New York Times

Softer robot has better grip

Squishy robots outperform their bony brethren when it comes to grabbing fragile objects. Harvard researchers created the robots by weaving air chambers into moldable silicone. By manipulating airflow into the silicone body, the robot can tenderly handle an egg.

- Nature

Polar bear sets amazing swim pace, loses weight

Polar bears are faced with an increasingly daunting autumn commute. A polar bear swam for nine days to find a patch of sea ice 427 miles from the coast. Scientists had fitted the female polar bear with a radio collar before the voyage. She left weighing 226kg with a yearling in tow, and they found her weighing 177kg, sans cub.
Source: Discovery News

Carnivorous plant home to bats

The carnivorous Bornean pitcher plants Nepenthes rafflesiana elongata and Nepenthes lowii have difficulty successfully capturing insects. Instead, the plants offer space for rent to woolly bats. The bats, Kerivoula hardwickii, roost in the pitchers during the day. The plants digest the bats’ fecal matter as an alternative to trapped insects. The bats get nectar and a perch, and the plants get food.
Source: msnbc.com

Amoeba farms its own food

A species of amoeba saves some of its bacteria food for farming. Certain strains of Dictyostelium discoideum, a slime mold, cast out undigested bacteria with their spores. The amoebas then harvest their crop. D. discoideum, as a social amoeba, relies on communication between many individuals to produce this farming behavior. Farming and non-farming strains both can have a competitive advantage depending on their highly variable environment.
Source: Science News

Hands-free driving tested in Europe

In the next 10 years, European drivers may not always need to be in control of their vehicles when driving. Some roads could have convoy options with vehicles guided by a pilot car instead of their individual drivers. Seven firms, including Volvo, produced the convoy technology, Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE). SARTRE recently went for a test drive at low speeds, and the driver could sip coffee and read a newspaper.
Source: BBC

NASA discovers arsenic-based life form
The discovery of arsenic-based life forms “will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life” according to NASA. Ironically, while far from being an extraterrestrial life form, the microbe was found on earth. While the microbe is not made of arsenic, it feeds on it. The study that made the discovery was funded by NASA and was released at the end of the past week in a much-hyped press conference.
-Huffington Post

Military space shuttle lands in California
The X-37B, an unmanned robotic space shuttle, returned from its record-setting 224-day stay in earth’s orbit. The shuttle landed early last Friday morning at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. The military has refused to comment on the objectives of the shuttles mission, other then to state that they are “very pleased that the program completed all the on-orbit objectives for the first mission.”
-Discovery News

Poop power
An experiment currently aboard a United Nations (U.N.) educational satellite will discover if human waste can be used as an alternative power source in space. A team of Florida researchers is curious whether or not human feces (which can be turned into hydrogen and used to power a fuel cell) can survive in space.  The experiment is set to launch aboard the U.N.’s UNESCOSat sometime next year.
-Discovery News

Skin-tight space suit: sexy, athletic
Astronauts have long faced a major hurdle to inhabiting space: bone degeneration in the legs. Despite a rigorous exercise regimen, astronauts typically lose about 1 to 2 percent of their bone mass per month while in orbit. In comparison, a post-menopausal woman on Earth loses the same amount of bone in a year. Scientists feel that the lack of gravity is the cause. The suit was developed by MIT and is called the Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit (GLCS).  The suit counteracts bone loss by placing pressure on the bones much like gravity does on earth.
-Discovery News