GamerBeef: Science News

The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) mounted on Mars Express was dormant after its first and only operational use in 2003. It is now back in action as the ‘Mars Webcam’, providing views of the Red Planet that are not obtainable from Earth.

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The Hubble Space Telescope has found the answer to a long-standing puzzle by seeing the details of giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275.

On 14 August, Rosetta conducted a successful trajectory correction manoeuvre using data obtained from ESA’s first-ever optical tracking of an asteroid target, (2867) Steins. Images from the spacecraft’s cameras were used to calculate the asteroid’s location and optimise its trajectory for fly-by next month.

Bi courtship among hissing roaches could be a sign of a superdad. The traits could be a behavioral syndrome.

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Eating insects is a common practice in most places, at least outside of the United States and Europe.

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Mathematicians create videos that help in visualizing four-dimensional objects

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New method could make carbon sequestration cheaper

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Many traumatized kids don’t receive scientifically backed treatment

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The smallest species of snake ever discovered lives on the Caribbean island of Barbados.

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Mysterious structure at the tip of the nose could be a special alarm sensor.

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People may sometimes make up their minds without knowing it

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Virus DNA may help bacteria survive at hydrothermal vents.

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Ground squirrels use their own odors to reconstruct family relationships after hibernation.

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Surveys shows link between chronic childhood ear infections and preference for fatty foods, obesity

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Data from far off star cluster suggests cosmos holds few, if any, mid-sized black holes.

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Interactions among microbes suggest oceans could absorb less carbon than expected.

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The chemical keeps sleep-deprived people going

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Studies of the decay of kaons hint at possible flaws in standard model of particle physics.

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The systematics of celestial bodies apparently needs to be revised. Researchers at the Argelander Institute of Astronomy of the University of Bonn have discovered that brown dwarfs need to be treated as a separate class in addition to stars and planets. To date they had been merely regarded as stars which were below normal size. However, they may well be stellar “miscarriages.”

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University of Missouri researchers conducted a national survey and found that the majority of health journalists have not had specialized training in health reporting and face challenges in communicating new medical science developments. Of the journalists surveyed, only 18 percent had specialized training in health reporting and only 6.4 percent reported that a majority of their readers change health behaviors based on the information they provide.

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MSU researcher Darla Goeres is using a .7 million US Environmental Protection Agency contract to develop new standards for growing, sampling and treating biofilms. The standards Goeres develops will help make sure the effectiveness claims made by antibacterial cleaning products are true.

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Researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and the Children’s Hospital in Denver have conducted the largest study to date describing the medical and psychological characteristics of a rare genetic disorder in which males have two “X” and two “Y” chromosomes, rather than the normal one of each.

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Dental caries afflict at least 90 percent of the world’s population at some time in their lives. Detecting the first signs of this disease, which can be lethal in extreme cases, just got easier thanks to work by researchers in India discussed in the latest issue of the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.

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Magazine’s special cancer edition focuses on a pair of University of Alabama at Birmingham doctors because of their research into a field call viral gene therapy, or virotherapy. The two were optimistic of the promise; “We envision a substantial role for viruses — that is, therapeutic viruses — in 21st-century medicine,” they said.

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New research may explain why breast cancer tends to be more aggressive in women with denser breast tissue.Breast cancer cells grown in dense, rigid surroundings step up their invasive activities, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators report in the Sept. 9 issue of Current Biology.

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Happiness and optimism may play a role against breast cancer while adverse life events can increase the risk of developing the disease, according to a study by Professor Ronit Peled at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

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Public health campaigns intended to reduce unhealthy behaviors like binge drinking and eating junk food often focus on the risks of those behaviors. But a new study suggests a relatively simple but surprisingly effective strategy to improve consumer health.

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Tempting treats are being offered in small package sizes these days, presumably to help consumers reduce portion sizes. Yet new research found that people actually consume more high-calorie snacks when they are in small packages than large ones. And smaller packages make people more likely to give in to temptation in the first place.

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According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, simply asking people a question about whether they’re willing to volunteer their time leads to increases in donations of both time and money.

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Many Americans make investment decisions with their retirement funds. But they don’t always make informed judgments. A new study introduces a new tool that investors can use to choose investments based on their financial goals and risk attitudes.

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When done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies’ decisions about the environment, says a new report from the National Research Council.

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Certain kinds of research can help improve social problems, according to a new study. Participatory action research actively seeks to change the behavior or situation of the consumer.

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It is red, it burns and itches: a sunburn on our skin. However, too much sun is not only bad for humans. Many plants react sensitively to an increased dose of ultraviolet radiation, too. Yet they are dependent on sunlight. However, this has its limits: too much sun means an over-abundance of energy and thus the destruction of the sensitive pigments. The result are black spots, pale leaves and rotten parts.

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Beware of mini-packs and mini-foods, especially if you’re a dieter. Chronic dieters tend to consume more calories when foods and packages are smaller, according to a new study.

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A group of Yale undergraduates have discovered dozens of potentially beneficial bioactive microorganisms within plants they collected in the Amazon rain forest, including several so genetically distinct that they may be the first members of new taxonomical genera.

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As portion sizes have increased, Americans’ waistlines have expanded. And as a new study demonstrates, consumers are tricked into drinking more soft drinks when retailers eliminate small drink sizes.

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People tend to be more sympathetic to people suffering from the same misfortune as a friend. But friendship with a victim does not make people generally more sympathetic, according to a new study.

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Households located in poor neighborhoods pay more for the same items than people living in wealthy ones, according to a new study.

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Engineering researchers from UC San Diego and the University of Arizona have concluded three months of rigorous earthquake simulation tests on a half-scale three-story structure, and will now begin sifting through their results so they can be used in the future designs of buildings across the nation.

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People are more likely to reuse hotel towels if they know other guests are doing it too.

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An inexpensive web-enabled device for measuring lung function in patients with asthma and other disorders is being developed by researchers at Texas Instruments, in Bangalore, India, and co-workers. Writing in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, the team explains how the devise could allow physicians to monitor their patients remotely and quickly instigate medical attention in an emergency.

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Tapping into the desire to have an attractive smile is the best motivator for improving oral hygiene, and new immigrants are the most receptive to oral health messages.

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Researchers have uncovered a big clue as to why some of the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers pose a greater risk for serious problems like stomach cancer than others; it turns out these bacteria can exploit the surrounding stomach cells to protect them from the immune system.

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A new collaborative study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative explores how to combine engineering science with medical care to guarantee the long-term success of these treatment programs.

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Scientists at the University of Manchester have developed a new and fast method for making biological “chips” — technology that could lead to quick testing for serious diseases, fast detection of MRSA infections and rapid discovery of new drugs.

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Healthy people are more willing to take drugs to enhance traits that are not fundamental to their identity. People’s willingness to take a pill or drug depends on whether the trait the drug promises to enhance is one they consider fundamental.

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Biologists and biochemists are now able to access 3-D images of biomacromolecules underlying biological functions and disease. Rather than relying on text to provide the understanding of biomacromolecule structures, a collaborative Web site called Proteopedia now provides a new resource by linking written information and three-dimensional structural information. The wiki web resource, first described in BioMed Central’s open access journal Genome Biology, displays protein structures and other biomacromolecules in interactive format.

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A new study concludes that nearly 13 percent of America’s aged citizens suffer some form of abuse. Specifically, nine percent of adults reported they have suffered from verbal mistreatment, 3.5 percent suffer financial mistreatment, and 0.2 percent suffer physical mistreatment. This data was reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences.

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Together with colleagues from the Department of Dermatology and Allergy and the Center for Allergy and Environment of the Technische Universität München, scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München have pinpointed a major gene for allergic diseases. The gene was localized using cutting edge technologies for examining the whole human genome at the Helmholtz Zentrum München.

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People are more likely to donate to pledge drive appeals when fundraisers tap into peoples’ desire to help others, according to a new study. Donors are also more likely to respond to appeals that involve negative emotions than pitches about benefits to the donor.

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