Science News

(American Chemical Society) Two decades of atomic bomb testing in the atmosphere are yielding a new test to determine whether that Bordeaux or burgundy really is from a vintage year and a commands premium price or actually is a counterfeit vin ordinaire or cheap plonk worth much less. Their study is scheduled for presentation at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

(American Chemical Society) What better venue than the city of San Francisco -- the sourdough bread capital of the world -- to unveil a potentially additive-free, more healthful sourdough loaf that could even taste better? And more healthful breads of other kinds could be baked using a new bacterial ingredient in sourdough, researchers told the American Chemical Society's 239th National Meeting.

(University of Michigan) Like a film director cutting out extraneous footage to create a blockbuster, the cellular machine called the spliceosome snips out unwanted stretches of genetic material and joins the remaining pieces to fashion a template for protein production.

(Durham University) Scientists have found a massive galaxy in the early universe creating stars like our sun up to 100 times faster than the modern-day Milky Way.

(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) Astronomers have combined a natural gravitational lens and a sophisticated telescope array to get the sharpest view ever of "star factories" in a galaxy over 10 billion light-years from Earth. They found that the distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102, is making new stars 250 times faster than our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

(California Institute of Technology) A Caltech-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle -- used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient's bloodstream -- can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs, and turn off an important cancer gene using a mechanism known as RNA interference. Moreover, the team provided the first demonstration that this new type of therapy can make its way to human tumors in a dose-dependent fashion.

(American Chemical Society) "Cold fusion," a controversial energy source once relegated to the scientific equivalent of banishment to Siberia, is now moving closer toward acceptance by the mainstream scientific community. A special two-day symposium entitled "New Energy Technology" will include 46 oral presentations on this topic and more than a dozen posters -- among the largest presentations of their kind to date -- March 22-23 at the American Chemical Society's 239th National Meeting.

(American Chemical Society) Chemistry's often-overlooked role in fostering sustainability goes on parade this week with one of the largest and most comprehensive series of scientific reports on advances toward that goal and the challenges lying ahead. The 1,600 reports and other presentations are part of the theme -- "Chemistry for a Sustainable World" -- of the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, which opens here today.

(University of Utah Health Sciences) In their ongoing support of the University of Utah's internationally regarded College of Pharmacy, the L.S. Skaggs family and Skaggs Foundation for Research have established a presidential endowed chair to help recruit a top pharmacy researcher while honoring longtime benefactor L.S. Skaggs.

(University of Arizona) Experiments by University of Arizona anthropologist David Raichlen and his colleagues show that fossil footprints made 3.6 million years ago are the earliest direct evidence of early hominids using the kind of efficient, upright posture and gait now seen in modern humans.

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Berkeley Lab researchers at the Molecular Foundry have developed a universal method by which designer nanomaterials can be created on-demand. This scheme can be used to create materials for battery electrodes, photovoltaics and electronic data storage among a great many other possible applications.

(Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) The Latin American Convention of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project which will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 23-25. This is the third of a series of five conventions aiming to provide guidance on the feasibility of sustainable bioenergy production on a large scale as well as implementation paths and policies that foster this outcome.

(American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) Professor Cohen received the prize for her research that led to an innovative and pioneering product using algae to prevent cardiac tissue damage following acute myocardial infarction. The hydrogel, is a resorbable liquid polymer that is administered through the coronary artery during standard catheterization and flows into the damaged heart muscle. BL-1040 forms a protective "scaffold" that enhances the mechanical strength of the heart.

(United States Department of Agriculture-Research, Education, and Economics) The scramble to find sufficient land for biofuel production has experts eyeing marginal croplands that have been placed in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Now a study by Agricultural Research Service scientists indicates that plant species diversity and composition are key factors in potential energy yield per acre from biomass harvested from CRP land.

(Arizona State University) Rolf Halden, associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University and assistant director of Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute has undertaken a survey of existing scientific literature concerning the hazards of plastics to human health and to the ecosystems we depend on. His findings, which appear in latest issue of the Annual Review of Public Health, are sobering.

(Arizona State University) Hao Yan and Yan Liu, professors at the Biodesign Institute's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics and their collaborators have introduced a new method to deterministically and precisely position silver nanoparticles onto self-assembling DNA scaffolds.

(Nanyang Technological University) The Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University and Det Norske Veritas Pte Ltd. have firmed up plans to collaborate in joint research and development in clean energy and environmental technologies.

(University of Arizona) Astronomers have come across what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based largely on observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will provide a better understanding of the roots of our universe, and how the very first black holes, galaxies and stars all came to be.

(Penn State) With the help of a little singing bird, Penn State physicists are gaining insight into how the human brain functions, which may lead to a better understanding of complex vocal behavior, human speech production and ultimately, speech disorders and related diseases.

(University of Nevada, Reno) A successful University of Nevada, Reno renewable energy research project is moving from the lab to the real world in a demonstration-scale system to turn wastewater sludge into electricity. The new patent-pending, low-cost, energy-efficient technology is scheduled to be set up in the Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility next month following the recent signing of an interlocal agreement with the cities of Reno and Sparks.