Top scientific achievements (August 4th week)

The Natural World

The “error trapper” in the DNA world has been trapped

The “error trapper” in the DNA world has been trapped. The genetic code can contain bugs (The software people would like this name I guess) which could pop up as cancer and a host of other diseases. Debugging the code would be an extremely tedious task. The scientists at John Hopkins University have got a glance of the debugging process. The UDG enzyme (Uracil DNA Glycosylase) scrutinizes the shape of DNA building blocks by catching hold of them and testing whether they fit into special sized pockets. This pocket is specially designed to hold errors only. So if there is an encounter with an error, those DNA fall into the UDG and the others escape the trap of UDG. The DNA has the building block cytosine. At times this cytosine gets converted to a similar looking building block normally not found in the DNA – the Uracil. This error is trapped by the UDG enzyme. The UDG grabs and pulls the unwanted Uracil and holds it in its pocket. Once inside, the uracil is ripped off from the DNA. The other mechanisms of the cell now take up the task of filling up the gap created as a result of this ripping, with the required building block.

Drivers can manage business if time and tide favors

The axon is the hairlike extension in the brain cell through which information travels. The processing of the information occurs in the cell body. This is the conventional know how of information processing. Scientists now have come up with a different explanation. They say that the axons can also act as information processing centres if the time and tide favours them. The time and tide comes in favour of the axon when things go wrong. Scientists have now done experiments in a mouse brain and found that without applying nicotine, about 35 percent of the messages to the brain was processed by the axon, whereas when nicotine was applied, 70 percent of messages was processed in the axon – almost double the amount.

The divorce of our ancestors

Our ancient ancestors – the single celled domains of life lived happily once upon a time. Long long ago, about three billion years ago, they divorced into three variants – the eukaryotes, bacteria and archaea. When exactly did these three organisms part their way from the original form was a matter of debate. From the chemical examination of shale samples, scientists now found out that the three domains of life coexisted at least as long as 2.7 billion years ago. The shale samples loaded with oily lipid remains of archaea were found in the deep Canadian gold mine near Timmins, Ontario. This area was once covered by sea and the archaea lived in water and sediments. These were then trapped in the sediments and later gold was deposited on it. The analysis of these fossilized samples helped the researchers to arrive at their conclusion.

Did you ever think that food can be tasted by tongue only?

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have identified a molecule in the intestine that can “taste” the sugar content in the diet. The absorption of dietary sugars in the intestine is mediated by a protein – a sugar transporter – that varies in response to the sugar content of foods. The intestine uses a glucose sensing system to monitor these variations, but until now the nature of this system was unknown. If we could use this taste bud like a dimmer switch, we could set it so that the appropriate amount of sugar is absorbed. This could be helpful for diabetic patients.

An insecticide from nature

Twenty-two years of dedicated research has finally resulted in success. A British team headed by Steven V. Ley at the University of Cambridge reports the first synthesis of azadirachtin, a natural compound that stops predatory insects from feeding. Azadirachtin was first isolated from the neem tree (also known as the Indian lilac) in 1968. The name of this natural product is derived from the botanical name of the plant, Azadiracta indica. Azadirachtin is a highly active substance that inhibits the development of the larvae of a broad spectrum of destructive insects but is harmless to mammals and beneficial insects, such as bees and ladybugs. The structure of this complicated molecule was published in 1985, after a long, intensive research effort, but all attempts to make this compound have thus far been unsuccessful.

Come, look at you by standing near you.

You are made to sit in a chair wearing a pair of head mounted video display. This has two small screens over each eye which shows a live film recorded by two video cameras placed beside each other two metres behind the participant’s head. The image from the left video camera is presented on the left-eye display and the image from the right video camera is presented on the right-eye display. This will create a 3D image of your back. This would be something like seeing your body by sitting behind you. Now if a person uses two plastic rods to simultaneously touch your actual body and your body illusion, you would feel two rods touching you. This setup is the one developed by Dr Ehrsson, a neuroscientist working at UCL (University College London) to induce an out-of-body experience (OBE). OBEs have been reported in clinical conditions where brain function is compromised, such as stroke, epilepsy and drug abuse. They have also been reported in association with traumatic experiences such as car accidents. Earlier studies had revealed that one in ten people claim to have had an OBE at some time in their lives. To test the illusion further and provide objective evidence, Dr Ehrsson performed an additional experiment to measure the participants’ physiological response – specifically the level of perspiration on the skin – in a scenario where they felt the illusory body was threatened. Their bodily response strongly indicated that they thought the threat was real.

The Physical world

The secret of the shine

Scientists are a step closer to understanding sunshine. A monumental experiment buried deep beneath the mountains of Italy has provided Princeton physicists with a clearer understanding of the sun's heart - and of a mysterious class of subatomic particles born there. They have made the first real-time observation of low-energy solar neutrinos, which are fundamental particles created by nuclear reactions that stream in vast numbers from the sun's core. Physicists have had theories regarding the nuclear reactions within the sun for years, but direct observations have remained elusive. Now we understand these reactions much better. The scientists' precise measurements of the neutrinos' energy provide long-sought proof of the theory regarding how these neutrinos are produced. In stars the size of the sun, most solar energy is produced by a complex chain of nuclear reactions that converts hydrogen into helium. Beginning with protons from hydrogen's nucleus, the chain takes one of several routes that all end with the creation of a helium nucleus and the production of sunlight. Steps along two of these routes require the presence of the element beryllium, and physicists have theorized that these steps are responsible for creating about 10 percent of the sun's neutrinos.

The old understanding of bubbles has burst.

Chemical engineers have discovered a fundamental flaw in the conventional view of how liquids form bubbles that grow and turn into vapors, which takes place in everything from industrial processes to fizzing champagne. The findings cast into doubt some aspects of a theory dating back to the 1920s that attempts to describe the underlying molecular mechanism behind a phenomenon called "homogeneous nucleation," In the conventional view, a liquid boiling and turning into a vapor takes place in a systematic process known as "nucleation and growth." The liquid first forms tiny "nuclei," or microscopic bubbles, that eventually grow as they pick up particles. This conventional view is called "classical nucleation theory," which was originally proposed in the 1920s. This bubble formation on a surface is called heterogeneous nucleation. Bubbles also may form, however, by homogeneous nucleation, in which they appear not on surfaces, but within the liquid itself. The new findings specifically apply to homogeneous nucleation. According to the conventional theory, the pathway going from a liquid to a vapor is narrow, strictly defining the molecular mechanism by which the liquid becomes a vapor. If this pathway was a mountain one side of which is liquid and the other side vapor, if you climb up and you're not quite at the top, sometimes you can roll back down, but if you get to the top, you can roll down to the other side also. The new research has shown that this mountain pass is actually more broad and flat than previously thought, meaning there are several possible pathways responsible for the phase transition. This metaphorical mountain pass is called the free energy surface.

Climate change and underground

Climate change, the hot topic around the corner, goes underground. Scientists with CSIRO Australia and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have addressed the vital need for the prediction of climate change impacts on water below the ground. They developed simulation models using which they showed that changes in the temperatures and rainfall affected growth rates and leaf size of plants which impacts groundwater recharge. In some areas, the vegetation response to climate change would cause the average recharge to decrease, but in other areas, recharge to groundwater would be more than double.

Hole in the sky

University of Minnesota astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies and gas, as well as the mysterious, unseen “dark matter.” While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all. Astronomers have known for years that, on large scales, the Universe has voids largely empty of matter. However, most of these voids are much smaller than the one found by the team.

Top Achievements in Science (August 3rd Week)

Disclaimer: The order in which the achievements are listed is that of the date of publishing of the news and not that of priority. There is no discretion between the findings that this is more important than that.

So here you go...

Highlights

The Natural World

1. 3D images of the cell published.
2. Who commands the white blood cells to attack invaders?
3. How anti is an antibacterial soap?
4. Tracking Evolution at the protein level.
5. Life like or life itself?

The Physical World

1. Power of a sheet of paper (You can take the printout of a battery).
2. What makes the earth to dance?
3. Cooling a chip with ions.
4. Is water essential to make life possible in a planet?

The Natural World

1. 3D images of the cell published

I guess it was two months ago that NASA published the first 3D images of the sun. The biologists are striving hard to catch up with them. The team at MIT has come up with the first ever 3D images of the cell. It can be used to provide the most detailed images of the cell and could help in knowing what is going on out there. Don't you ever think that this is an easy job. The cells do not absorb much of visible light. So how do you see a cell? Normally fluorescent markers are used to see the cell. But the MIT team used the refractive index property to achieve this. When light moves in a medium, its speed varies. It is faster in some media compared to others. The higher the refractive index, the slower the light travels. By measuring the refractive index at different portions of the cell, the team came up with a 2D image of the cell. 100 such 2D images taken from different angles are then overlapped to obtain the 3D image of the cell. But fortunately the time taken for the process is just about one tenth of a second. Now it is time for the fluorescent markers to give way to the new technique to observe the functional activities of the living cells in their native state.

2. Who commands the white blood cells to attack invaders?

White blood cells, or neutrophils, are the body's first line of defense against potentially harmful microbes, and are one of the swiftest cells in the body. What drives these soldiers to the invading disease causing germs? It is a burst of microscopic waves - says the research team lead by Orion Weiner of the University of California. Now let’s see the dramatic events in the process. When the invaders are found, a signaling protein called Hem-1 becomes active. The wave signaled by the Hem-1 protein control the pattern of assembly of building blocks of a second protein called actin, which physically contacts the cell membrane of the neutrophils pushing them towards the invading microbes. The actin also eliminates the Hem-1 protein which produced it – killing its creator. But before the Hem-1 protein is eliminated, it recruits an additional Hem-1 "next door". This helps in self sustaining the process. Imagine adding blocks to a tower from one end and removing the blocks from the other. Then you would get a moving tower moving in a direction of the end where the blocks are added. This is exactly what happens in the realm of neutrophils.

3. How anti is an antibacterial soap?

We live in a health cautious society. This attitude of the society has been exploited by the soap companies. They have come up with new variety of products to attract the masses. One such product which hit the stalls lately is the antibacterial soap. Are these effective as anti bacterial agents? "No", says Allison Aiello, a public health professor at the University of Michigan. Her team found that washing hands with an antibacterial soap was no more effective in preventing infectious illness than plain soap. Not only that it does not help us, but does harm as well. The main active ingredient in an antibacterial soap called triclosan may cause some bacteria to become resistant to commonly used drugs such as amoxicillin. Triclosan works by targeting a biochemical pathway in the bacteria that allows the bacteria to keep its cell wall intact. Because of the way triclosan kills the bacteria, mutations can happen at the targeted site, says the study.

4. Tracking Evolution at the protein level

Let us visit the world of genes. They are made of proteins. Let me take you back in time. We could encounter the ancestors of the genes who had entirely different functions than the present one. This would mean that the proteins which constituted the gene were different earlier. Scientists have determined for the first time the atomic structure of an ancient protein, revealing in unprecedented detail how genes evolved their functions. Going back in the world of proteins has long eluded evolutionary biologists, in large part because ancient proteins have not been available for direct study. The researchers focused on the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), a protein in humans and other vertebrates that allows cells to respond to the hormone cortisol, which regulates the body's stress response. They used computational techniques and a large database of modern receptor sequences to determine the ancient GR's gene sequence from a time just before and just after its specific relationship with cortisol evolved. The ancient genes – which existed more than 400 million years ago – were then synthesized, expressed, and their structures determined using X-ray crystallography, a state-of-the art technique that allows scientists to see the atomic architecture of a molecule. The structures allowed the scientists to identify exactly how the new function evolved. They found that just seven historical mutations, when introduced into the ancestral receptor gene in the lab, recapitulated the evolution of GR's present-day response to cortisol. They were even able to deduce the order in which these changes occurred, because some mutations caused the protein to lose its function entirely if other "permissive" changes, which otherwise had a negligible effect on the protein, were not in place first.

5. Life like or life itself?

Life is composed of organic molecules, which are simply the compounds of carbon, excluding carbonates and carbon dioxide. Now, an international team has discovered that under the right conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organised into helical structures. Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, say the researchers. They can, for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbors and they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma.

The Physical World

1. Power of a sheet of paper (You can take the printout of a battery)

What would be a battery like in the future? It would be like a sheet of paper, say researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The prototype for this has been developed by them. It is a nanoengineered product, ultra thin, lightweight, flexible and above all derives the power from human sweat, blood or urine. This remarkable invention can be folded, rolled twisted or even cut into many pieces. More than 90 percent of the device is made up of cellulose, the same plant cells used in paper. The paper infused with aligned carbon nanotubes, which gives the device its black color, uses ionic liquid, which is essentially a liquid salt, as an electrolyte. This electrolyte does not have water in it, which enables the device to operate at very high temperatures. Let us now wait for the release of this product from the lab to the public.

2. What makes the earth to dance?

The Earth is a unique planet with tectonic plates jiggling around, rearranging themselves into new configurations, colliding and rising mountains, creating volcanoes etc. What makes the earth perform this plate tectonic dance that shapes the earth itself? Let’s go down to the depth of the earth. Beneath the continents about 150km deep and beneath the oceans about 60km deep, lies the asthenosphere. If we go deeper at about 220km depth the asthenosphere comes to an end and the mantle goes back to a less flexible state. The restlessness of the plates is because of its slippery asthenosphere. What made this slippery? This question has given sleepless nights to geologists for decades. Now the answers are starting to emerge. Previous theories have suggested that this ‘wet’ and slippery layer exists because minerals leave their water behind them when they melt and turn into magma. This explains why the asthenosphere appears beneath oceans, but it doesn’t explain why we have an asthenosphere beneath the continents. It also fails to explain why there is a lower boundary to the asthenosphere. Hans Keppler, a geologist at the University of Bayreuth in Germany has come up with a new model to explain the existence of the asthenosphere called the water solubility model. The studies done by Bjorn Winker and Keith Refson had contributed largely to Keppler's theory. According to the new model, the water present in the form of hydroxyl (OH) groups in the asthenosphere minerals are the reason for the lubricating behavior. The minerals in the mantle cannot contain all the water and the excess water forms a hydrous silicate melt which is responsible for the lubrication.

3. Cooling a chip with ions

Cooling of a computer chip when the chip operates is a major design hurdle in their design. Researchers have demonstrated a new technology using tiny "ionic wind engines" that might dramatically improve computer chip cooling, possibly addressing a looming threat to future advances in computers and electronics. The Purdue University researchers, in work funded by Intel Corp., have shown that the technology increased the "heat-transfer coefficient" which describes the cooling rate, by as much as 250 percent. The experimental cooling device, which was fabricated on top of a mock computer chip, works by generating ions - or electrically charged atoms - using electrodes placed near one another. The device contained a positively charged wire, or anode, and negatively charged electrodes, called cathodes. The anode was positioned about 10 millimeters above the cathodes. When voltage was applied to the device, the negatively charged electrodes discharged electrons toward the positively charged anode. Along the way, the electrons collided with air molecules, producing positively charged ions, which were then attracted back toward the negatively charged electrodes, creating an "ionic wind." This breeze increased the airflow on the surface of the experimental chip.

4. Is water essential to make life possible in a planet?

Is water necessary for a planet to be an abode of life? To search whether a planet hosts life or not, is it enough to find whether the planet has water or not? Scientists at the University of Illinois say "No". Enceladus is the icy moon of Saturn. Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn from June 30, 2004 has revealed a south polar region with an elaborate arrangement of fractures and ridges, intense heat radiation and geyser like plumes consisting of ice crystals and gases such as methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Researchers at the University of Illinois have come up with a model explaining these salient features without requiring the presence of liquid water. The fractures and ridges in the pole were considered as the proof for the presnece of water. But the new model explains that the fractures and ridges can be formed without the presence of water. The new model says that as the heat source is warmed at depth, it expands and stretches the clathrate-rich shell above, giving rise to tensile stresses in the south polar cap. As a result of this pulling force the shell cracks, forming the fractures. The researchers estimate that the heat source could have been only 40 degrees warmer than the surrounding shell. The researchers also show that, northwards of the south polar cap (in which the stresses were tensile), the stresses turned first from tensile to compressive – forming the circling ring of ridges and then back to tensile – forming the set of “starfish” fractures that radiates northward from the ring of ridges. After the stripes are formed, the clathrates exposed on the cracked surfaces of the stripes would be decompressed. Upon decompression, the exposed clathrates absorb heat from the source at depth and dissociates explosively, exposing more clathrates to decompression. The gaseous products of clathrate dissociation rush up the stripes, transporting heat to the surface where they may occasionally leak in the form of plumes. The transport of heat by fast-moving gases is called “heat advection.” In contrast to “heat conduction”, where the transport of heat (in a bar of steel, for example) can only occur from points at higher temperature towards points at lower temperature, heat advection takes place at a nearly uniform temperature. The model is indeed a new eye for us to view at extraterrestrial life.

Top Significant Achievements in Science (August 2nd Week)

Highlights

The Natural World

1. What is the source of fever?
2. The skeleton plays a new role.
3. A Jurassic Park of microbes
4. Coral reefs are declining more rapidly than previously thought
5. Age, exercise and memory
6. Why do males behave like males and females behave like females?
7. Green Tea – its medicinal uses (Think before you use an anti dandruff shampoo)

The Physical World

1. The largest extrasolar planet discovered
2. A dramatic collision of giant galaxies.
3. Sunspots and rains in East Africa.
4. New Nanoparticle technique to benefit semiconductors
5. A simple experiment throws insight into thin films.
6. A great turbulence in the Atlantic helps in studying climate dynamics
7. Know your polluting level when you drive the vehicle

The Natural World

1. What is the source of fever?

What is the source of fever? The researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have the answer to this question. They have isolated a particular site in the brain, a little bigger than the head of a pin, where the hormone called prostaglandin acts. This hormone called prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) acts on a target, called the EP3 receptor on neurons, thereby causing fever. When the body is fighting an infection or illness, the body generates hormones called cytokines, which act on the blood to produce PGE2. PGE2 then enters into the hypothalamus. This causes fever, loss of appetite, fatigue and general feelings of sickness and achiness, the common symptoms of fever. This also explains why most illness have the common symptoms of fever.

2. The skeleton plays a new role.

Bones are typically thought of as calcified, inert structures, but researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have now identified a surprising and critically important novel function of the skeleton. They’ve shown for the first time that the skeleton is an endocrine organ that helps control our sugar metabolism and weight and, as such, is a major determinant of the development of type 2 diabetes. The researchers found that osteocalcin, a protein made only by bone-forming cells (osteoblasts), was not a mere structural protein, but rather a hormone with totally unanticipated and crucial functions. Osteocalcin directs the pancreas’ beta cells, which produce the body’s supply of insulin, to produce more insulin. At the same time, osteocalcin directs fat cells to release a hormone called adiponectin, which improves insulin sensitivity. This discovery showed for the first time that one hormone has a synergistic function in regulating insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity, and that this coordinating signal comes from the skeleton. Additionally, osteocalcin enhances the production of insulin-producing beta cells, which is considered one of the best, but currently unattainable, strategies to treat diabetes.

3. A Jurassic park of microbes

Jurassic Park told us the story of bringing back the ancient animals to life. We were spellbound by the fantasy of this movie. Something similar has been achieved by scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and Boston University lead by Kay Bidle. They melted five samples of ice taken from the Transantarctic Mountains ranging in age from 100,000 to 8 million years old to find organisms trapped inside. They recovered the microorganisms and they tried to grow them in the media. They found that the young microorganisms grew faster than the older ones.

4. Coral reefs are declining more rapidly than previously thought

Corals in the central and western Pacific ocean are dying faster than previously thought, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have found. The reefs are disappearing at a rate of one percent per year. The Indo-Pacific contains 75 percent of the world’s coral reefs and has the highest coral diversity in the world. This consistent pattern of decline across the entire Indo-Pacific indicates that coral loss is a global phenomenon, likely due in part to large-scale stressors such as climate change. Although reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean globally, they play an integral role in coastal communities. They provide economic benefits through fisheries and tourism and serve invaluable services like buffering from storms. When corals die, these benefits quickly disappear.

5. Age, exercise and memory

A curious experiment was conducted at Yale University. In the experiment a group of mice were divided into three groups. One group was put in cages where they could exercise in rotating wheels. The second group was put in cages where they could play with toys. Yet another group was put in cages where they had both - entertainment with toys and workout in rotating wheels. After living in four long weeks in this environment, the mice were put to a test - a brain test where they were put to navigate a spatial water maze. For all of the experimental mice, spatial memory worsened with age. However, the various treatments differently affected the different age groups. Exercise alone significantly improved the spatial memory of the young. Both exercise alone and complex enrichment, but not cognitive stimulation alone, significantly improved memory among the middle aged. For old mice, all enrichments (alone or combined) significantly improved their performance. The results suggest that enrichment initiated at any age can significantly improve memory function. And exercise plus mental challenge in middle age – when many people start to notice subtle memory changes – may offer the strongest, most widespread benefits for memory function.

6. Why do males behave like males and females behave like females?

Why do males behave like males and females behave like females? Don't discard this question as absurd. The researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute led by Catherine Dulac did some experiments on mice. They genetically disabled the vomeronasal organ or the Jacobson's organ which is a pocket in the nasal cavity of many animals packed with receptor cells, which detects pheromones. After disabling the organ, a curious thing happened. Lo and Behold, the females started behaving as males. This curious behaviour prompted them to study more on it and now they have come up with the findings. The study suggests that male sexual behavior is hard wired into the female mouse brain and suggests, more broadly, that male and female courtship behaviors exist in the brains of both sexes and are switched on or off by the chemical cues mice use to initiate sex.

7. Green Tea – its medicinal uses

Green tea could hold promise as a new treatment for skin disorders such as psoriasis and dandruff, Medical College of Georgia researchers say. The traditional treatment of ultraviolet light and medication, while it can control the lesions and be used long term, may cause squamous cell carcinoma – the second most common form of skin cancer. Some of the most effective anti-dandruff shampoos also have carcinogens in them. Green tea, which is plant-derived, may be an alternative. But scientists must work to overcome some barriers with the treatment. The chemicals in green tea are so active that they are oxidized too quickly when mixed with other ingredients. They also dissolve in water, which cannot penetrate the skin's barrier. If these barriers are overcome, then Green tea could be a very effective medicine.

The Physical World

1. The largest extrasolar planet discovered

An international team of astronomers with the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey announced the discovery of TrES-4, a new extrasolar planet in the constellation of Hercules. TrES-4 is the largest known exoplanet. It is about 70 percent bigger than Jupiter, the Solar System’s largest planet, but less massive, making it a planet of extremely low density. It is almost 20 times the earth. The planet was found by a team of astronomers searching for transiting planets. A transiting planet is a planet that comes in between the earth and the star and blocks some of the light coming from the star.

2. A dramatic collision of giant galaxies.

Four galaxies are slamming into each other and kicking up billions of stars in one of the largest cosmic smash-ups ever observed. The clashing galaxies, spotted by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the WIYN Telescope, will eventually merge into a single, behemoth galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way. This rare sighting provides an unprecedented look at how the most massive galaxies in the universe form. Three of the galaxies are about the size of the Milky Way, while the fourth is three times as big. When the merger is complete, the resulting galaxy would be one of the biggest galaxies in the universe. Some of the stars tossed out in the monstrous merger will live in isolated areas outside the borders of any galaxies. Such abandoned stars could theoretically have planets. If so, the planets' night skies would be quite different from our own, with fewer stars and more visible galaxies.

3. Sunspots and rains in East Africa.

The sunspots - dark areas in the sun are now casting a spell on East Africa. The numbers of sunspots are periodic. They have an 11 year cycle in which there is a peak and there is a low. The peak is called the solar maxima. Increasing number of sunspots indicates a rise in the sun's energy output. A team of British and US researchers have found a correlation between the sunspot activity and heavy rains. When the sunspot activity is high, it is found that the rains were heavy in East Africa. There could be many reasons for this synchronicity. It could be that when the sunspot activity increases, then the land and water heats up more which results in more precipitation. But this fact is not yet confirmed. The next solar maxima would occur in 2011-2012. Let us wait and see whether the team’s findings are correct.

4. New Nanoparticle technique to benefit semiconductors

A new nanoparticle technique developed at the University of Texas could improve devices made from plastic semiconductors like solar cells and light emitting diodes (LED). As electrical charges travel through plastic semiconductors, they can be trapped like marbles rolling on a bumpy surface becomes trapped in a deep hole. These traps, known as the "deep traps", are not well understood. The scientists explored this phenomenon and developed a single particle technique to study small portions of semiconductor material at the nanoscale. They found that deep traps are formed by charge induced chemical reaction, which may be caused by the defects in the semiconductor material which encourage charge trapping. The study reveals how the deep traps are formed and how long they live. These findings can be used to design better semiconductors that can avoid deep traps so as to increase the efficiency of the device.

5. A simple experiment throws insight into thin films.

When you use talcum powder or a sunscreen lotion on your skin, it produces an ultra thin layer of material. Till date, measuring mechanical properties of thin films was a time consuming and costly business. A simple experiment on the mechanical properties of thin films that are only tens of nanometers thick, devised by scientists at the University of Massachusetts would yield important information. This could impact the cosmetics, coating and nanoelectronic industries. The experiments used a low-power optical microscope to observe what happens when they place a tiny drop of water on thin film as it floats in a Petri dish of water. The "capillary tension" of the drop of water produces a starburst of wrinkles in the film. The number and length of the wrinkles are determined by the elasticity and thickness of the film. In some of the materials studied, the wrinkles in the ultra thin polymer films vanished with time, unlike the skin of a dried fruit. This vanishing provides insight into the relaxation process of an ultra thin film by yielding information on the way polymer chains move in the highly confined geometry.

6. A great turbulence in the Atlantic helps in studying climate dynamics

More than a mile beneath the Atlantic’s surface, roughly halfway between New York and Portugal, seawater rushing through the narrow gullies of an underwater mountain range much as winds gust between a city’s tall buildings is generating one of the most turbulent areas ever observed in the deep ocean. The turbulence packs an energy wallop equal to about five million watts -- comparable to output from a small nuclear reactor. This turbulence generates much of the mixing of warm and cold waters in the Atlantic Ocean. Mixing of warm surface water with very cold deep water is one of several factors that influence the Earth's climate. The findings will result in better models for predicting how the ocean will affect the climate in the future and a better understanding of sea-level rise, weather patterns such as El Nino, and the impact of these events on fisheries.

7. Know your polluting level when you drive the vehicle

A team from The University of Manchester has constructed a laser measuring device capable of recording levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane from directly inside an exhaust of a vehicle. If this device is introduced to the roads, the drivers can measure the real-time pollution they cause. This can help the driver to change his driving style so that less pollution is created by the vehicle. A boon indeed to the earth.

Updates In Science This Week (August 1st week)

Santhosh had asked me to categorize the contents. So I have divided them into two categories – the natural world and the physical world. Here you go...

Highlights:

Natural World:

A Braking mechanism found for Cellular Energy Production.
Coffee and Exercise would prevent skin cancer by exposure to UV
What a pregnant mother eats can make her offspring more susceptible to disease later in life
Mathematics explains the evolution of HIV to AIDS.
Do you think people have sex for fun?
Understanding a joke is tough as you get old.
Music and the Brain

Physical World:

Electronic voting machines are not defect free
Pink Solar cell developed.
Teach a robot to laugh at the joke you cracked.
Fingerprints can tell the criminal’s diet, race and sex.
Split personality in the world of molecules

The Natural World

What makes you warm? - The energy produced by the mitochondria. How does the mitochondrion produce energy? - By producing ATP, the energy currency of the cell, through the process called cellular respiration. The answers to these questions are known to all. But the next question had been puzzling scientists for years. If the mitochondria produced energy indefinitely, then it would be a death warrant. There should be some braking mechanism to stop energy production, when the required energy has been produced. How does the mitochondrion know, when to stop the energy production? Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now identified the first known factor that acts as a brake on cellular energy production. The factor called MTERF3 would inhibit the expression of mitochondrial DNA and thus slow down the cells energy production.

I have good news for coffee: The team of researchers at Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research divided some hairless mice to four groups. One group was given caffeinated water (equivalent to two cups of coffee); the second group was made to exercise on a running wheel (A day will come when a mouse makes the researchers run. Just kidding); the third group was made to exercise and drink caffeinated water; and the last group did not do both. These groups were exposed to ultraviolet rays that damaged the DNA in skin cells. The comparison of the four groups has revealed that exercise along with coffee would prevent skin cancer arising due to sun exposure.

What a pregnant mother eats can make her offspring more susceptible to disease later in life, says a study by the investigators of Duke University Medical Center. Epigenetics - referring to the changes happening over and above the gene sequence without altering its code - is a new avenue of genetic research. Experiments on animals prove that exposure within the womb to bisphenol A (BPA), an ubiquitous chemical used in the production of plastics, caused noticeable changes in the offspring without altering any of the offspring’s genes. Additionally, the researchers discovered that administration of folic acid or genistein during pregnancy protected the offspring from the negative effects of BPA.

Mathematics comes to rescue to explain the evolution of HIV into AIDS. HIV develops in three stages. During the first few weeks, the virus grows to very high levels and can cause symptoms similar to a general viral infection such as the flu. The virus then drops to lower levels and the patient enters the asymptomatic phase that lasts on average 8-10 years. During the last stage, AIDS develops and the immune system collapses. Without an immune system, the patient cannot survive. It is not well understood how the asymptomatic phase transitions into AIDS. The common notion is that HIV evolves to grow better over time, more efficiently over time, following Darwin’s theory of natural selection, eventually killing the patient. UCI biologist Dominik Wodarz has shown with the help of his mathematical model, for the first time that the development of AIDS might require HIV to evolve within a patient into a state where it spreads less efficiently from cell to cell. It also predicts that if a cell is affected by a single cell, HIV may not evolve to AIDS. Multiple viruses should attack the same cell, called co-infection, in order to efficiently evolve into AIDS. If this model is tested experimentally and found that it is true, this may lead to the development of drugs that would prevent co-infection, thereby preventing HIV evolution to AIDS.

Why do people have sex - A question seldom asked and less studied. If you think having sex is either for pleasure or to reproduce, I beg to differ. After a comprehensive study of the question, David Buss and Cindy Meston of the University of Texas came up with a list of reasons for having sex. They say that there are 237 reasons for having sex. They identified four major factors and 13 sub factors as the reasons for having sex. The four major reasons are physical, goal based, emotional and insecurity based.

There are certain people in my locality who laughs very late when they hear a joke. They are called as "tube lights" (remember that a tube light or a fluorescent bulb has some flicker before it attains a steady state). They have a time lag in comprehending a joke. Sometimes they don't even get the humor element in it. The researchers at the Washington University say that age contributes a lot to this "tube light" syndrome. Older adults have a tougher time in understanding a basic joke than younger adults. Understanding the relationship between humor comprehension and cognition may eventually facilitate the way humor is integrated into programs or therapies for older adults.

A research team from Stanford University School of Medicine has conducted a study to understand the process of listening to music. The research team showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. Peak brain activity occurred during a short period of silence between musical movements - when seemingly nothing was happening. Different individuals listen to a piece of music with wandering attention, but at the transition point between movements, their attention is arrested. This is the moment when the brains respond in a tightly synchronized manner. This is the first study directly addressing event segmentation - the brain's attempt to make sense of the continual flow of information the real world generates.

The Physical world

The frequency of Atlantic hurricanes has been doubled over the last century - the suspect is now global warming. Statistical analysis of storm data of the century by Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Peter Webster of Georgia Institute of Technology reveals that warmer sea surface temperatures (SST) (which is about 1.3 degrees per year) and altered wind patterns associated with global climate change are the driving factors for this increase.

How many games should be played in a League match so that we are pretty sure that the best team emerges out? Physicists at the Los Alamos national laboratory has come up with a rough figure - almost the cube of the number of teams involved. If there are 10 teams involved then almost 1000 games are to be played in the League so that the best team gets the best record. Hopefully the organizers of world cups come across this study.

For the last couple of elections we have been using the electronic voting systems, which are considered as faster and reliable. The team called the Red Team lead by Matt Bishopp begs to differ. They were appointed as reviewers for a couple of electronic voting machines by various manufacturers for the California elections. They have found various security breaches in all the machines. They could "hack" the memory cards of the machines by bypassing the tamper resistant seals and locks. They say that an experienced person could even switch off the memory card of the system without the knowledge of the invigilator in less than a minute if there are curtains blocking the view of the voter. It is high time that all the countries set up review teams for the electronic voting systems.

Have you seen the solar cell? They are invariably blue in color. This is because they have a reflective coating which enables them to absorb the green portion of visible light. Scientists at Ohio State University have now developed a solar cell which is pink in color. They achieved this by developing a new dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) material using zinc stannate. This is the first time to use a material other than an oxide for DSSC. Right now, even though the efficiency of DSSC is almost half that of the conventional solar cell, the scientists are optimistic to increase the efficiency and thus commercializing the use of these materials.

"Robots are inert. They cannot have emotions and feelings". Before making these statements think again. The day may come when a robot can laugh at a joke you cracked. Julia Taylor and Lawrence Mazlack of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio have built a computer program or “bot” that is able to get a specific type of joke - one whose crux is a simple pun. To teach the program to spot jokes, the researchers first gave it a database of words, extracted from a children’s dictionary to keep things simple, and then supplied examples of how words can be related to one another in different ways to create different meanings. When presented with a new passage, the program uses that knowledge to work out how those new words relate to each other and what they likely mean. When it finds a word that doesn’t seem to fit with its surroundings, it searches a digital pronunciation guide for similar-sounding words. If any of those words fits in better with the rest of the sentence, it flags the passage as a joke. The result is a “bot” that “gets” jokes that turn on a simple pun. The next step is to program the robot and make the robot to laugh based on the output of the program.

Do you want to be a detective? Make sure of your knowledge of chemistry is superb. Professor Sergei Kazarian from Imperial College London’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has devised a new fingerprinting technique along with chemical residue which contains a few millionths of a gram of fluid and can be found on all fingerprints. The fingerprint is taken by the use of commercialized gelatine based tape and analyzed in a spectroscopic microscope to identify the chemical composition. This can potentially tell the forensic scientist the diet, race and sex of the suspected criminal.

We have heard of split personality or dual personality through the cinema. The same person behaving as two individuals. Now hear about split personality in the world of molecules. An aromatic compound is a nearly planar ring (or ring system) with bonding, yet freely mobile electron pairs from double bonds. These electrons reside in a kind of “electron cloud” with a part above and a part below the plane of the ring. This is the classic Huckel topology. Even rings that are twisted into a figure eight can have this topology. If the ring system is twisted by 180°, the result is a Mobius topology; there is no longer a difference between the upper and lower “electron cloud”. The two clouds merge together to form a single continuous surface. Polish researchers have now synthesised a large molecular ring, which can be classified as an expanded porphyrin analogue, which can switch between the Huckel and Mobius topologies without breaking even a single bond. Which topology the molecule prefers depends on the type of solvent and the temperature.