Science News Elsewhere

Cigarettes Harbor Many Pathogenic Bacteria

---

Cigarettes Harbor Many Pathogenic Bacteria
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2009) — Cigarettes are "widely contaminated" with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France.

Advanced Nuclear Fuel Sets Global Performance Record

---

Advanced Nuclear Fuel Sets Global Performance Record
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2009) — Idaho National Laboratory (INL) scientists have set a new world record with next-generation particle fuel for use in high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs).

Bigger Not Necessarily Better, When It Comes to Brains

---

Bigger Not Necessarily Better, When It Comes to Brains
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2009) — Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger animals, despite only having a brain the size of a pinhead, say scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.

The Labyrinth Aquarium - we're a bit lost

---

The Labyrinth Aquarium - we're a bit lost

We’ve shown you the washbasin aquarium, a fish-n-flush toilet and some designer wall-mounted fish tanks. Now there's the Labyrinth Aquarium - a maze of interconnecting aquarium bowls with which to confuse your fishy friends and bemuse your human ones.

---

Jun Akedo (Principal Research Scientist and concurrently Leader of the Integration Process Technology Group) and Akito Endo (Post-Doctoral Research Scientist), the Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute (Director: Norimitsu Murayama) of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) (President: Tamotsu Nomakuchi) have succeeded in developing a high-speed printing technology that involves laser irradiation during ink-jet printing. The line width is scaled down while the line thickness is increased.

---

A magnetic charge can behave and interact just like an electric charge in some materials, according to new research led by the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) which could lead to a reassessment of current magnetism theories, as well as significant technological advances.

---

NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.

---

If humans are genetically related to chimps, why did our brains develop the innate ability for language and speech while theirs did not?

Will E.T. Look Like Us?

---

Will E.T. Look Like Us?
Evolution helps us imagine what aliens might be like

Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy Restores Walking Ability In Rats With Neck Injuries

---

Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy Restores Walking Ability In Rats With Neck Injuries
ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2009) — The first human embryonic stem cell treatment approved by the FDA for human testing has been shown to restore limb function in rats with neck spinal cord injuries -- a finding that could expand the clinical trial to include people with cervical damage.

Laboratory-Grown Replacement Of Penile Erectile Tissue In Animals Suggests Potential To Benefit Patients

---

Laboratory-Grown Replacement Of Penile Erectile Tissue In Animals Suggests Potential To Benefit Patients
ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2009) — In an advance that could one day enable surgeons to reconstruct and restore function to damaged or diseased penile tissue in humans, researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine have used tissue engineering techniques to completely replace penile erectile tissue in animals.

Controversial New Climate Change Data: Is Earth's Capacity To Absorb CO2 Much Greater Than Expected?

---

Controversial New Climate Change Data: Is Earth's Capacity To Absorb CO2 Much Greater Than Expected?

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2009) — New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.

---

A University of Colorado at Boulder team has developed the first atlas of bacterial diversity across the human body, charting wide variations in microbe populations that live in different regions of the human body and which aid us in physiological functions that contribute to our health.

Zombie Creatures: What Happens When Animals Are Possessed by a Parasitic Puppet Master?

---

Zombie Creatures: What Happens When Animals Are Possessed by a Parasitic Puppet Master?

A spider, seemingly possessed, spins an uncharacterisitic web—just before wasp larvae nesting on its abdomen suck the last nourishing juices from the spider's dying body and make a cocoon in the weird web.

Are there asexuals among us? On the possibility of a "fourth" sexual orientation

---

Are there asexuals among us? On the possibility of a "fourth" sexual orientation

Gay people are often asked by the curious: When did you first realize you were gay?” In my case, I remember undressing my Superman doll--and being terribly disappointed at the result--as well as being motivated to befriend the more attractive boys in third grade. But hormonally speaking, it wasn’t until I was about fourteen that I first looked in the mirror and thought to myself, ah, that’s what I am all right, it all makes perfect sense now.

Fellatio keeps male fruit bats keen

---

Fellatio keeps male fruit bats keen

The video is sexually explicit and was edited and soundtracked by the researchers.

Female short-nosed fruit bats have been observed performing fellatio on their partners during copulation. Mating pairs spent more time copulating if the female did so.

Producing carbon nanotubes on an industrial scale

---

Producing carbon nanotubes on an industrial scale

Carbon nanotubes promise to revolutionize everything from medicine to electronics and power generation. Unfortunately nanotubes are notoriously hard to work with and chemists worldwide have struggled for years to even make them. Now researchers have unveiled a method for the industrial-scale processing of pure carbon nanotube fibers that builds upon the tried-and-true processes that chemical firms have used for decades to produce plastics.

Subaru WRX STI TRAX hits the backcountry

---

Subaru WRX STI TRAX hits the backcountry

We've seen this approach to Arctic off-roading at a concept level, but this snow-eating Subaru WRX STI is most definitely for real. The 400bhp TRAX was built by Subaru Rally Team USA's technical partner, Vermont SportsCar from a rally-prepared 2009 WRX ST. EXE-TC Group N competition rally dampers were added, the drivetrain lowered three inches and the wheels tossed in favor of a Mattracks rubber track system.

AsusTek unveils the ESC 1000 - 1.1 teraflop ‘personal supercomputer’

---

AsusTek unveils the ESC 1000 - 1.1 teraflop ‘personal supercomputer’

Goodbye to the days when supercomputers had to fill a room and welcome Asus, purveyor of all things Eee and its first ever supercomputer - the ESC 1000. Produced in conjunction with NVIDIA and the National Chiao Tung university in Taiwan, the desktop-sized machine is capable of speeds up to a mighty 1.1 teraflops, which may pale in comparison to the petaflop Roadrunner, but then so does the footprint.

Is Unknown Force In Universe Acting On Dark Matter?

---

Is Unknown Force In Universe Acting On Dark Matter?
ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2009) — An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding of gravity.