Near full skeleton of new species of raptor dinosaur found
March 19, 2010
(ChattahBox) – A new species of raptor dinosaur being named Linheraptor exquisitus has been discovered by George Washington University doctoral candidate Jonah Choiniere and Michael D. Pittman, a graduate student at University College London (UCL). The exceptionally well-preserved, nearly complete skeleton (photo at bottom) is a relative of the well-known species Velociraptor, and will help scientists further describe the physical appearance of other closely-related dinosaurs within the Dromaeosauridae family. The research, led by Xu Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, will be published in the March 19, 2010, issue of Zootaxa.
“I only saw the tip of the claw sticking out of a cliff face, and it was a total surprise that the whole skeleton was buried deeper in the rock,” said Mr. Choiniere. “This fossil is going to tell us a lot about the evolution of the skeleton in the group that includes Velociraptor.” Read more
New Invisibility cloak prototype advances to 3-D
March 19, 2010
Indiana (ChattahBox) – An exciting development in cloaking technology, it’s now advanced to 3-D. Previous invisibility cloaks have already been developed but they only worked on two dimensions, so that objects that were supposed to be made invisible were immediately visible from the third dimension. Researchers from the German Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Imperial College London have created the three-dimensional that can hide objects by bending light waves, which could pave the way for larger objects to be made invisible.
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Policy Changes Demanded In Research Monkey Care
March 18, 2010
US (ChattahBox) – After several horrifying accidental deaths of research monkeys in medical and science institutions, new policy changes are being demanded, which would create harsher punishments for animal cruelty.
International team of scientists discover new planet
March 18, 2010
(ChattahBox) – (University of California – Santa Barbara) - An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is published in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature. The planet, called CoRoT-9b, was discovered by using the CoRoT space telescope satellite, operated by the French space agency, The Centre National d’Études Spatiales, or CNES. The newly discovered planet orbits a star similar to our sun and is located in the constellation Serpens Cauda, at a distance of 1500 light-years from Earth.
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Poll: Nearly Half the Country Believe Global Warming Threat Exaggerated
March 16, 2010
(ChattahBox)—-The anti-environment campaign led by conservative Republicans and Fox News falsely claiming that man-made global warming doesn’t exist, has apparently influenced a number of Americans. A recent Gallup poll found that nearly half of all Americans believe that global warming is exaggerated. And more than a third of the country believe that the devastating effects of global warming won’t come to fruition. Read more
Scientists Find Gene That Could Allow Humans To Regrow Limbs
March 16, 2010
(ChattahBox) – A quest that began over a decade ago with a chance observation has reached a milestone: the identification of a gene that may regulate regeneration in mammals. The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to have been lost through evolution and reserved for creatures like flatworms, sponges, and some species of salamander. In a report published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from The Wistar Institute demonstrate that mice that lack the p21 gene gain the ability to regenerate lost or damaged tissue.
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Student Discovers Rare Fossil of Meat-Eating Amphibian
March 16, 2010
(ChattahBox)—-About 300 million years ago, before giant dinosaurs roamed the Earth, in what was then a tropical climate in Western Pennsylvania, small amphibians emerged from the water and adapted to life on land, as terrestrial meat-eating hunters. So called, trematopid amphibian fossils of that period are quite scarce with only two found from the Pennsylvanian Period; until a magnificent discovery of a third fossil in 2004 by a University of Pittsburgh student. Not only is the new trematopid fossil rare, but it’s also the first one found in Pennsylvania and paleontologists have also deemed the find evidence of a new genus and species of trematopid. Read more
Study finds psychopaths’ brains wired to seek rewards, no matter the consequences
March 14, 2010
(ChattahBox) – The brains of psychopaths appear to be wired to keep seeking a reward at any cost, new research from Vanderbilt University finds. The research uncovers the role of the brain’s reward system in psychopathy and opens a new area of study for understanding what drives these individuals.
“This study underscores the importance of neurological research as it relates to behavior,” Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said. “The findings may help us find new ways to intervene before a personality trait becomes antisocial behavior.”
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Men Have Greater Sexual Life Expectancy Than Woman According to New Study
March 10, 2010
(ChattahBox) – How’s this for a fair trade: While women statistically live longer than men, men have longer and better sex lives in their later years, new research shows. According to the report in the British Medical Journal, men want sex pretty much until they are almost dead. Overall the results of this study show that for both genders, those who are in good health are twice as likely to be interested in sex when they reach middle age and beyond. These people are also much more likely to experience a busy and satisfying sex life. However the disparity between genders grows with age. The difference is greatest among the 75- to 85-year-old group: 38.9 percent of men compared with 16.8 percent of women in that age group were sexually active, according to the study.
IBM and Stanford University Unveil Plant Based Environmentally Sustainable Plastics
March 10, 2010
(ChattahBox) – Researchers at IBMs Almaden Research Center and Stanford University have developed a potentially revolutionary method of producing environmentally-friendly plastic from plants. The new line of organic catalysts they say could revolutionize the green plastics industry by giving it a set of tools to build up — and break down — plastics in a more environmentally friendly and energy efficient way. The “green chemistry” breakthrough results in plastics that could be repeatedly recycled, instead of only once as is the case with petroleum-based plastic made using metal oxide catalysts, which ultimately wind up in a landfill.
“This discovery and new approach using organic catalysts could lead to well-defined, biodegradable molecules made from renewable resources in an environmentally responsible way,” IBM said in a release.
This type of bio-degradable plastics or plant plastics could also be made ‘biocompatible’ to form a part of drugs for cancer cells. IBM is working with scientists at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia to put the discovery to work in the recycling of plastics used in food and beverage containers.
The find will be detailed in a paper ‘Organocatalysis: Opportunities and Challenges for Polymer Synthesis’, to be published in the American Chemical Society journal Macromolecules.