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Thursday, February 26, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Food Additives Linked to Weight Gain, Inflammation

Food additives that are commonly used to thicken and stabilize processed foods may disrupt the bacterial makeup of the gut, causing health problems, a new study in animals suggests. In the study, mice that were fed two chemicals that are commonly added to foods gained weight, had altered blood sugar and developed intestinal problems. The chemicals were "emulsifying agents," chemicals that hold together mixtures that include both fat and water, which would otherwise separate. The chemicals were "able to trigger low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome," in the mice, said study co-author Benoit Chassaing, a microbiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Greenhouse Effect Is Witnessed…and Getting Worse

The climate-changing greenhouse effect exists and has been directly measured in the United States, a new study reports. The results confirm what scientists had already proved through models and laboratory experiments: Pumping carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere is warming the Earth's surface. "We're actually measuring the fact that rising carbon dioxide concentrations are leading to the greenhouse effect," said lead study author Dan Feldman, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Since the late 1950s, scientists have documented rising levels of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" in Earth's atmosphere.

Google's Artificial Intelligence Can Probably Beat You at Video Games

Computers have already beaten humans at chess and "Jeopardy!," and now they can add one more feather to their caps: the ability to best humans in several classic arcade games. A team of scientists at Google created an artificially intelligent computer program that can teach itself to play Atari 2600 video games, using only minimal background information to learn how to play. By mimicking some principles of the human brain, the program is able to play at the same level as a professional human gamer, or better, on most of the games, researchers reported today (Feb. 25) in the journal Nature. This is the first time anyone has built an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can learn to excel at a wide range of tasks, study co-author Demis Hassabis, an AI researcher at Google DeepMind in London, said at a news conference yesterday.

Astronaut Reports Minor Water Leak in Spacesuit Helmet After Spacewalk

An American astronaut found water inside his spacesuit helmet at the end of an otherwise flawless spacewalk outside the International Space Station today (Feb. 25), but he was never in any danger, NASA officials say. NASA astronaut Terry Virts and his crewmate Barry "Butch" Wilmore had just completed a nearly seven-hour spacewalk to upgrade the space station and entered the airlock when Virts reported what appeared to be a minor water leak. "There was no indication whatsoever of any water intrusion into the helmet during the spacewalk itself," said NASA spokesman Rob Navias during the agency's live coverage. Navias stressed that Virts was in no danger at any time during or after the spacewalk, and that he and Wilmore were in good spirits after their successful 6-hour, 43-minute excursion.

Confirmed: Space Rock Created Swedish Lake

After two centuries of arguing about its origin, scientists have finally confirmed that Hummeln Lake in southern Sweden is an impact crater. Hummeln Lake's rounded shoreline first drew interest from scientists as far back as the 1820s, but it wasn't identified as a possible impact crater until the 1960s, said Carl Alwmark, lead author of the new study and a geologist at Lund University in Sweden.

Monster Black Hole Is the Largest and Brightest Ever Found

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most luminous black hole ever seen — an ancient monster with a mass about 12 billion times that of the sun — that dates back to when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk in the hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies. The largest black holes found so far in the nearby universe have masses more than 10 billion times that of the sun. In comparison, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is thought to have a mass only 4 million to 5 million times that of the sun.

Mystery Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres Has Mysterious Partner (Photos)

The intrigue surrounding Ceres continues to deepen as a NASA probe gets closer to the dwarf planet. The new photos of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Ceres on the night of March 5, reveal that a puzzling bright spot on the dwarf planet's surface has a buddy of sorts. "Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell, of UCLA, said in a statement.

3D Laser Scanner Makes Haunting Works of Art

Two historians on a mission to preserve historic structures in Ethiopia inadvertently turned a cutting-edge 3D scanning device into a tool for creating works of art. Some lidar technologies can see through foliage, and have been used to hunt for lost cities buried in the jungle.

Earth's Worst Mass Extinction Preserved Ancient Footprints

Earth's worst mass extinction may have created ideal conditions for preserving the ancient footprints of giant reptiles on the muddy ocean floor, according to a new study. Researchers found a spike in fossilized tracks of tetrapods (these early four-limbed vertebrates include amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) during the early Triassic period, roughly 250 million years ago. This increase may be the result of a mass extinction at the end of the Permian period that wiped out worms and other tiny creatures that typically churn up ocean sediments, leaving behind sticky seafloor conditions that preserved the wading and swimming habits of ancient giant reptiles, the scientists said. The researchers captured a "Goldilocks" window when they could see this behavior simply because they had "this magical time after this mass extinction," said study co-author Mary Droser, a professor of geology at the University of California, Riverside.

Woman's Rare Case of 'Seasonal OCD' Cured

A rare case of "seasonal" obsessive-compulsive disorder in a woman in highlights the complexity of this mental health condition, researchers say. The woman's OCD symptoms appeared every year when winter began, and then ended as the seasons shifted toward summer. After living with the condition for a decade, the woman was treated at a clinic and recovered, the case report said. Psychiatrists "do believe that there is a tie between times of the year and the exacerbation of illness," said Dr. Howard L. Forman, an attending psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the woman's case.

Deadly Gut Bacteria Cause Half a Million Infections Yearly

Nearly half a million cases of the difficult-to-treat and sometimes deadly infection called "C. diff" now occur yearly in the United States, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers found that in 2011, Americans had an estimated 453,000 infections with the bacteria Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, which can cause severe diarrhea, and frequently comes back after treatment. "This is a very severe illness that causes tremendous suffering, and death," Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, said in a news conference today (Feb. 25). Infections from C. difficile have been on the rise in recent years, and a strain of the bacteria that causes more severe disease has become more common, Bell said.

Playing physics: Student builds Lego Large Hadron Collider

A particle physics student has used his downtime to build a Lego model of the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and is now lobbying the toy company to take it to market. Nathan Readioff's design uses existing Lego pieces to replicate all four elements of the LHC -- known as ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb -- and uses cutaway walls to reveal all of the major subsystems. He also wrote step-by-step guides to making the miniatures and has now submitted his models to the Lego Ideas website, where ideas from members of the public that get more than 10,000 votes are considered by Lego for future production.

Australian researchers unveil world's first 3D printed jet engine

By Jane Wardell SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian researchers unveiled the world's first 3D-printed jet engine on Thursday, a manufacturing breakthrough that could lead to cheaper, lighter and more fuel-efficient jets. Engineers at Monash University and its commercial arm are making top-secret prototypes for Boeing Co, Airbus Group NV, Raytheon Co and Safran SA in a development that could be the savior of Australia's struggling manufacturing sector. "This will allow aerospace companies to compress their development cycles because we are making these prototype engines three or four times faster than normal," said Simon Marriott, chief executive of Amaero Engineering, the private company set up by Monash to commercialize the product.

Best 3D View of Deep Universe Reveals Astonishing Details (Video)

The amazing new photo, released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today (Feb. 26) reveals never-before-seen cosmic objects in a relatively small patch of sky. The MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile spent 27 hours staring at the Hubble Space Telescope's Deep Field South region, helping scientists learn more about far-flung galaxies. Scientists are using the new image to gather new information about the distance, speed, composition and other details about the galaxies spotted by MUSE. "After just a few hours of observations at the telescope, we had a quick look at the data and found many galaxies — it was very encouraging," Roland Bacon, principal investigator of the MUSE instrument, said in the same statement.

Stone Age Britons imported wheat in shock sign of sophistication

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Stone Age Britons imported wheat about 8,000 years ago in a surprising sign of sophistication for primitive hunter-gatherers long viewed as isolated from European agriculture, a study showed on Thursday. British scientists found traces of wheat DNA in a Stone Age site off the south coast of England near the Isle of Wight, giving an unexpected sign of contact between ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers who eventually replaced them. The wheat DNA was dated to 8,000 years ago, 2,000 years before Stone Age people in mainland Britain started growing cereals and 400 years before farming reached what is now northern Germany or France, they wrote in the journal Science. "We were surprised to find wheat," co-author Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick told Reuters of finds at Bouldnor Cliff.

Cooler Pacific has slowed global warming, briefly: study

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - A natural cooling of the Pacific Ocean has contributed to slow global warming in the past decade but the pause is unlikely to last much longer, U.S. scientists said on Thursday. The slowdown in the rate of rising temperatures, from faster gains in the 1980s and 1990s, has puzzled scientists because heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars have hit record highs. Almost 200 nations are due to agree a U.N. deal to slow climate change in Paris in December. Examining temperatures of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans back to 1850, which have natural swings in winds and currents that can last decades, the scientists said a cooler phase in the Pacific in recent years helped explain the warming hiatus.

'Big Brain' Gene Found in Humans, Not Chimps

A single gene may have paved the way for the rise of human intelligence by dramatically increasing the number of brain cells found in a key brain region. This gene seems to be uniquely human: It is found in modern-day humans, Neanderthals and another branch of extinct humans called Denisovans, but not in chimpanzees. By allowing the brain region called the neocortex to contain many more neurons, the tiny snippet of DNA may have laid the foundation for the human brain's massive expansion. "It is so cool that one tiny gene alone may suffice to affect the phenotype of the stem cells, which contributed the most to the expansion of the neocortex," said study lead author Marta Florio, a doctoral candidate in molecular and cellular biology and genetics at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

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