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Thursday, January 23, 2014

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Cold Air Could Help You Lose Weight

New evidence suggests that regular exposure to mildly cold air may help people lose weight by increasing the amount of energy their bodies have to expend to keep their core temperature up, researchers say. In fact, being able to control the ambient temperature might be partly responsible for the rise in obesity rates in industrial societies, said researchers from the Netherlands in a study published today (Jan. 22) in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism. "Since most of us are exposed to indoor conditions 90 percent of the time, it is worth exploring health aspects of ambient temperatures," said study researcher Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastricht University Medical Center. "What would it mean if we let our bodies work again to control body temperature?"

Scotland Surprisingly Had Glaciers 400 Years Ago

The last glacier in Scotland may have melted only 400 years ago, not 11,500 years as previously believed, new research finds. The Cairngorm Mountains of eastern Scotland are the snowiest part of the Scottish Highlands even today. "Conventional wisdom is that's when Scotland had its last glaciers," said study researcher Martin Kirkbride, a senior lecturer at the University of Dundee. Kirkbride discovered Scotland's last glacier inadvertently while doing fieldwork with undergraduate students in the Cairngorms.

Bare Mount Shasta Reveals California Drought Severity

Images of a nearly bare Mount Shasta taken from space reveal the severity of the California drought. The volcanic peak, normally blanketed in snow this time of year, has almost no snow cover on the south, west and eastern slopes. Snow cover has decreased dramatically since November, when the mountaintop looked mostly white, NASA's Earth Observatory reported. Normally, snow cover peaks around April 1, and by the first of the year, 15 to 30 percent of that snow has already accumulated.

Around the World: Atlantic Warming Melts Antarctic Ice

Though physically about as distant from Antarctica as you can get, water masses in the North and Tropical Atlantic Ocean significantly influence the effects of climate change on the icy southernmost continent, new research suggests. Antarctic climate has changed considerably over the past several decades, with the Antarctic Peninsula — located on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — experiencing more warming than any other region on Earth. Researchers have long recognized that atmospheric and oceanographic conditions, such as wind speed and direction, in the southern Pacific Ocean play an important role in the climate of Antarctica and the distribution of its ice. But Pacific conditions cannot entirely explain all the changes currently occurring in and around Antarctica, particularly during the austral (Southern Hemisphere) winter.

Number of Kids with Autism May Drop Under New Criteria

The number of U.S. children estimated to have autism could decline as a result of new criteria to diagnose the condition, a new study suggests. The findings show that 81 percent of children in the study diagnosed with autism under the old criteria would still be classified as having the condition under the new criteria, which were released last year in the new edition of the psychiatric handbook called the DSM-5. The new findings should be reassuring to parents, said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, who was not involved in the study. "The overwhelming majority of children" who met the old criteria will continue to meet the new ones, Adesman told LiveScience.

Electrical Burn Causes Man's Star-Shaped Cataract

A 42-year old electrician in California developed star-shaped cataracts in his eyes after a serious work-related accident caused electricity to run through his body, according to a new report of the case. The man's left shoulder came into contact with 14,000 volts of electricity, and an electric current passed through his entire body, including the optic nerve — the nerve that connects the back of the eye to the brain. "The optic nerve is similar to any wire that conducts electricity," said Dr. Bobby Korn, an associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of California, San Diego, who treated the patient. "In this case, the extreme current and voltage that passed through this important natural wire caused damage to the optic nerve itself," Korn said.

Texting Makes You Walk Like a Clumsy Robot

Texting makes people walk funny, which could make them more prone to accidents, new research suggests. When texting, walkers change their posture to keep their upper body fairly rigid in order to keep the screen in their field of view, a new study published today (Jan. 22) in the journal PLOS ONE reveals. "Obviously deviating from a straight line is very bad if you're walking close to traffic," said study co-author Siobhan Schabrun, a physical therapy researcher at the University of Western Sydney in Australia.

Water vapor plumes raise question about life on dwarf planet Ceres

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The dwarf planet Ceres, one of the most intriguing objects in the solar system, is gushing water vapor from its unusual ice-covered surface, scientists said on Wednesday in a finding that raises the question of whether it might be hospitable to life. Using the European Space Agency's Herschel infrared space telescope, researchers spotted plumes of water vapor periodically spewing from Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt residing between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The discovery comes just over a year before the scheduled arrival of NASA's Dawn spacecraft for a closer look at Ceres, a round body measuring about 590 miles in diameter - less than a third of the size of the moon. "This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere," Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency in Spain, who led the research published in the journal Nature, said in a statement.

Flies with brothers make gentler lovers

The study found that unrelated male flies compete more fiercely for female attention than related flies, pestering them more often for sex and leaving them little time to sleep or eat. "Brothers don't need to compete so much with each other for female attention since their genes will get passed on if their sibling mates successfully anyway," said Dr Tommaso Pizzari of Oxford University's zoology department, who led the study.

Sound Waves Make Droplets Dance in Midair

A team of researchers demonstrated experimentally how to lift and spin liquid droplets, controlling them with high-frequency sound waves. "Even nylon and Teflon have been shown to contaminate biological tests."

Exploding Star: New Supernova Discovery Is Closest in Years

An exploding star has suddenly appeared in the night sky, dazzling astronomers who haven't seen a new supernova so close to our solar system in more than 20 years. In just the last few days, a the supernova emerged as a bright light in Messier 82 - also known as the Cigar Galaxy - about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, or the Great Bear. The supernova, which one astronomer described as a potential "Holy Grail" for scientists, was first discovered by students at the University College London. Positioned between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, the new supernova should be easy for skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere to spot;

Mock Mars Mission: Farewell to a Simulated Red Planet

Editor's Note: In the Utah desert, scientists are attempting to recreate what a real-life mission to Mars might be like, and SPACE.com contributor Elizabeth Howell is along for the ride. HANKSVILLE, Utah — Early on in my two-week Mars Desert Research Station mission, I was hiking a hill steeper than I had ever faced. Crew 133 executive officer Gordon Gartrelle coaxed me up, a process that included teaching me the meaning of the word "commit" in hiking.

Sci-Fi Spaceship Helps Launch NYC Art Museum Exhibit

The simulated spaceship forms part of the "Museum as Hub: Report on the Construction of a Spaceship Module" exhibit at the New Museum here, and is made up of images of space shuttles taken from Eastern European science fiction movies dating back to the Cold War era. The exhibit as a whole explores the ideological role that outer space played during that time period in socialist Europe, New Museum representatives said in a statement.

NASA to Launch Next-Generation Relay Satellite Today: Watch It Live

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A fresh satellite for NASA's communications network is set for launch from Florida's Space Coast on Thursday (Jan. 23) to bolster voice and data links between mission control, the International Space Station and a fleet of orbiting research observatories. You can watch the NASA launch live online here beginning at 6:30 p.m. EST (2330 GMT), courtesy of NASA. Built by Boeing Co., the satellite will be the 12th craft launched in NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite program, which started linking mission control with space shuttles in the 1980s. Now that the space shuttle is retired, the TDRS network's primary customers are the space station, the Hubble Space Telescope and U.S. government Earth-observation satellites.

No More Eye Drops? Contact Lens Protoype Delivers Glaucoma Meds

Like a miniature donut stuffed inside a tiny pita pocket, a common glaucoma medicine is sandwiched inside this specially designed contact lens. Its construction offers numerous potential clinical advantages over the standard glaucoma treatment and may have additional applications, such as delivering anti-inflammatory drugs or antibiotics to the eye. This vision loss can be reduced if glaucoma is found and treated early, most commonly with eye drops to lower pressure within the eye. People using traditional eye drops for glaucoma "aren't getting any symptomatic relief, and they're not seeing better, so there's not a lot of motivation to be compliant with the medication," said Joseph Ciolino, an ophthalmologist who, along with his mentor Daniel Kohane, developed the new contact lens at Harvard Medical School.

Sea Anemones Found Clinging to Underside of Antarctic Ice

A robot surveying the underside of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf has made a startling discovery: Clinging upside-down from crannies in the ice shelf with their tentacles dangling into the icy water were thousands and thousands of tiny sea anemones. Other anemones have been found in Antarctica, but these are the first reported to live in the ice. "When the robot got down, the engineers noticed the ice looked kind of fuzzy, and when it drifted up to take a look they saw anemones, and knew it was really something special," said Frank Rack, science leader of the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Other groups have drilled through Antarctic ice shelves before, he said, "but nobody looked up." [Gallery: Unique Life at Antarctic Deep-Sea Vents]

Rare Borneo Bay Cat Captured in Stunning Photo

An extremely elusive creature called a bay cat has been photographed in stunning detail in its native Borneo in Southeast Asia. The bay cat, or Pardofelis badia, is a mysterious little wildcat that lives only on the island of Borneo, which includes the countries of Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. Logging has threatened some of these cats' tropical forest habitats, and the creature is now listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In the past, the elusive cats were only documented in poor-resolution camera-trap images first captured in 1998.

See the Moon Dance with Planets, Stars This Week

You should see a bright star, Spica, just below it, and a reddish object above and to its left. Currently Mars is just slightly brighter than Spica, half a magnitude brighter on the astronomer's brightness scale.

Rocket Renovations Will End Public Tours of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building

A hugely popular, hugely historic and just plain huge NASA tour spot is closing to the public as the space agency picks up the pace preparing the facility for the future of U.S. space exploration. Tours taking the public into the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are set to end on Feb. 11, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex announced recently. Public access to the voluminous facility is being halted as work resumes to renovate the VAB for the Space Launch System (SLS), NASA's next-generation heavy-lift rocket. The towering launch vehicle will provide NASA with a new capability for human exploration beyond Earth orbit.

Ancient Church Mosaic With Symbol of Jesus Uncovered in Israel

Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered intricate mosaics on the floor of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine church, including one that bears a Christogram surrounded by birds. The ruins were discovered during a salvage excavation ahead of a construction project in Aluma, a village about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Tel Aviv, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Wednesday (Jan. 22). Excavator Davida Eisenberg Degen said the team used an industrial digger to probe a mound at the site, and through a 10-foot (3 meters) hole, they could see the white tiles of an ancient mosaic. The basilica was part of a local Byzantine settlement, but the archaeologists suspect it also served as a center of Christian worship for neighboring communities because it was next to the main road running between the ancient seaport city of Ashkelon in the west and Beit Guvrin and Jerusalem in the east.

2013 Was Record Year for Rhino Poaching in South Africa

The number of rhinos illegally slaughtered in South Africa reached an all-time high in 2013, with an average of three rhinos killed each day, according to new figures released this month by the South African Department of Environmental Affairs. Kruger National Park, which is home to South Africa's largest population of black rhinos and white rhinos, was hardest hit, with poachers killing 606 rhinos within the famous safari destination last year. Black rhinos are considered "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and wildlife experts estimate that only 4,240 black rhinos remain in the wild. White rhinos are classified as "near-threatened," and there are an estimated 20,150 white rhinos in the wild, according to the IUCN.

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Wednesday, January 22, 2014

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Polar Vortex, Part II? Nah, It's Just Winter

Face it — "polar vortex" is fun to say. "It's always there and always will be there," said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in College Park, Md. "There's always a polar vortex." The polar vortex is a winter weather pattern that circles the Arctic, spinning west to east, trapping cold air in the high latitudes. Researchers named the polar vortex in the 1950s (there is a similar vortex over Antarctica, just FYI).

Strange Metal Asteroid Targeted in Far-Out NASA Mission Concept

One of the strangest objects in the solar system may get its first closeup in the coming years. A team of scientists is mapping out a mission to the huge metallic asteroid Psyche, which is thought to be the exposed iron core of a battered and stripped protoplanet. The proposed mission would reveal insights about planet formation processes and the early days of the solar system, its designers say, and would also afford the first-ever good look at an odd class of celestial objects. "This is the first metal world humankind will have ever seen," team member Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, told SPACE.com last month at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting in San Francisco.

Night Sky Comes Alive in Breathtaking Time-Lapse Video 'Ancients'

The pristine night sky — chock full of gleaming stars and awe-inspiring views of our Milky Way galaxy — comes to life in a magnificent time-lapse video shot from northern Chile. The amazing time-lapse video of the cosmos above Chile traces the cycle of sunset to night to sunrise, with incredible shots of the starry night sky. The video was painstakingly created by filmmaker Nicholas Buer, who entitled it "Ancients." "Time-lapse astrophotography is actually a fairly simple process," Buer told SPACE.com in an email.

Ancient 'Big Freeze' Rapidly Wiped Out European Forests

A major cold age that descended on Earth nearly 13,000 years ago is linked with a widely studied and debated mass extinction of large mammals, such as ground sloths, in North America. But the effects of this so-called "Big Freeze" weren't limited to North America: New research shows that forests throughout Europe vanished within two centuries of the onset of this frigid time. Researchers have suggested these centuries of cold helped wipe out most of the large mammals in North America as well as the so-called Clovis people, which archaeologists had long thought were the first Americans. The Big Freeze affected not only North America, but also Europe.

Strange Ball Lightning Caught on High-Speed Video

A video recorded by accident of ball lightning in China is now shedding light on the phenomenon's mysterious origins, researchers say. Ball lightning typically appears during thunderstorms and usually hovers near the ground, drifting over the Earth at a few miles per hour, but it has also been seen on ships and even within airplanes. Over the centuries, people have reported thousands of sightings of ball lightning. Still, it remained uncertain whether natural ball lightning really happened in the way that the experiments suggested.

SpaceX Tests Parachutes for Manned Dragon Space Capsule (Video)

With an eye toward ferrying American astronauts to space, the commercial spaceflight company SpaceX dropped a human-rated version of its Dragon capsule into the Pacific Ocean to test out its parachutes, NASA announced. Video of the SpaceX parachute test off the coast of Morro Bay, Calif., shows a Dragon capsule being cut loose from a helicopter flying 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) above the ocean. Two drogue parachutes and three main parachutes successfully deployed to guide the Dragon's descent, and the 12,000-lb. (5,443-kg) spacecraft was brought back to shore. NASA unveiled the video on Jan. 17.

Blood Test Has Potential to Catch Pancreatic Cancer Early

Pancreatic cancer could be identified in its early stages with a test that looks for genetic material in the blood, according to preliminary research from Denmark. Because patients in the study already had pancreatic cancer, it's not known if the test is accurate enough to detect cancer in its early stages, before it has been diagnosed. And the test had a high false-positive rate, meaning that the test incorrectly identified many healthy patients as having cancer. "The test could thereby [help us] diagnose more patients with pancreatic cancer, some of them at an early stage, and thus have a potential to increase the number of patients that can be operated on and possibly cured of pancreatic cancer," the researchers from Herlev Hospital in Copenhagen wrote in the Jan. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Analysis - Syngenta risks fresh China corn dispute with unapproved trait

By Tom Polansek CHICAGO (Reuters) - Syngenta AG is pressing ahead with U.S. sales of a new corn trait that is not approved in China, fueling concerns of another jarring GMO trade quarrel with the world's fastest-growing food importer. While the U.S. grain industry lobbies the Chinese government to stop rejecting cargoes of corn containing another unauthorized genetically modified Syngenta strain, farmers in the Midwest are weighing whether to take a chance on the Swiss-based company's new product, engineered to combat pests called rootworms. Syngenta, the world's largest crop chemicals company, said its Agrisure Duracade trait will be available for planting for the first time this year in "limited quantities" after U.S. authorities cleared it for sale and cultivation last year. But the planting of Duracade threatens new disruptions - and millions of dollars in losses - for global grain traders if the strain gets mixed into the mainstream supply chain and prompts another round of rejections from China, as some analysts fear.

Why Sloths Leave the Trees to Poop

"Important interspecific interactions — between sloths, their moths and algae -— seem to be reinforcing, or even dictating, important aspects of sloth behavior, especially their ritualized behavior of descending the tree to defecate," wildlife ecologist Jonathan Pauli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leader of the study published today (Jan. 21) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, told LiveScience in an email. The sloths consume the algae, which is rich in fatty compounds and gives them energy.

Neutrino Telescopes Launch New Era of Astronomy

The recent discovery of neutrino particles bombarding Earth from outer space has ushered in a new era in neutrino astronomy, scientists say. Neutrinos are produced when cosmic rays interact with their surroundings, yielding particles with no electrical charge and negligible mass. Scientists have wondered about the source of cosmic rays since they were discovered, and finding cosmic neutrinos could provide clues about the origin of the mysterious rays. In November, a team of scientists announced the discovery of cosmic neutrinos by the giant IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica.

Mysterious Mars Rock Looks Like 'Jelly Donut,' Defies Explanation (Photos)

A mystery rock on Mars that suddenly appeared in front of NASA's Opportunity rover may look like a tasty donut, but it is like nothing ever seen on the Martian surface before. The rock, which scientists now call "Pinnacle Island," is white on the outside, red in the middle and appeared after Opportunity had just finished a short drive. "It looks like a jelly donut," said Steve Squyres, the rover's lead scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., during a recent NASA event marking Opportunity's 10th year on Mars.

Elephant Mystery at Ancient Syrian Battle Solved

Researchers have now found that Eritrean elephants, which live in the northeastern portion of Africa, are savanna elephants, and are not related to the more diminutive forest elephants that live in the jungles of central Africa. In the third century B.C., the Greek historian Polybius described the epic Battle of Raphia, which took place around 217 B.C. in what is now the Gaza Strip, as part of the Syrian Wars. During these wars, Seleucid ruler Antiochus III the Great fought against Ptolemy IV Philopator, the fourth ruler of the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt, whose last leader was Cleopatra. The matchup included tens of thousands of troops, thousands of cavalry and dozens of war elephants on each side.

Fewer Women Seeking Help for Infertility

Among women who are having trouble becoming pregnant, a smaller percentage are now getting medical help for infertility compared with three decades ago, according to a new government report. Studies have found that the use of assisted reproduction techniques, such as in vitro fertilization, has increased dramatically over the last decade, giving the impression that infertility services in general are on the rise, said study researcher Anjani Chandra, a demographer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But infertility services, as defined in the study, also includes less costly and complex options, such as asking a doctor about the best days to have intercourse, and using drugs to stimulate ovulation. "Our data come from surveys asking women about their experience with infertility services, and it tells us a somewhat different story," Chandra told LiveScience.

World's Largest Offshore Wind Farm Seen From Space

Giant wind turbines appear as white specks across the Thames Estuary in the United Kingdom, in this satellite photo of the London Array, the world's largest offshore wind farm, released today (Jan. 21). The London Array's 175 wind turbines can generate a maximum of 630 megawatts of power, which is enough to power 500,000 homes, according to NASA officials. The Landsat 8 satellite, operated jointly by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, captured this image of the London Array on April 28, 2013. The white dots visible in the photo are wind turbines, and the wakes of several boats can also be seen.

Marijuana vs. Alcohol: Which Is Really Worse for Your Health?

The question of whether alcohol or marijuana is worse for health is being debated once again, this time, sparked by comments that President Barack Obama made in a recent interview with The New Yorker magazine. Both alcohol consumption and pot smoking can take a toll on the body, showing both short- and long-term health effects, though alcohol has been linked to some 88,000 deaths per year, according to the CDC, while for a number of reasons those associated with marijuana use are harder to come by. That isn't going to happen with marijuana," said Ruben Baler, a health scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The impact of marijuana use is much subtler."

2013 Ties for 4th Hottest Year on Record

In 2013, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average of 57 F (13.9 C), according to the annual climate report released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In a separate analysis, scientists at NASA came up with slightly different results, finding that the global temperature from 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year on record. The two agencies use "slightly different methods, but overall, their trends show close agreement," a statement from NASA noted. Climate scientists attribute the bulk of this warming to the buildup of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere due to emissions from industry, power and transportation.

Tasty Life: Leopard Teeth, Calf Bones Found in Ruins Near Pyramids

TORONTO — The remains of a mansion that likely held high-ranking officials some 4,500 years ago have been discovered near Egypt's Giza Pyramids. The house, containing at least 21 rooms, is part of a city that dates mainly to the time when the pyramid of Menkaure (the last of the Giza Pyramids) was being built. "The other thing that is just amazing is almost all the cattle are under 10 months of age … they are eating veal," said Richard Redding, the chief research officer of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, at a recent symposium held here by the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. From his sample of 100,000 bones from the nearby mound, Redding said he couldn't find a cow bone that was older than 18 months and found few examples of sheep and goat bones.

Matter of Mystery: Antimatter Beam Could Help Solve Physics Puzzle

A new experiment at a Swiss physics laboratory has, for the first time, successfully produced a stream of antimatter hydrogen atoms that could help answer a fundamental physics question. The new achievement, which is detailed today (Jan. 21) in the journal Nature Communications, brings scientists a step closer to understanding why humans, stars and the universe are made of matter, rather than of its strange cousin, antimatter. "It's one of the fundamental questions of physics: We just don't know why we exist," said study co-author Stefan Ulmer, a physicist at science research institute RIKEN in Japan. When matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate and form energy.

Snowy Super Bowl? Too Early to Make the Call

The winter storm that barreled across the Northeast yesterday (Jan. 21) may have football fans anxious to know the weather forecast for this year's Super Bowl, scheduled for Feb. 2 at New Jersey's open-air MetLife Stadium. This is due, in part, to lingering computational limitations, but more so to the chaotic nature of global weather patterns, Mitch Moncrieff, a researcher at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Boulder, Colo., told LiveScience. Whereas near-term weather predictions within a few days can be made based on local or regional weather patterns, longer-term predictions must take into account weather patterns occurring across the planet, along with all the different ways those conditions may interact with one another and change through time, Moncrieff said. They must also factor in how oceanic conditions may change and affect weather patterns through time.

Cosmic Lagoon Shines in Spectacular Views from Very Large Telescope (Video)

New photos taken by a telescope in Chile put the Lagoon Nebula — a giant cloud of gas and dust located 5,000 light-years from Earth — on rosy display. The Lagoon Nebula (also called Messier 8) is about 100 light-years across and harbors young stars that shine brightly in the image, according to European Southern Observatory officials. The VLT Survey Telescope in Chile captured the picture, taken as part of a sweeping set of surveys designed to unlock mysteries of the universe. You can watch a video flythrough of the new Lagoon Nebula image from ESO, based on the new VLT telescope images.

Starry Night: The Seven Sisters Shine Brilliantly in New Pleiades Photo

When two Michigan-based astrophotographers combined their skills to capture the Pleiades star cluster, the results are nothing short of stunning.

Mystery white rock inexplicably appears near NASA Mars rover

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Scientists are stumped as to how a rock mysteriously appeared in images taken two weeks apart by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. The rover, which landed in an area known as Meridiani Planum a decade ago, is exploring the rim of a crater for signs of past water. Oddly, it showed a bright white rock, about the size of a doughnut, where only barren bedrock had appeared in a picture taken two weeks earlier. "Much of the rock is bright-toned, nearly white," NASA said in a statement on Tuesday.

Love Really Is Sweet, Science Reveals

Jealousy fails to bring out bitter or sour tastes, despite metaphors that suggest it might, researchers report in the December 2013 issue of the journal Emotion. That love alters one's sensory perceptions and jealousy does not is important to psychologists who study what are called "embodied" metaphors, or linguistic flourishes people quite literally feel in their bones. But "just because there is a metaphor does not necessarily imply that we will get these kind of sensations and perception effects," said study researcher Kai Qin Chan, a doctoral candidate at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. After seeing previous research on emotional metaphors, like the studies linking loneliness to coldness and heaviness to importance, Chan and his colleagues wanted to expand the question.

Water Found on Dwarf Planet Ceres, May Erupt from Ice Volcanoes

Astronomers have discovered direct evidence of water on the dwarf planet Ceres in the form of vapor plumes erupting into space, possibly from volcano-like ice geysers on its surface. Using European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, scientists detected water vapor escaping from two regions on Ceres, a dwarf planet that is also the largest asteroid in the solar system. "This is the first clear-cut detection of water on Ceres and in the asteroid belt in general," said Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain, leader of the study detailed today (Jan. 22) in the journal Nature.

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