http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. High-resolution computer simulations performed by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) are helping to understand the inflow of North Atlantic water to the Arctic Ocean and how this influences ocean climate. http://phys.org/news179671472.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:00:07 EST news179671472 (PhysOrg.com) -- Dinosaurs have literally been put through their paces by a new supercomputer, allowing scientists to get closer to understanding how they once moved. http://phys.org/news179594858.html Other Sciences Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:50:04 EST news179594858 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a study that elevates the role of entropy in creating order, research led by the University of Michigan shows that certain pyramid shapes can spontaneously organize into complex quasicrystals. http://phys.org/news179588725.html Chemistry Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:30:10 EST news179588725 A German research team has examined data on supply and demand for blood transfusions against a computer simulation of an influenza pandemic, and discovered that a severe pandemic scenario could quickly lead to a deficit of up to 96,000 red blood cell (RBC) transfusion units in Germany alone, creating potentially fatal outcomes. Their study is published today in the journal TRANSFUSION. http://phys.org/news179559269.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:00:01 EST news179559269 Using a new mathematical model of heart cells, University of Iowa investigators have shown how activation of a critical enzyme, calmodulin kinase II (CaM kinase), disrupts the electrical activity of heart cells. http://phys.org/news179151883.html Medicine & Health Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:50:01 EST news179151883 Although states are not required to report fetal deaths in accident data, between 300 and 1,000 unborn babies die in car accidents each year. This accident fatality rate is about four times the rate for victims between infancy and four years old, said Stefan Duma, head of the Virginia Tech - Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science (SBES). http://phys.org/news178988649.html Medicine & Health Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:05:35 EST news178988649 (PhysOrg.com) -- A multi-trillion-watt laser at the University of Rochester has simulated a stellar jet -- an outpouring of matter from a fledgling star -- with unprecedented realism. http://phys.org/news177949235.html Physics Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:27:46 EST news177949235 (PhysOrg.com) -- Pay attention, Shaq: Two North Carolina State University engineers have figured out the best way to shoot a free throw - a frequently underappreciated skill that gets more important as the game clock winds down. http://phys.org/news176578811.html Technology Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:40:40 EST news176578811 Using Einstein's theory of special relativity to speedup computer simulations, scientists have designed laser-plasma accelerators with energies of 10 billion electron volts (GeV) and beyond. These systems, which have not been simulated in detail until now, could in the future serve as a compact new technology for particle colliders and energetic light sources. http://phys.org/news176382250.html Physics Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:04:53 EST news176382250 A new study shows how rocky planets are formed from the manic swirl of gas and dust that surround a young star, and determines what chemical building blocks are used to construct the planets. Understanding the dynamics and chemistry that create planetary systems can help astronomers in their search for Earth-like planets in the galaxy. http://phys.org/news175444213.html Space & Earth Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:40:01 EST news175444213 (PhysOrg.com) -- Tapejara was an excellent flyer that also had an innate nautical knowledge of sailing. http://phys.org/news175183328.html Other Sciences Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:40:02 EST news175183328 For 1200 years, the Maya dominated Central America. At their peak around 900 A.D., Maya cities teemed with more than 2,000 people per square mile -- comparable to modern Los Angeles County. Even in rural areas the Maya numbered 200 to 400 people per square mile. But suddenly, all was quiet. And the profound silence testified to one of the greatest demographic disasters in human prehistory -- the demise of the once vibrant Maya society. http://phys.org/news174152911.html Other Sciences Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:49:23 EST news174152911 (PhysOrg.com) -- Using computer simulations, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has identified some of the pathways through which single complementary strands of DNA interact and combine to form the double helix. http://phys.org/news173979476.html Nanotechnology Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:10:20 EST news173979476 Dr Alex Mesoudi, from Queen Mary's newly established Research Centre for Psychology, has found evidence that the increasing reach and influence of the media, combined with a growing number of people assigned celebrity status, could increase the probability of widespread suicide pandemics. The study is published today in the peer reviewed journal PLoS ONE. http://phys.org/news173526475.html Medicine & Health Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:48:49 EST news173526475 Leeds scientists are using the most sophisticated techniques to tackle a question almost as old as mankind itself - what makes skin feel good, and why? http://phys.org/news171628346.html Chemistry Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:32:40 EST news171628346 Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reached their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years, new research indicates. The study, which incorporates geologic records and computer simulations, provides new evidence that the Arctic would be cooling if not for greenhouse gas emissions that are overpowering natural climate patterns. http://phys.org/news171206871.html Space & Earth Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:28:28 EST news171206871 As the nation's nuclear weapons are aging (think the beginning of the Cold War), the U.S. government is turning to researchers and scientists at universities such as UC San Diego to figure out safe and reliable ways to estimate their longevity and to understand the physics of thermonuclear reactions in the absence of underground testing currently prohibited under law. One of them is Hoanh Vu, a research scientist in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering. http://phys.org/news170941950.html Physics Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:53:08 EST news170941950 (PhysOrg.com) -- As scientists attempt to learn more about how galaxies evolve, an open question has been whether collisions with our dwarf galactic neighbors will one day tear apart the disk of the Milky Way. http://phys.org/news170938716.html Space & Earth Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:59:03 EST news170938716 The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose first evolved in dairy farming communities in central Europe, not in more northern groups as was previously thought, finds a new study led by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology. http://phys.org/news170657572.html Biology Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:54:52 EST news170657572 NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., made available to scientists in August the first unit of an expanded high-end computing system that will serve as the centerpiece of a new climate simulation capability. The larger computer, part of NASA's High-End Computing Program, will be hosting the agency's modeling contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other national and international climate initiatives. http://phys.org/news170334504.html Space & Earth Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:20:01 EST news170334504 (PhysOrg.com) -- Finding the best way to pack the greatest quantity of a specifically shaped object into a confined space may sound simple, yet it consistently has led to deep mathematical concepts and practical applications, such as improved computer security codes. http://phys.org/news169301990.html Other Sciences Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:20:49 EST news169301990 The findings, published in this week's issue of Science, conclude that food-web stability is enhanced when many diverse predator-prey links connect high and intermediate trophic levels. The computations also reveal that small ecosystems follow other rules than large ecosystems: differences in the strength of predator-prey links increase the stability of small webs, but destabilize larger webs. http://phys.org/news168787660.html Biology Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:20:01 EST news168787660 Using a composite metamaterial to deliver a complex set of instructions to a beam of light, Boston College physicists have created a device to guide electromagnetic waves around objects such as the corner of a building or the profile of the eastern seaboard. http://phys.org/news168263666.html Physics Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:55:25 EST news168263666 (PhysOrg.com) -- Most parts of living organisms come packaged with ribbons. The ribbons are proteins—chains of amino acids that must fold into three-dimensional structures to work properly. But when for any reason the ribbons fold incorrectly, bad things can happen, and in humans misfolded-protein disorders include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. http://phys.org/news168097445.html Physics Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:00:06 EST news168097445 (PhysOrg.com) -- Watching an Olympic skier perform a downhill slalom, turning smoothly around the flags, makes the sport seem just as much an art as a science. Although advanced skiers know how to turn effectively, the exact physical mechanisms involved remain elusive, as there is no complete set of objective criteria to define joint motions, posture, and all the other motions that go into making the turn. To try to gain a better understanding of the kinematics of optimized skiing, researchers have recently built a ski robot that can simulate the movements of professional skiers, allowing for direct measurements of the variables involved. http://phys.org/news167303297.html Electronics Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:08:52 EST news167303297 (PhysOrg.com) -- The tremendous diversity of life continues to puzzle scientists, long after the 200 years since Charles Darwin's birth. However, in recent years, consistent patterns of biodiversity have been identified over space, time organism type and geographical region. http://phys.org/news167057268.html Biology Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:48:38 EST news167057268 (PhysOrg.com) -- The earliest stars in the universe formed not only as individuals, but sometimes also as twins, according to a paper published today in Science Express. By creating robust simulations of the early universe, astrophysicists Matthew Turk and Tom Abel of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, located at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Brian O'Shea of Michigan State University have gained the most detailed understanding to date of the formation of the first stars. http://phys.org/news166375749.html Physics Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:29:36 EST news166375749 Galileo knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date, according to a new theory by a University of Melbourne physicist. http://phys.org/news166355079.html Space & Earth Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:45:25 EST news166355079 (PhysOrg.com) -- Our Milky Way galaxy only survived because it was already immersed in a large clump of dark matter which trapped gases inside it, scientists led by Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) found. http://phys.org/news165645175.html Space & Earth Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:33:27 EST news165645175 It could mean the end of animal testing and eventually even clinical patient drug trials. The Virtual Physiological Human is a 21st century pan-European project that's gaining momentum and takes a major step forward this week at The University of Nottingham. http://phys.org/news165498647.html Medicine & Health Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:20:02 EST news165498647