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• Protein seen 'quaking' after chemical bond breaks
• Obese teens' brains unusually susceptible to food commercials, study finds
• Intuitive control of robotic arm using thoughts alone
• Partly human yeast show a common ancestor's lasting legacy
• Cutting e-waste: Device will self-destruct when heated
• Fossil of 425-million-year-old parasite with host discovered in England
• Memories influence choice of food
• Most luminous galaxy in universe discovered
• One-of-a-kind star discovered, nicknamed 'Nasty'
• Emoticons may signal better customer service ;)
• Blood to feeling: Scientists turn adult human blood cells into neurons
• Symbiosis turns messy in 13-year cicadas
• Hiding your true colors may make you feel morally tainted
• Development of face perception earlier in Japanese children than Western children
• Storms and microbes are behind the mystery of the wandering stones
• Artificial muscles get graphene boost
• Simulations predict flat liquid
• Top 10 new species for 2015

Protein seen 'quaking' after chemical bond breaks Posted: 21 May 2015 01:04 PM PDT Scientists for the first time have precisely measured a protein's natural "knee-jerk" reaction to the breaking of a chemical bond -- a quaking motion that propagated through the protein at the speed of sound.

Obese teens' brains unusually susceptible to food commercials, study finds Posted: 21 May 2015 11:41 AM PDT TV food commercials disproportionately stimulate the brains of overweight teenagers, including the regions that control pleasure, taste and -- most surprisingly -- the mouth, suggesting they mentally simulate unhealthy eating habits that make it difficult to lose weight later in life.

Intuitive control of robotic arm using thoughts alone Posted: 21 May 2015 11:40 AM PDT Through a clinical collaboration between Caltech, Keck Medicine of USC and Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, a 34-year-old paralyzed man is the first person in the world to have a neural prosthetic device implanted in a region of the brain where intentions are made, giving him the ability to perform a fluid hand-shaking gesture, drink a beverage, and even play 'rock, paper, scissors,' using a robotic arm.

Partly human yeast show a common ancestor's lasting legacy Posted: 21 May 2015 11:39 AM PDT Despite a billion years of evolution separating humans from the baker's yeast in their refrigerators, hundreds of genes from an ancestor that the two species have in common live on nearly unchanged in them both, say biologists. The team created thriving strains of genetically engineered yeast using human genes and found that certain groups of genes are surprisingly stable over evolutionary time.

Cutting e-waste: Device will self-destruct when heated Posted: 21 May 2015 10:37 AM PDT Where do electronics go when they die? Most devices are laid to eternal rest in landfills. But what if they just dissolved away, or broke down to their molecular components so that the material could be recycled? Researchers have developed heat-triggered self-destructing electronic devices, a step toward greatly reducing electronic waste and boosting sustainability in device manufacturing. They also developed a radio-controlled trigger that could remotely activate self-destruction on demand.

Fossil of 425-million-year-old parasite with host discovered in England Posted: 21 May 2015 10:36 AM PDT Scientists have discovered a new species of fossil in England -- and identified it as an ancient parasitic intruder. The fossil species -- a 'tongue worm', which has a worm-like body and a head and two pairs of limbs -- is actually a parasite whose representatives today live internally in the respiratory system of a host, which it enters when it is eaten.

Memories influence choice of food Posted: 21 May 2015 10:36 AM PDT The stronger our memory is of a certain food, the more likely we are to choose it -- even if it is the more unattractive option. Psychologists conducted a study on how memory influences our choices by offering various foods and using scans to track brain activity. The researchers were able to show that the influence of memory is mediated by increasing communication between the relevant brain areas.

Most luminous galaxy in universe discovered Posted: 21 May 2015 10:35 AM PDT A remote galaxy shining brightly with infrared light equal to more than 300 trillion suns has been discovered using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The galaxy, which belongs to a new class of objects recently discovered by WISE -- nicknamed extremely luminous infrared galaxies, or ELIRGs -- is the most luminous galaxy found to date.

One-of-a-kind star discovered, nicknamed 'Nasty' Posted: 21 May 2015 10:35 AM PDT Astronomers have spent decades trying to determine the oddball behavior of an aging star nicknamed "Nasty 1" residing in our Milky Way galaxy. Looking at the star using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers had expected to see a bipolar outflow of twin lobes of gas from the star. The astronomers were surprised, however, to find a pancake-shaped disk of gas encircling the star. The vast disk is nearly 1,000 times the diameter of our solar system.

Emoticons may signal better customer service ;) Posted: 21 May 2015 09:10 AM PDT Online customer service agents who use emoticons and who are fast typists may have a better chance of putting smiles on their customers' faces during business-related text chats, according to researchers.

Blood to feeling: Scientists turn adult human blood cells into neurons Posted: 21 May 2015 09:09 AM PDT Stem cell scientists can now directly convert adult human blood cells to both central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) neurons as well as neurons in the peripheral nervous system (rest of the body) that are responsible for pain, temperature and itch perception. This means that how a person's nervous system cells react and respond to stimuli, can be determined from his blood.

Symbiosis turns messy in 13-year cicadas Posted: 21 May 2015 07:49 AM PDT Bacteria that live in the guts of cicadas have split into many separate but interdependent species in a strange evolutionary phenomenon that leaves them reliant on a bloated genome, a new paper has found.

Hiding your true colors may make you feel morally tainted Posted: 21 May 2015 07:49 AM PDT The advice, whether from Shakespeare or a modern self-help guru, is common: Be true to yourself. New research suggests that this drive for authenticity -- living in accordance with our sense of self, emotions, and values -- may be so fundamental that we actually feel immoral and impure when we violate our true sense of self. This sense of impurity, in turn, may lead us to engage in cleansing or charitable behaviors as a way of clearing our conscience.

Development of face perception earlier in Japanese children than Western children Posted: 21 May 2015 06:59 AM PDT Face perception plays an important role in social communication. There have been many studies of face perception in human using non-invasive neuroimaging and electrophysiological methods, but studies of face perception in children were quite limited. Scientists have now investigated the development of face perception in Japanese children, by using an electroencephalogram (EEG). The team also compared their results for Japanese children with the previous findings for Western children.

Storms and microbes are behind the mystery of the wandering stones Posted: 21 May 2015 06:18 AM PDT The 'sailing' stones of Death Valley in California are famous for apparently moving by themselves, with the phenomenon not being exclusive to this North American desert but also occurring in Spain, in the Manchego lagoon Altillo Chica. Researchers have observed that wind from winter storms generates currents that can push the stones over a surface colonized by microbes. Then once the water has vanished, the mysterious trail is left on the dry bottom of the lagoon.

Artificial muscles get graphene boost Posted: 21 May 2015 06:16 AM PDT Researchers have developed an electrode consisting of a single-atom-thick layer of carbon to help make more durable artificial muscles. They are hoping to make a robot that can walk and jump on water like a water strider.

Simulations predict flat liquid Posted: 21 May 2015 05:23 AM PDT Computer simulations have predicted a new phase of matter: atomically thin two-dimensional liquid.

Top 10 new species for 2015 Posted: 21 May 2015 05:16 AM PDT A cartwheeling spider, a bird-like dinosaur and a fish that wriggles around on the sea floor to create a circular nesting site are among the species identified as the Top 10 New Species for 2015. Two animals -- a frog that gives birth to tadpoles and a wasp that uses dead ants to protect its nest -- are unusual because of their parenting practices. Also on the list are an animal that might surpass the new species distinction to be an entirely new phylum, a 9-inch walking stick and a photogenic sea slug. Rounding out the top 10 are a coral plant described as endangered almost as soon as it was discovered and a red-and-green plant used during Christmas celebrations in Mexico.

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