'Trash Can' Nuclear Reactors Could Power Human Outpost On Moon Or Mars

NASA has made a series of critical strides toward the development of new nuclear reactors the size of a trash can that could power a human outpost on the moon or Mars. Three recent tests at different NASA centers and a national lab have successfully demonstrated key technologies required for compact fission-based nuclear power plants for human settlements on other worlds.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

New Electronic Concept: How Hybrid Motors Could Become Cheaper

Not all that long ago, hybrid vehicles were still really exotic. Now, you see them more and more frequently on our roads. However, hybrid cars are not mass-produced as their production costs are still relatively high. A researcher has now developed a new concept that integrates power electronic functions and an electric motor, which could reduce the costs of producing hybrid cars.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

Potential Key To Curing Tuberculosis

Researchers have identified an enzyme that helps make tuberculosis resistant to a human's natural defense system. They have also found a method to possibly neutralize that enzyme, which may someday lead to a cure for tuberculosis -- a contagious disease that kills 1.5 to 2 million people worldwide annually.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

Sierra Nevada Birds Move In Response To Warmer, Wetter Climate

If the climate is not quite right, birds will up and move rather than stick around and sweat it out, according to a new study. The findings reveal that most of the bird species studied in California's Sierra Nevada mountains have adjusted to climate change over the last century by moving to sites with the temperature and precipitation conditions they favored.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

New Mathematical Model Suggests How The Brain Might Stay In Balance

The human brain is made up of 100 billion neurons -- live wires that must be kept in delicate balance to stabilize the world's most magnificent computing organ. Too much excitement and the network will slip into an apoplectic, uncomprehending chaos. Too much inhibition and it will flatline. A new mathematical model describes how the trillions of interconnections among neurons could maintain a stable but dynamic relationship that leaves the brain sensitive enough to respond to stimulation without veering into a blind seizure.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

Experimental Drug Lets B Cells Live And Lymphoma Cells Die

An investigative drug deprived non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells of their ability to survive too long and multiply too fast, according to an early study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

Inventors Offer Ecofriendly Substitutes For Polystyrene

Rigid, custom-fit foam pieces like those that keep computer monitors firmly in place inside cardboard boxes during shipping could be made with eco-friendly starch from potatoes, wheat or corn, instead of from petroleum, according to a research plant physiologist. Opting for starch in place of petroleum-derived polystyrene would lessen America's dependence on petroleum.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Scientist Builds Imager That Identifies, Locates Individual Cancer Cells

A biomedical engineer has spent the last four years building a better imager for preclincal studies. He can now disassemble a specimen and reassemble it into a three-dimensional digital model that gives details down to single cells and their exact location.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Loss Of Top Predators Causing Surge In Smaller Predators, Ecosystem Collapse

The catastrophic decline around the world of "apex" predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller "mesopredators" that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

New Approach To Targeting The Hidden Reservoir Of HIV

The drugs used to treat individuals infected with HIV-1 keep the virus under control but do not eliminate it from the body, some remains hidden in immune cells known as resting CD4+ T cells. However, researchers have now developed an in vitro system that faithfully mimics the situation in people and used it to identify a compound that can get at this hidden HIV-1 and eliminate it from the cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Latest typhoon kills 16 in northern Philippines (AP)

A man searches for recyclables through debris from Typhoon Ketsana in Marikina town, east of Manila, Philippines, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. Manila escaped the worst of Typhoon Parma that made landfall on Saturday. On Sept. 26, Tropical Storm Ketsana killed at least 288 people and damaged the homes of 3 million. Ketsana went on to kill 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)AP - Landslides buried two families in the Philippines as they sheltered in their homes from Asia's latest deadly typhoon, which killed at least 16 people and left more than a dozen villages flooded Sunday.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:44 am

The nation's weather (AP)

The forecast for noon, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 shows a strong low pressure system will sweep down the West Coast, providing cool temperatures, rain, and even some snow to the Northwest. This precipitation will spread into the Plains. Substantial precipitation will fall in the Southeast as well. (AP Photo/Weather Underground)AP - A large October storm was expected to bring widespread rain Sunday in much of the West, while the Southeast looked for showers and thunderstorms.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 3:01 am

T-Rex fails to impress Las Vegas bidders (AFP)

skull=AFP - A 66-million-old Tyrannosaurus Rex named Samson failed to sell at a Las Vegas auction after the top bid of 3.6 million dollars fell way below the minimum price.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 1:08 am

Climate change hits poor countries hardest: WB (AFP)

Demonstrators hold an anti-International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank protest in Taksim square in Istanbul. The developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage from climate change despite accounting for only around a third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Bank said on Sunday.(AFP/Mustafa Ozer)AFP - The developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage from climate change despite accounting for only around a third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Bank said on Sunday.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am

Thousands protest against France's oldest nuclear plant (AFP)

Anti-nuclear militants shout slogans as they demonstrate in Colmar, eastern France. Thousands of people demonstrated in eastern France on Saturday to demand the closure of the country's oldest nuclear power plant amid a huge police presence.(AFP/Frederick Florin)AFP - Thousands of people demonstrated in eastern France on Saturday to demand the closure of the country's oldest nuclear power plant amid a huge police presence.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Oct 2009 | 2:49 pm

Prehistoric site found near UK's Stonehenge (AP)

AP - Archaeologists have discovered a smaller prehistoric site near Britain's famous circle of standing stones at Stonehenge.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Oct 2009 | 2:15 pm

Negligence factor in Russian power plant accident (AP)

AP - Russia's top industrial safety oversight official said Saturday that negligence was a major factor in a devastating accident at the country's biggest hydroelectric power plant, and hinted that high-level officials could face trial over the disaster that killed 75 workers.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Oct 2009 | 1:53 pm

Space tourism yet to fly, 5 years since 1st flight (AP)

FILE - This Oct. 4, 2004 file photo shows SpaceShipOne and X Prize team members posing with a U.S. flag carried aboard the spacecraft after its successful flight into space and landing at Mojave, Calif. From left are prize sponsors Anousheh Ansari and her brother-in-law, Amir Ansari, Peter Diamandis, chairman of the Ansari X Prize Foundation, project backer Paul Allen, SpaceShipOne creator Burt Rutan, pilot Brian Binnie and Sir Richard Branson. Enthusiasm over SpaceShipOne's feats was so high in 2004 that even before the prize-winning flight, British mogul Richard Branson announced an agreement to use the technology in a second-generation design, SpaceShipTwo, to fly commercial passengers into space under the Virgin Galactic banner by 2007. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)AP - When a private spaceship soared over California to claim a $10 million prize, daredevil venture capitalist Alan Walton was 68 and thought he'd soon be on a rocket ride of his own.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Oct 2009 | 1:20 pm

5 Years After SpaceShipOne: Commercial Spaceflight Ready for 'Go' (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - It has been five years since SpaceShipOne screamed its way into the history books as the first privately built and financed manned craft to reach space. While that roar from the ship's rocket engine has long since dissipated, the aftershocks from its suborbital space shots are still being felt.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Oct 2009 | 8:16 am

Iraq and oil majors agree terms on oilfield project (AFP)

Fire and smoke rise at an oil field in the southern Rumaila area, 2007. Iraq and oil majors British Petroleum and China's CNPC International have agreed commercial terms for a joint venture to almost triple production at the giant Rumaila oilfield.(AFP/File/Essam al-Sudani)AFP - Iraq and oil majors British Petroleum and China's CNPC International have agreed commercial terms for a joint venture to almost triple production at the giant Rumaila oilfield, a report said on Saturday.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Oct 2009 | 4:30 am