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Trash: 1 messages trashed.. --- /u/guests/jc/Mail/inbox/646 From bounce-63_HTML-35065459-347224-7219217-282@bounce.aaas.sciencepubs.org Fri Mar 18 11:02:43 2016 From: "Science: Weekly News" To: Subject: Weekly News Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 09:02:34 -0600 Reply-To: "American Association For The Advancement Of Scienc" x-job: 7219217_347224 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; X-Spam-Score: 1.3 (+) This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --opiYqCZcc0lS=_?: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Science Weekly News http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d502b83579aaa4b1913662cb476e837d44d3bb8c8dfdd9881797ef60010a2a03f34 ScienceWeekly News 03/18/16 Volume 351, Issue 6279 A roundup of the week's top stories in Science: In Brief SCI COMMUN http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d50532f2ce6fa29b724b43c09e6e18ad81c9eeea74f1af2300736ebb9529a68b9e7 News at a glance In science news around the world, the first part of the two-part ExoMars program is on its way to the Red Planet, Google's DeepMind computer program AlphaGo beats the human world Go champion four games to one, China plans to create its own "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announces plans to further limit methane emissions from oil and gas wells, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration green-lights a plan to release mosquitoes in Florida that have been genetically modified to be sterile, and more. Also, German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen, who was accused of plagiarism in her 1990 dissertation, was cleared of misconduct by her degree-granting institution. And a watercolor painting showing the intricate structure of an Ebola virus wins the 2016 Wellcome Image Awards' overall prize. In Depth Particle Physics http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d509d971d34a52207dc028190d44cec2c625609d179b73f773065a40adacd127e48 Giant atom-smasher gears up to chase whiff of new physics Adrian Cho Physicists at the world's biggest atom-smasher-the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, in Switzerland-are about to start a new data run. They are eager for results. Last year, the LHC blasted out hints of an unexpected new fundamental particle-potentially the first one in decades not predicted by physicists' standard model of fundamental forces and particles. If real, the new particle would resemble the famed Higgs boson but would be about six times as massive. Some physicists think it is just another, heavier Higgs. Others, however, say its decay patterns suggest that still other novel particles may be at work. Theorists are scrambling to figure out how such newcomers might fit into theories, such as supersymmetry, that extend the standard model. Experimenters at CERN say they should have enough data to test last year's signals within months-although figuring out what lies behind them if they're real could take much longer. Climate Science http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d50fa5467374ef0a8a84b45788df729646b15661522029423d4e0c7aa8d18ed3ffe Efforts to link climate change to severe weather gain ground Warren Cornwall Scientists are tying climate change to individual cases of extreme weather with increasing confidence and speed. Although people have long said it's impossible to blame climate change for any single weather event, that's no longer the case, according to a report issued 11 March by a panel of scientists for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Computer models of the climate, paired with historic weather records, are now being used to estimate whether the odds of a particular event-such as a heat wave-are higher in a world with current greenhouse gas levels. The panel said heat waves and cold snaps are producing the most reliable studies, whereas droughts and severe rainstorms can be examined with some confidence. Hurricanes and tornadoes, however, continue to elude such analyses. This emerging science of event attribution could have legal and diplomatic implications, as nations and people harmed by such episodes consider seeking compensation for damage caused by extreme weather from greenhouse gas polluters. Human Evolution http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d50a393386d8299cdfd1fca656a36d6d83defc6d7fd21ab5841d6de48ba63f5242a Five matings for moderns, Neandertals Ann Gibbons Neandertals and modern humans had a far richer sexual past than previously thought, involving at least five encounters at different times and places over the past 60,000 years, according to a paper published online in Science this week. By studying the genetic legacy left by these ancient trysts-and developing powerful new statistical methods to analyze genomes-an international team has identified how often and on which continents modern humans, Neandertals, and a second kind of archaic human called the Denisovans met and mated. The researchers conclude that if you're an East Asian, you have three different Neandertals in your family tree; Europeans and South Asians have two, and Melanesians, only one. (Africans' ancestors, who did not mate with Neandertals, have none.) The genes transferred to modern genomes as a result of this ancient sex include those involved in the immune system and metabolism, which may have helped modern humans adapt to new diseases, diets, and climates as they moved into Neandertal territory in Europe and Asia. Research Facilities http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d503113bff64462081359e13a01ba7526fdc4fdc44d5bc657958c4102334c7c290a Europe on course for a neutron drought Edwin Cartlidge Neutrons may be ubiquitous in matter, but the intense, energetic neutron beams that scientists use to probe the structure and behavior of materials are a scarce commodity. In Europe, they will soon get a lot scarcer, according to a panel of experts commissioned to assess the impact of the imminent closure of many of the continent's aging neutron reactors. The panel, known as the Neutron Landscape Group, said last week that as the aging reactors shut down over the next 5 to 10 years, the number of neutrons available for research will fall by as much as half. A new, accelerator-based neutron source, the world's most intense, is due to turn on in Sweden by the end of the decade. But it will take years to reach full capacity, and in the meantime scientists who rely on neutrons will face a drought, unless the life span of some of the reactors can be extended. Diagnostics http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d5084447a2cacaa679d91995d62cd7d02ffb00845c754327659829b1d7338cc152f Tests of blood-borne DNA pinpoint tissue damage Jocelyn Kaiser Researchers are working on ways to trace DNA circulating in the blood to the tissue from which it originated. This DNA, shed by normal, dying cells and injured ones, could offer a way to detect early stages of a disease or follow its progression. An Israeli research group reports this week that its technique for tracing the origin of circulating DNA detected the expected type of cell death in people with pancreatic cancer, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and brain injuries. Other groups have reported encouraging results for cancers. The published work does no more than prove the concept; the circulating DNA techniques still need to be tested on a large scale. Still, the studies suggest that tracking blood-borne DNA could be a powerful way to monitor diseases. Feature http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d504b1090c2f29266732388a2e2683fe5d36f730b802990ba626886ea7ebc65aac8 Voyage into darkness Eli Kintisch Marine biologists venturing into the polar night-the four winter months of the year when the Arctic sees no sunlight-are finding wondrous discoveries and rewriting the biological textbooks. Arctic dogma has held that the region is mostly dead in the winter, with organisms either dormant or migrated out of the polar region. But in recent journeys scientists have discovered zooplankton in all phases of reproduction, cod actively hunting for zooplankton, and six species of birds actively foraging, including little auks; one guillemot had recently swallowed 214 krill. Researchers are uncovering new rules that govern the ecosystem, including the fact that krill may migrate according to the phases of the moon, and the possibility that not only cycles of temperature, but also light, drive ecosystem change in the north. http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d50be03ae92ad2be1c027b4ea62f34cc06c6e381fde5cdf6834d13a933573062ef5 http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d502b83579aaa4b1913662cb476e837d44d3bb8c8dfdd9881797ef60010a2a03f34 http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d50b1b2a02163ebee5919506823c410ea76c7b88d2d519bb6d1fb7aa48485a51f9d Manage Your E-mail Subscription Preferences | Unsubscribe This e-mail was sent on behalf of Science Weekly News to: JC@TRILLIAN.MIT.EDU AAAS / Science | 1200 New York Avenue NW | Washington, DC 20005 | U.S.A. +1 202-326-6417 | mailto:memuser@aaas.org memuser@aaas.org | http://click.aaas.sciencepubs.org/?qs=ae31e589aa244d507f169d0aad08ea569cc9023efe8c38383451eb8af3a3bb8b2f9d9f755a184c28 Privacy Policy --opiYqCZcc0lS=_?: Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Science Weekly News
Science: Weekly News


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Weekly News
 

03/18/16 Volume 351, Issue 6279


A roundup of the week's top stories in Science:


In Brief


SCI COMMUN

In science news around the world, the first part of the two-part ExoMars program is on its way to the Red Planet, Google's DeepMind computer program AlphaGo beats the human world Go champion four games to one, China plans to create its own "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announces plans to further limit methane emissions from oil and gas wells, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration green-lights a plan to release mosquitoes in Florida that have been genetically modified to be sterile, and more. Also, German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen, who was accused of plagiarism in her 1990 dissertation, was cleared of misconduct by her degree-granting institution. And a watercolor painting showing the intricate structure of an Ebola virus wins the 2016 Wellcome Image Awards' overall prize.



In Depth


Particle Physics

Physicists at the world's biggest atom-smasher-the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, in Switzerland-are about to start a new data run. They are eager for results. Last year, the LHC blasted out hints of an unexpected new fundamental particle-potentially the first one in decades not predicted by physicists' standard model of fundamental forces and particles. If real, the new particle would resemble the famed Higgs boson but would be about six times as massive. Some physicists think it is just another, heavier Higgs. Others, however, say its decay patterns suggest that still other novel particles may be at work. Theorists are scrambling to figure out how such newcomers might fit into theories, such as supersymmetry, that extend the standard model. Experimenters at CERN say they should have enough data to test last year's signals within months-although figuring out what lies behind them if they're real could take much longer.


Climate Science

Scientists are tying climate change to individual cases of extreme weather with increasing confidence and speed. Although people have long said it's impossible to blame climate change for any single weather event, that's no longer the case, according to a report issued 11 March by a panel of scientists for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Computer models of the climate, paired with historic weather records, are now being used to estimate whether the odds of a particular event-such as a heat wave-are higher in a world with current greenhouse gas levels. The panel said heat waves and cold snaps are producing the most reliable studies, whereas droughts and severe rainstorms can be examined with some confidence. Hurricanes and tornadoes, however, continue to elude such analyses. This emerging science of event attribution could have legal and diplomatic implications, as nations and people harmed by such episodes consider seeking compensation for damage caused by extreme weather from greenhouse gas polluters.


Human Evolution

Neandertals and modern humans had a far richer sexual past than previously thought, involving at least five encounters at different times and places over the past 60,000 years, according to a paper published online in Science this week. By studying the genetic legacy left by these ancient trysts-and developing powerful new statistical methods to analyze genomes-an international team has identified how often and on which continents modern humans, Neandertals, and a second kind of archaic human called the Denisovans met and mated. The researchers conclude that if you're an East Asian, you have three different Neandertals in your family tree; Europeans and South Asians have two, and Melanesians, only one. (Africans' ancestors, who did not mate with Neandertals, have none.) The genes transferred to modern genomes as a result of this ancient sex include those involved in the immune system and metabolism, which may have helped modern humans adapt to new diseases, diets, and climates as they moved into Neandertal territory in Europe and Asia.


Research Facilities

Neutrons may be ubiquitous in matter, but the intense, energetic neutron beams that scientists use to probe the structure and behavior of materials are a scarce commodity. In Europe, they will soon get a lot scarcer, according to a panel of experts commissioned to assess the impact of the imminent closure of many of the continent's aging neutron reactors. The panel, known as the Neutron Landscape Group, said last week that as the aging reactors shut down over the next 5 to 10 years, the number of neutrons available for research will fall by as much as half. A new, accelerator-based neutron source, the world's most intense, is due to turn on in Sweden by the end of the decade. But it will take years to reach full capacity, and in the meantime scientists who rely on neutrons will face a drought, unless the life span of some of the reactors can be extended.


Diagnostics

Researchers are working on ways to trace DNA circulating in the blood to the tissue from which it originated. This DNA, shed by normal, dying cells and injured ones, could offer a way to detect early stages of a disease or follow its progression. An Israeli research group reports this week that its technique for tracing the origin of circulating DNA detected the expected type of cell death in people with pancreatic cancer, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and brain injuries. Other groups have reported encouraging results for cancers. The published work does no more than prove the concept; the circulating DNA techniques still need to be tested on a large scale. Still, the studies suggest that tracking blood-borne DNA could be a powerful way to monitor diseases.



Feature


Marine biologists venturing into the polar night-the four winter months of the year when the Arctic sees no sunlight-are finding wondrous discoveries and rewriting the biological textbooks. Arctic dogma has held that the region is mostly dead in the winter, with organisms either dormant or migrated out of the polar region. But in recent journeys scientists have discovered zooplankton in all phases of reproduction, cod actively hunting for zooplankton, and six species of birds actively foraging, including little auks; one guillemot had recently swallowed 214 krill. Researchers are uncovering new rules that govern the ecosystem, including the fact that krill may migrate according to the phases of the moon, and the possibility that not only cycles of temperature, but also light, drive ecosystem change in the north.


Data Stories Competition



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