Scientists replicate key evolutionary step in life on earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on Earth's surface began forming multi-cellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals.

Scientists design solar cells that exceed the conventional light-trapping limit
(PhysOrg.com) -- The best performing solar cells are those that are thick enough to absorb light from the entire solar spectrum, while the cheapest solar cells are thin ones, since they require less, and potentially cheaper, material. In an attempt to combine the best of both worlds, a team of scientists has outlined designs for solar cells that can absorb light from the entire solar spectrum yet are as little as 10 nanometers thick. The new design approach, which could lead to improved low-cost solar cells, requires overcoming a thermodynamic light-trapping limit proposed in the 1980s.

'Spooky action at distance' in particle physics?
Researchers have devised a proposal for the first conclusive experimental test of a phenomenon known as 'Bell's nonlocality.' This test is designed to reveal correlations that are stronger than any classical correlations, and do so between high-energy particles that do not consist of ordinary matter and light. These results are relevant to the so-called 'CP violation' principle, which is used to explain the dominance of matter over antimatter.

The faster-than-fast Fourier transform
The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It's a method for representing an irregular signal — such as the voltage fluctuations in the wire that connects an MP3 player to a loudspeaker — as a combination of pure frequencies. It's universal in signal processing, but it can also be used to compress image and audio files, solve differential equations and price stock options, among other things.

Serial killing follows predictable pattern based on brain activity
(PhysOrg.com) -- Over a period of 12 years, Andrei Chikatilo murdered at least 53 people before being arrested in Rostov, Russia, in 1990. While Chikatilo's killings, mainly of women and children, may have been senseless, a new study has found some sense in the distribution of intervals between the murders, which closely follows a power law. The researchers propose that the murder activity can be explained by a model describing neuronal firing in the brain, very similar to the model that describes the distribution of intervals between epileptic seizures.

Wikipedia to be blacked out over anti-piracy bill (Update)
Wikipedia will black out the English language version of its website Wednesday to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress, the foundation behind the popular community-based online encyclopedia said in a statement Monday night.

Scientists discover unusual 'tulip' creature
A bizarre creature that lived in the ocean more than 500 million years ago has emerged from the famous Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies.

Scientists predict an out-of-this-world kind of ice
(PhysOrg.com) -- Cornell scientists are boldly going where no water molecule has gone before -- that is, when it comes to pressures found nowhere on Earth.

Study: Quebec ban on fast-food ads reduced consumption of junk food
With mounting concerns over childhood obesity and its associated health risks in the U.S., would a ban on junk-food advertising aimed at children be more effective than the current voluntary, industry-led ban? According to published research from a University of Illinois economist, advertising bans do work, but an outright ban covering the entire U.S. media market would be the most effective policy tool for reducing fast-food consumption in children.

Tiny amounts of alcohol dramatically extend a worm's life, but why?
(PhysOrg.com) -- Minuscule amounts of ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, can more than double the life span of a tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans, which is used frequently as a model in aging studies, UCLA biochemists report. The scientists said they find their discovery difficult to explain.

When it comes to accepting evolution, gut feelings trump facts
For students to accept the theory of evolution, an intuitive "gut feeling" may be just as important as understanding the facts, according to a new study.

Voyager instrument cooling after heater turned off
(PhysOrg.com) -- In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument more than 23 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature that the instrument has ever endured.

Cognitive scientists develop new take on old problem: why human language has so many words with multiple meanings
Why did language evolve? While the answer might seem obvious -- as a way for individuals to exchange information -- linguists and other students of communication have debated this question for years. Many prominent linguists, including MIT's Noam Chomsky, have argued that language is, in fact, poorly designed for communication. Such a use, they say, is merely a byproduct of a system that probably evolved for other reasons -- perhaps for structuring our own private thoughts.

People behave socially and 'well' even without rules: study
Fundamentally people behave in a social and rather compassionate and "good" way rather than aggressively, even without specified rules. That is the result of a study from the Institute for Science of Complex Systems at the MedUni Vienna under the leadership of Stefan Thurner and Michael Szell. They analysed the behaviour of more than 400,000 participants of the "Virtual Life" game "Pardus" on the Internet. The findings are that only two percent of all actions are aggressive, even though the game would make it easy for war-like attacks with spaceships, for example.

Extremely rare turtle released into the wild
The Wildlife Conservation Society, in conjunction with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration and Wildlife Reserves Singapore, announced today the successful release of a Southern River terrapin (Batagur affinis) – one of the most endangered turtles on earth – into the Sre Ambel River in Cambodia.

Quantum mechanics enables perfectly secure cloud computing
Researchers have succeeded in combining the power of quantum computing with the security of quantum cryptography and have shown that perfectly secure cloud computing can be achieved using the principles of quantum mechanics. They have performed an experimental demonstration of quantum computation in which the input, the data processing, and the output remain unknown to the quantum computer. The international team of scientists will publish the results of the experiment, carried out at the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ) at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), in the forthcoming issue of Science.

A big leap toward lowering the power consumption of microprocessors
The first systematic power profiles of microprocessors could help lower the energy consumption of both small cell phones and giant data centers, report computer science professors from The University of Texas at Austin and the Australian National University.

Sleep preserves and enhances unpleasant emotional memories
A recent study by sleep researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the first to suggest that a person's emotional response after witnessing an unsettling picture or traumatic event is greatly reduced if the person stays awake afterward, and that sleep strongly "protects" the negative emotional response. Further, if the unsettling picture is viewed again or a flashback memory occurs, it will be just as upsetting as the first time for those who have slept after viewing compared to those who have not.

T-rays technology could help develop star trek-style hand-held medical scanners
Scientists have developed a new way to create electromagnetic Terahertz (THz) waves or T-rays - the technology behind full-body security scanners. The researchers behind the study, published recently in the journal Nature Photonics, say their new stronger and more efficient continuous wave T-rays could be used to make better medical scanning gadgets and may one day lead to innovations similar to the 'tricorder' scanner used in Star Trek.

Exercise triggers beneficial cellular recycling: study
Everyone knows exercise is good for you. We're told time spent on the treadmill can reduce our risk of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disorders. But exactly how exercise provides this protection is a bit of a mystery. A new study finds that exercise prompts cells to break down unwanted proteins and other cellular junk to produce more energy. The process, called autophagy, may explain how exercise fends off metabolic disorders like diabetes and protects against other diseases.