Scientific Discoveries

Scientific discoveries this week: 10-24-11

London, England – The Black Death that wiped out a large fraction of Europe’s population in the mid 14th-century seems to have been caused by an early version of the same bacteria that causes plague around the world today. Researchers excavated a 650 year old grave site in London to study the human remains there, and successfully sequenced roughly 99% of the Black Death bacterial genome. The bacteria, Y. pestis, shows no unique mutations that would explain why it was so deadly. The researchers concluded that the massive death toll must have been caused by a variety of conditions that no longer exist today.

Scientific discoveries this week: 10-10-11

Nantes, France – New evidence shows that there may be ice on Mercury’s surface, defying the long-held belief that the hot planet is completely dry. Several years ago, astronomers took radar images of the planet and found many little patches on the planet’s surface that were much more reflective than the surrounding areas. After NASA’s Messenger spacecraft had been orbiting the planet for a few months, astronomers concluded that these bright patches could be ice. It was determined that the small patches lay at the bottom of deep craters near the Mercury’s poles, where they are not exposed to the sun’s light. This environment would allow ice to remain frozen despite the searing temperatures on the planet’s surface.

Scientific discoveries this week: 10-03-11

Ames Research Center California – Researchers at the Ames Research Center, a NASA laboratory, have created the most accurate simulation of the universe, running on NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer. The simulation, called Bolshoi, “great” in Russian, used data from NASA’s WMAP Explorer mission as a starting point, and computed how the universe should evolve from that state. The WMAP Explorer has been mapping the Microwave Background Radiation, the radiation that resulted from the Big Bang.

Scientific discoveries this week: 9-26-11

Geneva, Switzerland – The existence of particles travelling faster than light has been deemed impossible since Albert Einstein laid out his famous theory of special relativity in 1905. That theory is being challenged, as physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (known as CERN) have clocked neutrinos arriving at a target 60 nanoseconds faster than light. Many in the scientific community are clamoring to begin independently recreating the experiment to verify the validity of the feat, but the team who originally discovered the faster-than-light neutrinos are very certain that their data is correct. They have released their results in the hope that someone will invalidate them.

Scientific discoveries this week: 9-16-11

Alberta, Canada – Archaeologists have discovered what appear to be the first real feathers. Embedded in amber taken from very old coal deposits, these feathers have a similar structure to modern feathers, including the long shafts and the Velcro-like hooks on the sides that enable the individual stalks to grasp each other. The archaeologists also found tiny filaments, smaller than a human hair, with no discernible structure that would make them identifiable as hairs or feathers, that were unlike anything seen before. The researchers are now calling them “protofeathers,” the ancestors to modern feathers.

Scientific discoveries this week: 9-12-11

Singapore, Malaysia – Cancer cells may have met their match, according to a new study by a cancer biologist at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore, Malaysia. It has long been assumed that cancer cells have walls that are too strong for antibodies (what destroys the cells) to penetrate. This new study indicates that some types of antibodies may, in fact, be small enough to pass through and kill the cancer cells from the inside. Cancer cells operate by producing protein cells, which essentially build up and create what we call a tumor. The most common cancer drugs target the part of the tumor that creates the protein. Until now, the drugs have only been able to kill the cells on the surface of the tumor. Now, it seems, drugs may be able to kill tumors from the inside.

Scientific discoveries this week: 9-5-11

Cork, Ireland – Recent studies by neuroscientists at the University College Cork in Ireland have indicated that bacteria in the human digestive system can influence brain activity. John Cryan, one of those neuroscientists, has found that even benign bugs that live in the intestines can have a noticeable effect on the brain. In a recent study, scientists fed mice a broth with a strain of benign Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 bacteria and monitored the the response. During testing, the mice infected with the bacteria showed a significant decrease in sensitivity to environmental stress. While the practical uses of this knowledge are still unknown, further research could lead to a better understanding and treatment of human emotional disorders.

Scientific Discoveries this week: 5-2-11

Baton Rouge, Louisiana – Scientists have linked many of the cases of leprosy in the United States to contact with armadillos. The unique strain of the bacterium that is responsible for leprosy, M. Leprae, has been found in armadillos, and its genome has been sequenced. The disease can be contracted through direct contact with an armadillo or by being exposed to its blood or excrement. Roughly 30% of armadillos in the southern United States appear to be carrying the bacteria. Dermatologists caution against having contact with armadillos and recommend washing hands and anything that may have touched the animal if contact is unavoidable.

Scientific Discoveries this week: 4-25-11

London, United Kingdom – Mosquitoes that are unable to transmit the deadly malaria virus have been successfully developed by researchers, but difficulties in making the new species catch on has driven a group of scientists at the Imperial College of London to work on developing genes that will allow them to spread in the wild. The new mosquitoes have been around for many years, but until recently they were unable to survive in the larger world population. And with hundreds of billions of wild mosquitoes in the world, even a million of these so-called ”disease-proof” mosquitoes would have no effect. With these new genes, the mosquitoes will reproduce more rapidly, hopefully causing the new species to out-compete the wild species.

Scientific Discoveries this week: 4-18-11

Queensland, Australia – Humpback whales in the Pacific Ocean appear to follow musical trends much the same as humans. In an 11-year study, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia listened to humpback whale songs to see if there were any noticeable patterns. In the course of their study, the researchers found that humpback whales start musical trends that appear to always travel across the ocean from west to east. Every few months, entire populations of whales change their song, closely imitating each other. The cycle appears to take about two years from the whales starting a new song to it reaching the western shores of the Polynesian islands. Humpback whales are the only non-human species to exhibit these musical trends.