Culture | Page 2879 | Science Codex

Bugs put the heat in chili peppers

If you're a fan of habañero salsa or like to order Thai food spiced to five stars, you owe a lot to bugs, both the crawling kind and ones you can see only with a microscope. New research shows they are the ones responsible for the heat in chili peppers.

The spiciness is a defense mechanism that some peppers develop to suppress a microbial fungus that invades through punctures made in the outer skin by insects. The fungus, from a large genus called Fusarium, destroys the plant's seeds before they can be eaten by birds and widely distributed.

UNC study: Two-thirds of severe sports injuries to female students due to cheerleading

CHAPEL HILL – A new report on severe sporting injuries among high school and college athletes shows cheerleading appears to account for a larger proportion of all such injuries than previously thought.

The latest annual report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-based National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research shows high school cheerleading accounted for 65.1 percent of all catastrophic sports injuries among high school females over the past 25 years.

Diamond conference at the Goethe University

From the 10 to 15 August, the casino on the Westend Campus will become the worldwide centre for diamond researchers from industry and academia. During this time, the mineralogists from the GeoZentrum of the Goethe University will host the 9th International Kimberlite Conference, which is the most important meeting related to this unique gemstone. Kimberlite Conferences have been held in a 4‐5 year cycle for more than 30 years, usually in a diamond‐producing country.

Computer simulates thermal stress

A new simulation method has made it possible to predict in record time when and where heavily stressed engine components are likely to fail. Car manufacturers can thereby significantly reduce the time for developing new engine components.

'Anti-noise' silences wind turbines

If wind energy converters are located anywhere near a residential area, they must never become too noisy even in high winds. Most such power units try to go easy on their neighbors' ears, but even the most careful design cannot prevent noise from arising at times: One source is the motion of the rotor blades, another is the cogwheels that produce vibrations in the gearbox. These are relayed to the tower of the wind turbine, where they are emitted across a wide area – and what the residents hear is a humming noise.

OSU students build and launch a sensor into space

Students from OSU's Radiation Physics Laboratory built and successfully launched a cosmic radiation detector this summer that reached the edge of outer space. Carried by a helium-filled balloon 12 inches in diameter, the detector flew for more than two hours and reached 104,000 feet in altitude. The device recorded radiation levels at the varying altitudes – information that will be used by NASA to develop instrumentation for space flight.

Hebrew U. archaeological excavations uncover Roman temple in Zippori (Sepphoris)

Ruins of a Roman temple from the second century CE have recently been unearthed in the Zippori National Park in Israel. Above the temple are foundations of a church from the Byzantine period. The excavations, which were undertaken by the Noam Shudofsky Zippori Expedition led by of Prof. Zeev Weiss of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shed light on the multi-cultural society of ancient Zippori.

Carbon Disclosure Project, ICLEI partner to help US cities report local climate actions, emissions

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and ICLEI-Local Governments forSustainability are joining forces with some of the United States' largestcities to help them voluntarily report their greenhouse gas emissions andother climate change-relevant data.

A bug's life... in a bubble

Hundreds of insect species live mainly underwater, but how do they breathe? University of Alberta researcher Morris Flynn did a study to find out how these species are able to remain underwater without drowning.

Extreme appeal: voters trust extreme positions more than moderate ones, study finds

Trying to appear moderate is not always the best strategy for capturing votes during an election, reveals a new study. Extreme positions can build trust among an electorate, who value ideological commitment in times of uncertainty.

"The current political advantage of the Republican Party stems from the ability of its candidates to develop 'signature ideas.' This strategy is rewarded even when the electorate has ideological reservations," says University of Southern California economist Juan Carrillo, adding that this poses a challenge for the Democrats.

Climate change: When it rains it (really) pours

Virginia Key, Fla. – Climate models have long predicted that global warming will increase the intensity of extreme precipitation events. A new study conducted at the University of Miami and the University of Reading (U.K.) provides the first observational evidence to confirm the link between a warmer climate and more powerful rainstorms.

For the birds or for me? Why do conservationists really help wildlife?

Volunteers who take part in conservation efforts may do it more for themselves than the wildlife they are trying to protect, a University of Alberta case study shows.

A study of purple martin landlords—those who keep and monitor special birdhouses on their land—revealed that they were more motivated to take part in the conservation project for egoistic rather than altruistic reasons.

B cells can act alone in autoimmune disease, Yale researchers report

B cells, the source of damaging autoantibodies, have long been thought to depend upon T cells for their activation and were not considered important in the initiation of autoimmune diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

In the Aug. 7 online issue of the journal of Immunity, Yale University researchers turn this paradigm on its head by showing that in systemic autoimmune diseases B cells can be activated the absence of T cells.

The study suggests new ways to intervene in the immune system's chronic attacks on the body's own tissue.

CERN announces start-up date for LHC

Geneva, 7 August 2008. CERN has today announced that the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on 10 September. This news comes as the cool down phase of commissioning CERN's new particle accelerator reaches a successful conclusion. Television coverage of the start-up will be made available through Eurovision.

NSF hosts the second US-China computer science leadership summit

Approximately 15 professors, deans and other professionals in the computing sciences from the People's Republic of China came to Arlington, Va. last month for a summit with their U.S. counterparts. The one-day meeting gave participants the chance to discuss challenges and opportunities facing computing scholars from both sides of the Pacific, and it reflected the growing level of cooperation between the academic research communities in both countries.