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Saber-toothed cats not driven to extinction by lack of food (in California)

When prey is scarce, large carnivores may gnaw prey to the bone, wearing their teeth down in the process. A new analysis of the teeth of saber-toothed cats and American lions reveals that they did not resort to this behavior just before extinction, suggesting that lack of prey was probably not the main reason these large cats became extinct.

The paper in PLOS ONE by Larisa DeSantis of Vanderbilt University and colleagues compares tooth wear patterns from the fossil cats that roamed California 12,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Different microbes may create variations in wine grapes, even in the same vineyard

Choosing the perfect wine may soon involve more than just knowing the perfect vintage and chateau. Differences in the microbes present on grapes even in different parts of the same vineyard may contribute to flavor fluctuations in samples of grapes from different tanks, according to research published December 26 in PLOS ONE by Mathabatha Setati and colleagues from Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Study shows rapid warming on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

COLUMBUS, Ohio—In a discovery that raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise, a new study finds that the western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought.

The temperature record from Byrd Station, a scientific outpost in the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), demonstrates a marked increase of 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) in average annual temperature since 1958—that is, three times faster than the average temperature rise around the globe.

Smaller Colorado River projected for coming decades, study says

Some 40 million people depend on the Colorado River Basin for water but warmer weather from rising greenhouse gas levels and a growing population may signal water shortages ahead. In a new study in Nature Climate Change, climate modelers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory predict a 10 percent drop in the Colorado River's flow in the next few decades, enough to disrupt longtime water-sharing agreements between farms and cities across the American Southwest, from Denver to Los Angeles to Tucson, and through California's Imperial Valley.

'Molecular levers' may make materials better

DURHAM, NC -- In a forced game of molecular tug-of war, some strings of atoms can act like a lever, accelerating reactions 1000 times faster than other molecules. The discovery suggests that scientists could use these molecular levers to drive chemical and mechanical reactivity among atoms and ultimately engineer more efficient materials.

"We are interested in designing new, stress-responsive materials, so we are trying to develop reactions that are very slow normally but that can be accelerated efficiently by force," said Duke chemist Steve Craig, who headed the research.

Xiao-Gang Wen and the 500 phases of matter

Forget solid, liquid, and gas: there are in fact more than 500 phases of matter. In a major paper in today's issue of Science, Perimeter Faculty member Xiao-Gang Wen reveals a modern reclassification of all of them.

Using modern mathematics, Wen and collaborators reveal a new system which can, at last, successfully classify symmetry-protected phases of matter. Their new classification system will provide insight about these quantum phases of matter, which may in turn increase our ability to design states of matter for use in superconductors or quantum computers.

Physicists take photonic topological insulators to the next level

AUSTIN, Texas—Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have designed a simulation that for the first time emulates key properties of electronic topological insulators.

Their simulation, which was described this week in Nature Materials, is part of a rapidly moving scientific race to understand and exploit the potential of topological insulators, which are a state of matter that was only discovered in the past decade. These insulators may enable dramatic advances in quantum computing and spintronics.

Science's Breakthrough of the Year: Discovery of the Higgs boson

This release is available in Arabic, French, Spanish,Japanese and Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese .

Death of hemlock trees yields new life for hardwood trees, but at what cost to the ecosystem?

URBANA – Due to the introduction of exotic pests and pathogens, tree species are being eliminated one by one from forest ecosystems. In some cases, scientists can observe immediately how their loss affects the environment, whereas in other cases, creative puzzle solving and analysis reveal unexpected repercussions. In the case of the loss of the hemlock tree, University of Illinois landscape and ecosystem ecologist Jennifer Fraterrigo uncovered a surprising benefit to hardwood species.

Origin of life emerged from cell membrane bioenergetics

A coherent pathway which starts from no more than rocks, water and carbon dioxide and leads to the emergence of the strange bio-energetic properties of living cells, has been traced for the first time in a major hypothesis paper in Cell this week.

At the origin of life the first protocells must have needed a vast amount of energy to drive their metabolism and replication, as enzymes that catalyse very specific reactions were yet to evolve. Most energy flux must have simply dissipated without use.

MIT researchers discover a new kind of magnetism

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Following up on earlier theoretical predictions, MIT researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism.

Silver sheds light on superconductor secrets

The first report on the chemical substitution, or doping, using silver atoms, for a new class of superconductor that was only discovered this year, is about to be published in EPJ B. Chinese scientists from Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, discovered that the superconductivity is intrinsic rather than created by impurities in this material with a sandwich-style layered structure made of bismuth oxysulphide (Bi4O4S3).

2 problems in chemical catalysis solved

The research group of Professor Petri Pihko at the Department of Chemistry and the NanoScience Center of the University of Jyväskylä has solved two acute problems in chemical catalysis. The research has been funded by the Academy of Finland.

Pics, shoots and leaves: Ecologists turn digital cameras into climate change tools

As digital cameras become better and cheaper, ecologists are turning these ubiquitous consumer devices into scientific tools to study how forests are responding to climate change. And, they say, digital cameras could be a cost-effective way of visually monitoring the spread of tree diseases. The results – which come from 38,000 photographs – are presented at this week's British Ecological Society's Annual Meeting at the University of Birmingham.

Impact of caring for adult child with disability studied

The study, published in Psychiatric Services, highlights economic and psycho-social challenges faced by parents of adult children with disabilities, compared with parents of children without disabilities.

When either parent becomes disabled, the study found, families' report lower financial well-being. This being especially true when an aging parent must contend with both the needs of an adult child with mental illness and a spouse who develops an age-related disability.