science review for november 2009
It’s been four years since my last scientific publication, and while C++ is all good and profitable, I feel like I’m missing the fun stuff. So I randomly decided to check the news to keep myself informed.. Let’s see what we’ve learned in November 2009, other than that the Moon is slightly damp and that LHC finally works.
In chemistry, everyone who was crazy about fullerenes and nanotubes is now crazy about graphene (monolayer of graphite, first literally peeled off a chunk of graphite with Scotch tape by some russians in 2004). In just last month people kept coming up with new ways to create it, new ways to modify it (and some more), new ways to calculate it, and new physical properties to measure. That whole nanoscience thing is a good source of funding!
Adult neurogenesis (did you even know new brain cells are constantly born in adult brains?) is still a hot topic in neuroscience: these japanese guys say the new brain cells not only form new memories (as a bunch of 2008 works has shown) but also clear out memories from hippocampus after they’ve been permanently stored in neocortex. Speaking of memory, this girl just showed that motor skills are stored by permanent rewiring of neurons, which is a neat explanation for why once you know how to ride a bicycle, you’ll never forget. Also, speaking of brains, there was this cool review by the leading bee brain specialist (who once was a postdoc in Stony Brook, like me) saying that brain size does not change cognitive capacity.
Continuing the search of minimal set of molecules required for life, a crowd of biochemists from all over europe finally published their detailed analysis of one of the smallest bacteria, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, in three articles in Science: 1, 2, 3. They found it “more subtle and intricate than was previously considered possible”. Well duh, it’s a pathogen, it has to be able to change quickly, and under evolutionary pressure to be small it just had to reuse the same molecules in multiple ways. One thing evolution is good at is reuse. It’s a good reminder of how dismally far is biochemistry from understanding the function of nearly all proteins. Decent advance, nevertheless.
What else.. Astronomers, besides everybody’s favorite slightly damp Moon bombing, found out that heliosphere is not smooth but has a weird ribbon going around it: Science 326:959 and four more papers in the same issue (how do they get so much space there with nothing but guesses??).
Anthropologists, who had a bit of a debate about the 3’6″ tall hobbit named Flo (Homo floresiensis, fossil human-like specimen found in 2003) have a new article, from Stony Brook of all places, again saying it’s a real specimen and not a sick H.erectus.
Botanists discovered some altriustic plants (they change their morphology to cooperate with relatives and to compete with strangers growing nearby), and some plants that use camouflage to hide from herbivore animals. Who knew botany can be interesting?
In kick-ass geological news, African continent is being torn asunder, with the gigantic Ethiopian Rift which suddenly appeared in 2005 in the middle of a desert, becoming 35 miles long and 20 feet wide in just a few days. It is now believed that it is no joke, this crack will one day become the middle of a new ocean.
And just for fun, someone bothered to find out why a dash of flour tossed on the surface of water scatters out so very fast (hey, it’s nanoscience!), and these girls say they got a good idea how to make the infertility pill for men.
Crossposted from Livejournal