Are we alone in space?

Extrasolar planets are candidates for life in Outer Space. Astronomers and astro-biologists use high resolution telescopes to detect traces of life on planets outside our solar system. More than 400 planets have been identified meanwhile most of them consisting of gas. Some of them have the size of Jupiter, the biggest planet which orbits our sun. Surprisingly some of these planets consist of hard and stony material maybe allowing earth-like atmospheres, a kind of "Super-Earth".

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (21) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 344 | E-mail

Globedweller.com is a new website for expat professionals

However, often it can be difficult and time-consuming to settle in to the new host country.  But even for busy scientists, it can be well worth to make that effort, since their stay will be so much better if they emerge themselves in the culture and daily life of their new home. Even when the stay is temporarily.

All countries have much more to offer than just work. That is why www.GlobeDweller.com has been launched.

The idea is to give everybody who works abroad a better experience. To connect them with the people and activities where they live.

The community, which is at the core of Globedweller.com, achieve this by making contact with other expats who live in the same area easy, and by providing the means to exchange knowledge and experiences on integration, accommodation, shopping, banking, day-care and schools.

On top of that, Globedweller.com is open to locals as well. So finding friends who are able to truly show you the ways of your new host country is possible and thus helping make the stay a lasting experience of more than just work. Join Globe Dweller today!

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (16) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 442 | E-mail

If you are a life science student or professional and have always dreamt of sharing your passion for science with others, then Life of Science now gives one or two budding science writers the chance to write for the site. We are looking for individuals willing to provide two or three short news pieces per month. This could be related to your own research and new papers in your field or it could be your chance to follow what happens in other fields.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (11) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 309 | E-mail

The tiger. The protection of big allrounders like tiger, wolf or lion may play a key role in ecosystem stabiltiy (photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Computer models can contribute to the understanding of complex systems in nature. Ecosystems belong to complex systems which are influenced by numerous correlated factors. Food chains for example are part of ecosystems and difficult to investigate in all with the methods of field ecology. It is known that food webs are stable over long time periods, the interactions between different species (predators and prey) are constant. Yet when ecologists try to calculate models of such correlations they face some obstacles: they have to reduce usually many factors to get reasonable scientific output from their models. So still conclusions drawn from results are still constrained. Now scientists from Austria, Germany and the US revealed fundamental legalities of stability in ecosystems: the more diversified the prey species are on which a predator at the top of a food chain feeds the more stable is the ecosystem in which it lives. Accordingly a food chain is most stable if the prey species in the center of a food web or a food chain have various predators. The scientists used a new method  developed by a workgroup of the Max-Planck-Institute of the Physics of Complex Systems.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (27) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 534 | E-mail

Glaciers - when the ice melts down the sea level will rise dramatically

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (36) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 780 | E-mail

Next year from the 27th to the 30th of April, Granada in Spain will be hosting a conference, which aims to shed more light on the risks and counter-measures, which can be taken against catastrophic asteroid impacts on our planet.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (15) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 903 | E-mail

The International Congress of Psychology starts today in Berlin from 20th July until 25th July 2008.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (16) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1121 | E-mail

Playing a lot of tennis gives superior visual perception skills. Photo courtesy of photocase.com.

We all know that doing sports is good exercise, because we reduce our fat stores and instead increase our muscle mass. However, for top athletes this is not the only physiological improvements that occur during training. Extensive training over many years improves also the mental and cognitive abilities of the athlete so that he or she is better able to perform the tasks necessary to excel in the discipline. This is why that if you want to become a professional in almost any sport you need to start training at a young age. In a study published in PLoS One, Swiss researchers from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne have investigated the visual perception skills of tennis players.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (15) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1010 | E-mail

Scientists have found a way to use mechanical tests and fracture properties to measure the crispness of crisps such that these quantitative tests agree with qualitative evaluations from taste panels. Photo courtesy of Photocase.com.

Few of us realise how much science is involved in the everyday things that surrounds us. Food has not traditionally been much associated with science in the minds of the consumers or producers. However, this is slowly changing, especially with the recent popularity of molecular gastronomy, which attempts to enhance the taste experience by understanding the physical and chemical transformation of the ingredients that occur during cooking. The taste experience of food, however, is not only due to the chemical flavour and the cooking of the food, but often also depends on the texture. This is especially true of potato crisps, where the crispness often determines the success of the product. Traditionally crispness has been evaluated qualitatively by asking people to taste the crisps and state their opinion. However, there is a significant interest among crisp producers in finding a more objective quantitative evaluation. Scientists have now found a way of associating crispness with the fracture properties of the crisps.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (20) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1006 | E-mail

The Society for Experimental Biology hold its Annual Main Meeting from the 6th of July to the 10th of July in Marseille, France. The meeting has 4 main topic sessions. 1) Animal, which among others include sessions on biomechanics, predator/prey interactions and insect homeostatis. 2) Cell, which among others include sessions on circadian clocks and climate change: from genes to ecosystem. 3) Plant, whicng include sessions on ubiquitination, green products and developments in plant biology. 4) education, which include sessions on science communication, a young scientist event and a debate on bioenergy.

There is, furthermore, a cross sectional session on systems biology with an accompanying workshop. Deadline for abstracts is on the 31st of March 2008.

More info at the website: http://www.sebiology.org/meetings/Marseille/Marseille.html

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (27) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1112 | E-mail

ARMAR, robot in Karlsruhe (Courtesy: German Science Foundation, SFB 588)

Memory, Learning, Imagination...all these skills of the human brain and how to rebuild them artificially as computer programms or as robots is topic of an international congress about cognitivie systems. More than 200 scientists and experts in neuroscience, robotics and computer sciences meet from 2. - 4. April 2008 at the university of Karlsruhe Germany.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (19) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1102 | E-mail

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (18) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1058 | E-mail

Computers have problems identifying objects in varying situations, while the brain does it easily. Photo courtesy of Photocase.com.

The progress in computer technology within the past decades has been absolutely astounding. The capabilities of our personal computers have been growing exponentially (see Moore’s law) and the computer can perform calculations much faster than the human brain. However, in many other areas the computer is no match for the human brain. Especially the function of the visual system in humans is impressive. Several computer programs have been made that can identify and recognise visual inputs and although they are useful, for instance, in recognising characters and numbers on invoices and documents, human verification is often needed, especially, when variations are introduced in for instance hand written documents. Scientists from MIT in the United States in America have looked at a related problem. That of visually recognising objects viewed from different angles with variations in background and lighting. Such a task has proved very difficult for the computer while the brain solves it effortless.

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (31) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 976 | E-mail

Native americans came from Sibiria with one migration wave. (Painting from the early 20th century, public domain from: Nordisk familjebok)

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (25) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1244 | E-mail

Oxygen factory in the earth crust: precondition for life on earth. Courtesy: photocase.com

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (25) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1175 | E-mail

Pigs, in the west most consumed meat. First domesticated forms came from the middle east to europe (Courtesy of photocase.com)

Researchers from the universities in Switzerland (Joerg Schibler), England (Greger Larson) and Ireland (Keith Dobney) revealed new insights into the origin of modern house pigs and the spread of early agricultural populations in neolithic europe. Scientist from Basel/Switzerland, Oxford/England and Durham/Ireland analysed genetically more then 200 probes of ancient teeth and bones of pigs found at different archaelogical sites of early settlements (7000 years old).

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (25) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1417 | E-mail

The cortex (folded area at the outer regions) is responsible for sleep triggering (Courtesy of photocase.com

Computer modelling reveals intensive interaction between two brain regions. The Thalamus is a part of the brainstem and a filter between incoming environmental stimuli and the cortex, the cognitive part of the human brain.

Now researchers (physicists, medical doctors and biologists) from the universities in Kiel and Luebeck, Germany, developed a computer model which simulates the specific thalamic waves which occur during sleep and their direct connection to the cortex. Such brain activity is usually measured via EEGs (electro encephalographie).

 

Tag it:

?

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (25) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1331 | E-mail