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How does a memory form? To demonstrate how this process occurs at the most basic level, biophysicists at Tel Aviv University replicated that event with neurons attached to a computer chip. Itay Baruchi and Eshel Ben-Jacob placed neurons from rat embryos on a chip surface and connected 64 electrodes to record activity. The researchers witnessed an identical pattern of nerve firings when chemical stimulants were dropped repeatedly at the same location on the chip....

Ice cream is a complex, three-phase food system in which ice (solid), air (gas) and unfrozen water (liquid) coexist. Much that makes ice cream an indulgence derives from its relatively high fat content, which can range from 10 to 18 percent in premium varieties. In addition to its role in taste and flavor development, fat is crucial to ice cream’s texture. No wonder, then, that most low-fat varieties fail to offer the same taste sensation....

By Marice Richter DALLAS (Reuters) - Seismologists installed more earthquake-monitoring devices in the Dallas suburb of Irving on Thursday as officials examined contingency plans after a series of temblors raised concerns for the area near the former Dallas Cowboys football stadium. The quakes this week did not cause any major damage or injuries, but were unusual in the area that is relatively free from significant seismic events. Clay Jenkins, the top political official in Dallas County who is also responsible for emergency management, said that although the threat for a major earthquake in the county remains low, the preparations are warranted....

As mollusks go, Ctenoides ales is quite literally one of the flashiest. A native of the Indo-Pacific region, the creature is known as the disco clam because the soft tissues of its ‘lips’ flash like a mirror ball above a dance floor. A study published today finds that the disco clam achieves this using nanoparticles of silica to reflect light. This kind of control is a feat that is apparently unique in nature....

The primary force behind all three of these challenges is of course, humanity, which now puts more nitrogen into the soil than biogeochemical processes and hijacks some 40 percent of the photosynthetic product of plants on land. Our species has also become the determining factor in the carbon cycle, emitting more than 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year and slowly changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No wonder some scientists have argued that this is a new era in the planet’s history, one best described as the Anthropocene....

Looking out his office window, Marc Schiltz sees two renovated blast furnaces, reminders of Luxembourg’s heritage and symbols of its future. The furnaces sit at the heart of the Belval innovation campus, a research and development center and the result of 10 years and €1 billion in investment. Schiltz runs the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), the country’s main public research funding organization, which also advises Luxembourg’s government on science and research policies....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. For centuries, astronomers have realized that total solar eclipses offer a valuable scientific opportunity. During what’s called totality, the opaque moon completely hides the bright photosphere of the sun – its thin surface layer that emits most of the sun’s light. An eclipse allows astronomers to study the sun’s colorful outer atmosphere and its delicate extended corona, ordinarily invisible in the dazzling light of the photosphere....

Imagine that you have just arrived on a planet in another solar system. Suddenly, five minutes after you landed, you spot an alien life-form. This is an amazing discovery! You may well spend decades trying to understand this exotic being, probing its properties and investigating how it came to be there. At the same time, you expect that there may be other fascinating creatures around, maybe even more intriguing than the first and possibly much harder to get a glimpse of....

By Nicole MordantVANCOUVER (Reuters) - Large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed poses serious risks to salmon and native cultures in this pristine corner of southwest Alaska, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report released on Wednesday.The EPA said a mine could destroy up to 94 miles of salmon-supporting streams and thousands of acres of wetlands, ponds and lakes. The report focused on the impact of mining in an area where a Canadian-based company wants to build a large copper and gold mine....

Researchers have discovered that a drug marketed to slow the progression of memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease may also prevent brain damage in as many as 35 percent of premature infants. Scientists at Children’s Hospital Boston in a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience say they used memantine (brand name Namenda) to stop strokes‚Äîthat would result in learning difficulties, behavioral problems and faulty motor function‚Äîin rats. The researchers hope to receive permission sometime in the next five years to test their new treatment in premature babies who suffer strokes....

Americans, on average, spend around 90 percent of their time indoors, and now the nation’s leading group of architects has found inspiration in this somewhat glum fact. The professionals who design our working and living quarters are starting to see all these confined hours as a major opportunity for them to make a meaningful impact on public health. Today, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) announced its latest effort along these lines—a three-year partnership among 11 architectural schools whose research programs will further explore the notion that building design, city planning and health should go hand in hand....

In apes and humans, the prefrontal cortex is the seat of higher-order cognition, allowing us to reason about the world around us. Insect brains are much simpler and lack anything resembling a prefrontal cortex, yet a new study finds that honeybees can learn to differentiate between objects based on their relation to one another, such as “same or different” and “above or below.” Researchers at the University of Toulouse in France and their colleagues trained bees to enter a Y-shaped maze and travel down one of the arms to receive a reward....

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing has closed the first of four large coal-fired power plants set to be de-commissioned as part of the city’s efforts to cut air pollution, official news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday, citing the local planning agency. Xinhua said the authorities had shut down the Gaojing Thermal Power Plant’s six 100 megawatt generating units. The plant is owned by the China Datang Corporation, one of China’s big five state power firms....

By Meredith Wadman of Nature magazineA panel advising President Barack Obama on bioethical matters says that although human subjects in U.S. government-funded research are generally protected by existing rules and regulations, their safety and well-being could be enhanced with stronger measures, including increased public transparency and a system of compensating subjects who sustain research-related injuries.In a 200-page report released on 15 December, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues further concludes that it “cannot say that all federally funded research provides optimal protections against avoidable harms and unethical treatment”....

From Nature magazine The yellow warbler may not pull a perfect latte, but it turns out it’s a friend to coffee drinkers all the same. Research in Costa Rica shows that hungry warblers and other birds significantly reduce damage by a devastating coffee pest, the coffee berry borer beetle. A study found that insectivorous birds cut infestations by the beetle Hypothenemus hampei by about half, saving a medium-sized coffee farm up to US$9,400 over a year’s harvest — roughly equal to Costa Rica’s average per-capita income....

From Quanta Magazine (find original story here). Dark energy has topped cosmologists’ “most wanted” list since 1998, when astronomers noticed that the expansion of the universe is speeding up rather than slowing down. The entity responsible—whatever it is—must be incredibly powerful, constituting nearly 70 percent of the universe. Figuring out the identity of this dark energy is “arguably the most important problem in physics,” said Clare Burrage of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom....

Details of what the universe was like before the big bang may be forever lost to us, according to a new analysis. Einstein’s theory of gravity, general relativity, describes the evolution of the cosmos but breaks down at the moment of the big bang, preventing researchers from understanding its origins. To glimpse behind the veil, a researcher has applied a speculative theory that treats the universe as pixilated into tiny atom-like units of space and time....

Was it hotter than average? Colder? About in the middle? The answer is . . . yes, depending on where you live. However, even with rounds of record cold air this summer, none of the cities we analyzed is close to setting a record low for the entire season. Meanwhile, there are some cities across the West that are sizzling through one of their hottest summers on record. It’s a good reminder that in a world that’s warming overall under a growing blanket of greenhouse-gas pollution, each year won’t necessarily be warmer than the year before in every region....

Earth is the planet of the plants—and it all can be traced back to one green cell. The world’s lush profusion of photosynthesizers—from towering redwoods to ubiquitous diatoms—owe their existence to a tiny alga eons ago that swallowed a cyanobacteria and turned it into an internal solar power plant. By studying the genetics of a glaucophyte—one of a group of just 13 unique microscopic freshwater blue-green algae, sometimes called “living fossils”—an international consortium of scientists led by molecular bioscientist Dana Price of Rutgers University, has elucidated the evolutionary history of plants....

By Eric Hand of Nature magazineJohn Grunsfeld, an astrophysicist and astronaut who fixed the Hubble Space Telescope, has been chosen to lead NASA’s science mission directorate, according to several sources with knowledge of the selection.Grunsfeld is currently deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which operates Hubble. He would replace Ed Weiler, who resigned his post as NASA associate administrator in September.“John is a very capable guy,” says Weiler....