Our personalities play an important role in every aspect of our lives, from hobbies to friendships and even whom to marry. And besides, as evidenced by Jeffery Mondak research, summarized in a recent book, our personalities also play an important role in our political behavior.

The findings of Jeffery Mondak in “Personality and the Foundations of Political Behavior” (“Personality and Political Behavior Basics”), published by Cambridge University Press, from more than 13 years of study of the intersection between psychology and politics, and based on his own research and those of other experts. Read the rest of this entry »

Combining nature and Greek mythology, researchers at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) have developed a “Trojan Horse” tiny to inject anticancer drugs directly to cancer cells. With this system, drugs are released only when they are inside them. Thus, there are no damage to healthy cells in the surrounding area.

Yoav Livney team created a system linking folic acid and an anticancer drug to an extract of larch, a tree abundant in the vast boreal forests of Russia and Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

Every day, millions of microorganisms come flying to Spain from the Sahara Desert and the Sahel region. Louis Pasteur showed in 1861 that microbes can move through the air, but only recently discovered that bacteria, fungi and viruses can travel thousands of miles trapped dust particles. The satellite images show clouds of dust particles that class sizes very similar to that of the Iberian Peninsula.

For the first time, the international project team has analyzed these microorganisms Ecosensor travelers using molecular biology techniques. In addition to identifying the species, researchers have found that these organisms colonize in mountain lakes at high altitudes, such as in Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees. They have also found that the phenomenon is increasing because of global climate change. Read the rest of this entry »

The recent publication of the complete genome sequence of an actual sea sponge, reveals genes that date back hundreds of millions of years ago. The genome sequence shows the high genetic complexity that existed at the time and reveals that the genetic roots of cancer evolutionary sink in these animals.

A team of scientists, including four from the University of California at Santa Barbara, carried out the sequencing of the current genome of a marine sponge from Great Barrier Reef of Australia. The sponge belongs to a group of organisms of 650 million years old. Read the rest of this entry »

An archaeologist who has studied Easter Island, famous for its mysterious stone statues, blames outsiders, rather than the native population of the island as has been believed until now, the decline suffered for centuries by civilization that built the statues.

Research conducted by archaeologist Karina Croucher, University of Manchester, supports the increasingly widespread view on the historical role of old people who lived on the island of Rapa Nui, dubbed “Easter Island” by European sailors first came upon her in 1722. Read the rest of this entry »

CUn international team of scientists identified a gene variant that may explain the cause of several common types of migraine. The study, which analyzed genetic data from more than 50,000 people, provides the first information about what might cause some people more susceptible to migraine. The researchers, who published details of the study in the journal Nature Genetics, hope the study will lead to the development of new therapies against the disorder that affects one in six women and one in 12 men.

Migraine is a disorder that causes the release of the nerves and blood vessels in the head of inflammatory chemicals that cause pain. Usually migraine attacks occur once a month, but the frequency can vary from once a year to once a week. Read the rest of this entry »

The Kepler observatory has discovered two new planets like Saturn orbiting a star and a third possible candidate with an approximate size to Earth, NASA announced.

This is the first time that the probe, with its complex systems, captures more of a transiting planet around a star. According to scientists, this finding will better understand the origin and evolution of planets from the calculations of density, mass and temperature, and analysis of the interaction of two bodies between them and their star.

The two planets have been named as Kepler 9b and Kepler 9c, and orbit at a distance of 2,000 light years from Earth. Its composition is similar to that of Saturn because they are composed of gas, possibly hydrogen and helium, as explained in a conference call the director of the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, Matthew Holman. The expert and his team analyzed seven months of data of 156,000 stars sent by the powerful telescope, which in its first year of life discovered five planetary bodies beyond the solar system, called exoplanets. Read the rest of this entry »

To resist the summer heat, winter cold and other harsh environmental conditions, many insects fall temporarily in a state similar to hibernation to conserve energy. A team of scientists believe that this phenomenon could be exploited to develop new methods of pest control.

The study shows that different agencies use different mechanisms to reach that period of numbness and arrested development in a state similar to hibernation, called diapause. Read the rest of this entry »

A delicate wine glass crashing to the ground. A stone is thrown against a window pane. Someone broke a ceramic figurine hammer to see what lurks inside. Moments like these in an animated film in a video game or a Virtual Reality environment, will not seem real unless the sound is perfectly matched with action. However, that kind of sounds is very difficult to synthesize.

A team of scientists from Cornell University is developing technology to synthesize the sounds that correspond to computer-animated images of brittle materials to be destroyed. Read the rest of this entry »

A high capacity video surveillance may not be of much use if not accompanied by the necessary work of image analysis. Without this work, one should run with the risk that suspicious acts are overlooked, or they may raise false alarms.

The cost of knowing what is happening is very high. “The problem now is that we can not put more cameras, the problem is to observe what they show is very expensive and error prone,” said Paul Cohen, head of the department of computer science at the University of Arizona.

To help mitigate some of these limitations, Cohen and his collaborators are working to build an intuitive, not only to capture video, but also to detect suspicious human behaviors. Read the rest of this entry »