Science X Newsletter Week 06

	Global warming slowdown: No systematic errors in climate models Sceptics who still doubt anthropogenic climate change have now been stripped of one of their last-ditch arguments: It is true that there has been a warming hiatus and that the surface of the earth has warmed up much less rapidly since the turn of the millennium than all the relevant climate models had predicted. However, the gap between the calculated and measured warming is not due to systematic errors of the models, as the sceptics had suspected, but because there are always random fluctuations in the Earth's climate. Recently, Jochem Marotzke, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, and Piers M. Forster, a professor at the University of Leeds in the UK, have impressively demonstrated this by means of a comprehensive statistical analysis. They also clearly showed that the models do not generally overestimate man-made climate change. Global warming is therefore highly likely to reach critical proportions ! by the end of the century - if the global community does not finally get to grips with the problem.
	Scientists discover organism that hasn't evolved in more than 2 billion years (Phys.org)—An international team of scientists has discovered the greatest absence of evolution ever reported—a type of deep-sea microorganism that appears not to have evolved over more than 2 billion years. But the researchers say that the organisms' lack of evolution actually supports Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
	Penta-graphene, a new structural variant of carbon, discovered Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and universities in China and Japan have discovered a new structural variant of carbon called "penta-graphene" - a very thin sheet of pure carbon that has a unique structure inspired by a pentagonal pattern of tiles found paving the streets of Cairo.
	Cheap and abundant chemical outperforms precious metals as a catalyst A team of Caltech chemists has discovered a method for producing a group of silicon-containing organic chemicals without relying on expensive precious metal catalysts. Instead, the new technique uses as a catalyst a cheap, abundant chemical that is commonly found in chemistry labs around the world—potassium tert-butoxide—to help create a host of products ranging from new medicines to advanced materials. And it turns out that the potassium salt is more effective than state-of-the-art precious metal complexes at running very challenging chemical reactions.
	New process allows for stronger, lighter, flexible steel (Phys.org) —A trio of researchers with South Korea's Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology has found a way to create a new low-density steel that is stronger, lighter and more flexible than the conventional steel that is used in so many manufacturing applications. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes the process they used and their hopes that it might replace conventional steel in some applications sometime in the near future.
	Closer view of Ceres shows multiple white spots NASA's Dawn spacecraft has acquired its latest and closest-yet snapshot of the mysterious dwarf planet world Ceres. These latest images, taken on Feb. 4, from a distance of about 90,000 miles (145,000 km) clearly show craters – including a couple with central peaks –  and a clearer though still ambiguous view of that wild white spot that has so many of us scratching our heads as to its nature.
	Octopus robot makes waves with ultra-fast propulsion Scientists have developed an octopus-like robot, which can zoom through water with ultra-fast propulsion and acceleration never before seen in man-made underwater vehicles.
	Floating wind turbines bring electricity where it's needed It's a balloon that lifts a wind turbine. That's the easiest way to describe the technology being developed by Altaeros Energies, led by Ben Glass, inventor and CEO of the young company. Glass has reimagined the possibilities of balloon and airship technology to lift a wind turbine.
	The future of holographic video Holographic video displays, featuring three-dimensional images, are about to "go large" and become a lot more affordable at the same time, thanks to the work of a team of Brigham Young University (BYU) researchers and their collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
	Physicists reach new milestone measuring half-life of iron-60 (Phys.org)—A team of physicists affiliated with institutions in Australia, Switzerland and Austria has made the most accurate measurement to date of the half life of iron-60. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describes their approach and note that their efforts will now allow the isotope to be used to date astronomical events.
	Scientists discover viral 'Enigma machine' Researchers have cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio.
	Sea slug has taken genes from algae it eats, allowing it to photosynthesize like a plant How a brilliant-green sea slug manages to live for months at a time "feeding" on sunlight, like a plant, is clarified in a recent study published in The Biological Bulletin.
	Stars are younger: 'Reionization' is more recent than predicted The highly anticipated update of the analysis of data from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite starts with a first paper published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, which already holds in store a few major surprises. The first article in fact "rejuvenates" the stars of our Universe. Thanks to new maps of cosmic background radiation (in particular, those containing "polarization anisotropies" of radiation) scientists have found that the "reionization" process could be more recent than estimated until now.
	Evidence from warm past confirms recent IPCC estimates of climate sensitivity New evidence showing the level of atmospheric CO2 millions of years ago supports recent climate change predications from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
	New Horizons returns new images of Pluto (Phys.org)—Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh could only dream of a spacecraft flying past the small planet he spotted on the edges of the solar system in 1930. Yet the newest views of Pluto from NASA's approaching New Horizons probe – released today, on the late American astronomer's birthday – hint at just how close that dream is to coming true.
	Cosmology: Late news from the Big Bang Viatcheslav Mukhanov, cosmologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, models the first instants after the creation of our Universe. Data from the Planck telescope have now confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt his theory of the quantum origin of structure in the Universe.
	Mining the moon becomes a serious prospect With an estimated 1.6 billion tonnes of water ice at its poles and an abundance of rare-earth elements hidden below its surface, the moon is rich ground for mining.
	Researchers describe the wavefunction of Schroedinger's cat Schrödinger's cat highlights a long-standing dilemma in quantum mechanics: is the cat really alive and dead, or is the weirdness just in our head?
	Wrinkle predictions: New mathematical theory may explain patterns in fingerprints, raisins, and microlenses As a grape slowly dries and shrivels, its surface creases, ultimately taking on the wrinkled form of a raisin. Similar patterns can be found on the surfaces of other dried materials, as well as in human fingerprints. While these patterns have long been observed in nature, and more recently in experiments, scientists have not been able to come up with a way to predict how such patterns arise in curved systems, such as microlenses.
	Cat shelter findings: Less stress with box access Out of all those cat videos that keep your eyes glued to the screen far longer than you would care to acknowledge, you may have seen some showing little and big cats trying their best to snuggle into big and too-little cardboard boxes. What makes them so content about being in a box? Scientists have spent much time looking for answers. "Will a hiding box provide stress reduction for shelter cats?" That is one such exploration, published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, the journal of the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE).

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