ScienceDaily: Top Science News

Have a sense of purpose in life? It may protect your heart Posted: 06 Mar 2015 10:25 AM PST Having a high sense of purpose in life may lower your risk of heart disease and stroke, according to a new study.

NASA spacecraft becomes first to orbit a dwarf planet Posted: 06 Mar 2015 07:28 AM PST NASA's Dawn spacecraft has become the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet. The spacecraft was approximately 38,000 miles (61,000) kilometers from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet's gravity at about 4:39 a.m. PST (7:39 a.m. EST) Friday.

Stuck-in-the-mud plankton reveal ancient temperatures Posted: 06 Mar 2015 07:27 AM PST New research showing how tiny creatures drifted across the ocean before falling to the seafloor and being fossilized has the potential to improve our understanding of past climates, scientists say.

Melting glaciers create noisiest places in ocean, study says Posted: 06 Mar 2015 07:26 AM PST Researchers measure underwater noise in Alaskan and Antarctic fjords and find them to be the noisiest places in the ocean. This leads researchers to ask how animals such as whales and seals use the noise and what will happen to fjord ecosystems once the glaciers recede and the noise disappears.

'Habitable' planet GJ 581d previously dismissed as noise probably does exist Posted: 06 Mar 2015 07:26 AM PST A new report has dismissed claims made last year that the first super-Earth planet discovered in the habitable zone of a distant star was 'stellar activity masquerading as planets.' The researchers are confident the planet named GJ 581d, identified in 2009 orbiting the star Gliese 581, does exist, and that last year's claim was triggered by inadequate analysis of the data.

Losing 30 minutes of sleep per day may promote weight gain and adversely affect blood sugar control Posted: 06 Mar 2015 05:25 AM PST Losing as little as 30 minutes of sleep per day on weekdays can have long-term consequences for body weight and metabolism, a new study finds.

How drowsy microbes in Arctic tundra change to methane-makers as permafrost thaws Posted: 04 Mar 2015 04:02 PM PST As the Arctic warms, tons of carbon locked away in Arctic tundra will be transformed into the powerful greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane, but scientists know little about how that transition takes place. Scientists looking at microbes in different types of Arctic soil now have a new picture of life in permafrost that reveals entirely new species and hints that subzero microbes might be active.

Combined Arctic ice observations show decades of loss Posted: 03 Mar 2015 06:58 AM PST Historic submarine and modern satellite records show that average ice thickness in the central Arctic Ocean dropped by 65 percent from 1975 to 2012. September ice thickness, when the ice cover is at a minimum, dropped by 85 percent.