Scientists come one step closer in detection of fundamental building block of nature

September 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Physicists at UC (University of California) San Diego have successfully created speedy integrated circuits with particles called "excitons" that operate at commercially cold temperatures, bringing the possibility of a new type of extremely fast computer based on excitons closer to reality. Their discovery follows the team's demonstration last summer of an integrated circuit-an assembly of transistors that is the building block for all electronic devices-capable of working at 1.5 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero.

September 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have discovered molecules that could confuse insects' ability to detect plants by interfering with their sense of smell, which could reduce damage to crops by insect pests and contribute to food security. Scientists at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) made the discovery.

September 16th, 2009 White House: Senate health bill a 'building block'WASHINGTON — The White House says a health care reform bill from a key Senate committee is "an important building block" in getting closer to comprehensive health care reform. Sen. Max Baucus released the long-awaited version of the bill from his Senate Finance committee Wednesday.

September 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have come closer to engineering drug-free cannabis plant after identifying genes that produce psychoactive substance in marijuana. University of Minnesota researchers have identified genes producing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive substance in marijuana, which could lead to new and better drugs for pain, nausea and other conditions.

August 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. "Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr.

July 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - We've all been through the familiar experience of feeling sleepy while driving. But what if your car could nudge you when you started yawning and warn you to pull over and take a break? That's the aim of a new in-car yawn-detection system being developed by an Indian-American and two other budding Indian scientists.

July 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists has successfully conducted the first remote detection of a harmful algal species and its toxin below the ocean's surface. The detection was made by scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).

July 8th, 2009 New technique finds ancient star explosionsWASHINGTON — Astronomers have spotted the most distant and oldest star explosions yet in the universe. Scientists captured the fuzzy death throes of two supernovae (soo-per-noh-vee) that date back nearly 11 billion years.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of researchers at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) have come up with a device called a dc metamaterial, which makes objects invisible under certain light. The device does so, according to the researchers, under very low frequency electromagnetic waves by making the inside of the magnetic field zero, but not altering the exterior field.

June 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A renowned scholar has cast doubts on the efficiency of new lie-detection methods. The conventional truth-seeking technologies have been replaced by new brain-based techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and the electroencephalography(EEG)-based technology known as Brain Fingerprinting(r).

May 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Soon, scientists are literally going to produce plastic that grows on trees, starting from a one-stop process that derives raw material for fuels and plastic from plants rather than crude oil. In a new research, chemists have successfully converted cellulose, which is the most common plant carbohydrate, directly into the building block called HMF in one step.

May 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new technique tracks movement of freely moving single neutral atoms in real time, that is more than 99.7 percent accurate and sensitive enough to discern the arrival of a single atom in less than a millionth of a second. The system, developed by researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) in College Park and the Universidad de Concepcion in Chile, employs a novel means of altering the polarisation of laser light trapped between two highly-reflective mirrors, according to a JQI release.

May 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have discovered where basking sharks - the world's second largest fish - hide out for half of every year. The discovery revises scientists' understanding of the iconic species and highlights just how little we still know about even the largest of marine animals.

March 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say that they may have developed a new tool to enhance the way computer chips, LEDs, and transistors are built by reversing a process that converts electrical signals into sounds heard out of a cell phone. The researchers claim that this is the first time that any research team have converted the highest frequency sounds into light by reversing a process that converts electrical signals to sound.

March 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of scientists has discovered a novel one dimensional ice chain structure built from pentagons that may prove to be a step toward the development of new materials which can be used to seed clouds and cause rain. "For the first time, we have shown that ice can build an extended one dimensional chain structure entirely from pentagons and not hexagons," said Dr Angelos Michaelides from the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin.