(Reconstruction of a copy of Hadrocodium. Photo: Mark A. Kingler / Carnegie Museum)

“A sense of smell and touch more accurate would have been crucial for mammals to survive and thrive during the early stage of our evolutionary history,” said Zhe-Xi Luo, one of the authors of the study and researcher at the Museum Carnegie Natural History in Pittsburgh (USA).

The study, published in the journal Science, Analyzes fossils 190 million years ago belonging to two genera of mammals known: Morganucodon and Hadrocodium. Both specimens, found in a Jurassic fossil deposit in China, had a brain much larger than expected for specimens of his time and compared with body mass.

Former fossil tests had shown the authors that the nasal structure of some of the earliest mammals were quite advanced. The results of this investigation determined that a brain area that had grown more Morganucodon and Hadrocodium was responsible for the sense of smell. They also observed an increase in tactile sensitivity and improved neuromuscular coordination.

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(Sampling of eels in the inner estuary of the River Oria (Guipuzcoa). Image: AZTI-Tecnalia)

The studies done in the waters of Oria order to verify the survival and growth of the three phases of the European eel (eel, and eel angulón) in order to develop and implement tools aimed at the implementation of recovery plans species, so that contributes to the conservation objectives set out in the Plan for European eel management of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country approved by the European Commission on October 1, 2010.

In addition to reforestation, the project will improve information on the status of the elver stage, estimate the leakage of silver eels and mortality caused by electric turbines in the reproductive phase, and also calculate what the wet surface of the Oria basins.

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(Asphaltene molecule. Image: Sciencepics)

The oil-derived aromatic molecules and present in ‘tar’, asphaltenes are stable in ionic liquids (green solvents), and capable of detecting in those disolventes.Así says a study published in the journal Energy & Fuels ‘.

This procedure opens the door to development of processes of chemical transformation of asphaltenes in these solvents for use as raw materials or disposal in disasters caused by oil spills.

Researchers at the University Pablo de Olavide are proposed to elucidate the molecular basis responsible for molecular recognition. Specifically, the panel is “to understand why a structure is able to recognize a particular molecule, what interactions are involved and if the molecules have to deform a lot when you meet each other and naturally or are prepared to join as a key in a lock, “says Bruno Martinez Hague, director of the study and professor of Chemical and Natural Physical Systems of the University Pablo de Olavide.

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(The feasibility of this procedure is tested biofilter inoculation. Image: UCA)

Unpleasant odors arising from the treatment plants or pumping stations are usually treated with activated carbon filters or scrubbers using sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH), two systems “works quite well but are a high maintenance cost, “said Martin Ramirez, a member of the working group of the UCA.

In the case of coal, “after his exhaustion, he creates a residue that must be taken to the landfill and its withdrawal is a very unhealthy,” says Ramirez, whose group has chosen to use a trickling biofilter. “This is a biological process consisting of a column packed with a synthetic filling polyurethane foam. The contaminated air passes through the upstream fill. In turn, a stream of water falls as rain on the material filling, so that the compounds responsible for odors pass from air to water thus being available for microorganisms, “he explains.

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(Recreation LISA mission. Credits: ESA)

In February 2011, the European Space Agency (ESA) Initiated a process to choose the next important task in its space program in 2015-2025. Among the candidates is the first gravitational wave observatory in space, called LISA (Short for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), in which NASA has worked from the beginning.

However, due to the extra cost on the mission of the James Webb Space Telescope and the priorities established by the Astronomy Decadal Surveyin August 2010, the U.S. space agency recently announced the inability to collaborate in LISA in financial terms agreed to co-financing in the time required by the ESA. Thus, the European agency has just begun the process of redesigning LISA to make it compatible with a European single budget, a process involving Spanish scientists.

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Carbon is the basis for the suit life forms known, but the Big Bang did not produuce carbon, where it comes from then? To explain, more than 50 years ago, the astrophysicist Fred Hoyle calculated that when a star in the center of three helium nuclei come together, it is difficult to combine to form carbon-12 in the form as we know it. So he suggested the existence of a new state of carbon 12 with an energy suitable to make possible the formation of carbon in stars. This new state called the state of Hoyle. Subsequent experiments showed that this carbon was there, but nobody has been able to reproduce the state of Hoyle “from below”, from the known interactions between protons and neutrons.

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(Spanish and French researchers created a new method to use methane as a feedstock. Picture: Marco Crocoli)

Methane is a gaseous substance whose main characteristic is stability: the atoms in this molecule (CH4) are tightly and turn it into another substance is one of the challenges of modern chemistry.

A team of researchers at the University of Huelva and the University of Valencia, with the collaboration of scientists from Toulouse (France), was awarded for the first time, to convert methane to propionate. To do this, have used a substance (containing silver) as catalyst, reacted to methane and other reactive-diazo-compound to give rise to the final product, ethyl propionate.

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A discovery made by researchers at the EPFL will improve the efficiency of photo-electrochemical cells used to produce hydrogen from water. The photo-electrochemical cells convert sunlight into energy used to produce chemical reactions, just like plants do in photosynthesis. The process uses light-sensitive semiconductor materials, such as cuprous oxide, to produce the current needed to power the reactions.

The problem for the use of this oxide in the direct production of hydrogen from water is the fact that its exposure to light in the water makes it unstable, losing the material to its semiconducting properties.

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Massive flows of molecular gas that escape galaxies have been observed directly for the first time ESA Herschel Space Observatory. The winds recorded to be extraordinary for both size and speed: The fastest observed so far moves at a speed of more than one thousand kilometers per second.

The discovery is significant because its stars form the interstellar gas in galaxies and streams as intense as those found in some of them could herald the arrest of the formation of new stars in those cosmic structures.

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The ants of the tropical species Camponotus leonardi, Dweller of the time of the forests, are known for when they are infected with the parasitic fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, Their behavior changes dramatically.

Now a study conducted by an international team of biologists has clarified some of the mechanisms of the fungus, which is illustrated in an article in the journal BMC Ecology.

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