Articles by News Staff

Poor olfaction predicts Parkinson’s disease in short and intermediate terms, according to Chen et al. Image credit: Northwestern University.

Simple Scratch-And-Sniff Test Could Spot Parkinson’s Disease in Early Stages

Sep 8, 2017 by News Staff

A simple smell test may one day be able to help identify people at greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease up to 10 years before the disease could...

Pluto’s first official surface-feature names are marked on this map, compiled from images and data gathered by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its flight through the Pluto system in 2015. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Ross Beyer.

Pluto’s Surface Features Get Official Names

Sep 7, 2017 by News Staff

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features, has officially...

Higher intake of red meat and poultry is associated with significantly increased risk of developing diabetes. Image credit: Snufkin.

Red Meat and Poultry Consumption Increases Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Study Finds

Sep 7, 2017 by News Staff

In a research article published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, Professor Koh Woon Puay of the Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and colleagues...

Schematic view of a large-scale quantum processor based upon phosphorus (31P) donors in silicon, operated and coupled through the use of an induced electric dipole. Idle qubits have electrons at the interface, leaving the 31P nucleus in the ultra-coherent ionized state. Electrons are partially shifted toward the donor for quantum operations. The sketch shows a possible architecture where a cluster of qubits is locally coupled via the electric dipole, and a subgroup thereof is further coupled to another cluster through interaction with a shared microwave cavity (aqua). Image credit: Guilherme Tosi, University of New South Wales.

Researchers Invent New Architecture for Quantum Computing

Sep 7, 2017 by News Staff

A new architecture, based on so-called ‘flip-flop’ qubits, allows for a silicon quantum processor that can be scaled up without the precise placement...

‘Vampires’ May Have Been Real People with Erythropoietic Protoporphyria, Researchers Say

Sep 7, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Barry Paw of the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, has identified a genetic...

Zika Virus Kills Glioblastoma Stem Cells, New Research Shows

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

In a research paper published this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, scientists report that Zika virus could be used to target and kill brain...

Mostafavi et al found a drop in some harmful genetic mutations in longer-lived people. Image credit: Darryl Leja, NHGRI / CC BY 2.0.

Natural Selection is Still Happening in Modern Human Populations, Major Genetic Study Finds

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

Genetic variants linked to Alzheimer’s disease and heavy smoking are less frequent in people with longer lifespans, suggesting that natural selection...

Zeolitic ice (left) and aeroice (right) are illustrated: their structure can be regarded as combinations of a couple of polyhedral building blocks. In molecular scale, each polygonal face of the polyhedra is made of water molecules (left bottom); yellow lines are hydrogen bonds. Image credit: Masakazu Matsumoto / CC BY 2.0.

Scientists Predict Existence of Ultralow-Density Ices: ‘Aeroices’

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

A research team at Okayama University in Japan has theoretically predicted a new class of ice phases, called aeroices, likely the most stable solid phases...

PSR J0952-0607 (lower right) rotates 707 times a second and now ranks as second-fastest pulsar known. The location of LOFAR’s first millisecond pulsar discovery, PSR J1552+5437, which spins 412 times a second, is shown at upper left. Image credit: NASA / DOE / Fermi LAT Collaboration / ASTRON.

Second-Fastest-Spinning Pulsar Found

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has discovered a pulsar — the core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova — spinning at more than...

Cory’s shearwaters from the Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland. Image credit: Richard Crossley / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study: Olfaction is Key Factor in Bird Navigation

Sep 5, 2017 by News Staff

Olfaction (sense of smell) is a key factor in long-distance oceanic navigation in birds, according to a new University of Oxford-led study. Cory’s shearwaters...

Olive Oil-Enriched Dark Chocolate Improves Cardiovascular Risk Profile

Sep 5, 2017 by News Staff

A new study from University of Pisa researchers has found that small daily portions of extra virgin olive oil-enriched dark chocolate are associated with...

Life restoration of the Upper Cretaceous plesiosaur Morturneria seymourensis. Image credit: Texas Tech University.

Antarctic Plesiosaur Filtered Food Like Modern Baleen Whales

Sep 4, 2017 by News Staff

In 1984, Texas Tech University paleontologists Sankar Chatterjee and Bryan Small unearthed the fossilized skull of a previously unknown marine reptile...

This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5559, which lies in the constellation Boötes, about 252 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Space Telescope Looks at Stunning Spiral: NGC 5559

Sep 4, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the spiral galaxy NGC 5559. This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC...

An illustration of JAXA’s Akatsuki orbiter successfully tracking lower-altitude clouds during the night with its near-infrared camera IR2. Image credit: PLANET-C Project Team.

JAXA’s Akatsuki Orbiter Spots Equatorial Jet in Venus’ Atmosphere

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

New observations from Akatsuki, a robotic spacecraft launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2010 to orbit Venus, have revealed an...

According to Rowley IV et al, cocoa compounds have beneficial effects on beta-cell function. Image credit: Pernilla Klockars.

Study: Cocoa Compounds Help Cells Release More Insulin

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

When a person has diabetes, their body either doesn’t produce enough insulin or doesn’t process blood sugar properly; at the root of that is the failure...

The Trachilos footprints were discovered by Dr. Gerard Gierlinski, a paleontologist at the Polish Geological Institute, by chance when he was on holiday on Crete in 2002. Dr. Gierlinski identified the footprints as those of a mammal. In 2010, he returned to the site together with Dr. Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, a Polish paleontologist at Uppsala University, to study the footprints in detail. Together they came to the conclusion that the footprints were made by hominins. Image credit: Andrzej Boczarowski.

5.6-Million-Year-Old Hominin-Like Footprints in Crete Challenge Theories of Human Evolution

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers have found late Miocene footprints — which show hominin-like characteristics — near the village of Trachilos, west of Kissamos,...

This artist’s concept allows us to imagine what it would be like to stand on the surface of TRAPPIST-1f. Because this planet is thought to be tidally locked to its star, meaning the same face of the planet is always pointed at the star, there would be a region called the terminator that perpetually divides day and night. If the night side is icy, the day side might give way to liquid water in the area where sufficient starlight hits the surface. One of the unusual features of TRAPPIST-1 planets is how close they are to each other -- so close that other planets could be visible in the sky from the surface of each one. In this view, the planets in the sky correspond to TRAPPIST1e (top left crescent), d (middle crescent) and c (bright dot to the lower right of the crescents). TRAPPIST-1e would appear about the same size as the Moon and TRAPPIST1-c is on the far side of the star. The star itself, an ultra-cool dwarf, would appear about three times larger than our own Sun does in Earth’s skies. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Catlech.

TRAPPIST-1’s Outer Planets May Harbor Water, New Study Finds

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

In a research paper to appear in the Astronomical Journal (arXiv.org preprint), astronomers from MIT, the Geneva Observatory and elsewhere report that...

Sa and Seu Chiquinho sites featuring circular, square, and U-shaped earthworks. Image credit: Sanna Saunaluoma.

Researchers Uncover Purpose of Mysterious Amazonian Geoglyphs

Aug 31, 2017 by News Staff

Geometrical earthworks found in the Amazon rainforest — dubbed the Geoglyphs of Acre — were once important ritual communication spaces, says...

Astronomers Detect Methylidynium in Distant Star-Forming Galaxies

Aug 31, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of CH+ — an ion of the CH molecule known as methylidynium to chemists — in distant...

The recovered nova of 1437 and its ejected shell (false color). The now-quiescent star that produced the nova shell is indicated with greenish-blue tick marks; it is far from the shell’s center today. However, its measured motion across the sky places it at the greenish-blue plus sign in 1437. The position of the center of the shell in 2016 and its deduced position in 1437 are indicated with yellow and magenta plus signs, respectively. Image credit: K. Ilkiewicz & J. Mikolajewska.

Astronomers Pinpoint Location of Nova First Spotted by Koreans 580 Years Ago

Aug 31, 2017 by News Staff

On March 11, 1437, Korean royal astronomers spotted a bright new star in the constellation Scorpius. From the ancient records, modern astronomers determined...

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