Other Sciences News

36,500-Year-Old Human Genomes from Crimea Shed New Light on First Europeans

The occasional use of stone tools as ‘strike-a-lights’ was a technocultural feature shared among Neanderthals in France.
Oct 23, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Populations genetically related to present-day Europeans first appeared in Europe at some point after 38,000-40,000 years ago, following a cold period of severe climatic disruption. These new migrants would eventually replace the pre-existing modern human ancestries in Europe, but initial interactions between these groups are unclear due to the lack of genomic evidence from the earliest periods of the migration. In a new study, scientists sequenced...

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An artist’s depiction of the liquid-like layer of molecules repelling water droplets. Image credit: Ekaterina Osmekhina / Aalto University

Materials Scientists Create Most Water-Repellent Surface Ever

Oct 23, 2023 by News Staff

Omniphobic liquid-like surfaces are a new type of liquid-repellent surface that offer many technical benefits over traditional approaches. They have molecular...

Comparisons of Neanderthal genomes to anatomically modern human (AMH) genomes show a history of Neanderthal-to-AMH introgression stemming from interbreeding after the migration of AMHs from Africa to Eurasia. All non-sub-Saharan African AMHs have genomic regions genetically similar to Neanderthals that descend from this introgression. Regions of the genome with Neanderthal similarities have also been identified in sub-Saharan African populations, but their origins have been unclear. To better understand how these regions are distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, the source of their origin, and what their distribution within the genome tells us about early AMH and Neanderthal evolution, Harris et al. analyzed a dataset of high-coverage, whole-genome sequences from 180 individuals from 12 diverse sub-Saharan African populations. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals Interbred with Now-Extinct Lineage of Early Modern Humans Over 250,000 Years Ago

Oct 20, 2023 by News Staff

Approximately 6% of the Altai Neanderthal genome was inherited from an ancient lineage of anatomically modern Homo sapiens that migrated from Africa to...

Wells et al estimate that there should be at least 10 -- currently undiscovered -- exoplanets which are favorably located to detect the Earth and are capable of sustaining life as we know it. Image credit: NASA.

Scientists Unveil Nature’s Missing Evolutionary Law

Oct 18, 2023 by News Staff

Physical laws — such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics — codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic...

Lazaro et al. aimed to compare the reinforcing value and efficacy between food and leisure stimuli for domestic dogs by comparing rates of behavior when receiving access to either their top-preferred food or leisure items. The results indicate that, overall, dogs exhibit a stronger preference for and food is more likely to function as a reinforcer than leisure items for domestic dog’s behavior. Even when dogs had equal preference for both types of stimuli in preference assessments, they showed a higher response rate when working for their preferred food during progressive-ratio trials. Image credit: Congerdesign.

Pet Dogs Prefer Food Over Toys, New Study Shows

Oct 18, 2023 by News Staff

In a University of Florida-led study, scientists allowed pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) to pick their favorite food and favorite toy, then put them...

Reconstruction of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)

Scientists Reconstruct Skull of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

Oct 17, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is an extinct species of great ape that lived in what is now Europe about 12 million years ago. A remarkably complete, although...

Jiang et al. used maternal separation (MS) as a stress model to investigate whether MS causes abnormal behavior in adolescence. Image credit: WOKANDAPIX.

Anxiety is Contagious, New Mouse Study Suggests

Oct 17, 2023 by News Staff

New research from Guangzhou University and South China Normal University reveals neural mechanisms underlying the transmission of adolescent anxiety to...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Planetary Researchers Probe Origin of Complex Organics on Ceres

Oct 17, 2023 by News Staff

How aliphatic organic compounds originated on the dwarf planet Ceres has been the subject of intensive research since their discovery by NASA’s Dawn...

Frontal view of the portrait of Homo heidelbergensis from Petralona, Greece, with hair and skin pigmentation. Image credit: Aidonis et al., doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104206.

Anthropologists Reconstruct Face of Homo heidelbergensis

Oct 13, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Anthropologists in Greece have used facial reconstruction techniques to show how Homo heidelbergensis, a poorly understood relative of Neanderthals that...

Neanderthals butchering the freshly killed cave lion from Siegsdorf, Germany. Image credit: Julio Lacerda / NLD.

Neanderthals Were Hunting Cave Lions 48,000 Years Ago

Oct 12, 2023 by News Staff

During the Upper Paleolithic, lions become an important theme in Paleolithic art and are more frequent in anthropogenic faunal assemblages. However, the...

Researchers Find Surprising Mix of Toxic Pigments in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

Oct 12, 2023 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom has found a singular mixture of strongly saponified oil with high...

Space weather from the Sun, such as coronal mass ejections, disturbs Earth’s magnetic field, causing the aurorae and potentially decreasing the magnetic field’s reliability for migrating birds. Image credit: John Megahan.

Severe Space Weather Events Disrupt Nocturnal Bird Migrations, Researchers Find

Oct 11, 2023 by News Staff

Earth’s magnetic field is occasionally but regularly impacted by bursts of energy from the Sun (space weather), such as coronal mass ejections. Birds...

Ward et al. suggest that the presence of an odor can bias an observer’s decision of what their perceived version of a neutral gray is. Image credit: Kerstin Herrmann.

Study: Presence of Different Odors Influences How We Perceive Colors

Oct 11, 2023 by News Staff

Human brain constantly combines multisensory information from our surrounding environment. Odors for instance are often perceived with visual cues; these...

Regular intake of grapes may improve eye health in older adults, specifically in augmenting MPOD, which can be explained by an increase in plasma total antioxidant capacity and phenolic content, and the downregulation of AGEs. Image credit: Couleur

Study: Regular Grape Consumption May Improve Eye Health in Older Adults

Oct 10, 2023 by News Staff

In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of 34 Singapore older adults, consuming grapes — a natural source of antioxidants and other...

An artist’s illustration of a solar storm. Image credit: NASA.

Extreme Solar Storm Hit Our Planet 14,300 Years Ago, Subfossil Tree-Rings Show

Oct 9, 2023 by News Staff

In new research, scientists from the University of Leeds and elsewhere measured radiocarbon levels in ancient trees preserved within the eroded banks of...

The ancient human footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, the United States. Image credit: Bennett et al., doi: 10.1126/science.abg7586.

New Radiocarbon Dating Confirms Age of 23,000-Year-Old Human Footprints in New Mexico

Oct 6, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Traditionally, paleoanthropologists believed that humans arrived in North America around 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. Recently, however, evidence has accumulated...

3D seismic imaging and ocean drilling at the Hikurangi margin reveal a widespread and previously unknown fluid reservoir within the extensively hydrated (up to 47 vol % water) volcanic upper crust of the subducting Hikurangi Plateau large igneous province. Image credit: Gase et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adh0150.

Geoscientists Discover Massive Undersea Water Reservoir Off New Zealand’s Coast

Oct 4, 2023 by News Staff

Revealed by 3D seismic imaging, the newly-discovered water reservoir lies 3.2 km (2 miles) under the ocean floor off the coast of New Zealand, where it...

Regular tea consumption, particularly dark tea, is associated with increased urinary glucose excretion, improved insulin resistance, and a reduced risk of dysglycaemia. Image credit: Sci.News.

Regular Tea Consumption, Particularly Dark Tea, May Help Reduce Diabetes Risk

Oct 3, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Tea, a beverage consumed extensively worldwide, has been reported to be associated with substantial health benefits, including a reduced risk of cardiovascular...

Problematic online usage and Internet addiction lack a refined classification. Using 796 questionnaires, Stangl et al. are the first to reveal a continuum ranging from casual users (i.e. older users) to addicts (i.e. digital natives) acknowledging five different severity levels of problematic online usage to Internet addiction. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

Scientists Introduce New Internet Addiction Spectrum

Oct 2, 2023 by News Staff

Researchers from the University of Surrey and elsewhere have found that young people (24 years and youger) spend an average of six hours a day online;...

MilliMobile is able to move across a variety of surfaces, including concrete and packed soil. Image credit: Mark Stone / University of Washington.

Researchers Create Autonomous Battery-Free Wireless Microrobot: MilliMobile

Sep 27, 2023 by News Staff

MilliMobile is a first of its kind battery-free autonomous robot capable of operating on harvested solar and radio frequency power. The MilliMobile prototype...

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