Other Sciences News

Lauren Scott & Brittany Florkiewicz show that cat facial signals correspond to different social functions, which have likely been influenced by domestication. Image credit: Sci.News / Makieni777 / Rise-a-mui / Alexas_Fotos / Dorothe / Vaclav Zavada / Artem Makarov / Daga Roszkowska / Birgit / Pasi Mammela.

Study: Domestic Cats Have 276 Distinct Facial Expressions

Nov 6, 2023 by Natali Anderson

In a new study published in the journal Behavioural Processes, researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center and Lyon College documented the...

Lai et al. developed a novel system combining virtual reality and a brain-machine interface to probe the rat’s inner thoughts.

Rats Have Imagination, New Study Reveals

Nov 6, 2023 by News Staff

The hippocampus holds a model of the environment that can be mentally traversed during recall or simulation. It is unknown whether animals can intentionally...

The synthetic melanin is being applied to inflamed skin; just under the surface of the skin are green free radicals, also known as reactive oxygen species (ROS). Image credit: Yu Chen, Northwestern University.

Synthetic Melanin Cream Improves Skin Healing after Chemical and UV-Induced Injuries

Nov 2, 2023 by News Staff

In a new study, scientists at Northwestern University show that their synthetic melanin, mimicking the natural melanin in human skin, can be applied topically...

Coventry et al. show that speakers of all tested languages use spatial demonstratives as a function of being able to reach or act on an object being referred to. Image credit: Coventry et al., doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01697-4.

Study: All Languages around the World Have Words for ‘This’ and ‘That’

Nov 2, 2023 by News Staff

In new research, scientists from the University of East Anglia and elsewhere studied 874 speakers of 29 different languages, including English, Spanish,...

Yuan et al. suggest that LLVPs are remnants of the ancient protoplanet Theia that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago in the same giant impact that created our Moon. Image credit: Hernán Cañellas.

Two Fragments of Protoplanet Theia Lie Deep within Earth, Geoscientists Say

Nov 1, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A giant collision between the ancient protoplanet Theia and the proto-Earth about 4.5 billion years ago may have formed Earth’s Moon as well as two continent-sized...

Ramsey problems, such as r(4,5) are simple to state, but as shown in this graph, the possible solutions are nearly endless, making them very difficult to solve. Image credit: Jacques Verstraete / University of California, San Diego.

Mathematicians Solve Long-Standing Ramsey Problem

Nov 1, 2023 by News Staff

A duo of mathematicians at the University of California, San Diego, has found the answer to r(4,t), a long-standing Ramsey problem that has perplexed the...

This painting depicts an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. Shown in this painting are pterodactyls, flying reptiles with wingspans of up to 50 feet, gliding above low tropical clouds. Image credit: Donald E. Davis / NASA.

Study: Asteroid Impact-Generated Dust Played Key Role in Dinosaur-Killing Mass Extinction

Oct 31, 2023 by News Staff

About 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in what is now Mexico. The impact eradicated...

Overview of the bioinformatic workflow for the recovery of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from fruits and vegetables and the detection of their presence in the gut. Image credit: Wicaksono et al., doi: 10.1080/19490976.2023.2258565.

Fruit- and Vegetable-Derived Microbes Contribute to Gut Microbiome Diversity, Study Shows

Oct 31, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Diversity of the gut microbiota is crucial for human health. A new study provides the first evidence of the interconnection between the plant and the gut...

Jamieson et al. discover an extensive relic pre-glacial landscape preserved beneath the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet despite millions of years of ice cover. Image credit: Jamieson et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-42152-2.

Geoscientists Discover Ancient River-Carved Landscape beneath East Antarctic Ice Sheet

Oct 25, 2023 by News Staff

Geoscientists from Durham University and elsewhere have discovered a landscape that appears to have been formed by rivers at least 14 million years ago...

The tongue color is a mirror that reflects the health status of a patient. It could be used in diagnosing some diseases without any physical contact with the patient, which facilitates the process of primary healthcare. Image credit: Gerd Altmann / Sci.News.

New Diagnostic System Based on Tongue Color Analysis Correctly Diagnoses Diseases in 94% of Cases

Oct 24, 2023 by News Staff

Tongue diagnostic systems are fast gaining traction due to an increase in remote health monitoring worldwide, and new research from the University of South...

The occasional use of stone tools as ‘strike-a-lights’ was a technocultural feature shared among Neanderthals in France.

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

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...

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...