Other Sciences News

This map shows the size and shape of the ozone hole over the South Pole on October 5, 2022, when it reached its single-day maximum extent for the year. Image credit: Joshua Stevens / NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Earth’s Ozone Layer Remains on Track to Recovery in Coming Decades, Experts Say

Sep 17, 2025 by News Staff

The ozone layer is healing and the Antarctic ozone hole in 2024 was smaller than in previous years, according to a new report from the World Meteorological...

White matter degenerating microglia are a novel therapeutic target to potentially reduce the impact of white matter injury and myelin loss on the progression of cognitive impairment. Image credit: Miroslaw Miras.

Researchers Develop Self-Administered Digital Test for Diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease

Sep 15, 2025 by News Staff

A proof-of-concept study by a team of Lund University scientists shows that their brief, self-administered digital cognitive test — named BioCog...

Seal of Yaroslav the Wise, the Grand Prince of Kyiv from 1019 until 1054 and the father of Anna Yaroslavna, the Queen of France. Image credit: Sheremetievs Museum.

Slavs Originated in Ukraine and Southern Belarus, DNA Study Finds

Sep 15, 2025 by News Staff

The second half of the first millennium CE in Central and Eastern Europe was accompanied by fundamental cultural and political transformations. This period...

Anauralia is the phenomenon of an absence of auditory sensory imagery -- not hearing anything in one’s inner ear. Image credit: Vat Loai.

Study: Signals from Visual Areas of Human Brain Can Reveal Colors Observer is Seeing

Sep 10, 2025 by News Staff

Does a given color elicit comparable neural activity in two different observers? Do colors elicit area-specific response patterns? To address these questions,...

Sleep is known to promote tissue growth and regulate metabolism, partly by enhancing growth hormone (GH) release, but the underlying circuit mechanism is unknown. Ding et al. demonstrate how GH release, which is enhanced during both rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep, is regulated by sleep-wake-dependent activity of distinct hypothalamic neurons expressing GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) and somatostatin (SST). SST neurons in the arcuate nucleus suppress GH release by inhibiting nearby GHRH neurons that stimulate GH release, whereas periventricular SST neurons inhibit GH release by projecting to the median eminence. GH release is associated with strong surges of both GHRH and SST activity during REM sleep but moderately increased GHRH and decreased SST activity during NREM sleep. Furthermore, Ding et al. identified a negative feedback pathway in which GH enhances the excitability of locus coeruleus neurons and increases wakefulness. Image credit: Ding et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.05.039.

Animal Study Sheds New Light on How Sleep and Growth Hormone Regulation Interact

Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Neuroscientists from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University have explored brain circuits that control growth hormone release during...

People who walk a lot have less back pain than people who do not walk much -- and the volume is what matters most, not the intensity. Image credit: Tung Lam.

Regular Walking May Reduce Risk of Chronic Low Back Pain

Sep 5, 2025 by News Staff

In a new study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, daily walking volume and walking intensity were inversely associated with the risk of chronic...

The impression of a cylinder seal from the Uruk period, around 3100 BCE. Image credit: Louvre Museum.

Ancient Sumer’s Rise Was Driven by Interplay of Rivers and Tides, Archaeologists Say

Sep 2, 2025 by News Staff

New research introduces a paleoenvironmental model in which tidal dynamics influenced the earliest development of agriculture and sociopolitical complexity...

Kartar et al. suggest that circuitries supporting the integration of interoceptive representations and processing of affective memories are putative neurobiological substrates of HVB-induced ASCs. Image credit: Ram Jain.

Study: Breathwork While Listening to Music May Induce Blissful State in Practitioners

Sep 1, 2025 by News Staff

In a new study, high ventilation breathwork while listening to music was associated with reports of blissful states and reduced negative emotions, accompanied...

Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid that lived in Africa more then 4 million years ago. Illustration by Arturo Asensio, via Quo.es.

New Research Reveals How Reshaping Pelvis Helped Human Ancestors Walk Upright

Aug 27, 2025 by News Staff

The pelvis is often called the keystone of upright locomotion. More than any other part of our lower body, it has been radically altered over millions...

The fossilized teeth of Camarasaurus from the Morrison Formation in the United States. Image credit: Sauriermuseum Aathal.

Scientists Reconstruct Mesozoic Carbon Dioxide Levels and Photosynthesis from Dinosaur Tooth Enamel

Aug 26, 2025 by News Staff

The atmosphere of Earth during the Mesozoic era, between 252 and 66 million years ago, contained far more carbon dioxide than it does today and total photosynthesis...

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.

Paleoanthropologists Discover Earliest Evidence of Human-Neanderthal Interbreeding

Aug 25, 2025 by News Staff

Paleoanthropologists from Tel Aviv University, the Université de Liège and France’s Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle say they have found a combination...

An artist’s concept of a Penghu Denisovan walking under the bright Sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

Denisovan DNA May Have Helped Ancient Humans Survive in Americas

Aug 21, 2025 by News Staff

Thousands of years ago, ancient Homo sapiens undertook a treacherous journey, crossing hundreds of km of ice over the Bering Strait to the unknown world...

This year’s ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the largest in recent years. Image credit: ESA.

Earth Will Warm More Than Expected Due to Future Changes in Ozone, Study Suggests

Aug 21, 2025 by News Staff

While banning ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs has helped the ozone layer to recover, when combined with increased air pollution the impact of ozone...

Wretlind et al. aimed to investigate sex-specific single lipids associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Image credit: Wretlind et al., doi: 10.1002/alz.70512.

Omega Fatty Acids Could Protect against Alzheimer’s Disease in Women

Aug 20, 2025 by News Staff

New research demonstrates that associations between various lipids and Alzheimer’s disease — a devastating neurological disease that disproportionately...

Gopaulchan et al. established the previously suggested role of pH and temperature changes as robust predictors of chocolate flavor characteristics. Image credit: Sci.News.

Microbiota Composition, pH and Temperature Influence Key Flavor Attributes of Premium Chocolate

Aug 19, 2025 by News Staff

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) bean fermentation is a spontaneous process involving interactions between various factors that contribute to the final flavors...

Liu et al. found that compared to non-coffee drinkers, adults who drank moderate amounts (1.5 to 3.5 cups per day) of unsweetened coffee or sugar-sweetened coffee were less likely to die during a 7-year follow up period. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Caffeine in the Morning Boosts Mood, New Study Suggests

Aug 18, 2025 by Natali Anderson

New research indicates that caffeine consumption is associated with subsequent increases in positive affect, and this association is strongest within the...

Chemical structure of the cyclo[48]carbon [4]catenan. Image credit: Harry Anderson.

Chemists Synthesize New Carbon Allotrope

Aug 15, 2025 by News Staff

Carbon can exist in different forms — called allotropes — giving it completely different properties from color to shape to hardness. For example,...

Forensic facial reconstruction of another Australopithecus species - A. afarensis. Image credit: Cicero Moraes / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Early Homo and Australopithecus Co-Existed in Ethiopia before 2.5 Million Years Ago

Aug 13, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

New hominin fossils recovered from the Ledi-Geraru Research Project area in the Afar region of Ethiopia suggest the presence of early Homo at 2.78 and...

Velazquez-Arcelay et al. found that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be early risers, the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Study: Genetic Variant Inherited from Neanderthals Reduces Activity of Key Muscle Enzyme

Aug 12, 2025 by News Staff

The Neanderthal variant in AMPD1 decreases its enzymatic activity by 25% in lab-produced proteins and by up to 80% in the muscles of genetically engineered...