Other Sciences News

A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Image credit: John Gurche / Mark Thiessen / National Geographic.

Homo naledi Had Small but Surprisingly Complex Brain

May 16, 2018 by News Staff

A species of extinct hominin called Homo naledi was discovered in 2013 in a remote cave chamber of the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. This species...

Panoz-Brown et al show that rats remember a stream of multiple episodes and the order in which they occur by engaging hippocampal-dependent episodic memory replay; rats remember the order of events using episodic memory replay and that replay is part of long-term memory, resistant to interference, and hippocampal dependent. The discovery could help advance the development of new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Image credit: Panoz-Brown et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.006.

Non-Human Animals Can Mentally Replay Past Events: Study

May 15, 2018 by News Staff

A team of Indiana University researchers has reported the first evidence that non-human animals (rats) can replay a stream of multiple episodic memories....

Selected artifacts from the Panga ya Saidi site: (a) Levallois core; (b) two backed lithic artifacts; (c) backed lithic artifact; (d-e) notched bones; (f) ocher crayon; (g) ostrich eggshell bead; (h) conus shell bead; (i) gastropod shell bead. Image credit: Shipton et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04057-3.

Kenyan Cave Provides New Insights into Later Stone Age

May 10, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered more than 30,000 artifacts at Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya, which is...

Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber), a mother and her kit. Image credit: Ray Scott / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study: Beavers Could Help Curb Soil Erosion, Clean Up Polluted Rivers

May 10, 2018 by News Staff

A new study, undertaken by a team of University of Exeter researchers using captive Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber), has demonstrated the significant impact...

The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Image credit: Mark Skillen.

Engineers and Soil Scientists May Have Solved Mystery of Pisa’s Leaning Tower

May 9, 2018 by News Staff

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, or simply the Tower of Pisa, is a bell tower of the Cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa, known worldwide for its unintended...

An artist’s impression of a ‘Snowball Earth.’ Image credit: NASA.

‘Snowball Earth’ Resulted from Plate Tectonics, Geologists Say

May 8, 2018 by News Staff

A team of geologists at the University of Texas at Dallas and Austin has put forward an intriguing new hypothesis that links the dawn of plate tectonics...

Gravity of Venus and Jupiter Elongates Earth’s Orbit Every 405,000 Years

May 8, 2018 by News Staff

A research team led by Rutgers University’s Professor Dennis Kent has documented a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000...

An archaic hominin. Image credit: Ninara / CC BY 2.0.

Archaic Hominins Arrived in Philippines as Early as 700,000 Years Ago

May 7, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has unearthed 57 stone tools and butchered animal bones at Kalinga in the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon, the largest...

The engraved flint flake from the Kiik-Koba site, Crimea, Ukraine; the arrow indicates the point of impact. Scale bar - 1 cm. Image credit: Majkić et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195049.

Engraved Flint Flake Found in Ukraine May Demonstrate Neanderthal Symbolism

May 4, 2018 by News Staff

According to a study published in the journal PLoS ONE, a 35,000-year-old flint flake found at a Middle Paleolithic site in Crimea, Ukraine, was likely...

Photo-a-day practice has complex benefits for improving wellbeing. Image credit: SplitShire.

Photo-A-Day: Daily Digital Practice Improves Wellbeing

May 3, 2018 by News Staff

Taking a photo each day and posting it online has multiple benefits for wellbeing, according to a study carried out by Dr. Liz Brewster of Lancaster University...

Earth’s magnetic field connects the North Pole (orange lines) with the South Pole (blue lines) in this NASA-created image. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Earth’s Magnetic Field is Not in Early Stage of Reversal, Says Study

May 1, 2018 by News Staff

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field has been dropping for the last two centuries, at a rate that some researchers suspect may cause the field to...

The findings by Aspy et al discount the theory that Vitamin B6 enhances dream recall by disrupting sleep. Image credit: Peter Pyw.

Study: Taking Vitamin B6 Before Bed Could Help You Remember Your Dreams

May 1, 2018 by News Staff

A new study on the effects of B vitamins on dreaming and sleep has found that Vitamin B6 taken before bed increased dream recall compared to placebo. The...

This image shows curious holes in Arctic sea ice, located about 50 miles (80.5 km) northwest of Canada’s Mackenzie River Delta. Image credit: John Sonntag / NASA’s Operation IceBridge Mission.

Mysterious Holes in Beaufort Sea Ice Puzzle Researchers

Apr 25, 2018 by News Staff

On April 14, 2018, scientists working on NASA’s Operation IceBridge — a multi-year airborne science mission to study changing ice conditions at...

Grip strength is significantly associated with cognitive functioning in the general population and individuals with schizophrenia, particularly for working memory and processing speed. Image credit: Sergej Kistner.

Study: Stronger People Have Sharper Brains

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

New research, published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin, has revealed that muscular strength, measured by handgrip, is an indication of how healthy our brains...

This scanning electron microscope image shows ultrafine diamond needles (cone shapes rising from bottom) being pushed on by a diamond tip (dark shape at top). These images reveal that the diamond needles can bend as much as 9% and still return to their original shape. Image credit: Banerjee et al.

Diamonds Can Turn Flexible when Made into Nanoscale Needles

Apr 20, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers from Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and the United States has demonstrated that nanoscale (300 nm) single-crystalline...

If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to human era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? Image credit: Michael Osadciw, University of Rochester.

Silurian Hypothesis: Were There Industrial Civilizations on Earth before Humans?

Apr 17, 2018 by News Staff

How do we really know there weren’t previous civilizations on our planet that rose and fell long before humans appeared? That’s the question posed...

The researchers use powerful X-rays to see inside a gas turbine combustor during ignition. Image credit: David McNally.

Scientists Conduct First-Ever Combustion Experiment with X-Rays

Apr 17, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made an historic first with their experiment...

A cold and windy spring night on the vast landscape of the Devon Ice Cap where two subglacial lakes are lurking 1,805 to 2,460 feet (550-750 m) below the surface. Image credit: Anja Rutishauser.

Geophysicists Discover Two Salty Subglacial Lakes in Canadian Arctic

Apr 12, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of geophysicists has discovered two hypersaline lakes beneath the Devon Ice Cap, one of the largest ice caps in the Canadian Arctic. A...

The Al Wusta-1 finger bone from Saudi Arabia. Image credit: Ian Cartwright.

90,000-Year-Old Finger Bone Found in Saudi Arabia Could Rewrite Human Migration History

Apr 11, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered a fossilized human finger bone in the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia estimated to be about 90,000 years...