Other Sciences News

320,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Push Back Origins of Human Innovation

The first evidence of human life in the Olorgesailie Basin comes from about 1.2 million years ago. For hundreds of the thousands of years, people living there made and used large stone-cutting tools called handaxes (left). According to three new studies, early humans in East Africa had -- by about 320,000 years ago -- begun using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools (right) than those of the Early Stone Age handaxes, tens of thousands of years earlier than previous evidence has shown in eastern Africa. The sophisticated tools (right) were carefully crafted and more specialized than the large, all-purpose handaxes (left). Many were points designed to be attached to a shaft and potentially used as projectile weapons, while others were shaped as scrapers or awls. Image credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian.
Mar 16, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of anthropologists has discovered that early humans in East Africa had — by about 320,000 years ago — begun trading with distant groups, using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools than those of the Early Stone Age. The newly-discovered activities, described in three papers in the journal Science, date to the oldest known fossil record of Homo sapiens and occur tens of thousands of years earlier...

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Hunter-gatherers. Image credit: T.P.S. Dave.

Humans Interbred with Denisovans Twice in History, Researchers Discover

Mar 16, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Washington and Princeton University has found that the genomes of two groups of modern humans with Denisovan...

Reconstruction of a Neanderthal. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthal Healthcare Was Widespread and Effective, Research Reveals

Mar 13, 2018 by News Staff

Our ancient cousins, Neanderthals have an unwarranted image as brutish and uncaring, but new research has revealed just how knowledgeable and effective...

Diamond from South Africa. Image credit: James St. John / CC BY 2.0.

Small Inclusions of Unique Ice in Diamonds Indicate Water Deep in Earth’s Mantle

Mar 12, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from the United States and Canada has discovered the first direct evidence that aqueous pockets may exist as far as...

For a substance that is ubiquitous on Earth, three quarters of our planet is covered with it, scientists can still be surprised by some of water’s properties. Image credit: Brisch27.

Scientists Observe Mysterious Phase Transition in Supercooled Water

Mar 9, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers, led by Arizona State University chemist C. Austen Angell and University of Amsterdam’s Dr. Sander Woutersen, has...

Memory content could be reliably decoded during sleep spindle increase. Image credit: Kai Kalhh.

Study: Memory Content Could Be Decoded from Brain Waves during Sleep

Mar 9, 2018 by News Staff

Recently acquired information is thought to be ‘reactivated’ in the sleeping brain. Sleep spindles — the short bursts of activity in the brain...

Young neurons (green) decrease in the human hippocampus across the lifespan, vs more mature neurons (red). Image credit: Sorrells et al.

Neurogenesis in Human Hippocampus Ends in Childhood, Neuroscientists Say

Mar 8, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of neuroscientists has shown that in the hippocampus — a brain region important for learning and memory and one of the key...

A well-preserved scale extracted from a lake sediment core. Image credit: Montoro Girona et al, doi: 10.3389/fevo.2018.00002.

Fossil Moth Scales Can Uncover Prehistoric Secrets, Scientists Say

Feb 23, 2018 by News Staff

A groundbreaking new technique for studying lake sediments can tell scientists more about the frequency and intensity of past and future insect epidemics,...

La Pasiega Cave, section C, cave wall with paintings: the ladder shape composed of red horizontal and vertical lines (center left) dates to older than 64,000 years and was made by Neanderthals. Image credit: P. Saura.

Iberian Peninsula’s Earliest Cave Paintings Were Made by Neanderthals: Study

Feb 23, 2018 by News Staff

A new study shows that paintings in three cave sites on the Iberian Peninsula — a red linear motif in Cave of La Pasiega, a hand stencil in Maltravieso...

Light-controlled neuron activation using optogenetics allows modulation of specific circuits but is invasive and requires genetic engineering. Researchers from the University of Chicago have developed a silicon-based nanowire that allows light modulation of neurons without genetic engineering, paving the way for optical control of neural activity to other neurological models. Image credit: Gerry Shaw / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Scientists Develop Nanowiring for Optical Control of Neuron Activation

Feb 23, 2018 by Zvi Cramer

Researchers have designed silicon nanowires that allow modulation neuronal activity using light, allowing manipulation of specific neural circuits without...

In the new technique, an additional hexagonal ring of carbon atoms is fused to the zigzag edge of an existing carbon-rich molecule in two quick steps. Image credit: Igor Alabugin.

Chemists Find New Way to Synthesize ‘Olympic Ring’ Molecule

Feb 21, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers at Florida State University has unlocked a new strategy for synthesizing of olympicene (a molecule consisting of five rings that...

Cheddar Man’s facial reconstruction. Image credit: University College London / Natural History Museum, London / Tom Barnes / Channel 4.

Cheddar Man’s Face Revealed

Feb 20, 2018 by News Staff

Cheddar Man — a hunter-gatherer who lived 10,000 years ago — had blue eyes, dark colored curly hair and ‘dark to black’ skin pigmentation,...

This high-resolution scanning electron microscope image shows an unusual tube-like structural form that is less than 1/100th the width of a human hair in size found in the Martian meteorite ALH84001. Image credit: NASA.

How Will Humanity React to Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life?

Feb 20, 2018 by News Staff

How will humans react to the discovery of alien life? Speculation on this topic abounds, but empirical research is practically non-existent. In a paper...

Finney et al find a 15% decrease in total lightning flash rate in 2100 under a strong global warming scenario.

Lightning May Strike Less Often in Future as Earth Warms, New Study Suggests

Feb 14, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from Lancaster University and the Universities of Edinburgh and Leeds, UK, forecasts a 15% drop in the average number of lightning...

The new e-skin can be conformally mounted onto a human arm; it can be rehealed when it is damaged and can be fully recycled at room temperature. Image credit: Jianliang Xiao, University of Colorado Boulder.

Scientists Develop Rehealable, Fully Recyclable, and Malleable E-skin

Feb 13, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from Yunnan University and the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a new type of malleable, self-healing and...

Viruses are circulating in the atmosphere of our planet. Image credit: Arek Socha.

Study: Viruses are Circulating in Earth’s Atmosphere — and Falling from It

Feb 8, 2018 by News Staff

Viruses fall back to Earth via dust storms and precipitation, according to new research published in the International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal. Viruses...

African grass rats (Arvicanthis niloticus) exposed to dim lights (DLD) for four weeks experienced, on average, a 30% decrease in the number of ‘dendritic spine’ connections in their brains, which are the tiny protrusions near the solid green line, a dendrite. These rats performed poorly on a maze-like task. Rats exposed to bright light (BLD), on the other hand, had many more of the dendritic connections and showed superior performance on the task. Image credit: Michigan State University.

Dim Light Makes Us Dumber, New Study Suggests

Feb 7, 2018 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Hippocampus, spending too much time in dimly-lit environment may change the brain’s structure and hurt...

Jedek is spoken by about 280 individuals in northern Peninsular Malaysia. Image credit: Lund University.

Previously Unknown Language Emerges in Malaysia

Feb 7, 2018 by News Staff

A team of linguists from Lund University in Sweden announced this week they have identified an endangered minority language known as Jedek that is spoken...

Parkinson et al show evidence for neural homophily -- neural responses when viewing audiovisual movies are exceptionally similar among friends, and that similarity decreases with increasing distance in a real-world social network. Image credit: Parkinson et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02722-7.

On the Same Wavelength: New Study Illustrates How Similar Neural Responses Predict Friendship

Feb 2, 2018 by News Staff

According to a study published in the January 30 issue of the journal Nature Communications, we are exceptionally similar to our friends in how we perceive...

Apple Computer 1, also known later as the Apple I, or Apple-1, a desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. It was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Image credit: Ed Uthman / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Researchers Develop Mathematical Model for How Innovations Emerge

Jan 31, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has developed a mathematical model for the emergence of innovations, in which cognitive processes are described as...

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