Other Sciences News

Quasi[1]catenane. Image credit: Steemers et al, doi: 10.1038/ncomms15392.

Chemists Synthesize Pretzel-Like Molecules

May 26, 2017 by News Staff

A team of chemists at the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has designed and synthesized...

Graecopithecus freybergi lived 7.2 million years ago in the dust-laden savannah of the Athens Basin. This view from Graecopithecus freybergi’ place of discovery, Pyrgos Vassilissis, to the southeast over the plain of Athens and under a reddish cloud of Sahara dust; in the background: Mount Hymettos and Mount Lykabettos. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski.

Graecopithecus freybergi: Oldest Hominin Lived in Europe, not Africa

May 24, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists, led by Professor Madelaine Böhme of the University of Tübingen, Germany, has analyzed 7.2 million-year-old...

Sonny & Cher performing the song ‘The Beat Goes On’ on Dutch TV program ‘Fanclub,’ February 4, 1967. Image credit: A. Vente / Beeld & Geluid Wiki / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Male Artists Sing about Romantic Love and Sex More Often than Female Performers

May 23, 2017 by News Staff

An analysis of song lyrics from 1960 through 2008 reveals that male artists sing about both romantic love and sex more often than female artists. However,...

Light and color would look different on a planet orbiting a tiny red star, like this artist’s impression of Proxima b. The Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone is the nearest exoplanet to our Sun. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Proxima b: Researchers Take First Steps to Explore Climate of Nearby Exoplanet

May 17, 2017 by News Staff

A team of astrophysicists and meteorology experts from the University of Exeter and the UK’s Met Office have embarked on the first, tentative steps to...

Cars, trucks and buses worldwide emit 4.6 million tons more harmful NOx than standards allow, according to the new study. Image credit: Arsi Warrior.

Study: Diesel Vehicles Produce 50% More Nitrogen Oxide than Originally Thought

May 16, 2017 by News Staff

Lab tests of harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from diesel vehicles underestimate the real-world emissions by as much as 50%, a new study led by researchers...

German Shepherd puppy. Image credit: Marilyn Peddle / CC BY 2.0.

Study: Pet Dogs Help Children Feel Less Stressed

May 12, 2017 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Social Development, pet dogs provide valuable social support for children when they’re stressed. German...

Experiencing beauty requires thought, New York University neuroscientists find.

Immanuel Kant was Right: Beauty Requires Thought

May 11, 2017 by News Staff

Experiencing beauty requires thought, neuroscientists have found in a study that confirms a claim by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),...

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 Walked Earth More Recently than Thought

May 9, 2017 by News Staff

Dating of Homo naledi fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star cave system, South Africa, shows that they were deposited between about 335,000...

A Homo naledi skull, ‘Neo.’ Image credit: Hawks et al, doi: 10.7554/eLife.24232.

South African Cave System Yields Yet More Fossils of Homo naledi

May 9, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists announced today in the journal eLife the discovery of a second chamber in the Rising Star cave system, located...

Artist’s conception of early Earth. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Francis Reddy.

Early Earth was Barren, Smooth and Almost Entirely under Water, Research Suggests

May 8, 2017 by News Staff

About 4 billion years ago (Hadean eon), our planet was entirely different than it is now. It was barren, smooth and almost entirely under water with a...

Bathymetric map of recent Hawaiian volcanism, highlighting the Loa and Kea tracks. Solid lines represent the geochemically distinct Loa (blue) and Kea (red) volcanic trends. The dashed lines are an estimate of the future projection of these trends based on the team’s hypothesis. Before the emergence of the Loa and Kea tracks, Kea-type lavas were overlain by Loa-type lavas at Ko’olau and Kaua’i. The encircled number indicates the approximate age at which Loa trend lavas first appeared at Ko’olau. Image credit: Jones et al, doi: 10.1038/nature22054.

Geoscientists Finally Solve Mystery of Hawaiian Volcanoes

May 6, 2017 by News Staff

New research has solved a long-standing mystery of how the world’s biggest and most active volcanoes formed in Hawaii. Bathymetric map of recent Hawaiian...

A light-activatable 4 x 4 droplet array. Image credit: Restrepo Schild et al, doi: 10.1038/srep46585.

Researchers Create Synthetic, Soft Tissue Retina

May 5, 2017 by News Staff

A synthetic, soft tissue retina developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, could offer fresh hope to visually impaired people. Until now,...

According to Leitao-Goncalves et al, gut bacteria control food choice and egg laying in Drosophila melanogaster. Image credit: Leitao-Goncalves et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2000862.

Gut Bacteria ‘Speak’ to Brain to Control Food Choices in Animals

May 2, 2017 by News Staff

In a study published recently in the journal PLOS Biology, neuroscientists identified three gut bacteria species — Acetobacter pomorum, Lactobacillus...

Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. Image credit: Alex Demin / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA Uncovered in Caves without Skeletal Remains

Apr 28, 2017 by News Staff

New research led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) shows that Pleistocene cave sediments represent a rich source of ancient...

Scientists Find Link between Immune System, Memory and Structure of Brain

Apr 27, 2017 by News Staff

In two separate studies, researchers have demonstrated that both the structure of the brain and several memory functions are linked to immune-related genes. The...

First Humans Arrived in North America 116,000 Years Earlier than Thought: Evidence from Cerutti Mastodon Site

Apr 27, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers digging at the Cerutti Mastodon site, an archaeological site from the early late Pleistocene epoch near San Diego, California, found animal...

According to Argue et al, Homo floresiensis is a long-surviving relict of an early hominin lineage and an unknown migration out of Africa, and not a recent derivative of either Homo erectus or Homo sapiens. This image is an artist’s impression of Homo floresiensis. Image credit: Katrina Kenny.

Homo floresiensis Likely Evolved from Primitive Ancestor in Africa, Researchers Say

Apr 23, 2017 by News Staff

An Australian National University-led team of researchers has found that Homo floresiensis — a dwarfed human species that lived until about 50,000...

Drinking a beetroot juice before exercise makes the aging brain perform more efficiently. Image credit: Ken Bennett, Wake Forest University.

Beetroot Juice before Exercise Keeps Aging Brain Sharp

Apr 19, 2017 by News Staff

According to a study published recently in the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, drinking a beetroot juice before exercise makes the brain of...

A study by John Lindo et al reveals 10,000 years of genetic continuity in northwest North America. Image credit: Julie McMahon.

Ancient DNA Reveals Genetic Continuity between Early Holocene, Modern Populations in Northwest North America

Apr 5, 2017 by News Staff

According to a new analysis of nuclear DNA from ancient individuals, many of today’s indigenous peoples living in southern Alaska and coastal British...