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Top Science News

January 31, 2016

Y-Free Male Mice Father Offspring

More Breastfeeding Could Save Millions of Lives

Ancient Extinction of Giant Bird Due to Humans

Moon Formed by Head-On Crash With Earth

Jan. 28, 2016 — Live mouse progeny can be generated with assisted reproduction using germ cells from males without any Y chromosome genes. In these males, the two Y ... read more

Jan. 29, 2016 — Just 1 in 5 children in high-income countries are breastfed to 12 months, whilst only 1 in 3 children in low and middle-income countries are ... read more

Jan. 29, 2016 — The first direct evidence that humans played a substantial role in the extinction of the huge, wondrous beasts inhabiting Australia some 50,000 years ago -- in this case a 500-pound bird -- has been ... read more

Jan. 29, 2016 — The moon was formed from a violent, head-on collision between the early Earth and a 'planetary embryo' called Theia approximately 100 million years after the Earth formed, almost 4.5 billion years ... read more

Latest Top Headlines

updated 5:18pm EST

Let Them See You Sweat: What New Wearable Sensors Can Reveal from Perspiration

Jan. 27, 2016 — Engineers have developed the first fully integrated electronic system that can provide continuous, noninvasive monitoring of multiple biochemicals in sweat. The advance opens doors to wearable devices that alert users to health problems such as ... read more

Synchronized Brain Waves in Distant Regions Combine Memories

Jan. 28, 2016 — Humans have the remarkable ability to integrate information from multiple memories and infer indirect relationships. How does our brain support this important function? Neuroscientists have now shown that rhythmic brain waves, called theta oscillations, engage and synchronize the brain regions that ... read more

Germs, Humans and Numbers: New Estimate Revises Our Microbiome Numbers Downwards

Jan. 28, 2016 — The bacteria living in our bodies are important for our health. The makeup of each person's microbiome plays a role in both the tendency to become obese and in each individual's reaction to drugs. Contrary to estimates given in the past, the average ... read more

Scientists Decode Brain Signals Nearly at Speed of Perception

Jan. 28, 2016 — Using electrodes implanted in the temporal lobes of awake patients, scientists have decoded brain signals at nearly the speed of perception. Further, analysis of patients' neural responses to two categories of visual stimuli -- images of faces and houses -- enabled the scientists to subsequently ... read more

Bringing Time and Space Together for Universal Symmetry

Jan. 28, 2016 — New research is broadening perspectives on time and space. Scientists challenge the long-held presumption that time evolution -- the incessant unfolding of the universe over time -- is an elemental part ... read more

Designing a Pop-Up Future

Jan. 26, 2016 — What if you could make any object out of a flat sheet of paper? That future is on the horizon thanks to new research. A team of researchers have characterized a fundamental origami fold, or tessellation, that could be used as a building block to create almost any three-dimensional shape, from ... read more

Monstrous Cloud Boomerangs Back to Our Galaxy

Jan. 28, 2016 — New Hubble telescope observations suggest that a high-velocity gas cloud was launched from the outer regions of our own galaxy around 70 million years ago. Now, the cloud is on a return collision course and is expected to plow into the Milky Way's disk in about 30 million years. Astronomers believe ... read more

Completely New Kind of Polymer Could Lead to Artificial Muscles, Self-Repairing Materials

Jan. 28, 2016 — Imagine a polymer with removable parts that can deliver something to the environment and then be chemically regenerated to function again. Or a polymer that can contract and expand the way muscles do. These functions require polymers with both rigid ... read more

Geophysicist Questions Stability of Antarctic Ice Sheet

Jan. 29, 2016 — There is a growing debate over the fate of the world's largest ice sheet, whose sudden melting is sending shockwaves throughout the geophysics community. Researchers contend that by studying other periods of global warming--namely, the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period (MPWP), which occurred approximately 3 ... read more

Ancient Rocks of Tetons Formed by Continental Collisions

Jan. 29, 2016 — Plate tectonics were operating in what is now western Wyoming long before the collisions that created the Himalayas starting 40 million years ago. The researchers reached their conclusions by analyzing ancient, exposed granite in the northern Teton Range and comparing it to similar rock in the ... read more

Laboratory-Bred Corals Reproduce in the Wild

Jan. 29, 2016 — Researchers have, for the first time, successfully raised laboratory-bred colonies of a threatened Caribbean coral species to sexual maturity. Due to its large size and branching shape, elkhorn corals created vast forests in shallow reef waters that protect shores from incoming storms and provide a ... read more

Recent Summer Temperatures in Europe Are Likely the Warmest of the Last 2 Millennia

Jan. 29, 2016 — Most of Europe has experienced strong summer warming over the course of the past several decades, accompanied by severe heat waves in 2003, 2010 and 2015. New research now puts the current warmth in a 2,100-year historical context using tree-ring ... read more

50,000 Years Ago, Humans Ate A 500-Pound Bird Into Extinction

Breastfeeding Could Save More Than 800,000 Children's Lives A Year

WHO Warns Zika Virus 'spreading Explosively' In the Americas

Google AI Beats Top Human At The Game Of Go

Finger Tracing Can Lift Math Performance

Therapy Halts Progression of Lou Gehrig's Disease

How Key Agent Allows Diseases to Reproduce

Autism and Severe Maternal Inflammation

Jan. 29, 2016 — Schoolkids who used finger tracing fared better with previously unseen geometry and algebra questions, new research has found. Studies involving 275 Sydney school children aged between nine and 13 ... read more

Jan. 29, 2016 — Researchers announced that they have essentially stopped the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, for nearly two years in one type of mouse model used to study ... read more

Jan. 28, 2016 — Chemists have revealed the chemistry behind how certain diseases, from anthrax to tuberculosis, replicate. The key lies in the function of a gene absent in humans, called thyX, and its ability to ... read more

Jan. 28, 2016 — A group of researchers found that immune cells activated in the mother during severe inflammation produce an immune effector molecule called IL-17 that appears to interfere with brain ... read more

Latest Health Headlines

updated 5:18pm EST

Enigma of Coexistence of People With Rh+ and Rh Blood Groups Solved

Jan. 31, 2016 — A new study showed that incidence and morbidity of many diseases and disorders correlate negatively with frequencies of Rh+ heterozygotes (i.e. the carriers of one copy of the gene for Rh positivity and one copy of the gene for Rh negativity) in the population of individual countries. At the same time, the disease burden associated with the same disorders correlated positively with frequency of ... read more

Making Liver Tissue in the Lab for Transplants and Drug Screening

Jan. 27, 2016 — Engineered liver tissue could have a range of important uses, from transplants in patients suffering from the organ's failure to pharmaceutical testing. Now scientists report in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry the development of such a tissue, which closely mimics the liver's complicated microstructure and function more effectively than existing ... read more

Brain's 'Amplifier' Compensates for Lost Inner Ear Function

Jan. 28, 2016 — Researchers have described, for the first time, the adult brain's ability to compensate for a near-complete loss of auditory nerve fibers that link the ear to the brain. The findings suggest that the brain's natural plasticity can compensate for inner ear damage to bring sound detection abilities back within normal limits; however, it does not recover speech ... read more

Scientists Discover Protein's Starring Role in Genome Stability, and Possibly Cancer Prevention

Jan. 28, 2016 — A protein called XPG plays a previously unknown and critical role helping to maintain genome stability in human cells. It may also help prevent breast, ovarian, and other cancers associated with defective ... read more

How Can Peers, Parents, Schools and New Media Stop Bullying?

Jan. 27, 2016 — A new review of research outlines roles and recommendations for peers, parents, schools and new media platforms to stop ... read more

Practice Makes Perfect, Study Confirms

Jan. 29, 2016 — Initial learning and performance at seven weeks led to increase in activation in cortical regions during visualization of the dance being learned when compared to the first week, shows a study on ballet cancers. However, at 34 weeks, it showed reduced activation in comparison to week ... read more

Significant Number of Young People With Undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder

Jan. 29, 2016 — Around 10 percent of UK primary care patients prescribed antidepressants for depression or anxiety have undiagnosed bipolar disorder, a study has ... read more

Second-Hand Smoke Increases Fatness, Hinders Cognition in Children

Jan. 28, 2016 — Exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with a larger waist and poorer cognition in children, researchers say. Researchers looked at passive smoke exposure in 220 overweight or obese 7-11-year-old boys and girls. They found smoke exposure associated with nearly all measures of adiposity in the ... read more

Fat Injection for Breast Reconstruction Doesn't Increase Risk of Recurrent Breast Cancer

Jan. 29, 2016 — For women undergoing breast cancer surgery, a technique called lipofilling—using the patient's own fat cells to optimize the results of breast reconstruction—does not increase the risk of recurrent breast cancer, reports a new ... read more

From Mother to Child, Passing on Disease

Jan. 29, 2016 — Researchers are reminding US doctors to watch for two vector-borne and potentially life-threatening diseases that can be passed from mother to child. Though Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis are generally found in other parts of the world, global travel and migration have made the US ... read more

Users of Cherry-Flavored E-Cigarettes May Be Exposed to Higher Levels of Respiratory Irritant

Jan. 29, 2016 — An analysis of 145 different electronic-cigarette flavoring products reveals that many e-cigarette users may be exposed to a potentially harmful chemical, benzaldehyde. The highest concentrations were detected in vapor from cherry-flavored ... read more

Cholesterol Levels Improve With Weight Loss, Healthy Fat-Rich Diet

Jan. 29, 2016 — Weight loss programs that provide healthy fats, such as olive oil in the Mediterranean diet, or a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet have similar impacts on pound-shedding, research shows. More specifically, the researchers report that a meal plan rich in walnuts, which are high in polyunsaturated fats, has a significant impact on lipid levels for women, especially those who are ... read more

Obama's $4B Plan Aims to Teach Kids About Computer Science

Zika Virus Prompts Brazilian Petition For More Legal Abortion Access

The Zika Virus Might Interrupt The 2016 Rio Olympics

Australian Man's Inspiring Service Provides Single Shoes For Amputees

More Offshore Wind Energy With Enormous Blades

Antarctic Fungi Survive Martian Conditions On ISS

Making Stars by 'Adopting' Stray Cosmic Gases

Milky Way's Clean and Tidy Galactic Neighbor

Jan. 28, 2016 — A new design for gigantic blades longer than two football fields could help bring offshore 50-megawatt (MW) wind turbines to the United States and the ... read more

Jan. 28, 2016 — Scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board ... read more

Jan. 27, 2016 — Astronomers have for the first time found young populations of stars within globular clusters that have apparently developed courtesy of star-forming gas flowing in from outside of the clusters ... read more

Jan. 27, 2016 — Many galaxies are chock-full of dust, while others have occasional dark streaks of opaque cosmic soot swirling in amongst their gas and stars. However, the subject of this new image, snapped with the ... read more

Latest Physical/Tech Headlines

updated 5:18pm EST

Nanosheet Growth Technique Could Revolutionize Nanomaterial Production

Jan. 30, 2016 — Materials scientists believe the tiny sheets of the semiconductor zinc oxide they're growing could have huge implications for the future of a host of electronic and ... read more

Cellulose Nanogenerators Could One Day Power Implanted Biomedical Devices

Jan. 27, 2016 — Implantable electronics that can deliver drugs, monitor vital signs and perform other health-related roles are on the horizon. But finding a way to power them remains a challenge. Now scientists have built a flexible nanogenerator out of cellulose, an abundant natural material, that could potentially harvest energy from the body -- its heartbeats, blood flow and other almost imperceptible but ... read more

Creating 'Greener' Wrinkle-Resistant Cotton Fabric

Jan. 27, 2016 — Ironing is a tedious chore, but wearing crumpled clothing is unprofessional. That's why 'wrinkle-resistant' garments have become so popular. But the current methods for making these textiles often release formaldehyde -- a chemical that in large amounts is hazardous to human health -- into the air and water. Now a team reports a method for making wrinkle-resistant cotton fabrics that is more ... read more

How Many Ways Can You Arrange 128 Tennis Balls? Researchers Solve an Apparently Impossible Problem

Jan. 27, 2016 — Researchers have solved an apparently overwhelming physics problem involving some truly huge numbers. In summary, the problem asks you to imagine that you have 128 tennis balls, and can arrange them in any way you like. The challenge is to work out ... read more

Phase of the Moon Affects Amount of Rainfall

Jan. 30, 2016 — Satellite data shows that the moon's gravity puts a slight damper on rainfall ... read more

Understanding the Magnetic Sun

Jan. 30, 2016 — Scientists have turned to a combination of real time observations and computer simulations to best analyze how material courses through ... read more

Anti-Hydrogen Origin Revealed by Collision Simulation

Jan. 26, 2016 — Antihydrogen is a particular kind of atom, made up of the antiparticle of an electron -- a positron -- and the antiparticle of a proton -- an antiproton. Scientists hope that studying the formation of anti hydrogen will ultimately help explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the ... read more

How to Find and Study a Black Hole

Jan. 25, 2016 — Black holes sound too strange to be real. But they are actually pretty common in space. There are dozens known and probably millions more in the Milky Way and a billion times that lurking outside. The makings and dynamics of these monstrous warpings of spacetime have been confounding scientists ... read more

Turning Electronic Waste Into Gold

Jan. 28, 2016 — Anew financially viable and environmentally friendly way to recover and recycle gold from electronic waste has been outlined by scientists. With lower toxicity, cheaper cost and quicker extraction, the team has discovered an approach that could revolutionize the industry and be a veritable gold ... read more

Virtual Reality Makes Its Best Users the Most Queasy

Jan. 29, 2016 — In a twist of virtual fate, people with the best 3-D vision are also the people most likely to suffer from motion sickness while using virtual reality displays. Researchers demonstrated this irony by playing motion-heavy videos for study participants through the Oculus Rift. Nearly two-thirds of the study subjects quit watching the videos early, overcome by ... read more

Computer Scientist's Software Helps Detect Nuclear Tests

Jan. 27, 2016 — Machine learning software is helping the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization monitor the globe for evidence of nuclear tests. The International Monitoring System includes 149 certified seismic monitoring stations around ... read more

All-New Multi-Purpose Programmable Optical Chips

Jan. 27, 2016 — A revolution in microwave photonics is underway. Researchers are bringing us the first all-purpose programmable optical chips (currently laboratory ... read more

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Obama's $4B Plan Aims to Teach Kids About Computer Science

Super-Fast Space Laser Satellites Could Help Save Lives On Earth

T-Mobile Faces (More) Accusations It's Violating Net Neutrality

Ancient Babylonians Might Have Used Geometry To Track Jupiter

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Environment News

January 31, 2016

How Bats Recognize Their Own 'Bat Signals'

Octopuses Shed Their Asocial Reputation

Monarchs' Wings Yield Clues to Their Birthplaces

How Whiskers Send Precise Information to Brain

Jan. 28, 2016 — The mechanism that allows individual bats to avoid noise overlap by increasing the volume, duration and repetition rate of their signals has been uncovered by a new study. Unlocking the mystery of ... read more

Jan. 28, 2016 — Octopuses have generally been viewed as solitary creatures -- and their color-changing abilities primarily as a means to hide from hungry predators. But, after binge watching more than 52 hours of ... read more

Jan. 27, 2016 — A newly published study of California's overwintering monarch butterflies confirmed many previous migratory studies. But the findings also showed some unexpected and surprising patterns of movement, ... read more

Jan. 28, 2016 — For rats, which use their whiskers to feel out their surroundings at night, clumps of nerve endings called mechanoreceptors located at the base of each whisker act as tiny calculators, new research ... read more

Latest Environment Headlines

updated 5:18pm EST

Future for Charismatic Pika Not as Daunting as Once Feared

Jan. 29, 2016 — The American pika is thought by many biologists to be a prime candidate for extirpation as the planet continues to warm. But a new study paints a different, more complex future for this rock-dwelling little lagomorph. Pikas may survive, even thrive, in some areas, the researchers say, while facing ... read more

Single No More: First Females of a Madagascan Chameleon Described With Modern Technologies

Jan. 27, 2016 — The first females of a scarcely known chameleon species from Northeast Madagascar have been described. Because of lack of genetic data, X-ray micro-computed tomography scans of the chameleon's head were used for species assignment. Regrettably, the ... read more

New Tiny Arboreal Toad Species from India Is Just Small Enough for Its Own Genus

Jan. 25, 2016 — Found on a herb bush, a toad of only 24 mm average length, was quick to make its discoverers consider its status as a new species. After identifying its unique morphological and skeletal characters, and conducting a molecular phylogenetic analysis, ... read more

A Behemoth in Leviathan's Crypt: Second Cryptomaster Daddy Longlegs Species

Jan. 25, 2016 — Suggestively called Cryptomaster, the herein studied daddy longlegs genus is not only difficult to find, but had also stayed understudied for several decades since its establishment. Inspired by much newer records of the single known species, named after the Hebrew monster Leviathan, American ... read more

Climate Change Prompts Makeover of New England's Forests, Study Finds

Jan. 29, 2016 — Forest soils across New England will store fewer nutrients and metals -- some beneficial, some harmful -- as climate change prompts maples and other deciduous trees to replace the region's iconic evergreen conifers, a new ... read more

Ocean Acidification Impacting Population Demography, Hindering Adaptation Potential

Jan. 29, 2016 — Ocean acidification may be impacting upon the population dynamics of marine species and hindering their ability to genetically adapt to future climate change. These are the findings of a team of scientists, following an investigation into how the ... read more

Intact Nature Offers Best Defense Against Climate Change

Jan. 28, 2016 — Worldwide responses to climate change could leave people worse off in the future according to a recent study. The paper discusses how certain adaptation strategies may have a negative impact on nature which in turn will impact people in ... read more

How 'More Food Per Field' Could Help Save Our Wild Spaces

Jan. 28, 2016 — Increased farm yields could help to spare land from agriculture for natural habitats that benefit wildlife and store greenhouse gases, but only if the right policies are in place. Conservation scientists call on policymakers to learn from working examples across the globe and find better ways to protect habitats while producing food on less ... read more

Life History Effects on the Molecular Clock of Autosomes, Sex Chromosomes

Jan. 28, 2016 — Accounting for the effect of sex-specific life history events, such as the onset of puberty in male hominids, on mutation rates can help reconcile mutation-rate-based estimates of the split between chimpanzees and humans with the fossil record, suggesting that the split may have been as recent as 6.6 million years ago, new research ... read more

Ancient Medicinal Clay Shows Promise Against Today's Worst Bacterial Infections

Jan. 26, 2016 — Naturally occurring clay from British Columbia, Canada -- long used by the region's Heiltsuk First Nation for its healing potential -- exhibits potent antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant pathogens, according to ... read more

New Research Into the Origins of the Austronesian Languages

Jan. 28, 2016 — Complex genetic data now confirms that mitochondrial DNA found in Pacific islanders was present in Island Southeast Asia at a much earlier ... read more

Ancient Rodent's Brain Was Big ... but Not Necessarily 'Smart'

Jan. 27, 2016 — Ancient rodent Paramys had a large brain that was even larger than some primitive primates of the ... read more

50,000 Years Ago, Humans Ate A 500-Pound Bird Into Extinction

Israeli Vulture Cleared of Spying in Lebanon

Raw: Sinkhole Swallows Portion of Oregon Highway

Shark Gives Herself More Personal Space By Eating Tank-Mate

Toxic Exposures Caused Illness in Gulf War Vets

Human Impact Has Created a 'Plastic Planet'

US Could Be Mostly Sun and Wind Power by 2030

Too Many Minions Spoil the Plot

Jan. 26, 2016 — Twenty-five years after 700,000 U.S. troops fought and won the first Gulf War with remarkably low casualties, research "clearly and consistently" shows that exposure to pesticides and other toxins ... read more

Jan. 27, 2016 — Planet Earth's oceans and lands will be buried by increasing layers of plastic waste by the mid-century due to human activity, according to new ... read more

Jan. 25, 2016 — The United States could slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production by up to 78 percent below 1990 levels within 15 years while meeting ... read more

Jan. 26, 2016 — Physicists decided to test whether some science-related conspiracies alleged to exist were in fact tenable. The answer -- they'd all have given themselves away in less than four ... read more

Latest Society/Education Headlines

updated 5:18pm EST

Soundscape Approach Integrating Noise Mapping Techniques: Case Study from the UK

Jan. 28, 2016 — Noise pollution affects a large number of Europeans becoming quickly one of the most underrated environmental problems that take severe toll on human health. It can affect people in both physiological and psychological ways, interfering with basic activities such as sleep, rest, study and communication. Since the early 2000 management of urban ... read more

United States Has Greater Link Between Low Birth Weight, Inequality, Study Shows

Jan. 29, 2016 — New research found that while low birth weight was linked to lower income and education levels in four comparable countries, that connection was most persistent in the United ... read more

Refugee Women at Higher Risk of Preterm Birth, Study Finds

Jan. 29, 2016 — Refugee women who come to Canada have greater risk of giving birth prematurely than non-refugee immigrants, a Canadian study shows. Preterm or premature birth describes infants who are born before 37 weeks of gestation. Risk factors for preterm birth include infections, malnutrition and stress -- all very common among women living in refugee ... read more

Clashes With Cops More Injurious Than Civilian-Only Skirmishes

Jan. 29, 2016 — People hospitalized due to an encounter with a law enforcement officer are more likely to have a mental illness, have longer hospitalizations, more injuries to the back and spine, and greater need for extended care than those hospitalized due to altercations with other civilians, a new report ... read more

Want to Learn a New Skill? Faster? Change Up Your Practice Sessions

Jan. 28, 2016 — When practicing and learning a new skill, making slight changes during repeat practice sessions may help people master the skill faster than practicing the task in precisely the same way, researchers ... read more

Uncorrected Farsightedness Linked to Literacy Deficits in Preschoolers

Jan. 27, 2016 — A study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has shown that uncorrected farsightedness (hyperopia) in preschool children is associated with significantly worse performance on a test of ... read more

Brain’s Wiring Connected to Sensory Processing Disorder

Jan. 26, 2016 — Researchers have found that boys and girls with sensory processing disorder (SPD) have altered pathways for brain connectivity when compared to typically developing children, and the difference predicts challenges with auditory and tactile ... read more

A Green View Through a Classroom Window Can Improve Students’ Performance

Jan. 22, 2016 — High school students perform better on tests if they are in a classroom with a view of a green landscape, rather than a windowless room or a room with a view of built space, according to new ... read more

Delivering the Internet of the Future, at the Speed of Light and Open-Sourced

Jan. 26, 2016 — New research has found, for the first time, a scientific solution that enables future Internet infrastructure to become completely open and programmable while carrying Internet traffic at the speed of ... read more

Pension Benchmarks Give Consumers False Impression of Fund Performance

Jan. 26, 2016 — Benchmarks that measure the performance of pension funds, and fees charged to consumers by investment fund managers, require greater scrutiny, suggests new ... read more

Zuckerberg or Buffett: Is Youth or Experience More Valuable in the Boardroom?

Jan. 20, 2016 — Approximately half of the companies listed with Standard & Poor have adopted policies mandating retirement based on age. A new study has found that although these mandatory retirement polices represent an effective way to address underperforming CEOs, accumulated job experience improves performance and counters age-related ... read more

Researchers Examine Effect of Return Policies on Consumer Behavior

Jan. 19, 2016 — In 2014, product returns totaled about $280 million across all U.S. retailers. New research has examined existing studies on return policies to quantify the policies' effect on consumers' purchase and return ... read more

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