advertisement
Top Science News
September 3, 2021
Aug. 27, 2021 — Researchers have discovered a universal mathematical formula that can describe any bird's egg existing in nature -- a significant step in understanding not only the egg shape itself, but also how and ...
Aug. 30, 2021 — In an effort to understand how the internal state of the body influences the brain's decision-making processes, scientists analyzed the data from a previous study pre-clinical study. They found that ...
Aug. 27, 2021 — Animals as small and soft as tardigrades seldom have legs and almost never bother walking. But a new study finds that water bears propel themselves through sediment and soil on eight stubby legs, in ...
Aug. 27, 2021 — Cutting 20 percent of sugar from packaged foods and 40 percent from beverages could prevent 2.48 million cardiovascular disease events (such as strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests), 490,000 ...
Latest Top Headlines
updated 10:46pm EDT
Devil and angel drawing | (c) Bits and Splits / stock.adobe.com

Perceptions of Supernatural Beings Reveal Feelings About Good and Bad in Humans

Aug. 30, 2021 — What transpires in comedies and cartoons when a character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is not far off from people's perceptions of the real world, finds a ...
RELATED TOPICS
Dreaming concept | (c) rolffimages / stock.adobe.com

Brain Refreshing: Why the Dreaming Phase Matters

Aug. 25, 2021 — Researchers have found that blood flow in the brain capillaries, which is important for oxygen/nutrient delivery and waste removal, was increased during rapid eye movement sleep in mice. Adenosine A2a receptors might be at least partially responsible for this increased blood flow. These findings ...
RELATED TOPICS
Abstract concept | (c) Dana.S / stock.adobe.com

Toward Next-Generation Brain-Computer Interface Systems

Aug. 12, 2021 — A new kind of neural interface system that coordinates the activity of hundreds of tiny brain sensors could one day deepen understanding of the brain and lead to new ...
RELATED TOPICS
Woman holding crate of | (c) Milan / stock.adobe.com

Eating More Plant Foods May Lower Heart Disease Risk in Young Adults, Older Women

Aug. 4, 2021 — Eating a plant-centered diet during young adulthood is associated with a lower risk of heart disease in middle age, according to a long-term study with about 30 years of follow-up. A separate study with about 15 years of follow-up found that eating ...
RELATED TOPICS
Spaceship on Mars | (c) dottedyeti / stock.adobe.com

Will It Be Safe for Humans to Fly to Mars?

Aug. 26, 2021 — A human space mission would be viable if it doesn't exceed four years, an international research team concludes in ...
RELATED TOPICS
Alien planet ocean | (c) Ryan Rad / stock.adobe.com

New Class of Habitable Exoplanets Represent a Big Step Forward in the Search for Life

Aug. 25, 2021 — A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our ...
RELATED TOPICS
Goldfish in aquarium | (c) Altin Osmanaj / stock.adobe.com

Engineers Uncover the Secrets of Fish Fins

Aug. 11, 2021 — A new study has uncovered the engineering secrets behind what makes fish fins so strong yet flexible. The research could one day lead to new designs for robotic surgical tools or even airplane wings that change their shape with the push of ...
RELATED TOPICS
Planet Jupiter | (c) Vadimsadovski / stock.adobe.com

Space Scientists Reveal Secret Behind Jupiter's 'Energy Crisis'

Aug. 4, 2021 — New research has revealed the solution to Jupiter's 'energy crisis', which has puzzled astronomers for decades. Astronomers have created a detailed global map of the gas giant's upper atmosphere, confirming that Jupiter's powerful aurorae are responsible for delivering ...
RELATED TOPICS
Bowfin fish | (c) mirecca / stock.adobe.com

Learning from a 'Living Fossil'

Aug. 30, 2021 — As we live and breathe, ancient-looking fish known as bowfin are guarding genetic secrets that that can help unravel humanity's evolutionary history and better understand ...
RELATED TOPICS
Volcanic eruption | (c) Jose / stock.adobe.com

Volcanic Eruptions May Have Spurred First 'Whiffs' of Oxygen in Earth's Atmosphere

Aug. 26, 2021 — A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of oxygen into the atmosphere. This would change existing stories of ...
RELATED TOPICS
White rhinoceros mother | (c) dlugoska / stock.adobe.com

Geneticists Map the Rhinoceros Family Tree

Aug. 24, 2021 — There's been an age-old question going back to Darwin's time about the relationships among the world's five living rhinoceros species. One reason answers have been hard to come by is that most rhinos went extinct before the Pleistocene. Now, researchers have helped to fill the gaps in the rhino ...
RELATED TOPICS
View of Grand Canyon | (c) Amineah / stock.adobe.com

Geologists Dig Into Grand Canyon's Mysterious Gap in Time

Aug. 19, 2021 — At certain sites in the Grand Canyon, more than one billion years' worth of rocks have gone missing from the geologic record. Scientists are trying to figure ...
RELATED TOPICS
more top science stories  
Health News
September 3, 2021
July 23, 2021 — Researchers have discovered that spontaneous impulses of dopamine, the neurological messenger known as the brain's 'feel good' chemical, occur in the brain of mice. The study found that mice can ...
July 23, 2021 — Researchers have recently identified a DNA region known as VNTR2-1 that appears to drive the activity of the telomerase gene, which has been shown to prevent aging in certain types of cells. Knowing ...
July 22, 2021 — As a newborn mammal opens its eyes for the first time, it can already make visual sense of the world around it. But how does this happen before they have experienced ...
July 22, 2021 — Scientists have successfully reversed age-related memory loss in mice and say their discovery could lead to the development of treatments to prevent memory loss in people as they ...
Latest Health Headlines
updated 10:46pm EDT

Sudden Cardiac Episodes Could Be Caused by 'Deadly Cocktail'

Sep. 2, 2021 — It has been a mystery why some people live a perfectly normal life until experiencing a potentially deadly cardiac episode. Now, researchers present a possible explanation in a microscopic modification of a protein, which causes a mutation to turn harmful. The knowledge could help future diagnosis and drug ...
RELATED TOPICS

Many With Food Allergies Don’t Know About Oral Immunotherapy Treatment Option

Sep. 2, 2021 — A study of a geographically, clinically, and socioeconomically diverse, nationally-representative sample of US households -- including both adult patients and caregivers of children with food allergy -- found that 72 percent did not know what oral immunotherapy (OIT) was prior to the survey. Researchers also discovered that current OIT awareness ...
RELATED TOPICS

HPV Vaccination Will Reduce Throat and Mouth Cancers, but Overall Impact Will Take 25-Plus Years to See

Sep. 2, 2021 — Vaccinations against human papillomavirus (HPV), a major cause of throat and back of mouth cancers, are expected to yield significant reductions in the rates of these cancers in the U.S., but will not do so until after 2045, according to a new modeling ...
RELATED TOPICS

Epilepsy Brain Implant Does Not Transform Patients’ Sense of Self or Personality but Offers Them New Insights Into Illness, Study Shows

Sep. 2, 2021 — A next-generation brain implant currently in clinical use for treating refractory epilepsy -- to help prevent symptoms including seizures -- does not induce changes to patients' personalities or self-perceptions, a new study of patient experiences ...
RELATED TOPICS

Gut and Heart Signals Affect How We See Ourselves

Sep. 3, 2021 — Research has discovered that the strength of the connection between our brain and internal organs is linked to how we feel about our appearance. The study has investigated the association between body image and the brain's processing of internal signals that occur unconsciously. It found that adults whose brains are less efficient at detecting these internal messages are more likely to experience ...
RELATED TOPICS

Struggling to Learn a New Language? Blame It on Your Stable Brain

Aug. 30, 2021 — A study in patients with epilepsy is helping researchers understand how the brain manages the task of learning a new language while retaining our mother tongue. The study sheds light on the age-old question of why it's so difficult to learn a second language as an ...
RELATED TOPICS

Brain-Inspired Memory Device

Sep. 2, 2021 — Many electronic devices today are dependent on semiconductor logic circuits based on switches hard-wired to perform predefined logic functions. Physicists have developed a novel molecular memristor, or an electronic memory device, that has exceptional memory ...
RELATED TOPICS

Does Our Mind’s Eye Match Real Life? New Study Shows Differences in How We Perceive Images

Sep. 2, 2021 — A new study investigated how we visualize things that we have already seen, discovering that many adults are resistant to imagining their own vision as if it were a flat image -- seeing it in its fully processed, knowledge-laden form ...
RELATED TOPICS

Deficits May Remain After 7-Day Recovery from 10 Days of Insufficient Sleep

Sep. 1, 2021 — After 7 days of recovery from a 10-day period of deficient sleep, participants in a small study had recovered their pre-sleep deprivation reaction speed, but had not fully recovered on any other measures of ...
RELATED TOPICS

Comparing Seniors Who Relocate Long-Distance Shows Where You Live Affects Your Longevity

Sep. 1, 2021 — Moving to certain locations in the U.S. can have a significant impact on the longevity of senior citizens, according to new ...
RELATED TOPICS

When Walked On, These Wooden Floors Harvest Enough Energy to Turn on a Lightbulb

Sep. 1, 2021 — Researchers are tapping into an unexpected energy source right under our feet: wooden floorings. Their nanogenerator enables wood to generate energy from our footfalls. They also improved the wood used in the their nanogenerator with a combination of a silicone coating and embedded nanocrystals, resulting in a device that was 80 times more ...
RELATED TOPICS

Do Genetics Control Who Our Friends Are? It Seems So With Mice

Sep. 1, 2021 — Have you ever met someone you instantly liked, or at other times, someone who you knew immediately that you did not want to be friends with, although you did not know why? Now, a new study suggests that there may be a biological basis behind this instantaneous compatibility reaction. A team of researchers showed that variations of an enzyme found in a part of the brain that regulates mood and ...
RELATED TOPICS
more top health stories  
Physical/Tech News
September 3, 2021
July 26, 2021 — Astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the moon's surface sublimates -- that is, turns from solid to ...
July 22, 2021 — Researchers have been able to use seismic data to look inside Mars for the first time. They measured the crust, mantle and core and narrowed down their ...
July 19, 2021 — Researchers have found a low-cost way to solve one half of the water-splitting equation to produce hydrogen as clean energy -- using sunlight to efficiently split off oxygen molecules from water. The ...
July 18, 2021 — New models of neutron stars show that their tallest mountains may be only fractions of millimeters high, due to the huge gravity on the ultra-dense ...
Latest Physical/Tech Headlines
updated 10:46pm EDT

Making Methane from CO2: Carbon Capture Grows More Affordable

Sep. 3, 2021 — Researchers can make methane from captured CO2 and renewably sourced hydrogen, offering a path toward cheaper synthetic natural ...
RELATED TOPICS

Testing 1-2: New Laser-Based Microphone Calibration Measures Up

Sep. 2, 2021 — Researchers have conducted the first demonstration of a faster and more accurate way to calibrate certain kinds of microphones. The technique, which uses lasers to measure the velocity at which a microphone's diaphragm vibrates, performs well enough to overtake one of the main calibration methods ...
RELATED TOPICS

Mountaintop Mining Causes 40% Loss of Aquatic Biodiversity

Sep. 2, 2021 — Using environmental DNA scans of Appalachian streams, researchers found that the effects of mountaintop coal mining in West Virginia are even more widespread than previously reported: Streams from heavily mined watersheds harbor 40% fewer species than streams with cleaner ...
RELATED TOPICS

Surprise Result for Solid State Physicists Hints at Unusual Electron Behavior

Sep. 2, 2021 — While studying the behavior of electrons in iron-based superconducting materials, researchers observed a strange signal relating to the way electrons are arranged. The signal implies a new arrangement of electrons the researchers call a nematicity wave, and they hope to collaborate with theoretical physicists to better understand it. The ...
RELATED TOPICS

Cold Planets Exist Throughout Our Galaxy, Even in the Galactic Bulge

Aug. 30, 2021 — Researchers combined observations and modeling to infer the distribution of cold planets in the Milky Way. The results suggest that this distribution is not strongly dependent on the distance from the Galactic center. Cold planets seem to be present throughout our Galaxy, even in the galactic bulge, where their existence was uncertain. The findings could improve our understanding of both ...
RELATED TOPICS

Astronomers Create 3D-Printed Stellar Nurseries

Sep. 2, 2021 — Astronomers can't touch the stars they study, but an astrophysicist is using 3-dimensional models that fit in the palm of her hand to unravel the structural complexities of stellar nurseries, the vast clouds of gas and dust where star formation occurs. Astronomers created the models using data from simulations of star-forming clouds and a sophisticated 3D printing process in which the fine-scale ...
RELATED TOPICS

Stellar Collision Triggers Supernova Explosion

Sep. 2, 2021 — The Very Large Array Sky Survey gave astronomers the first clue that ultimately revealed a dramatic story -- the remnant of a star that exploded long ago had plunged into the core of its companion star causing it, too, to explode as a ...
RELATED TOPICS

Anatomy of the Impact of a Protostellar Jet in the Orion Nebula

Sep. 2, 2021 — Researchers have uncovered the physical and chemical effects of the impact of a protostellar jet in the interior of the Orion Nebula. The observations show evidence of compression and heating produced by the shock front, and the destruction of dust grains, which cause a dramatic increase in the gas phase abundance of the atoms of iron, nickel, and other heavy elements in the Orion ...
RELATED TOPICS

Putting a New Theory of Many-Particle Quantum Systems to the Test

Sep. 2, 2021 — New experiments using trapped one-dimensional gases -- atoms cooled to the coldest temperatures in the universe and confined so that they can only move in a line -- fit with the predictions of the recently developed theory of 'generalized ...
RELATED TOPICS

Nano ‘camera’ Made Using Molecular Glue Allows Real-Time Monitoring of Chemical Reactions

Sep. 2, 2021 — Researchers have made a tiny camera, held together with 'molecular glue' that allows them to observe chemical reactions in real ...
RELATED TOPICS

Quantum Emitters: Beyond Crystal Clear to Single-Photon Pure

Sep. 2, 2021 — A research team has developed a technique that can isolate the desired quality emitter by reducing the noise surrounding the target with what they have dubbed a 'nanoscale focus ...
RELATED TOPICS
Gecko | (c) mgkuijpers / stock.adobe.com

These Geckos Crash-Land on Rainforest Trees but Don't Fall, Thanks to Their Tails

Sep. 2, 2021 — Many arboreal lizards leap and glide from tree to tree, but what if they can't glide to a gentle, four-point landing? Researchers documented many such leaps of the common house gecko, and found that they often hit trees headfirst and rebounded ...
RELATED TOPICS
more top physical/tech stories  
Environment News
September 3, 2021
Aug. 12, 2021 — Scientists have unraveled the enigma of inheritance of coat color patterns in dogs. The researchers discovered that a genetic variant responsible for a very light coat in dogs and wolves originated ...
Aug. 11, 2021 — Global warming begets more, extreme warming, new paleoclimate study finds. Researchers observe a 'warming bias' over the past 66 million years that may return if ice sheets ...
Aug. 9, 2021 — Scientists are observing changes in the Earth's climate in every region and across the whole climate system, according to the latest IPCC Report. Many of the changes observed in the climate are ...
Aug. 5, 2021 — A major Atlantic ocean current -- the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC -- may have been losing stability in the course of the last century, according to new research. A potential ...
Latest Environment Headlines
updated 10:46pm EDT

Getting to the Core of a More Nutritious Apple

Sep. 2, 2021 — A new platform housing data from over 100 apple varieties could shave years off of the breeding process and enable data-driven assessments of how to boost the health benefits of America's favorite ...
RELATED TOPICS

Scientists Discover a Mechanism for Memory Transfer Between Individuals in C. Elegans

Sep. 2, 2021 — Researchers demonstrated that the microscopic worm C. elegans uses a retrotransposon called Cer1 to transfer a learned behavior (avoidance of a pathogenic bacterium) between ...
RELATED TOPICS
Spotted skunk | (c) Stan / stock.adobe.com

Doubling the Number of Species of Hand-Standing Spotted Skunks

Sep. 1, 2021 — Spotted skunks aren't as well-known as their striped cousins, and scientists still have a lot to learn about them, starting with how many kinds of them even exist -- over the years, the number of recognized species has ranged from two to fourteen, and lately, scientists have agreed there are four. ...
RELATED TOPICS

Indian Wolf Among World’s Most Endangered and Distinct Wolves

Sep. 2, 2021 — The Indian wolf could be far more endangered than previously recognized, say first scientists to sequence its genome. Indian wolves could also represent the most ancient surviving lineage of ...
RELATED TOPICS

Public Participation in Management of China’s Waterways Improves Water Quality

Aug. 31, 2021 — An estimated 70% of China's rivers and lakes are too polluted for human use, the result of decades of intensifying economic development that have increased the amount of pollution that winds up in the water. Fixing China's water pollution problems is an uphill battle, but citizen monitoring of remediation efforts could lead to consistent ...
RELATED TOPICS

Grim Warning for Aussie Species in Conservation Checklist

Sep. 2, 2021 — The first comprehensive list of the threats to Australia's most endangered plants and animals reveals blunt news about the future for some of the country's favorite species. The study has compiled a data set, listing the threats to Australian species from habitat loss, fragmentation, and ...
RELATED TOPICS

Researchers Identify New Source for Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Greater Tokyo Region

Sep. 2, 2021 — Researchers have discovered geologic evidence that unusually large earthquakes and tsunamis from the Tokyo region -- located near tectonic plate boundaries that are recognized as a seismic hazard source -- may be traceable to a previously unconsidered plate ...
RELATED TOPICS

Deadlines May Be Effective in Building Support for Climate Change Action

Sep. 2, 2021 — Human-caused climate change -- including increased extreme weather and climate events -- is here, according to the UN IPCC 2021 report, but the best way to communicate the concern is still debated. Deadline messaging has been criticized as causing people to feel hopelessness, despair and disengagement. However, a new study finds that this deadline messaging may be effective after ...
RELATED TOPICS

New Evidence Supports Idea That America’s First Civilization Was Made Up of ‘sophisticated’ Engineers

Sep. 2, 2021 — New evidence discovered at Poverty Point in northern Louisiana by anthropologists challenges previous beliefs about how pre-modern hunter-gatherers ...
RELATED TOPICS

Beer Drinking 9,000 Years Ago in Southern China

Aug. 31, 2021 — Alcoholic beverages have long been known to serve an important socio-cultural function in ancient societies, including at ritual feasts. A new study finds evidence of beer drinking 9,000 years ago in southern China, which was likely part of a ritual to honor the dead. The findings are based on an analysis of ancient pots found at a burial site at Qiaotou, making the site among the oldest in the ...
RELATED TOPICS

Going Up: Birds and Mammals Evolve Faster If Their Home Is Rising

Sep. 2, 2021 — The rise and fall of Earth's land surface over the last three million years shaped the evolution of birds and mammals, a new study has found, with new species evolving at higher rates where the land has risen ...
RELATED TOPICS

New Evidence Supports Idea That America's First Civilization Was Made Up of 'Sophisticated' Engineers

Sep. 2, 2021 — New evidence discovered at Poverty Point in northern Louisiana by anthropologists challenges previous beliefs about how pre-modern hunter-gatherers ...
RELATED TOPICS
more top environment stories  
Society/Education News
September 3, 2021
July 8, 2021 — Scientists map the part of the brain that 'links' similar objects, leading to new insights about how the brain processes information out of ...
July 1, 2021 — Current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to ...
May 20, 2021 — A growing body of research has explored the ability of solar geoengineering to reduce physical climate changes. But much less is known about how ...
Apr. 22, 2021 — Researchers showed that COVID-19 survivors -- including those not sick enough to be hospitalized -- have an increased risk of death in the six months following diagnosis with the virus. They also ...
Latest Society/Education Headlines
updated 10:46pm EDT

With Time and Without Masks, COVID-19 Vaccines Wane in Protection, Study Finds

Sep. 2, 2021 — A study of highly vaccinated health workers found that the more contagious delta variant, combined with the masking mandate end, was associated with increased breakthrough cases, paralleling exponential rise of COVID-19 infections in the San Diego ...
RELATED TOPICS

High Cod Catches Could Have Been Sustained in Eastern Canada for Decades, Simple Stock Assessment Method Shows

Aug. 30, 2021 — A simple fish stock assessment model applied to over 500 years of catch data demonstrated that if Canadian authorities had allowed for the rebuilding of the stock of northern Atlantic cod off Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1980s, annual catches of about 200,000 tons could have been ...
RELATED TOPICS

The Future of Flooding in Venice: Improving Projections, Predictions and Protection in the Face of Expected Sea Level Rise

Sep. 1, 2021 — A new assessment of flood risk in Venice indicates that the impact of higher emissions on relative sea level rise during this century will be critical in planning future defense infrastructure for Venice and other coastal ...
RELATED TOPICS

How People Respond to Wildfire Smoke

Aug. 30, 2021 — Interviews with Northern California residents reveal that social norms and social support are essential for understanding protective health behaviors during wildfire smoke events -- information that could be leveraged to improve public health ...
RELATED TOPICS

Stressed Teens Benefit from Coping Online, but a Little Goes a Long Way

Aug. 24, 2021 — An adolescent's day can be filled with a dizzying array of digital technologies. For many teenagers, being online is a way to pass the time and communicate with friends. Cell phones and social media can also help teens cope with stressful events -- as long as they strike the right balance between spending time online and pursuing other coping ...
RELATED TOPICS

A Parent’s Genes Can Influence a Child’s Educational Success, Inherited or Not

Aug. 19, 2021 — A child's educational success depends on the genes that they haven't inherited from their parents, as well as the genes they have, according to a new ...
RELATED TOPICS

Progress Continues in Ensuring Safety for Nation’s High School Athletes

Aug. 18, 2021 — Researchers began publishing annual reports and bi-annual updates examining the health and safety policies for secondary schools for each individual state and Washington, D.C. The evaluations are based on safety measures states can implement, including emergency action plans, having automatic external defibrillators on site, training coaches to look for signs of concussion, treatment of ...
RELATED TOPICS

Sounds and Words Are Processed Separately and Simultaneously in the Brain

Aug. 18, 2021 — After years of research, neuroscientists have discovered a new pathway in the human brain that processes the sounds of language. The findings suggest that auditory and speech processing occur in parallel, contradicting a long-held theory that the brain processed acoustic information then transformed it into linguistic ...
RELATED TOPICS

A New Model for Group Decision-Making Shows How 'Followers' Can Influence the Outcome

Aug. 26, 2021 — From small committees to national elections, group decision-making can be complicated -- and it may not always settle on the best choice. That's partly because some members of the group do research on their own, and others take their cues from the people around them. A new mathematical framework predicts that decision-making groups have a critical ...
RELATED TOPICS

Attractiveness Pays Off at Work — but There’s a Trick to Level the Playing Field

Aug. 18, 2021 — A new study found that while a 'beauty premium' exists across professions, it's partially because attractive people develop distinct traits as a result of how the world responds to their attractiveness. They build a greater sense of power and have more opportunities to improve nonverbal communication skills throughout their ...
RELATED TOPICS

‘Hey, Do You Have a Second?’— The Upside of Workplace Interruptions

Aug. 3, 2021 — A new study finds that work place interruptions are beneficial to a sense of belonging and can counterbalance negatives such as lost ...
RELATED TOPICS

Hybrid Cars Are Twice as Vulnerable to Supply Chain Issues as Gas-Powered Models

July 28, 2021 — The global computer chip shortage has hit car manufacturers especially hard, indicating the importance of supply chain resilience. Yet, for hybrid electric vehicles, it isn't clear how their production could be impacted by fluctuating supplies and high prices. To get a grasp of these vulnerabilities compared to those for gas-powered models, ...
RELATED TOPICS
more top society/education stories