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Top Science News

September 28, 2016

How Baby's Genes Influence Birth Weight, Disease

Americas Declared Free of Measles

How Human and Neanderthal Ears Differ

92% of People Exposed to Serious Air Pollution

Sep. 28, 2016 — Genetic differences have been found that help to explain why some babies are born bigger or smaller than others. It also reveals how genetic differences provide an important link between an ... read more

Sep. 28, 2016 — The Region of the Americas is the first in the world to have eliminated measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems, including pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and even death. ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Scientists have scanned the skulls of Neanderthals and found the small middle ear ossicles, which are important for hearing, still preserved within ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — A new WHO air quality model confirms that 92% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits. Some 3 million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air ... read more

Latest Top Headlines

updated 4:28pm EDT

How the Brain Decides Between Effort and Reward

Sep. 28, 2016 — In a new study, researchers investigated what parts of the brain may be involved in deciding if something is worth the effort. The team found a relevant pattern of activity in three areas of the brain, the supplementary motor area (SMA), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) ... read more

Epigenetic Clock Predicts Life Expectancy

Sep. 28, 2016 — Why do some people lead a perfectly healthy lifestyle yet still die young? A new international study suggests that the answer lies in ... read more

Smoking Fathers Increase Asthma-Risk in Future Offspring

Sep. 28, 2016 — Offspring with a father who smoked prior to conception had more than three times higher chance of early-onset asthma than children whose father had never smoked. Both a father's early smoking debut and a father's longer smoking duration before conception increased non-allergic early-onset asthma in ... read more

Breastfeeding Saves Mothers' Lives, Too, Study Shows

Sep. 28, 2016 — Breastfeeding is not only good for children, but also for their mothers, providing more health benefits and preventing more maternal diseases than previously known, new ... read more

Optical Fiber Transmits One Terabit Per Second

Sep. 28, 2016 — Researchers have achieved unprecedented transmission capacity and spectral efficiency in an optical communications field trial with a new modulation technique. The breakthrough research could extend the capability of optical networks to meet surging data ... read more

Key to Manufacturing More Efficient Solar Cells

Sep. 28, 2016 — In a discovery that could have profound implications for future energy policy, scientists have demonstrated it is possible to manufacture solar cells that are far more efficient than existing silicon energy cells by using a new kind of material, a development that could help reduce fossil ... read more

A Perfect Sun-Storm

Sep. 28, 2016 — A geomagnetic storm on January 17, 2013, provided unique observations that finally resolved a long-standing scientific problem. For decades, scientists had asked how particles hitting Earth's magnetosphere were lost. A likely mechanism involved certain electromagnetic waves scattering particles ... read more

Cosmic Dust Demystified

Sep. 27, 2016 — Besides providing substantive information about the atmospheres of other planets, cosmic dust particles can impact radio communications, climate and even serve as fertilizer for phytoplankton in the oceans. A team of researchers has developed a new experimental Meteoric Ablation Simulator (MASI) ... read more

Tracking the Amount of Sea Ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet

Sep. 28, 2016 — By analyzing ice cores drilled from deep inside the Greenland ice sheet, researchers have started to calculate how much Arctic sea ice there was in ... read more

One Fly to Rule Them All: Flies Are the Key Pollinators of the High Arctic

Sep. 28, 2016 — Forget the view of the Arctic as an icy desert devoid of life. The Arctic summer is buzzing with insects -- and here as everywhere else, plants rely on them for pollination. But who are the insects driving the pollination services across the Arctic? A new study finds the biggest heroes among the ... read more

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Caused Widespread Marsh Erosion, Study Shows

Sep. 27, 2016 — The Deepwater Horizon oil spill six years ago caused widespread marsh erosion that may be permanent in some places, according to a new analysis of 270 miles of the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts. At the hardest-hit of 103 Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) sites, where oil covered ... read more

Outrageous Heads Led to Outrageously Large Dinosaurs

Sep. 27, 2016 — Theropod dinosaur species with bony crests, horns and knobs evolved to giant body sizes 20 times faster than those species lacking such embellishments, new research ... read more

Pigeons Can Distinguish Words from Non-Words, Study Says

Measles Has Officially Been Eliminated In The Americas

9 Out Of 10 People On Earth Are Breathing Polluted Air

Elon Musk Presents Transportation Plans For Colonizing Mars

Why Are We Thirsty Before Sleep?

Depression in Pregnancy: Mental Health of Kids?

More Than 8 Fillings? Could Up Mercury in Blood

Artificial Blood Vessels Can Grow With Recipient

Sep. 28, 2016 — The brain's biological clock stimulates thirst in the hours before sleep, according to a study. Scientists have known that rodents show a surge in water intake during the last two hours before sleep. ... read more

Sep. 28, 2016 — Depression in pregnancy increases the risk of behavioral and emotional problems in children, says a new ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Dental surface restorations composed of dental amalgam, a mixture of mercury, silver, tin and other metals, significantly contribute to prolonged ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Biomedical engineers, artificial blood vessels bioengineered in the lab and implanted in young lambs are capable of growth within the recipient, a groundbreaking new study demonstrates. If confirmed ... read more

Latest Health Headlines

updated 4:28pm EDT

Identifying Ecstasy's Dangerous Path

Sep. 28, 2016 — In an important discovery in the battle against the United States’ growing drug epidemic, an economist has found the Carolinas could be a hotspot for the trafficking and production of the drug ... read more

Early Onset Menopausal Symptoms Could Predict Heart Disease

Sep. 28, 2016 — Women who experience hot flashes and night sweats earlier in life are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease (CVD) when compared to women with later onset menopausal symptoms, according to research. Up to 80 percent of women experience menopausal symptoms, particularly hot flashes and night sweats, at some point during the menopause ... read more

New Insight Into Eye Diseases

Sep. 28, 2016 — Many diseases that lead to blindness, such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, are caused by the death of certain cells in the human retina that lack the ability to regenerate. But in species such as zebrafish these cells, known as Muller glial cells (MGs), do serve as retinal stem cells that are ... read more

Researchers Identify Treatment Target for Blinding Diseases

Sep. 28, 2016 — A common pathway involved in photoreceptor death has been identified in retinitis pigmentosa, advanced dry age-related macular degeneration and other retinal diseases, with early evidence of a possible halt to vision loss related to treatment of ... read more

Sociologists Examine Shift from 'No Child Left Behind' to 'Children Left Behind'

Sep. 27, 2016 — Sociologists look back to 2007 to understand how the No Child Left Behind Act acquired an alternative meaning: "NCLB means children left ... read more

Paper Offers Insight on Antidepressant-Induced Female Sexual Dysfunction

Sep. 28, 2016 — One in six women in the U.S. takes antidepressants to improve her well-being, but what is she to do when the medication that is meant to help disrupts another area of her ... read more

Dementia: Catching the Memory Thief

Sep. 28, 2016 — It's over a hundred years since the first case of Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed. Since then we've learned a great deal about the protein 'tangles' and 'plaques' that cause the disease. How close are we to having effective treatments -- and could we even prevent dementia from occurring in the first ... read more

Time Window to Help People Who Have Had a Stroke Longer Than Previously Shown

Sep. 28, 2016 — Time is of the essence when getting people stricken with acute ischemic strokes to treatment. Current professional guidelines recommend that stent retrievers be used to remove blood clots from stroke patients within six hours for people to benefit. But new research finds that the procedure has benefits for people up to 7.3 hours following the ... read more

Acupuncture Reduces Hot Flashes for Half of Women, Study Finds

Sep. 28, 2016 — Hot flashes – the bane of existence for many women during menopause – can be reduced in frequency by almost half for about 50 percent of women over eight weeks of acupuncture treatment, according to ... read more

Randomized Trial Suggests Eating Bread Made With Ancient Grains Could Benefit Heart Health

Sep. 28, 2016 — Eating bread made with ancient grains could help lower cholesterol and blood glucose, a recent randomized trial suggests. Compared with modern grain varieties which are often heavily refined, ancient grains offer antioxidant and anti-inflammatory profiles. They also contain beneficial vitamins (B and E), minerals (eg, magnesium, iron, potassium), ... read more

Energy Drink Use, With or Without Alcohol, Contributes to Drunk Driving

Sep. 27, 2016 — Highly caffeinated energy drinks (EDs) have been of concern to the public-health community for almost a decade. Many young people consume EDs with alcohol to decrease alcohol’s sedative effects and stay awake longer, enabling them to drink more alcohol. Adding to the growing body of research linking ED consumption with risk-taking and alcohol-related problems, this study examined its ... read more

The Spice of Life: Cinnamon Cools Your Stomach

Sep. 26, 2016 — Adding cinnamon to your diet can cool your body by up to two degrees, according to research. And the spice may also contribute to a general improvement in overall health, say authors of a new ... read more

Measles Has Officially Been Eliminated In The Americas

Air Pollution Killing Hundreds of Thousands in S.Asia: WHO

9 Out Of 10 People On Earth Are Breathing Polluted Air

Over 90% of People Breathing Bad Air: UN

Secure Passwords Can Be Sent Through Body

Cheaper Next-Generation Solar Modules

New Step Forward for Quantum Photonic Circuits

Quantum Computing a Step Closer to Reality

Sep. 27, 2016 — Engineers have devised a way to send secure passwords through the human body using smartphone fingerprint sensors and laptop touchpads -- rather than over the air where they're vulnerable to ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Thin-film technologies can dramatically reduce the cost of next-generation solar modules, say scientists. Whereas their production cost is low, it is in particular the combination of complementary ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Whether for use in safe data encryption, ultrafast calculation of huge data volumes or so-called quantum simulation of highly complex systems: Optical quantum computers are a source of hope for ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Physicists have brought quantum computing a step closer to reality by stopping light in a new experiment. Researchers report that controlling the movement of light is critical to developing future ... read more

Latest Physical/Tech Headlines

updated 4:28pm EDT

Traveling Through the Body With Graphene

Sep. 28, 2016 — Researchers have succeeded to place a layer of graphene on top of a stable fatty lipid monolayer, for the first time. Surrounded by a protective shell of lipids graphene could enter the body and function as a versatile sensor. The results are the first step towards such a shell, say authors of a new ... read more

Toward 'Greener,' Inexpensive Solar Cells

Sep. 28, 2016 — Solar panels are proliferating across the globe to help reduce the world's dependency on fossil fuels. But conventional panels are not without environmental costs, too. Now scientists report a new advance toward more practical, "greener" solar cells made with inexpensive halide perovskite materials. They have developed low-bandgap perovskite solar cells with a reduced lead content and a power ... read more

Study of North Atlantic Ocean Reveals Decline of Leaded Petrol Emissions

Sep. 28, 2016 — A new study of lead pollution in the North Atlantic provides strong evidence that leaded petrol emissions have declined over the past few decades. For the first time in around 40 years, scientists have detected lead from natural sources in samples from this ocean. In the intervening period, the proportion of lead in the ocean from humanmade sources, most importantly leaded petrol emissions, had ... read more

Mechanical Behavior of Tiny Structures Is Affected by Atomic Defects

Sep. 28, 2016 — Scientists have measured the mechanics of tiny crystalline ceramics. Materials are made of atoms, and if they are arranged periodically, they are called crystalline structures. If the size of these crystalline structures is 1,000 times smaller than a single human hair diameter, then they are called ... read more

Solving a Heavy-Duty Mystery

Sep. 26, 2016 — To determine how the universe's heavy elements -- gold, silver and many others -- came about, a team of international researchers is studying both the largest and smallest things known to us -- stars and atoms. The team is providing critical data to computer models of what are known as stellar events -- supernovas and neutron stars mergers, to be ... read more

Australian Technology Installed on World’s Largest Single-Dish Radio Telescope

Sep. 26, 2016 — The world’s largest filled single-dish radio telescope has launched, and it relies on a piece of West Australian innovation. The telescope -- known as FAST -- uses a data system developed at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy in Perth ... read more

Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa

Sep. 26, 2016 — Astronomers have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water ... read more

Scientists' Finding Supports Moon Creation Hypothesis

Sep. 26, 2016 — A layer of iron and other elements deep underground is the evidence scientists have long been seeking to support the hypothesis that the moon was formed by a planetary object hitting the infant Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, a new ... read more

The Urge to Upgrade

Sep. 27, 2016 — In order to properly decide if an upgrade is worth the cost, consumers should compare the new product with what they already own. But new research shows there‘s a wide gap between what buyers should do and what actually happens when it comes to the most cutting-edge gadgets, products and ... read more

Quantum Computing Advances With Researchers' Control of Entanglement

Sep. 27, 2016 — Using laser light, a team of scientists has developed a precise, continuous control technology giving 60 times more success than previous efforts in sustaining the lifetime of “qubits,” the unit that quantum computers encode. In particular, the researchers have shown that they can continue to create a quantum behavior known as the entangled state -- entangling more than one million different ... read more

Computer Engineers Boost App Speeds by More Than 9 Percent

Sep. 26, 2016 — Researchers have found a way to boost the speed of computer applications by more than 9 percent. The improvement results from techniques that allow computer processors to retrieve data more ... read more

Next Generation of Statistical Tools to Be Developed for the Big Data Age

Sep. 21, 2016 — Statisticians are developing new ways to interpret the unprecedented amounts of data being generated continuously all around us. Whether it is smart phones packed full of sensors measuring your health, location and the weather, or connected cars driving past roadside monitors measuring traffic volumes or air quality, or even thousands of sensors on individual oil wells, in the world of the ... read more

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Environment News

September 28, 2016

Global Rise in Methane from Agriculture?

Fossil Proteins Break Through DNA Time Barrier

How Traffic Impacts Wild Owls' Foraging

Consistency Builds Cohesion in Animal Kingdom

Sep. 27, 2016 — Recent rises in levels of methane in our atmosphere is being driven by biological sources, such as swamp gas, cow burps, or rice fields, rather than ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Scientists have identified fossil proteins in a 3.8 million year-old ostrich eggshell, suggesting that proteins could provide valuable new insights into the evolutionary tree, much further back in ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — Traffic noise reduces the foraging efficiency of wild owls by up to 89 percent, a team of researchers has found. The team's world-first study examined how different levels of such noise affect the ... read more

Sep. 27, 2016 — A wide range of animals -- from shoals of fish, to swarms of locusts, to zebras on the Serengeti -- live in tightly-coordinated social groups. This can help them avoid predation and find food, but ... read more

Latest Environment Headlines

updated 4:28pm EDT

Optimization Technique Identifies Cost-Effective Biodiversity Corridors

Sep. 27, 2016 — A new optimization technique could help conservation biologists choose the most cost-effective ways of connecting isolated populations of rare, threatened and endangered species living in ... read more

Fungus Makes Mosquitoes Much More Likely to Become Infected With Malaria

Sep. 28, 2016 — A fungus that compromises the immune system of mosquitoes, making them more susceptible to infection with the parasite that causes malaria, has been discovered by scientists. Because environmental microorganisms can vary greatly from region to region, the researchers say the findings may help explain variations in the prevalence of malaria in different geographic ... read more

How Choosy Should You Be?

Sep. 28, 2016 — When animals choose their mates, how discriminate they are varies a great deal. For some male Mormon crickets, any female will do; in contrast, blue peahens rarely fall for the first cock courting them. Across nature, all kinds of situations seem to occur (albeit with different frequencies): indiscriminate males and females, only choosy females, only choosy males, very choosy everybody, as well ... read more

Researchers Modify Yeast to Show How Plants Respond to a Key Hormone

Sep. 27, 2016 — Researchers have developed a novel toolkit based on modified yeast cells to tease out how plant genes and proteins respond to auxin, the most ubiquitous plant hormone. Their system allowed them to decode auxin's basic effects on a diverse family of ... read more

Solution Blooming for Fracking Spills?

Sep. 28, 2016 — Wastewater from oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – is often laden with salts and can spill, contaminating soils. In a recent study, researchers tested a method that extracted a large percentage of the salt present in soils contaminated by ... read more

Climate Change Jigsaw Puzzle: Antarctic Pieces Missing

Sep. 28, 2016 — A shift in westerly winds, which has led to climate impacts in Australia and the Southern Ocean, is human-induced, new research suggests. To date, limited data on Antarctic climate has meant that it’s been difficult to disentangle changes caused by human activity from ... read more

Foreign Farms Increase the Risk of Conflicts in Africa

Sep. 28, 2016 — For the first time, researchers point to areas in Africa where foreign agricultural companies’ choice of crops and management of fresh water are partly responsible for the increased water shortages and greater competition for water. This in turn increases the risk of outright conflicts between all those who need water – plants, animals and ... read more

Climate Change Will See Some Males Get Sexier

Sep. 27, 2016 — A common marine crustacean has shown researchers that it's all set to beat climate change -- the males will get more attractive to the females, with a resulting ... read more

Fossils Can Help Predict Future Species Survival

Sep. 27, 2016 — Many people are concerned about conservation of the planet's cute and cuddlies. But in a world of global climate change, sometimes we must prioritize which species we can and should save from extinction. Scientists are helping us make those determinations by looking at the ... read more

Life in Ancient Oceans Enabled by Erosion from Land

Sep. 26, 2016 — As scientists continue finding evidence for life in the ocean more than 3 billion years ago, those ancient fossils pose a paradox that raises questions about whether there was more land mass than ... read more

Ancestor of Arthropods Had the Mouth of a Penis Worm

Sep. 26, 2016 — Imagine a meter long worm with 12 stubby legs and matching sets of flaps running down the body. On the head is a large pair of spiny appendages used for grasping prey that transport victims into a circular mouth with several rows of teeth. For years, scientists have disagreed over whether this ... read more

In Bird Feathers, Scientists Find Hints About Color of Extinct Animals

Sep. 23, 2016 — In order to discover the true colors of ancient animals, scientists are using X-rays to closely examine the chemical details of modern bird feathers. The researchers were able to map elements that make up pigments responsible for red and black colors in feathers. They hope to use this information ... read more

Santa Cruz Wildfire Forces Hundreds from Homes

Pigeons Can Distinguish Words from Non-Words, Study Says

Lightning Strikes Leave Australian State in the Dark

Typhoon Megi Leave Trail of Destruction in Taiwan

What's the Impact of the VW Emissions Cheat?

Internet Addiction Signals Mental Health ...

Half of Kids Spend Time in Home With Firearms

Earthquakes Can Trigger Other Fault Aftershocks

Sep. 20, 2016 — Beginning in 2008, Volkswagen installed software to circumvent emissions testing by turning off the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions control system in ... read more

Sep. 18, 2016 — A new survey of internet users suggests that people who use the internet excessively may have more mental health problems. Using two scales to ... read more

Sep. 14, 2016 — About half of the children whose parents were surveyed in the United States spend time in homes that have firearms, a study of shows. However, few ... read more

Sep. 8, 2016 — A large earthquake on one fault can trigger large aftershocks on separate faults within just a few minutes. These findings have important implications for earthquake hazard prone regions like ... read more

Latest Society/Education Headlines

updated 4:28pm EDT

Missing Fish Catch Data? Not Necessarily a Problem, New Study Says

Sep. 27, 2016 — Recording how many fish are caught is one important requirement to measure the well-being of a fish stock -- if scientists know the number of fish taken from the ocean, they can adjust management of that fishery to keep it from being overfished. Missing catch data, however, are rampant, causing concern that fisheries around the world are overfished. In many cases, misreporting caught fish doesn't ... read more

High-Tech Future Early Warning System for Hurricanes, Tornados and Volcanic Eruptions

Sep. 27, 2016 — The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has been able to detect a gravity wave wafting through space from two colliding black holes billions of years ago. Now a group has built a much smaller ring laser interferometer to ... read more

Poverty and Perceived Hardship Affect Cognitive Function and May Contribute to Premature Aging, Say Investigators

Sep. 27, 2016 — A new study finds strong associations between sustained exposure to economic hardship and worse cognitive function in relatively young ... read more

Crystalline Fault Lines Provide Pathway for Solar Cell Current

Sep. 26, 2016 — A team of scientists studying solar cells made from cadmium telluride, a promising alternative to silicon, has discovered that microscopic "fault lines" within and between crystals of the material act as conductive pathways that ease the flow of electric current. This research may help explain how ... read more

Automated Screening for Childhood Communication Disorders

Sep. 23, 2016 — For children with speech and language disorders, early-childhood intervention can make a great difference in their later academic and social success. But many such children -- one study estimates 60 percent -- go undiagnosed until kindergarten or ... read more

Research Shows That How Students Engage With Feedback Is as Important as Its Content

Sep. 21, 2016 — A new research review takes a novel approach to feedback by focusing not on how it is delivered, but how students engage with and use it. The key message from the study is that effective feedback needs to be a dialogue – not a one-way ... read more

Health Benefits of Evening Classes Revealed

Sep. 20, 2016 — Those with a taste for adult education classes have long known it, but now scientists have confirmed that taking part in the weekly sessions can boost wellbeing -- regardless of the ... read more

Video Games Can Have Lasting Impact on Learning

Sep. 20, 2016 — A computer-based brain training program helps improve student performance in reading and math — in some cases even more than individualized tutoring, according to a new ... read more

Rushing to Complete Work on Deadline Could Mean More Mistakes

Sep. 19, 2016 — When deadlines are in place, workers tend to complete their tasks at the last minute, often leading to lower quality outcomes, shows a new ... read more

'Sleeper Effect' Accounts for Durability of Weak Messages from Credible Sources

Sep. 13, 2016 — The least convincing arguments can reverberate in the public consciousness over time -- provided they're delivered by a credible source, explains new ... read more

Group Work Can Harm Memory

Sep. 13, 2016 — Collaborating in a group to remember information is harmful, new research suggests. The research statistically analysed 64 earlier collaborative remembering studies and found that groups recall less than their individual members would if working ... read more

Women Do Ask for Pay Rises but Don’t Get Them

Sep. 5, 2016 — New research shows that women ask for wage rises just as often as men, but men are 25 per cent more likely to get a raise when they ... read more

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