ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news

Top Science News

April 8, 2016

Triple Star System Hosts a 'Hot Jupiter'

Artificial Comet May Explain Origin of Life

First Transistors Made of Nanocrystal 'Inks'

Modern Men Lack Neanderthal Y Chromosome Genes

Apr. 7, 2016 — Crisp, clear images of a "hot Jupiter" system captured by a physicist were vital in determining that a newly found planet inhabits a three-star system, a phenomenon documented only a few times ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — Researchers have for the first time shown that ribose, a sugar that is one of the building blocks of genetic material in living organisms, may have formed in cometary ices. They propose the first ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — Engineers have shown a new approach for making transistors and other electrical devices: sequentially depositing their components in the form of liquid nanocrystal ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — The Neanderthal counterpart of the human Y chromosome, or male sex chromosome, appears to have died out. Why this happened is up for ... read more

Latest Top Headlines

updated 8:33pm EDT

'Marijuana Receptor' Might Hold the Key to New Fertility Treatments for Men

Apr. 8, 2016 — Scientists have shown that a cannabinoid receptor, called 'CB2,' helps regulate the creation of sperm. Not only does this provide more evidence that marijuana can disrupt fertility in males, but it also suggests a therapeutic strategy for treating ... read more

Curiosity Leads Us to Seek out Unpleasant, Painful Outcomes

Apr. 8, 2016 — Curiosity is a powerful motivator, leading us to make important discoveries and explore the unknown. But new research shows that our curiosity is sometimes so powerful that it leads us to choose potentially painful and unpleasant outcomes that have no apparent benefits, even when we have the ... read more

Is a Popular Painkiller Hampering Our Ability to Notice Errors?

Apr. 8, 2016 — According to a new study acetaminophen could be impeding error-detection in ... read more

Blood-Brain Barrier Breakthrough Reported by Researchers

Apr. 8, 2016 — The blood-brain barrier has stymied direct treatment of brain disorders. In a recently published study, a researcher reports finding a way to pass therapeutics through the barrier, using ... read more

Clathrate Ices Identified in Comet 67P

Apr. 8, 2016 — For decades, scientists have agreed that comets are mostly water ice, but what kind of ice -- amorphous or crystalline -- is still up for debate. Looking at data obtained by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft in the atmosphere, or coma, around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists are seeing evidence ... read more

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Can Boost Language Comprehension

Apr. 8, 2016 — How the human brain processes the words we hear and constructs complex concepts is still somewhat of a mystery to the neuroscience community. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can alter our language processing, allowing for faster comprehension of meaningful word combinations, ... read more

The Missing Brown Dwarfs

Apr. 8, 2016 — When re-analyzing cataloged and updated observational data of brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood, astronomers have found that a significant number of nearby brown dwarfs should still be out there, awaiting their discovery. The study challenges the previously established picture of brown dwarfs ... read more

Clearing the Way for Real-World Applications of Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Apr. 8, 2016 — Researchers call for consistent and standardized testing of superhydrophobic, i.e. extremely ... read more

New Models Predicting Where to Find Fossils

Apr. 8, 2016 — An international team of scientists have developed a way to help locate fossils of long-extinct animals. The models were developed for Australia but the researchers provide guidelines on how to apply their approach to assist fossil hunting in ... read more

'Climate-Smart Soils' May Help Balance the Carbon Budget

Apr. 7, 2016 — While farm soil grows the world's food and fiber, scientists are examining ways to use it to sequester carbon and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. But here's the scientific dirt: Soil can help reduce ... read more

What Really Happened on Easter Island?

Apr. 8, 2016 — Hundreds of iconic moai statues stand testament to the vibrant civilization that once inhabited Easter Island, but there are far fewer clues about why this civilization mysteriously vanished. Did they shortsightedly exhaust the island's resources? Were they decimated by European illnesses and slave ... read more

Climate Models Underestimate Global Warming by Exaggerating Cloud Brightening

Apr. 7, 2016 — Researchers have found that climate models are aggressively making clouds 'brighter' as the planet warms. This may be causing models to underestimate how much global warming will occur due to increasing ... read more

Suit Mimics Life at Age 85

Space Station Getting 1st Inflatable Room

Blink And You'll Miss This Spider's Bite

Investigating the Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs

Wisdom Is a Matter of Both Heart and Mind

We Favor Black and White Approach to Morality

Treating Sugar Addiction Like Drug Abuse

Higher Vitamin D Level, Lower Cancer Risk

Apr. 7, 2016 — The fluctuations of your heartbeat may affect your wisdom, according to new research. The study suggests that heart rate variation and thinking process work together to enable wise reasoning about ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — People gauge others' trustworthiness based on their moral judgments, new research shows. People who are seen as holding to moral absolutes are more ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — Millions of people globally are overweight or obese and sugar is considered a major factor. Now a world-first game-changing study suggests drugs used to treat tobacco addiction could work for sugar ... read more

Apr. 6, 2016 — Researchers report that higher levels of vitamin D -- specifically serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D -- are associated with a correspondingly reduced risk of ... read more

Latest Health Headlines

updated 8:33pm EDT

Maternal Obesity and Poor Nutrition in the Womb Impairs Fertility in Female Offspring

Apr. 8, 2016 — New research involving mice suggests that maternal obesity and poor nutrition during pregnancy affects the egg reserves of female ... read more

Protective Effect of Genetically Modified Cord Blood on Spinal Cord Injury in Rats

Apr. 8, 2016 — Researchers genetically modified cord blood which managed to increase tissue sparing and numbers of regenerated axons, reduce glial scar formation and promote behavioral recovery when transplanted immediately after a rat contusion spinal cord ... read more

Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptoms Improve, Relapse Preventable With Sustained Medication

Apr. 8, 2016 — People with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) fare better and are less likely to relapse when treated with medication on a long-term basis, according to ... read more

Six-Step Hand-Washing Technique Found Most Effective for Reducing Bacteria

Apr. 8, 2016 — The six-step hand-hygiene technique recommended by the World Health Organization is superior to a three-step method suggested by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in reducing bacteria on healthcare workers' hands, new evidence ... read more

Intracellular Recordings Using Nanotower Electrodes

Apr. 8, 2016 — Researchers have developed an intracellular recording device, a long three-dimensional nanoscale-tipped microneedle-electrodes. Moreover, they demonstrated the needle penetrations into muscle cells and measured the signals. The nanoelectrode, whose size is longer than the conventional intracellular nanoelectrode, has the potential to be used in cells that are deep within a tissue, such as cells ... read more

Detailed Analysis of Autism-Associated Genes Finds Involvement in Key Pathways, Processes

Apr. 7, 2016 — Key underlying biological processes have been identified that involve some of the hundreds of genes known to contribute to the risk of autism spectrum disorders. Several separate analyses converged on a key molecular process -- the overlap of two major signaling pathways -- as well as on several groups of genes that participate in that process and ... read more

Women With Unhealthy BMIs Who Smoke, Drink at Two-Fold Higher Risk of Asthma

Apr. 6, 2016 — Underweight and obese women who also drank alcohol and smoked tobacco had a two-fold higher risk of being diagnosed with asthma than women with a healthy body mass index who did not drink or smoke, a study has ... read more

Switching Specific G-Protein-Coupled Signalling Pathways on and Off

Apr. 8, 2016 — Blue on, yellow off: using different-colored light, researchers are able to switch signalling pathways in the brain on and off. Depending on what kind of melanopsin the researchers used, signalling pathways were switched on either transiently or sustained. In mammals, the protein typically ... read more

Maternal Obesity, Diabetes in Pregnancy Result in Early Overgrowth of Baby in the Womb

Apr. 7, 2016 — The babies of obese women who develop gestational diabetes are five times as likely to be excessively large by six months of pregnancy, according to new research. The study, which shows that excessive fetal growth begins weeks before at-risk women are screened for gestational diabetes, suggests that current screening programs may take place too ... read more

Skateboarding Sent About 176 Youth to US Emergency Departments Every Day

Apr. 8, 2016 — A study examined data for youth and adolescents 5-19 years of age who were treated in US emergency departments (EDs) for skateboarding-related injuries from 1990-2008. Nationally, over the 19-year period, there was an average of 64,572 children and adolescents treated each year for skateboarding-related injuries -- about 176 a ... read more

Traditional Skin Tests Used to Predict Allergies to Antibiotics Are Useless, Say Researchers

Apr. 7, 2016 — Skin tests traditionally used to predict allergies to amoxicillin, one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in children, are ineffective according to a new study. The findings determined that oral provocation or challenge test, with ... read more

What Social Media Data Could Tell Us About the Future

Apr. 7, 2016 — Can a flow of information across Twitter signal when a momentous event is about to occur? Scientists developed a method to find out. Their findings represent an initial step in constructing models to detect trouble before it's too ... read more

What a Newborn Baby Sees

Fighting L.A.'s Food Desert One Block at a Time

Suit Mimics Life at Age 85

Eating Peanuts May Actually Prevent Peanut Allergies, Study Says

Physicists Build Ultra-Powerful Accelerator ...

Nano-Control of Light Pioneers New Paths

Digital Images Stored Perfectly in DNA

Neutron Star Collapsing Into a Black Hole

Apr. 7, 2016 — The next generation of cutting-edge accelerator magnets is no longer just an idea. Recent tests revealed that the United States and CERN have successfully co-created a prototype superconducting ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — A research team has achieved unparalleled levels of control over the angular momentum (AM) of light in an integrated nanophotonic chip. The work leads the way for compact on-chip AM applications like ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — Researchers have developed one of the first complete systems to store digital data in DNA -- allowing companies to store data that today would fill a big box store supercenter in a space the size of ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — Astrophysicists have found a simple formula for the maximum mass of a rotating neutron star and hence answered a question that had been open for ... read more

Latest Physical/Tech Headlines

updated 8:33pm EDT

Quantum Dots Enhance Light-to-Current Conversion in Layered Semiconductors

Apr. 8, 2016 — Scientists combined the excellent light-harvesting properties of quantum dots with the tunable electrical conductivity of a layered tin disulfide semiconductor to produce a hybrid material that exhibited enhanced light-harvesting and energy transfer properties. The research paves the way for using ... read more

New Microwave Synthesis Technique Produces More-Affordable Hydrogen

Apr. 8, 2016 — Scientists create a molybdenum-based material that could be a low-cost alternative to platinum for splitting water to make hydrogen ... read more

Magnetic Delivery of Therapeutic Enzymes Paves Way for Targeted Thrombosis Treatment

Apr. 6, 2016 — Researchers have fabricated a new magnetically controlled material composed of enzymes entrapped directly within magnetite particles. Combined with water, it forms a stable solution that can be used for safe intravenous injection for medical ... read more

Timber Skyscrapers Could Transform London's Skyline

Apr. 8, 2016 — London’s first timber skyscraper could be a step closer to reality this week after researchers presented Mayor of London Boris Johnson with conceptual plans for an 80-storey, 300m high wooden building integrated within ... read more

Gravitational Wave Search Provides Insights Into Galaxy Evolution and Mergers

Apr. 5, 2016 — New results from NANOGrav -- the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves -- establish astrophysically significant limits in the search for low-frequency gravitational waves. This result provides insight into how often galaxies ... read more

Planet 9 Takes Shape: Newfound Planet in Our Outer Solar System Simulated

Apr. 7, 2016 — Astrophysicists have modeled the evolution of the putative planet in the outer solar system. They estimate that the object has a present-day radius equal to 3.7 Earth radii and a temperature of minus 226 ... read more

Supermassive Black Holes May Be Lurking Everywhere in the Universe

Apr. 6, 2016 — One of the largest supermassive black holes on record has been discovered in an unexpected place: a relatively sparse region of the local universe where massive galaxies -- the typical home of these huge black holes -- are few and far between. According new research, there could be many more such ... read more

Supernovae Showered Earth With Radioactive Debris

Apr. 6, 2016 — An international team of scientists has found evidence of a series of massive supernova explosions near our solar system, which showered the Earth with radioactive debris.The scientists found radioactive iron-60 in sediment and crust samples taken from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The ... read more

The Future Is Here: Interactive Screens on Your Packages

Apr. 8, 2016 — Instead of reading a label, consumers could be interacting with an electronic screen on packaging in the future, thanks to a revolutionary new development that could revolutionize the packaging ... read more

Trawling the Net to Target Internet Trolls

Apr. 6, 2016 — A software tool capable of both collecting and then cutting through millions of online messages to identify radicalizing groups, trolls, and cyberbullies has been created by a UK trolling expert and her ... read more

Neutron 'Splashes' Reveal Signature of Exotic Particles

Apr. 7, 2016 — Researchers used neutrons to uncover novel behavior in materials that holds promise for quantum computing. The findings provide evidence for long-sought phenomena in a ... read more

Scientists Invent Robotic 'Artist' That Spray Paints Giant Murals

Apr. 7, 2016 — Robots do many things formerly done only by humans - from bartending and farming to driving cars -- but a researchers have now invented a 'smart' paint spray can that robotically reproduces photographs as ... read more

more top physical/tech stories

Latest Physical/Tech Videos

from news services

Sam The Stuffed Dog Is Missing After Helium Balloon Experiment

Hitachi's Newest Robot Shows the Way

The 3-Day Weekend Is Venezuela's Solution For Saving Electricity

Meet NASA Pioneer Katherine Johnson Before Her Movie Comes Out

more top physical/tech videos

Environment News

April 8, 2016

Trap-Jaw Spiders Strike Prey With Lightning Speed

Role of Microbes in Workings of 'River's Liver'

Earth's Soils: Key in Storing Greenhouse Gases

Limb Regrowth May Be Hidden in Our Genes

Apr. 7, 2016 — Biologists have discovered that trap-jaw spiders have a surprising ability to strike their prey at lightning speed and with super-spider ... read more

Apr. 7, 2016 — Scientists have found evidence that rising river waters deliver a feast of carbon to hungry microbes where water meets land, triggering increased activity and altering the flow of greenhouse gases ... read more

Apr. 6, 2016 — The world's soils could store an extra eight billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, helping to limit the impacts of climate change, research ... read more

Apr. 6, 2016 — Salamanders and fish possess genes that can enable healing of damaged tissue and even regrowth of missing limbs. The key to regeneration lies not only in the genes, but in the DNA sequences that ... read more

Latest Environment Headlines

updated 8:33pm EDT

New Method Developed for Testing Herbicide Resistance in Weeds

Apr. 7, 2016 — Herbicide-resistant weeds are becoming increasingly common in agricultural landscapes. Existing methods for confirming herbicide resistance require knowledge of the genes responsible for target-site resistance, but this information is not always known. A new method, developed by researchers for ... read more

Dynamic Model Helps Understand Healthy Lakes to Heal Sick Ones

Apr. 7, 2016 — Development of a dynamic model for microbial populations in healthy lakes could help scientists understand what's wrong with sick lakes, prescribe cures and predict what may happen as environmental conditions change. Those are among the benefits expected from an ambitious project to model the interactions of some 18,000 species in a well-studied Wisconsin ... read more

Developing Ways to Study Influenza D Virus

Apr. 8, 2016 — Researchers have found antibodies to the newly discovered influenza D virus in pigs, cattle, horses, goats and sheep, but not poultry. A researcher has proven that the guinea pig can be used as an animal model and is developing a way to study the virus in living cells—trachea and lung epithelial cells from swine and ... read more

Viruses Work Together to Attack Their Hosts

Apr. 8, 2016 — Viruses work in groups to attack host cells more effectively, report scientists. The results of this study also show that natural selection “facilitates the teamwork of viruses in relation to their position in the same ... read more

How an Ancient Civilization Conserved Water

Apr. 8, 2016 — High-resolution, aerial imagery bears significance for researchers on the ground investigating how remote, ancient Maya civilizations used and ... read more

When Life Returned After a Volcanic Mass Extinction

Apr. 8, 2016 — A new study used fossils and mercury isotopes from volcanic gas deposited in ancient proto-Pacific Ocean sediment deposits in Nevada to determine when life recovered following the end-Triassic mass extinction 201.5 million years ... read more

Respirator Mask Reduces Effects of Pollution on the Heart

Apr. 6, 2016 — The use of a respiratory filter mask helps minimize the impact of pollution on people with heart failure during rush-hour traffic in big cities, shows a new ... read more

Despite Being 'the Biggest Threat Facing Humanity' Climate Change and Its Impacts Fail to Make Headlines, Says Study

Apr. 6, 2016 — Even as 60 million people around the world face severe hunger because of El Niño and millions more because of climate change, top European and American media outlets are neglecting to cover the issues as a top news item, says a new research ... read more

Primate Evolution in the Fast Lane

Apr. 7, 2016 — The pace of evolution is typically measured in millions of years, as random, individual mutations accumulate over generations, but researchers have uncovered a new mechanism for mutation in primates that is rapid, coordinated, and aggressive. The discovery raises questions about the accuracy of using the more typical mutation process as an estimate to date when two species diverged, as well as ... read more

Ancient Algae Offer New Hope for Hard-to-Treat Cancers

Apr. 6, 2016 — In one of the oldest life forms on Earth, scientists have discovered a new compound that shows potent anti-cancer activity. Researchers are pursuing the compound as a possible new therapy for brain tumors and triple negative breast ... read more

1200 Years of Water Balance Data Challenge Climate Models

Apr. 6, 2016 — Water availability in the Northern Hemisphere has seen much larger changes during the past twelve centuries than during twentieth century global warming, a new study reports. The team concludes that climate models overestimate wet and dry extremes as temperatures increased during the twentieth century. The new results can help to improve the ability of climate models to predict future ... read more

Optical Approach Offers Faster, Less Expensive Method for Carbon Dating

Apr. 6, 2016 — Researchers have demonstrated a new compact spectroscopic instrument that offers a highly sensitive optical method for detecting radiocarbon dioxide concentration, which can be used to carbon date fossils and ... read more

Fighting L.A.'s Food Desert One Block at a Time

The 3-Day Weekend Is Venezuela's Solution For Saving Electricity

Chinese Pandas Gifted by President Xi Unveiled in South Korea

Raw: Malaysian Panda Dubbed 'Warm & Friendly'

Adults With Diabetes Quadrupled in 35 Years

Slow Fault Movements: Impending Earthquakes?

Vibrations Make Large Landslides Flow Like Fluid

Hybrid System Could Cut Coal-Plant Emissions

Apr. 6, 2016 — Since 1980, the number of adults with diabetes worldwide has quadrupled from 108 million to 422 million in 2014. The findings provide the most ... read more

Apr. 5, 2016 — Scientists have discovered a way to forecast earthquakes based on slow fault movements caused by moving sub-layers of the Earth. The study may have major significance on the prediction of ... read more

Apr. 4, 2016 — New research shows why some large landslides travel greater distances across flat land than scientists would generally expect, sometimes putting towns and populations far from mountainsides at ... read more

Apr. 4, 2016 — A system to generate electricity from coal with much greater efficiency has been designed by researchers, possibly reaching as much as twice the fuel-to-electricity efficiency of today's conventional ... read more

Latest Society/Education Headlines

updated 8:33pm EDT

World Trade Center Firefighters Needing Sinus Surgery Had More Intense, Longer Exposure to Caustic Dust and Have Higher Eosinophil Levels

Apr. 8, 2016 — Firefighters who responded in the first two days of the World Trade Center disaster and those who worked at the site for six months or longer are more likely to need sinus surgery than firefighters whose exposure to the site's caustic dust was less ... read more

Ditch 'Colonial' Thinking to Boost Access to Surgery for World's Poor, Rich Nations Told

Apr. 7, 2016 — Rich nations 'must abandon colonial narratives' and work alongside low and middle income countries to boost access to safe and affordable surgery for the world's poor, concludes an international blueprint for ... read more

Marine Preserve to Help Penguins in a 'Predictably Unpredictable' Place

Apr. 7, 2016 — New regulations by the government of Ecuador to protect the waters around the Galapagos Islands as a marine preserve, including main feeding areas for ... read more

Spending That Fits Personality Can Boost Well-Being

Apr. 7, 2016 — Money could buy happiness if your purchases fit your personality, according to a new study that examines nearly 77,000 actual UK bank spending transactions. The study revealed that people who spent more money on purchases that aligned with their personality traits reported greater life satisfaction. Spending-personality fit was more strongly associated with life satisfaction than were either ... read more

Key Advance: Neuroscientists Get a New Look Into How We Read

Apr. 7, 2016 — Neuroscientists have come up with a way to observe brain activity during natural reading. It's the first time researchers have been able to study the brain while reading actual texts, instead of individual words, and it's already helping settle some ideas about just how we ... read more

Children's Interactions More Complex Than Predicted

Apr. 6, 2016 — While sharing toys and fighting with each other, kindergarten children helped researchers understand the patterns and qualities of interactions in social groups. The results were much more complex than the scientists ... read more

Americans and Canadians Favor Practical Wisdom

Apr. 6, 2016 — Psychologists and sociologists studied average people to determine how everyday people understand wisdom and uncovered a set of characteristics shared across North America that shape today's prototypical vision of ... read more

Quality Time Rather Than Study Time Improves Teens' Educational Aspirations

Apr. 6, 2016 — Teenagers who spend quality time with their parents are more likely to want to further their studies, according to a study. Researchers found that adolescents who take part in cultural activities with their mother and father were more likely to aspire to continue their studies post-16 than those who didn't. This is compared to even those who attended homework clubs or participated in ... read more

Supervisors, Coworkers Tolerate Unethical Behavior When Production Is Good, Study Finds

Apr. 5, 2016 — A new study investigates why employees’ unethical behaviors may be tolerated versus rejected. Researchers conducted a total of three studies and surveyed 1,040 people -- including more than 300 pairs of supervisors and their ... read more

Terahertz Technology Reaches Industrial Maturity

Apr. 4, 2016 — Terahertz is a new technology in which nondestructive testing of components and surfaces is possible. Until now, these devices and, in particular, the sensor heads have been expensive and unwieldy. Researchers have now succeeded in making sensor heads more compact and, thus, cheaper, which ... read more

New Scrolling Technique Accelerates Skim Reading

Mar. 29, 2016 — Documents can be skimmed 60% faster than presently and with higher recall, using a newly developed ... read more

CEO Personality Traits Play Role in Incentive Pay, Compensation

Mar. 28, 2016 — Companies appear to structure compensation contracts and incentive pay based on a manager's personality traits, and not just firm characteristics, according to a new ... read more

more top society/education stories

Latest Society/Education Videos

from news services