A new study of wars over 600 years shows conflict following a universal mathematical law, suggesting that the current period of relative peace could be more fragile than many have thought.
PLUS. En stor del af vores viden om folkevandringerne fra de eurasiske stepper til Europa og fra Asien til Amerika stammer fra et dna-laboratorium på Københavns Universitet. Eske Willerslev & co. har efter Ingeniørens opfattelse leveret årets største danske forskningsresultat.
PLUS. Forskere fra DTU Space har observeret ualmindeligt store og hurtige landhævninger, der kan stabilisere iskappen på Vestantarktis. Målingerne var blandt de nominerede til årets bedste danske forskningsresultat.
PLUS. På Cern spiller forskere fra Aarhus Universitet en hovedrolle i studier af antibrint. Deres resultater var blandt de nominerede til årets bedste forskningsresultat.
PLUS. Ny danskudviklet vaccine kan blive den længe ventede afløser for calmettevaccinen. Og den var blandt de nominerede til årets bedste danske forskningsresultat.
PLUS. Forskere på Københavns Universitet har lanceret ny model, som rokker ved vores opfattelse af, hvordan Jorden og Månen opstod. Den var blandt de nominerede til årets danske forskningsresultat.
Ingeniøren udpeger hvert år de fem bedste danske forskningsresultater inden for teknik og naturvidenskab. Vinderen kombinerer arkæologi og genetik til et helt nyt forskningsfelt.
Behind Apple's disconcerting news of weak iPhone sales lies a more sobering truth: The tech industry has hit Peak Smartphone, a tipping point when everyone who can afford one already owns one and no breakthroughs are compelling them to upgrade as frequently as they once did.
High up in the Bolivian cloud forest, a woman tends to her bees, smoker in hand, working from hive to hive under a canopy of leaves to delicately gather panels of honeycomb. It's a bucolic scene that experts say won't last, for the bees are dying.
China's space agency has posted a photo of a lunar rover making tracks on the surface shortly after leaving a spacecraft that had made the first-ever landing on the moon's far side.
Former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn is likely to appear in a Japanese court to hear the reasons for his detention, possibly within days, after his lawyers deployed a little-used article of the Constitution.
Crouching near a wooden shed in his snowy backyard, Prokopy Nogovitsyn lifts up a grey tarpaulin and takes out a vertebra the size of a saucer: part of a mammoth skeleton.
Archaeologists in Mexico have found the first temple to the pre-Hispanic deity Xipe Totec, a god of fertility and war who was worshipped by sacrificing and skinning captives.
Apple's bombshell news—a sharply weaker revenue outlook and lower iPhone sales—has raised questions over the future of the California giant, which until recently had been seen as the undisputed innovation leader in the tech sector.
As we begin a new year for NeuWriteSD, we'd like to reflect on our progress in 2018, as well as some of our goals (or "NeuYears Resolutions", if you will) for 2019! NeuWriteSD celebrates 5 years 2018 marked the 5-year anniversary of NeuWriteSD's official founding by members of the UCSD Neurosciences Graduate Program back in […]
Recordings of the sounds in tropical forests could unlock secrets about biodiversity and aid conservation efforts around the world, according to a perspective paper published in Science.
Project leader echoes Neil Armstrong's quote after rover's successful separation from lander China's space agency has posted the first photo of its Chang'e 4 lunar rover on the far side of the moon after its groundbreaking touchdown on Thursday. The rover – named Yutu 2, or Jade Rabbit 2 – left the spacecraft, drove off a ramp and began making tracks on the moon's surface at 10.22pm on Thursday,
New research led by astrophysicists at Durham University, UK, predicts that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could hit the Milky Way in two billion years' time.
Ben-Gurion University researchers have developed a new satellite imaging system that could revolutionize the economics and imagery available from space-based cameras and even earth-based telescopes.
Despite much debate in UK and US there is still little agreement over how safe e-cigarettes are Sifting through contradictory evidence is common when it comes to choosing the right thing to do to improve our health, not least at new year when many of us promise to leave old habits behind and make a fresh start. One topic that is almost guaranteed to provoke arguments is e-cigarettes. Thousands of
Some scientists are beginning to question whether it really was an asteroid impact that led to the dinosaurs' extinction – instead, they think it may have been a supervolcano in India. Graihagh Jackson investigates When we were children, many of us learned about dinosaurs and their demise. A massive asteroid , larger than Mount Everest is tall, smashed into the Earth, causing chaos in the form of
The history of artificial intelligence is entwined with state and corporate power. It must now reflect those it has excluded Picture a system that makes decisions with huge impacts on a person's prospects – even decisions of life and death. Imagine that system is complex and opaque: it sorts people into winners and losers, but the criteria by which it does so are never made clear. Those being ass
Some scientists are beginning to question whether it really was an asteroid impact that led to the dinosaurs' extinction – instead, they think it may have been a supervolcano in India. Graihagh Jackson investigates
Sikkerhedsfejl i browseren Google Chrome lækkede oplysninger om Android-telefoners hardware og firmware – og sladrede indirekte om telefonens patch-niveau i forhold til sikkerhedsrettelser.
'This is an invention that completely changes the costs of space exploration, astronomy, aerial photography, and more,' says Angika Bulbul, a BGU Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Prof. Joseph Rosen in the BGU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Young people who self-harm are three times more likely to commit violent crime than those who do not, according to new research from the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. The study also found young people who self-harm and commit violent crime — 'dual harmers' — are more likely to have a history of childhood maltreatment and lower self-control than those who self-harm only.
Almost everything that is "positive" about the modern air-travel experience, is positive thanks to Southwest Airlines. Upbeat staff and crew attitude, straightforward rather than hyper-opaque pricing, even the more-or-less egalitarian boarding process—these are all associated with Southwest. In the past few years, Southwest's on-time performance has declined to just-average , and in 2018 it had i
A giant boom was dispatched to tackle the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but the forces of nature may have been too much for it. Its inventors plan to try again.
One of the odd-but-positive political rumors at the start of this odd year is that Donald Trump is considering former Senator James Webb as a successor to James Mattis as secretary of defense. Among the reasons why this would be odd: Webb last held office as a Democrat, and even ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2016 race. Webb is a famously independent-minded character with n
Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said archaeologists had found the first temple dedicated to an important fertility god, whose worshipers were said to wear the skin of sacrificial victims.
What We're Following Still Down: New year, new U.S. Congress, new Speaker of the House, same government shutdown. In its first order of business, the House elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker, mostly along party lines (here's a less often-cited milestone: she's the first person in more than six decades to reclaim the position ). Now in the majority, House Democrats started the 116 th Congress looking
Research from King's College London finds smokers and ex-smokers in the UK overestimate the harm from vaping, with fewer than 6 out of 10 accurately believing that e-cigarettes are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes. Misperceptions appear to be on the increase and are particularly strong in smokers and those who have never tried vaping.
Collision will 'cause fireworks' but probably won't happen for about 2.5 billion years As if battered post-Christmas finances, a looming disorderly Brexit and the prospect of a fresh nuclear arms race were not enough to dampen spirits, astronomers have declared that a nearby galaxy will slam into the Milky Way and could knock our solar system far into the cosmic void. The unfortunate discovery wa
A natural antioxidant found in grain bran could preserve food longer and replace synthetic antioxidants currently used by the food industry, according to researchers.
'The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One,' wrote Albert Einstein in December 1926. 'I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.' Einstein was responding to a letter from the German physicist Max Born. The heart of the new theory of quantum mechanics, Born had argued, beats randomly and uncertainly, as though suffering from arrhythmia.
Researchers have developed an easy-to-use saliva test to screen for the parasite that causes malaria. The non-invasive "spit test" could be a key tool in efforts to eradicate malaria, which kills about 500,000 children each year, mostly under the age of 5 in sub-Saharan Africa. Clinicians currently test for malaria using a blood test, which requires skin pricks that often are stressful for childr
The nearby Large Magellanic Cloud may be on a collision course with the Milky Way – and it could make our galaxy less strange when they smash in 2 billion years
What We're Following Today It's Thursday, January 3. More than 100 congressional freshmen were sworn in today. Here's what we were keeping an eye on: New Speaker: Members of the 116th Congress, the most diverse Congress in America's history, were sworn in. Nancy Pelosi was elected as speaker—despite a few Democratic defections, many from freshmen representatives—of the now Democrat-controlled Hou
Space It's not easy to just cozy up to a rock barely longer than the Empire State Building. NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has finally entered asteroid Bennu's orbit, after more than two years of hurtling through space toward the rock.
Many of my best friends think that some of my deeply held beliefs about important issues are obviously false or even nonsense. Sometimes, they tell me so to my face. How can we still be friends? Part of the answer is that these friends and I are philosophers, and philosophers learn how to deal with positions on the edge of sanity. In addition, I explain and give arguments for my claims, and they
On the first day of the year, NASA's New Horizon Spacecraft captured an icy world 4 billion miles away. Here's what the photos tell us about the fringes of our solar system.
The technique involves training neural networks to associate patterns of brain activity with human speech. Several research teams have managed to get neural networks to "speak" intelligible words. Although similar technology might someday help disabled people regain the power to speak, decoding imagined speech is still far off. None Several research groups have recently made significant progress
With the government shutdown headed for the two-week mark with no end in sight, President Donald Trump had a succinct message for the press and the nation on Thursday: Please look at me . All the attention in Washington had been concentrated down Pennsylvania Avenue for the swearing-in of the new Congress, and especially its new Democratic House majority. As my colleagues Russell Berman and Elain
China's lunar rover is outfitted with cameras and other equipment designed to collect data from a crater near the moon's southern pole. Studying the far side of the moon could provide scientists with a better understanding of what gave rise to the conditions necessary for life on Earth. In addition to scientific discoveries, China also likely plans to use the data from its mission to better plan
We think of black holes as traditionally being formed when matter is packed so densely that the gravity they exert prevents even light from escaping their event horizon. However, Einstein showed that energy and matter are equivalent; rather than taking the enormous amount of matter required to make a sufficiently sized black hole, we could make one using light, known as a kugelblitz. If we had th
Scientists have re-engineered photosynthesis, a foundation of life on Earth, creating genetically modified plants that grow faster and bigger. They hope it leads to bigger harvests of food. (Image credit: Haley Ahlers/RIPE Project)
Recordings of the sounds in tropical forests could unlock secrets about biodiversity and aid conservation efforts around the world, according to a perspective paper published in Science.
In new research appearing in the current issue of the journal Science Advances, Hao Yan and his colleagues, in collaboration with scientists at MIT, describe a method allowing for the automation of DNA origami construction, vastly accelerating and simplifying the process of crafting desired forms, and opening the world of DNA architecture to a broader audience.
Muscle Month A balanced diet is best, but these additions could help. Take a look at any weightlifting or bodybuilding forum and it's easy to feel out of the loop. People throw around advice about BCAAs and HMB and various kinds of protein…
Neuroscientists identify the parts of the brain that affect our social decision-making. Guilt has a large affect on social interactions, find the researchers. To find ways to cooperate, people need to let go of fear and anxiety, suggest studies None Why do we decide to work on a project or pursue a goal with someone? Or why do we treat some people like there's no way we can find any common langua
A natural antioxidant found in grain bran could preserve food longer and replace synthetic antioxidants currently used by the food industry, according to researchers at Penn State.
Researchers say a new way of measuring gender inequality is fairer to both men and women, and presents a simplified but more accurate picture of peoples' well-being than previous calculations. The new Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI) focuses on three factors — educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy and overall life satisfaction.
Advances in artificial intelligence, including activity trackers, smartphones and smartwatches, threaten the privacy of people's health data, according to new research.
Researchers have designed a computer program that allows users to translate any free-form drawing into a two-dimensional, nanoscale structure made of DNA.
Researchers have shown in mice that obesity increases the level of 'zombie' or senescent cells in the brain, and that those cells, in turn, are linked to anxiety. When senolytic drugs are used to clear those cells, the anxious behaviors in the mice dissipate.
The visual system is probably the best understood part of the brain. Over the past 75 years, neuroscientists have assembled a detailed account of how light waves entering your eyes allow you to recognize your grandmother's face, to track a hawk in flight, or to read this sentence. But a new study is calling a fundamental aspect of vision science into question, showing that even the best-studied pa
Researchers have discovered that the intestine is the source of immune cells that reduce brain inflammation in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), and that increasing the number of these cells blocks inflammation entirely in a preclinical model of the disease.
Fifty years after humankind first laid eyes on the far side of the moon, a Chinese spacecraft called Chang'e 4 gently touched down and released a rover onto the unexplored terrain Thursday. The far side is incredibly difficult to reach; mission control can't send radio signals to spacecraft if they're out of sight. To communicate with Chang'e 4, China put a separate probe in orbit around the moon
Food delivery service DoorDash on Thursday announced it is teaming up with General Motors to test using self-driving cars to deliver meals and groceries in San Francisco.
A professional hairdresser and amateur chemist invented an unbelievably heat-resistant coating called Starlite. Military applications brought governments running, but the inventor's odd negotiating style ruined discussions. Was Starlite lost when he died, or had it already been stolen? None Maurice Ward was a ladies hairdresser and amateur chemist from Hartlepool, Yorkshire, England, and in 1986
The BabySeq research team reports that genomic sequencing can identify risk for a wide range of disorders that may not be detected otherwise. Importantly, early knowledge about several of these conditions can lead to surveillance and interventions that could improve health outcomes for newborns and their families.
Researchers have found a stem cell enzyme copy edits more than 20 tumor types, providing new therapeutic target for preventing cancer cell resistance to chemotherapy and radiation.
Exposure to a common drug for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) isn't likely to increase cardiovascular risk in healthy kids, according to a new study with monkeys. With more than 1.8 million children in the US being treated annually with drugs for ADHD, the possibility that such drugs could damage their hearts has been a significant cause of concern for parents and physicians alike
Advances in artificial intelligence, including activity trackers, smartphones and smartwatches, threaten the privacy of people's health data, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.
Most crops on the planet are plagued by a photosynthetic glitch, and to deal with it, evolved an energy-expensive process called photorespiration that drastically suppresses their yield potential. Researchers reportthat crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.
Almost everyone does it at some point — skip a dose of a medication, decide to not schedule a recommended follow-up appointment or ignore doctor's orders to eat or exercise differently. Such nonadherence can seem harmless on an individual level, but costs the U.S. health care system billions of dollars a year. Now, researchers have shown how to best identify nonadherent patients, combining techno
The loss of mitochondrial information and of mitochondria gives rise to defective cell metabolism. As well as the lack of capacity to generate the energy necessary for the cells, the loss of mitochondrial information can generate an increase in oxygen free radicals that attack and damage the genetic material or produce Iron-Sulphur protein deficiencies. All this brings about incorrect cell functio
Consumption of one egg every day seems to associate with a blood metabolite profile that is related to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.
Economists have completed an extensive study which reveals that exposure to air pollution over several weeks is not just unhealthy, it can also reduce employee productivity.
Studies examining the association between vasomotor symptoms (VMS) and breast cancer are not new, but results have been inconsistent. A new larger-scale study concludes that women participating in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trials who had persistent VMS are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than women who never experienced VMS.
Scientists are making drug discoveries to support millions around the world dealing with alcohol use disorders, chronic pain and mood disorders. They discovered that two peptides — which are naturally metabolic products of Rubisco, a large protein found in many plants like spinach — may aid in the development of new medications.
Researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Essex in the United Kingdom say a new way of measuring gender inequality is fairer to both men and women, and presents a simplified but more accurate picture of peoples' well-being than previous calculations. The new Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI) focuses on three factors—educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy and o
Researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Essex in the United Kingdom say a new way of measuring gender inequality is fairer to both men and women, and presents a simplified but more accurate picture of peoples' well-being than previous calculations. The new Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI) focuses on three factors — educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy an
With the publication of new research on the Emerging Leaders in Aging (ELIA) Program, geriatrics experts hope to chart a course toward leveraging long-distance mentoring and project-based learning to empower the emerging innovators we will need in greater and growing numbers as more of us age.
The team that manages the spacecraft will have to wait 20 months for all of the data and images it recorded, but they have reported some early findings.
Reaction in China to the landing was muted — a sign that the novelty of space missions has faded. But it also appeared to reflect political and economic anxieties.
Young women who experience sexual partner violence in their first relationships don't all experience it the same way, researchers say. The new study, which identifies the various risk factors linked to sexual violence, suggests predicting teen partner rape could be a step toward preventing it. "There's this idea that sexual violence doesn't happen in relationships—certainly not in young women's f
By studying the movement of runners at the start of marathons, researchers from a laboratory* affiliated with the CNRS, l'ENS de Lyon, and l'Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 have just shown that the collective movements of these crowds can be described as liquid flows. The flows observed before a 2016 race in Chicago subsequently helped predict those of thousands of runners in the starting corral
The first researchers to deploy a mobile nanopore sequencing technology to evaluate viral genomics at the height of a Lassa virus outbreak in 2018 now report their results.
By observing the collective movement of thousands of Chicago Marathon runners queueing up to the starting line, researchers find that the motion of large crowds is fluid-like and mathematically predictable.
Transgenic tobacco plants engineered with synthetic metabolic pathways designed to bypass the inefficient and costly side effects of natural photorespiration show large increases in productivity — as much as 40 percent over unmodified tobacco plants, a new study says.
Most crops on the planet are plagued by a photosynthetic glitch, and to deal with it, evolved an energy-expensive process called photorespiration that drastically suppresses their yield potential. Researchers report in the journal Science that crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.
Until now, it was unclear how this DNA packing affected development in early embryos. Researchers found that in mouse embryos — only eight days after fertilization — compacted regions along the genome increase at protein-coding genes.
Rice University physicists have created the world's first laser-cooled neutral plasma. The research, which appears online this week in Science, opens a frontier where experimental atomic and plasma physicists can coax matter to behave in bizarre new ways.
The visual system is probably the best understood part of the brain. Over the past 75 years, neuroscientists have assembled a detailed account of how light waves entering your eyes allow you to recognize your grandmother's face, to track a hawk in flight, or to read this sentence. But a new study by UC San Francisco researchers is calling a fundamental aspect of vision science into question, showi
With the dawn of a new year, most Americans have just started a new health insurance coverage period — whether they receive their coverage through a job, buy it themselves or have a government plan. But a new national poll suggests that many people in their 50s and early 60s harbor serious worries about their health insurance status, now and in the future.
Researchers evaluated a digital medicine tool designed as an investigational treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and co-occurring attention/deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
A growing body of evidence supports the effectiveness of botulinum toxin injections in reducing the frequency of chronic migraine headaches, concludes an updated review and analysis.
An implantable neuroprosthetic device may one day provide a new approach to restoring more natural facial movement in patients with one-sided facial paralysis (hemifacial palsy), suggests a new study.
A bacterial enzyme that is used to improve food texture and shelf-life has been linked in several studies to celiac disease — but it is unlabeled and hidden from public knowledge.
Humankind first laid eyes on the far side of the moon in 1968. "The backside looks like a sand pile my kids have been playing in for a long time," the astronaut Bill Anders told NASA mission control. For millennia, people had gazed up at the same view of the Earth's companion—the same craters, cracks, and fissures. As the Apollo spacecraft floated over the unfamiliar lunar surface, Anders describ
When the Trump administration released its school-safety report last month, it landed with a thud—and only partly because it's a clunky 180 pages . Many of the recommendations in the report, authored by the Federal Commission on School Safety, are aimed at fostering a better school climate—how a school feels to the students who attend it—whether that's through improved access to counseling and me
After two suitors failed to get a rare Asiatic lioness pregnant, Prague zoo now hopes that artificial insemination will finally plant the seed for her species' survival.
Researchers define the role of a jagged ligand, JAG1, in cancer cells' ability to differentiate and metastasize, making them harder to track down and eliminate.
Timber rattlesnakes, according to the study's author, are among the most docile creatures in Appalachia. They choose places to hibernate that are more likely to be surface mined due to their ridgetop locations. Mining thus put this species at a disadvantage and reduces the biodiversity of the area.
There are important lessons to be learned from the successes and failures of the AIDS response that could inform our response to the opioid epidemic. Decades of HIV research have demonstrated that the existence of an effective biomedical treatment is rarely, in and of itself, sufficient to combat an epidemic, suggesting that both a social as well as a biomedical response to the opioid crisis are n
For most of the 20th century, scientists believed that the reproductive incompatibility between species evolved gradually as a by-product of adapting to different environments. New research has shown there are more factors at play — specifically the presence of 'selfish genes,' whose flow among species may dictate whether two species converge or diverge.
With their small size, stubby faces and wide-set eyes, bulldogs, French bulldogs and Boston terriers are among the most popular of domestic dog breeds. Now researchers have found the genetic basis for these dogs' appearance, and linked it to a rare inherited syndrome in humans.
Modeling crowd motion is central to situations as diverse as risk prevention in mass events and visual effects rendering in the motion picture industry. The difficulty of performing quantitative measurements in model experiments has limited our ability to model pedestrian flows. We use tens of thousands of road-race participants in starting corrals to elucidate the flowing behavior of polarized c
The unique physical properties of buckminsterfullerene, C 60 , have attracted intense research activity since its original discovery. Total quantum state–resolved spectroscopy of isolated C 60 molecules has been of particularly long-standing interest. Such observations have, to date, been unsuccessful owing to the difficulty in preparing cold, gas-phase C 60 in sufficiently high densities. Here w
The quantum Hall effect, observed in a two-dimensional (2D) electron gas subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field, imposes a 1D-like chiral, downstream, transport of charge carriers along the sample edges. Although this picture remains valid for electrons and Laughlin's fractional quasiparticles, it no longer holds for quasiparticles in the so-called hole-conjugate states. These states are exp
The rational synthesis of nanographenes and carbon nanoribbons directly on nonmetallic surfaces has been an elusive goal for a long time. We report that activation of the carbon (C)–fluorine (F) bond is a reliable and versatile tool enabling intramolecular aryl-aryl coupling directly on metal oxide surfaces. A challenging multistep transformation enabled by C–F bond activation led to a dominolike
Laser cooling of a neutral plasma is a challenging task because of the high temperatures typically associated with the plasma state. By using an ultracold neutral plasma created by photoionization of an ultracold atomic gas, we avoid this obstacle and demonstrate laser cooling of ions in a neutral plasma. After 135 microseconds of cooling, we observed a reduction in ion temperature by up to a fac
Visual responses in the cerebral cortex are believed to rely on the geniculate input to the primary visual cortex (V1). Indeed, V1 lesions substantially reduce visual responses throughout the cortex. Visual information enters the cortex also through the superior colliculus (SC), but the function of this input on visual responses in the cortex is less clear. SC lesions affect cortical visual respo
Proxy records show that before the onset of modern anthropogenic warming, globally coherent cooling occurred from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age. The long memory of the ocean suggests that these historical surface anomalies are associated with ongoing deep-ocean temperature adjustments. Combining an ocean model with modern and paleoceanographic data leads to a prediction that the
The 2018 Nigerian Lassa fever season saw the largest ever recorded upsurge of cases, raising concerns over the emergence of a strain with increased transmission rate. To understand the molecular epidemiology of this upsurge, we performed, for the first time at the epicenter of an unfolding outbreak, metagenomic nanopore sequencing directly from patient samples, an approach dictated by the highly
Here, we describe the dicynodont Lisowicia bojani , from the Late Triassic of Poland, a gigantic synapsid with seemingly upright subcursorial limbs that reached an estimated length of more than 4.5 meters, height of 2.6 meters, and body mass of 9 tons. Lisowicia is the youngest undisputed dicynodont and the largest nondinosaurian terrestrial tetrapod from the Triassic. The lack of lines of arrest
Evolution generates a remarkable breadth of living forms, but many traits evolve repeatedly, by mechanisms that are still poorly understood. A classic example of repeated evolution is the loss of pelvic hindfins in stickleback fish ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ). Repeated pelvic loss maps to recurrent deletions of a pelvic enhancer of the Pitx1 gene. Here, we identify molecular features contributing
The Sec61 protein-conducting channel mediates transport of many proteins, such as secretory proteins, across the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane during or after translation. Posttranslational transport is enabled by two additional membrane proteins associated with the channel, Sec63 and Sec62, but its mechanism is poorly understood. We determined a structure of the Sec complex (Sec61-Sec63-Se
Type V CRISPR-Cas systems are distinguished by a single RNA-guided RuvC domain-containing effector, Cas12. Although effectors of subtypes V-A (Cas12a) and V-B (Cas12b) have been studied in detail, the distinct domain architectures and diverged RuvC sequences of uncharacterized Cas12 proteins suggest unexplored functional diversity. Here, we identify and characterize Cas12c, -g, -h, and -i. Cas12c
Forgetting is important. Without it, the relative importance of acquired memories in a changing environment is lost. We discovered that synaptotagmin-3 (Syt3) localizes to postsynaptic endocytic zones and removes AMPA receptors from synaptic plasma membranes in response to stimulation. AMPA receptor internalization, long-term depression (LTD), and decay of long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic
Barrier tissues are primary targets of environmental stressors and are home to the largest number of antigen-experienced lymphocytes in the body, including commensal-specific T cells. We found that skin-resident commensal-specific T cells harbor a paradoxical program characterized by a type 17 program associated with a poised type 2 state. Thus, in the context of injury and exposure to inflammato
Exceptional points are branch point singularities in the parameter space of a system at which two or more eigenvalues, and their corresponding eigenvectors, coalesce and become degenerate. Such peculiar degeneracies are distinct features of non-Hermitian systems, which do not obey conservation laws because they exchange energy with the surrounding environment. Non-Hermiticity has been of great in
Photorespiration is required in C 3 plants to metabolize toxic glycolate formed when ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase oxygenates rather than carboxylates ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate. Depending on growing temperatures, photorespiration can reduce yields by 20 to 50% in C 3 crops. Inspired by earlier work, we installed into tobacco chloroplasts synthetic glycolate metabolic pathways th
Plants convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis; however, most crops on the planet are plagued by a photosynthetic glitch, and to deal with it, evolved an energy-expensive process called photorespiration that drastically suppresses their yield potential. Researchers from the University of Illinois and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report in the journal Sci
Rice University physicists have created the world's first laser-cooled neutral plasma, completing a 20-year quest that sets the stage for simulators that re-create exotic states of matter found inside Jupiter and white dwarf stars.
Like a brain, an ant colony operates without central control. Each is a set of interacting individuals, either neurons or ants, using simple chemical interactions that in the aggregate generate their behaviour. People use their brains to remember. Can ant colonies do that? This question leads to another question: what is memory? None For people, memory is the capacity to recall something that hap
Sex chromosomes evolve to be genetically incompatible between species faster than the rest of the genetic chromosomes, research shows, and reveals the factors at play in this incompatibility. Most evolutionary biologists distinguish one species from another based on reproductivity: members of different species either won't or can't mate with one another, or, if they do, the resulting offspring ar
On the Cumberland Plateau in eastern Kentucky, surface coal mining is destroying ridgelines and mountaintops, and along with them, the habitat of a surprisingly gentle reptile species—the timber rattlesnake.
Donald Trump is a devoted sloganeer, from "You're fired" to "Make America great again." But slogans grow tired and lose their oomph with time and repetition, which means it's important to keep refreshing and replacing them. Enter "presidential harassment." On Thursday, with the government shutdown in its 13th day, with no sign of abating, and the new Democratic majority taking over the House, the
Ultima Thule, officially known as (486958) 2014 MU69, is a space rock located in the Kuiper belt outside of our solar system. NASA's New Horizons probe flew past Ultima Thule on New Year's Day, snapping hundreds of photos in the process. The data gathered by the probe will hopefully help scientists better understand how planets form. None In the early hours of New Year's Day, NASA's New Horizons
Timber rattlesnakes, according to the study's author, are among the most docile creatures in Appalachia. They choose places to hibernate that are more likely to be surface mined due to their ridgetop locations. Mining thus put this species at a disadvantage and reduces the biodiversity of the area.
An antimicrobial chemical called triclosan is abundant in dust—and linked to changes in its genetic makeup, according to a new study. The result is dust with organisms that could cause an antibiotic-resistant infection. "There is this conventional wisdom that says everything that's in dust is dead, but that's not actually the case. There are things living in there," says study leader Erica Hartma
Apple's bombshell news—a sharply weaker revenue outlook and lower iPhone sales—has raised questions over the future of the California giant, which until recently had been seen as the undisputed innovation leader in the tech sector.
On 3 January, the Chinese lander Chang'e 4 became the first spacecraft ever to land on the far side of the moon, and it has just rolled out its rover, Yutu-2
Space It's the first time a working rover has touched down on the far side. China successfully landed its robotic Chang'e 4 probe on the surface of the far side of the moon on Thursday, around noon Beijing time.
With an unfortunate abundance of traffic jams and train delays, getting to and from work can sometimes be a job in itself — and a stressful one at that. But your surroundings might just hold the solution you've been looking for. Science backs this up: A recent study from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) shows that commuting through stretches of nature everyday can work wonders
Researchers at Rice University and the Duke University School of Medicine define the role of a jagged ligand, JAG1, in cancer cells' ability to differentiate and metastasize, making them harder to track down and eliminate.
Major automakers on Thursday announced slowing 2018 sales in the US even as the industry maintained close to its overall total from the previous year, defying expectations.
US chipmaker Qualcomm said Thursday it had fulfilled the requirements set out by a court in a patent dispute case against Apple to ban the sale of older iPhone models in Germany.
As the New Horizons mission approached Ultima Thule, Rowan University paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara put our close-up study of the Kuiper Belt object into a deep-time perspective. — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Greenhouse gases are atmospheric gases that absorb infrared radiation and trap heat in the atmosphere. Increases in emissions of these gases are leading to climate change and global warming.
Most evolutionary biologists distinguish one species from another based on reproductivity: members of different species either won't or can't mate with one another, or, if they do, the resulting offspring are often sterile, unviable, or suffer some other sort of reduced fitness.
Late in 2018, The Atlantic 's Family section asked readers to share some of the unique traditions their families engaged in during the year-end holiday season. The rituals you all shared with us were often quirky (one of them involved a Speedo-clad George Michael made of marzipan) and uniformly delightful. And they made us think: Why concentrate all these fantastic festivities into one always-too
What links a small town in Portugal and a huge port city in China? The answer may surprise even inhabitants of both places: the world's longest straight line over land That line and its maritime equivalent were determined not by exploration but by calculation What connects the Chinese port of Quanzhou with Sagres, a tiny parish in southern Portugal? No, it's not the New Silk Route, the Sino-Europ
Researchers at MIT and Arizona State University have designed a computer program that allows users to translate any free-form drawing into a two-dimensional, nanoscale structure made of DNA.
Scientists have found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around, as a result of star formation in galaxies. The findings provide the first observational evidence for the effect known as 'dark matter heating', and give new clues as to what makes up dark matter.
Psychiatric disorders share common alterations of functional connectivity between three core brain networks involved in cognition, according to a meta-analysis.
Researchers have discovered that the ability to use sugar as food varies strongly between closely related fruit fly species. They have also identified the genetic basis of this variation. In the future, it will be interesting to explore whether human populations with different dietary histories may respond differently to modern diets rich in sugars.
In 1994, a mathematician at AT&T Research named Peter Shor brought instant fame to "quantum computers" when he discovered that these hypothetical devices could quickly factor large numbers — and thus break much of modern cryptography. But a fundamental problem stood in the way of actually building quantum computers: the innate frailty of their physical components. Unlike binary bits of informatio
A new study finds that microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic ingested by aquatic life — are present in solitary ascidians, sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders, all along the Israeli coastline. The research also confirmed the presence of plastic additives, i.e. 'plasticizers,' in ascidians.
Genetic alterations in low-risk prostate cancer diagnosed by needle biopsy can identify men that harbor higher-risk cancer in their prostate glands, researchers have discovered. The research found for the first time that genetic alterations associated with intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer also may be present in some cases of low-risk prostate cancers.
During the Stone Age ancestral humans lived with a variety of animal species along what was an area of wetlands in the middle of the Jordanian desert. The site, in the town of Azraq Basin, has been excavated and has revealed an abundance of tools and animal bones from up to 250,000 years ago, leading to better understanding of how ancestral humans have adapted to this changing environment.
A giant toadstool that swallow up vitamins and nutrients in the intestines and kidneys. This is how the receptor, which e.g. absorbs B12 vitamin in the small intestine, looks. For the first time, researchers have an insight into an as yet unknown biology which has survived hundreds of millions of years during the evolution of life.
One would assume that since humans and many animals tend to get stiffer and perhaps tougher as they reach adulthood, the same would be true for sharks. A new study finds the opposite in these swift-swimming marine predators. The youngest sharks were stiffer and tougher than older sharks. Another key finding is that while scientists have historically looked at alternating patterns of mineralization
A dazzling new species of treefrog was discovered at a remote tabletop mountain in the Ecuadorian Andes. The new species has an extraordinary characteristic, the presence of claw-like appendages at the base of the thumbs.
With their small size, stubby faces and wide-set eyes, bulldogs, French bulldogs and Boston terriers are among the most popular of domestic dog breeds. Now researchers at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine have found the genetic basis for these dogs' appearance, and linked it to a rare inherited syndrome in humans.
The brain's reward system releases dopamine when tasting food. Researchers at Max Planck discovered a second dopamine release in the stomach, affecting higher cognitive functions. The more we desire a food, the weaker the second release, which might lead to overeating. None As if losing weight wasn't hard enough. A new study from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research rev
Updated on January 3 at 4:13 p.m. ET This was not how Democrats expected, much less hoped, to begin their new House majority. After the blue wave crested, ever so slowly, in November, the start of the 116th Congress on Thursday loomed as a moment of potential drama, a Constitutionally-mandated deadline for the party to decide whether to make a generational change in leadership. In the weeks after
For most of the 20th century, scientists believed that the reproductive incompatibility between species evolved gradually as a by-product of adapting to different environments. New Rochester research has shown there are more factors at play — specifically the presence of 'selfish genes,' whose flow among species may dictate whether two species converge or diverge.
There are important lessons to be learned from the successes and failures of the AIDS response that could inform our response to the opioid epidemic. Decades of HIV research have demonstrated that the existence of an effective biomedical treatment is rarely, in and of itself, sufficient to combat an epidemic, suggesting that both a social as well as a biomedical response to the opioid crisis are n
Female Magellanic penguins are more likely to die at sea as juveniles, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three adult males to every female, as well as population decline of more than 40 percent since 1987 at one of their largest breeding colonies — Punta Tombo in Argentina.
The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought.
Large differences in radiation doses used for CT scans are mainly due to how the scanners are used by medical staff rather than differences in the patients scanned or the machines used, finds a new study.
There is no compelling evidence to indicate important health benefits of non-sugar sweeteners, and potential harms cannot be ruled out, suggests a new review.
"As a foreigner in the U.S., since the first day I arrived," says Xian Zhao, "I have been constantly asking myself this question: Should I adopt an Anglo name?" Zhao, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, says that his cousin and his aunt changed their name from Pengyuan and Guiqing to Jason and Susan, respectively, upon moving to the U.S. Some of his grad-school peers made similar
A combined team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of California has found evidence that casts doubt on the use of zircon crystals as evidence of early development of the Earth's magnetic field. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes testing they conducted on the crystals and what they found.
Space New high-res images from New Horizons reveal a very blobby space rock. NASA began 2019 with a bang, when the agency's New Horizons spacecraft completed a flyby of 2014 MU69, the most distant object ever visited by humans, in the wee hours…
A trial called BabySeq, in which researchers performed genomic sequencing on 159 newborns, identified children susceptible to diseases that regular screening doesn't look for.
UC San Diego researchers have found a stem cell enzyme copy edits more than 20 tumor types, providing new therapeutic target for preventing cancer cell resistance to chemotherapy and radiation.
Microneedles able to draw relatively large amounts of interstitial fluid — a liquid that lurks just under the skin — opens new possibilities. Previously, microneedles — tiny, hollow, stainless steel needles — have drained tiny amounts of interstitial fluid needed to analyze electrolyte levels but could not draw enough fluid to make more complicated medical tests practical. The new method's lar
The Laryngoscope, December 24, 2018 issue, reports Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) investigator findings that compression of cranial nerves nine and ten is often responsible for unexplained laryngeal symptoms like chronic cough, vocal fold paralysis and hoarseness. Surgical decompression provided highly effective treatment with surgical patients experiencing significant, long-term impr
Researchers at MIT and Arizona State University have designed a computer program that allows users to translate any free-form drawing into a two-dimensional, nanoscale structure made of DNA.
In a paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the BabySeq research team reports that genomic sequencing can identify risk for a wide range of disorders that may not be detected otherwise. Importantly, early knowledge about several of these conditions can lead to surveillance and interventions that could improve health outcomes for newborns and their families.
Researchers at the University of Toronto and UC San Francisco have discovered that the intestine is the source of immune cells that reduce brain inflammation in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), and that increasing the number of these cells blocks inflammation entirely in a preclinical model of the disease.
In the era of increasingly common genomic sequencing, an effort called the BabySeq Project aims to explore the medical, behavioral, economic, and ethical impacts of adding genetic testing to the roster of newborn screenings. Some of the first findings from the project are being reported Jan. 3 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators have shown in mice that obesity increases the level of 'zombie' or senescent cells in the brain, and that those cells, in turn, are linked to anxiety. When senolytic drugs are used to clear those cells, the anxious behaviors in the mice dissipate. These findings appear in Cell Metabolism.
From Pink Floyd's mental hell to the secret lair of space Nazis, artists have striven unceasingly to sketch the side of the moon China's Chang'e 4 just reached 'I'll see you on the dark side of the moon." These could easily have been the words of the Chinese team behind Chang'e 4, shortly before it set off on its successful journey to the moon's far side . But as any rock fan will tell you, they
People over age 65 with a new heart failure diagnosis can continue to drink moderate amounts of alcohol without worsening their condition, a new study suggests. The study shows a survival benefit for moderate drinkers compared with those who abstained from alcohol. On average, survival for moderate drinkers was just over a year longer than abstainers, a difference that was statistically significa
Any border wall between the United States and Mexico can't be immoral, President Trump said at a Cabinet meeting yesterday (Jan. 2), because the Vatican has one, too.
If teen partner rape could be predicted, it could be better prevented. Social scientists from Michigan State University are helping close that gap by identifying risk factors linked to sexual violence in young women's first relationships in life.
A giant toadstool that swallow up vitamins and nutrients in the intestines and kidneys. This is how the receptor, which e.g. absorbs B12 vitamin in the small intestine, looks. For the first time, researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, have an insight into an as yet unknown biology which has survived hundreds of millions of years during the evolution of life.
Companies are counting on their future leaders to manage with more speed, flexibility and trust than ever before. But how can middle managers climb the corporate ladder while also challenging the way things have always been done? Leadership expert Elizabeth Lyle offers a new approach to breaking the rules while you're on your way up, sharing creative ways organizations can give middle managers the
A bag containing dangerous powder washed up on a small Dutch island on Thursday, a day after some 270 containers tumbled from one of the world's biggest cargo ships in rough weather, as authorities scramble to clean debris-strewn beaches.
During the Stone Age ancestral humans lived with a variety of animal species along what was an area of wetlands in the middle of the Jordanian desert. The site, in the town of Azraq Basin, has been excavated and has revealed an abundance of tools and animal bones from up to 250,000 years ago, leading to better understanding of how ancestral humans have adapted to this changing environment.
En særlig låseanordning sikrer lastbilstrailere fra at blive blæst af godsvogne. Alligevel gik det galt den 2. januar, da en trailer kolliderede med et IC4-tog
During the Stone Age ancestral humans lived with a variety of animal species along what was an area of wetlands in the middle of the Jordanian desert. The site, in the town of Azraq Basin, has been excavated and has revealed an abundance of tools and animal bones from up to 250,000 years ago, leading to better understanding of how ancestral humans have adapted to this changing environment.
Genetic alterations in low-risk prostate cancer diagnosed by needle biopsy can identify men that harbor higher-risk cancer in their prostate glands, Mayo Clinic has discovered. The research, which is published in the January edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, found for the first time that genetic alterations associated with intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer also may be present in some c
It was only one moment in a 90-minute stream of madness. President Donald Trump convened a Cabinet meeting, at which he invited all its members to praise him for his stance on the border wall and the government shutdown. There's always a lively competition to see which member of the Cabinet can grovel most abjectly. The newcomer Matthew Whitaker may be only the acting attorney general, but despit
The new Democratic majority that takes command of the House on Thursday starts with 21 fewer seats than the party held the last time it elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker. But this new majority may prove easier for the party to both manage legislatively and defend electorally. Though slightly smaller, the Democratic caucus that's assuming power is far more ideologically and geographically cohesive t
An international team of researchers has found evidence supporting a theory that suggests a missing crust layer can be blamed on "Snowball Earth." In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes the evidence they found and why they believe it supports their theory.
A new Tel Aviv University study finds that microplastics—tiny pieces of plastic ingested by aquatic life—are present in solitary ascidians all along the Israeli coastline. Ascidians are sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. The research also confirmed the presence of plastic additives, i.e. "plasticizers," in ascidians. Plasticizers are substances added to plastics to increase their flexibi
Consumer goods companies and retailers need to be upfront about where palm oil in their products comes from to relieve consumers of the burden of making sustainable choices.
Scientists have found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around, as a result of star formation in galaxies. The findings provide the first observational evidence for the effect known as 'dark matter heating', and give new clues as to what makes up dark matter. The research is published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
An implantable neuroprosthetic device may one day provide a new approach to restoring more natural facial movement in patients with one-sided facial paralysis (hemifacial palsy), suggests a study in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
A bacterial enzyme that is used to improve food texture and shelf-life has been linked in several studies to celiac disease — but it is unlabeled and hidden from public knowledge, according to a review published in Frontiers in Pediatrics.
A new Tel Aviv University study finds that microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic ingested by aquatic life — are present in solitary ascidians, sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders, all along the Israeli coastline. The research also confirmed the presence of plastic additives, i.e. 'plasticizers,' in ascidians.
A growing body of evidence supports the effectiveness of botulinum toxin injections in reducing the frequency of chronic migraine headaches, concludes an updated review and analysis in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Consumer goods companies and retailers need to be upfront about where palm oil in their products comes from to relieve consumers of the burden of making sustainable choices.That is a key finding of new research from the University of Cambridge (UK). It publishes today in Environmental Research Letters.
A Purdue University team is making drug discoveries to support millions around the world dealing with alcohol use disorders, chronic pain and mood disorders. They discovered that two peptides — which are naturally metabolic products of Rubisco, a large protein found in many plants like spinach — may aid in the development of new medications.
Consumption of one egg every day seems to associate with a blood metabolite profile that is related to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study conducted in the University of Eastern Finland shows. The findings were published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.
Et par læsere spørger til soveværelsesindretning. Hvor mange vinduer og døre skal der være, og risikerer man iltmangel, hvis der ikke er åbninger nok. Det svarer Bolius på.
The oral medication gabapentin can reduce pain and increase sexual desire and satisfaction for women with fibromyalgia, research shows. Women with chronic pain or discomfort around the vulva showed improved sexual function with the oral nerve pain medication that people take for pain resulting from previous herpes infection as well as fibromyalgia, according to the study. The study, which was the
On the 10th of our 12 Days of Culture, artists from CERN's Collide International Residency show how they tackle the problem of describing science like it is
An international group of astronomers has detected an intense and extremely luminous gamma-ray flare from one of high-redshift blazars known as DA 193. The new detection, reported in a paper published December 18 on arXiv.org, is an uncommon finding as such bright flares are rarely observed from high-redshift sources.
Why, you might ask, do we need a scientifically accurate term based in Latin for the study of poop? The answer is quite simple: because so many scientific words are based in Latin and there hasn't been one for the experimental study of excrement, even though the scientific study of human waste is now at the forefront of biomedical research.
The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought.
Researchers have developed an app that uses negative reinforcement, in the form of persistent smartphone vibrations, to remind users they've exceeded their predetermined time limit In his research on college students' productivity, graduate student Fabian Okeke heard many accounts of time lost to social media, beginning with a click over to Facebook or YouTube for a quick distraction. But the dis
Chang'e 4 will test soil composition, try to grow plants, and listen for traces of Big Bang When we look up at the full moon, we only ever see one face: the "man in the moon" is always gazing back at us. Scientists believe that the far side, eternally hidden from view, may hold the key to fundamental mysteries about the moon's formation and its earliest history. China's Chang'e 4 mission could re
According to a study by the environmental organization WWF Germany, ten million metric tons of food are thrown in the garbage every year in Germany despite still being edible. A mobile food scanner will allow consumers and supermarket operators in the future to test whether food items have gone bad. The pocket-size device uses infrared measurements to determine the ripeness and shelf life of produ
We know it from our own homes: bulky kitchen utensils and appliances are difficult to clean. In industry, complex components are more the rule than the exception and present big challenges for the design of cleaning systems. A simulation will be able to help in the future. In the Learning Factory for Industrial Cleaning Technologies, which will open at the end of 2019 at the Fraunhofer Institute f
Economists from the National University of Singapore have completed an extensive study which reveals that exposure to air pollution over several weeks is not just unhealthy, it can also reduce employee productivity.
An analysis of nationwide data shows patients with symptoms are most likely to return to the hospital within a week of their thyroid surgery, suggesting avenues for better care.
Researchers at the University of Helsinki have discovered that the ability to use sugar as food varies strongly between closely related fruit fly species. They have also identified the genetic basis of this variation. In the future, it will be interesting to explore whether human populations with different dietary histories may respond differently to modern diets rich in sugars.
Psychiatric disorders share common alterations of functional connectivity between three core brain networks involved in cognition, according to a meta-analysis published in Biological Psychiatry.
Studies examining the association between vasomotor symptoms (VMS) and breast cancer are not new, but results have been inconsistent. A new larger-scale study concludes that women participating in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) trials who had persistent VMS are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than women who never experienced VMS. Study results are published online today in Meno
The loss of mitochondrial information and of mitochondria gives rise to defective cell metabolism. As well as the lack of capacity to generate the energy necessary for the cells, the loss of mitochondrial information can generate an increase in oxygen free radicals that attack and damage the genetic material or produce Iron-Sulphur protein deficiencies. All this brings about incorrect cell functio
Scientists have found evidence that dark matter can be heated up and moved around, as a result of star formation in galaxies. The findings provide the first observational evidence for the effect known as 'dark matter heating', and give new clues as to what makes up dark matter.
DIY Sell, digitize, organize, and clean up your junk. We all manage to accumulate random objects that we never use. These decluttering apps help you take stock of all your stuff and then get rid of the unwanted junk.
On a mountaintop in Chile sits the world's most powerful optical telescope, searching for the edge of black holes, and using huge lasers to guide its gaze
Al Gore is mostly done with politics these days. Though he popped up at a campaign stop with Hillary Clinton in 2016, he's otherwise safely in the very small group of nationally known Democrats not thinking of running for president in 2020. But Gore remains engaged on his signature policy issue: climate change, for which the national political conversation is just starting to catch up to his warn
Over 100 million people in Southern Africa have no access to clean water – many sources in rural areas are contaminated. In the SafeWaterAfrica project, African and European partners are working closely to develop a decentralized system solution for water purification that can be operated and maintained autonomously by rural inhabitants. The system covers the clean water needs of several hundred p
Switching from beef to alternative proteins could save millions of lives and dramatically slash greenhouse gas emissions, the World Economic Forum said Thursday.
It's not just their teeth and jaws that people find intriguing. It's also their funky shapes and unique skeletal makeup that capture attention. Unlike humans and most land animals, sharks have mineralized cartilage skeletons instead of bones. This allows them to move at unbelievable speeds through the water. Since cartilage weighs less than bone and is less dense, sharks can bend, swim, and maneuv
Facial recognition technology has progressed to point where it now interprets emotions in facial expressions. This type of analysis is increasingly used in daily life. For example, companies can use facial recognition software to help with hiring decisions. Other programs scan the faces in crowds to identify threats to public safety.
New research from the University of Liverpool and Mars Petcare's WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition reveals overweight dogs are more likely to have shorter lives than those at ideal body weights.
Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in collaboration with research groups in Finland, Canada, and Slovenia, have discovered a novel and unexpected function of nestin, the best known marker of neural stem cells.
One would assume that since humans and many animals tend to get stiffer and perhaps tougher as they reach adulthood, the same would be true for sharks. A new study finds the opposite in these swift-swimming marine predators. The youngest sharks were stiffer and tougher than older sharks. Another key finding is that while scientists have historically looked at alternating patterns of mineralization
Chinese scientists makes a big step forward in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water electrolysis! They put forward a powerful solution by revealing the secrets of catalytic processes via synchrotron radiation, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) announced on Jan 1st, 2019.
Female Magellanic penguins are more likely to die at sea as juveniles, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three adult males to every female, as well as population decline of more than 40 percent since 1987 at one of their largest breeding colonies — Punta Tombo in Argentina.
A major tsunami struck China's southern coast in 1076 causing "drastic cultural decline", Chinese researchers say, in a study with implications for a densely populated region boasting multiple coastal nuclear power plants.
Gol-e-Zard Cave lies in the shadow of Mount Damavand, which at more than 5,000 metres dominates the landscape of northern Iran. In this cave, stalagmites and stalactites are growing slowly over millennia and preserve in them clues about past climate events. Changes in stalagmite chemistry from this cave have now linked the collapse of the Akkadian Empire to climate changes more than 4,000 years ag
Some 372,000 German owners of Volkswagen cars fitted with motors that cheated emissions tests have joined a collective legal action against the auto giant, official figures showed Thursday.
Microneedles are designed to infuse medications transdermally (through the skin) and relatively painlessly during clinical applications. In a recent study, Richa Mishra and her colleagues developed a new technique to convert polymer films into a fracture-resistant glassy form of carbon to develop microneedles. The optimized transdermal drug delivery device was fabricated using photolithography to
New York-based pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb announced Thursday it will buy US biotech firm Celgene in a massive $74 billion cash and stock deal to create a specialized biopharma company.
Today's college students – dubbed Generation Z – are beginning to make their mark on the workplace with a distinctly unconventional and often irreverent approach to problem-solving. In my day-to-day interactions with our students, I find that this group doesn't only ask "Why?" they ask "How can I fix that?" And their curiosity, independence, energy and assertiveness are transforming the entreprene
Almost everyone does it at some point — skip a dose of a medication, decide to not schedule a recommended follow-up appointment or ignore doctor's orders to eat or exercise differently. Such nonadherence can seem harmless on an individual level, but costs the U.S. health care system billions of dollars a year. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown how to best identify nonadherent patients, co
Plastic is everywhere. It is used across a spectrum of applications from durable industrial equipment, household appliances to throw-away single-use items and even the clothes we wear. This wide scope of uses is ascribed to its versatility, low-cost and because it's extremely durable.
Researchers have discovered how hair follicles emerge from seemingly uniform skin cells during embryonic development. The discovery could lead to strategies for regenerating lost hair follicles in adults. To gain insight into early hair follicle development, the researchers combined the study of genetically engineered mouse models with single-cell RNA methods to examine the molecular and cellular
Human errors caused by a lack of standardised procedures and insufficient training are the major drivers behind loss in food manufacturing, a new study has found.
Every four years, the National Climate Assessment evaluates the state of climate science and the impact of climate change in the U.S., now and into the future. The most recent NCA was released on Black Friday, and although the Trump Administration has done its best to ignore it, many cities, states, businesses, and local communities are ready to take action on climate change—and they're wondering
A group of researchers from the Andalusian Centre for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER) has revealed the importance of eliminating any excess of defective products that might have accumulated in the mitochondria, as its presence generates mitochondrial instability and information loss on the mitochondrial genome. The study offers new ways to understand the molecular basis of so
On January 16, 2016, a sudden swath of large and powerful waves swept through seaside communities along 450 kilometers (280 miles) of Pacific Northwest coastline. From Washington to northern California, water rushed past normal tide lines and filled beaches and streets, stretching hundreds of meters inland.
As the United States moves closer to developing offshore wind farms, one of the most important questions for coastal communities is how those wind farms are going to affect recreation and tourism.
The equivalent of one truck of plastic waste is dumped into the ocean every minute, but what if it could be caught and removed before it drifted out to sea? One such solution, called the Recycled Park Project, is being floated in Rotterdam. Developed over the last five years, the idea is turning plastic waste into islands.
This holiday season, scientists at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—have wrapped a box of a different kind. Using a one-step chemical synthesis method, they engineered hollow metallic nanosized boxes with cube-shaped pores at the corners and demonstrated how these "nanowrappers" can be used t
Science Our culture celebrates long work days, but they don't make us more productive. It's a counterintuitive result to mention today, particularly in a culture that rewards a burn-the-midnight-oil, work-until-you-drop mentality. But over a century of…
Nye bevægelsessensorer registrerer brugen af brandhaner i Skanderborg. Det er bare første skridt i udviklingen af nye Internet of Things-løsninger i vandsektoren der udklækkes i Skanderborg
As a longtime resident of New York City, I've developed a little game I play when I'm alone in one of Manhattan's especially ritzy neighborhoods: "Famous or Just Rich?" To play, all you have to do is notice a person and try to decide if they've caught your eye because they're famous. It will feel as if they're famous. But more often than not, it'll just be a regular person who looks like a celebr
On December 21, 1968, writing in the Winnipeg Free Press , the reviewer William Morgan starts out admiring of Alice Munro's debut story collection. He says that the author, in her fictitious small towns, creates a "strange mixture of physical freedom and emotional claustrophobia." By the end of that review, however, those same features will come to annoy him. Morgan laments that the "characters a
Even though the Holocaust is one of the best documented genocides in a historical sense, there is surprisingly little quantitative dataavailable, even on major critical events.
Will there be enough water for everyone in the near future? Water equity affects us all and is one of the 21st century's key environmental justice issues. While people may look to CSU's engineers and watershed scientists for answers, the Department of Sociology also has an important role in ensuring water quality and access.
New research from the University of Liverpool and Mars Petcare's WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition reveals overweight dogs are more likely to have shorter lives than those at ideal body weights.
The word spiegel means "mirror" in German, and since its postwar founding, Der Spiegel has proudly held a mirror up to the world. When the magazine published top-secret information about the dire state of West Germany's armed forces in 1962, the government accused it of treason, raided its offices, and arrested its editors. The resulting " Spiegel affair " led to mass demonstrations against polic
Imagine if you could look at a small amount of an unidentified chemical element – less than 100 atoms in size – and know what type of material the element would become in large quantities before you actually saw the larger accumulation.
When people are in the early stages of an undiagnosed disease, immediate tests that lead to treatment are the best first steps. But a blood draw—usually performed by a medical professional armed with an uncomfortably large needle—might not be quickest, least painful or most effective method, according to new research.
Two hundred and fifty years ago this year, James Cook's ship the Endeavour arrived off the eastern coast of New Zealand. The following circumnavigation marked the beginning of ongoing European contact with the indigenous population, and eventually mass British immigration from 1840.
The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought.
China's robotic Chang'e 4 mission touched down inside the huge South Pole-Aitken basin Wednesday (Jan. 2), pulling off the first-ever soft landing on the largely unexplored lunar far side.
The enormous fortress was constructed at a time when Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemies, a dynasty of pharaohs descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals.
Like most of their stout-bodied, flippered kin, Magellanic penguins spend much of their lives in the ocean. From late autumn through winter and into spring in the Southern Hemisphere, these South American penguins swim off the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina in search of anchovies, sardines and squid.
With the dawn of a new year, most Americans have just started a new health insurance coverage period — whether they receive their coverage through a job, buy it themselves or have a government plan. But a new national poll suggests that many people in their 50s and early 60s harbor serious worries about their health insurance status, now and in the future.
As the third government shutdown of the Donald Trump presidency drags on, the miserable effects are piling up. Federal workers, hundreds of thousands of whom are furloughed, are struggling to pay their bills and picking up temporary gigs to make ends meet; the Office of Personnel Management has encouraged them to bargain with their creditors and offer to do chores for their landlords. Contractors
The stock market, at least, values Netflix like a technology company. Its streaming service does send content over the internet after all. But as the tech industry has been publicly flogged for the past several years, Netflix has only burnished its brand, with tech workers , Millennials , and the general public . Two recent stories suggest that Netflix may not stay outside the critic zone forever
M ore than a thousand days after the water problems in Flint, Michigan, became national news, thousands of homes in the city still have lead pipes, from which the toxic metal can leach into the water supply. To remedy the problem, the lead pipes need to be replaced with safer, copper ones. That sounds straightforward, but it is a challenge to figure out which homes have lead pipes in the first pl
The world's largest cruise company has developed a ship-wide location-tracking platform that provides you with a personalized digital cruise experience.
On a desert mountain in Chile, a mega telescope is peering over the event horizon of a black hole – the aim is to test Einstein's theories to the limit
With its Chang'e 4 landing, China has eclipsed US and Russian achievements. Expect them to take fresh interest in the moon China's achievement in landing a spacecraft on the far side of the moon , announced by Beijing's state media this morning, has ramifications that go far beyond the simple statement of this being a "first" for mankind. It puts China on the map of international space exploration
Traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) are among the Earth's ionosphere irregularities. They represent wave-like electron density structures propagating in the ionosphere. The motion of TIDs modulates the electron density distribution in space. It leads to a modification of plasma parameters, namely the refractive index, and affects the propagation of radio waves. In particular cases, the varia
The 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks is the story of tragedy as much as it is the story of magic. Nominally the tale of the genesis of Mary Poppins , the 1964 movie, the film is also a biopic by another means: an exploration of the childhood of P. L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins book series that informed the iconic Disney film. Mary Poppins , Saving Mr. Banks suggests, was rooted in sadness:
The illegal status of psychedelic substances is a terrible thing, says Ben Goertzel. With everything happening behind closed doors, our societies are not developing the right set of cultural institutions to guide people in the productive use of psychedelics. Once scientists have mastered artificial general intelligence (AGI), the psychedelic experience could be engineered for the modern world – i
Kl. 3.26 i nat landede den kinesiske rumsonde Chang'e 4 på Månens bagside med en rover om bord. Det er første gang i historien, at et fartøj bevæger sig derom.
A lander and rover have touched down on the side of the moon that never faces Earth. The Chang'e 4 mission marks the first time anyone has explored the far side
A Chinese spacecraft has made the first landing on the far side of the moon, touching down in the South Pole-Aitken basin. The mission aims to take detailed measurements of the moon's terrain and mineral composition Chang'e 4 landing: China probe makes historic touchdown on far side of the moon Continue reading…
Lunar lander Chang'e 4 successfully touched down on Thursday morning. China's Xinhua News published a photo it says was taken by the probe "on the never-visible side of the moon." (Image credit: Imaginechina via AP)
The people of north-west Europe embraced a silver currency instead of gold in the seventh century, and this may have fuelled a post-Roman economic boom
Tesla made about 9,300 more vehicles than it delivered last year, raising concerns among industry analysts that inventory is growing as demand for the company's electric cars may be starting to wane.
A new treefrog species was discovered during a two-week expedition to a remote tabletop mountain at Cordillera del Cóndor, a largely unexplored range in the eastern Andes.
A team of experimentalists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and theoreticians at University of Alabama Birmingham discovered a remarkably long-lived new state of matter in an iron pnictide superconductor, which reveals a laser-induced formation of collective behaviors that compete with superconductivity.
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Tegn abonnement på
BioNyt Videnskabens Verden (www.bionyt.dk) er Danmarks ældste populærvidenskabelige tidsskrift for naturvidenskab. Det er det eneste blad af sin art i Danmark, som er helliget international forskning inden for livsvidenskaberne.
Bladet bringer aktuelle, spændende forskningsnyheder inden for biologi, medicin og andre naturvidenskabelige områder som f.eks. klimaændringer, nanoteknologi, partikelfysik, astronomi, seksualitet, biologiske våben, ecstasy, evolutionsbiologi, kloning, fedme, søvnforskning, muligheden for liv på mars, influenzaepidemier, livets opståen osv.
Artiklerne roses for at gøre vanskeligt stof forståeligt, uden at den videnskabelige holdbarhed tabes.
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