Through a detailed genetic study of kinship, an international team is the first to demonstrate that just like human societies, beluga whales appear to value culture as well as their ancestral roots and family ties. They have demonstrated that related whales returned to the same locations year after year, and even generation after generation.
Dining out more at restaurants, cafeterias and fast-food outlets may boost total levels of potentially health-harming chemicals called phthalates in the body, according to a study out today.
Humans not only survived a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago, they flourished during the resulting climate change that occurred, a new study by UNLV geoscientist Eugene Smith and colleagues found.
Fossils of six new species of pterosaurs, giant flying reptiles that flew over the heads of the dinosaurs, have been discovered by a team of researchers.
For the past 40 years, the total number of Adélie Penguins, one of the most common on the Antarctic peninsula, has been steadily declining—or so biologists have thought. A new study however, is providing new insights on this species of penguin.
Scientists using NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have found a larger than expected amount of water in the atmosphere of WASP-39b, a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet located about 700 light-years from Earth. Though no planet like this resides in our solar system, WASP-39b can provide new insights into how and where planets form around a star.
Scientists have found the first major evidence that Neanderthals made cave paintings, indicating they may have had an artistic sense similar to our own.
Fueled by advances in analyzing DNA from the bones of ancient humans, scientists have dramatically expanded the number of samples studied – revealing vast and surprising migrations and genetic mixing of populations in our prehistoric past.
Researchers at the University of Arkansas and the Ministry of Education of China studied expert and non-expert video game players and observed that both groups showed an increase in visual selective attention after only one hour of video game play.
While the giant birds that once dominated New Zealand are all extinct, a study of their preserved dung (coprolites) has revealed many aspects of their ancient ecosystem, with important insights for ongoing conservation efforts.
High exposure to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) in rodents resulted in tumors in tissues surrounding nerves in the hearts of male rats, but not female rats or any mice, according to draft studies from the National Toxicology Program (NTP). The exposure levels used in the studies were equal to and higher than the highest level permitted for local tissue exposure in cell phone emissions today. Cell phones typically emit lower levels of RFR than the maximum level allowed. NTP’s draft conclusions were released today as two technical reports, one for rat studies and one for mouse studies. NTP will hold an external expert review of its complete findings from these rodent studies March 26-28.
University of Washington researchers reconstructed prehistoric projectiles and points from ancient sites in what is now Alaska and studied the qualities that would make for a lethal hunting weapon. By examining and testing different projectile points, the team has come to a new understanding about the technological choices people made in ancient times.
A large international research team, led by Israel Hershkovitz from Tel Aviv University and including Rolf Quam from Binghamton University, State University of New York, has discovered the earliest modern human fossil ever found outside of Africa. The finding suggests that modern humans left the continent at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Facing a climate crisis, we may someday spray sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to form a cloud that cools the Earth, but suddenly stopping the spraying would have a severe global impact on animals and plants, according to the first study on the potential biological impacts of geoengineering, or climate intervention.
Male sea turtles are disappearing and not just in Australia. FAU researchers found that 97 to 100 percent of hatchlings in southeast Florida have been female since 2002. They are the first to show why and how moisture conditions inside the nest in addition to heat affect the development and sex ratios of turtle embryos, using a novel technique they developed to estimate sex ratios with a male-specific, transcriptional molecular marker Sox9.
Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have, for the first time, coaxed human stem cells to become sensory interneurons — the cells that give us our sense of touch. The new protocol could be a step toward stem cell–based therapies to restore sensation in paralyzed people who have lost feeling in parts of their body.
Reproduction among bald eagles in a remote national park in Minnesota was aided when their nests were protected from human disturbance, according to a study published today (Jan. 9, 2018) in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
There are more than 8 million species of living things on Earth, but none of them — from 100-foot blue whales to microscopic bacteria — has an advantage over the others in the universal struggle for existence. In a paper published Jan. 8 in the prestigious journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, scientists describe the dynamic that began with the origin of life on Earth 4 billion years ago.
Sleeping less than the recommended eight hours a night is associated with intrusive, repetitive thoughts like those seen in anxiety or depression, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.