An international team of astrophysicists has for the first time witnessed a star being swallowed by a black hole and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light.
The Weizmann Institute of Science’s Prof. Michael Eisenbach previously revealed that sperm use multiple navigation systems, such as heat-seeking and chemical. Now he has found that opsins – proteins involved in the visual system – contribute to the heat-seeking movement, helping sperm sense warmth.
A team led by Iowa State's Massimo Marengo responded to the buzz about a mysterious dimming star by studying data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. They conclude the dimming was probably caused by a family of comets passing in front of the star.
Biologists at Tufts University have succeeded in inducing one species of flatworm to grow heads and brains characteristic of another species of flatworm without altering genomic sequence. The work reveals physiological circuits as a new kind of epigenetics – information existing outside of genomic sequence – that determines large-scale anatomy.
Among the 5 000 existing species of mammals, more than 100 have their genome sequenced, whereas the genomes of only 9 species of reptiles (among 10 000 species) are available to the scientific community. This is the reason why a team at the University of Geneva has produced a database including the newly-sequenced genome of the corn snake. Within the same laboratory, the researchers have discovered the exact mutation that causes albinism in that species.
Colorado State University’s Diana Wall and coauthors make the case to integrate soil biodiversity research into human health studies in a paper published online in Nature November 23.
Rather than relying on a thick layer of body fat for insulation as many aquatic mammals do, some seabirds and semiaquatic mammals such as fur seals and otters trap a layer of air in their feathers and furs for thermal insulation against the ice cold drink. Now a team of researchers from MIT has experimentally studied the trapping of air in hairy surfaces and the water-repellent properties of undeformable hairy textures, which is key for animals’ thermal regulation. The researchers will present the study at APS’s DFD Fall 2015 Meeting.
Researchers in David Awschalom’s group at the University of Chicago have demonstrated that macroscopic entanglement can be generated at room temperature and in a small magnetic field.
Scientists have launched an expedition to a remote volcano in the Galapagos Islands to search out rare giant tortoises, some of which were found to carry the genes of two species thought, until recently, to be extinct.
UK researchers have unearthed ancient fossil forests, thought to be partly responsible for one of the most dramatic shifts in the Earth’s climate in the past 400 million years.
In this Q&A, Particle Physics and Astrophysics Professor Lance Dixon of Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explains one approach to developing such a theory, called quantum gravity.
A year ago, researchers discovered that fat helps coral survive heat stress over the short term—and now it seems that fat helps coral survive over the long term, too. The study offers important clues as to which coral species are most likely to withstand repeated bouts of heat stress, called “bleaching,” as climate change warms world oceans.
A resin developed at UAB's Materials Processing and Applications Development center is replacing the metal ring typically used to prevent cracks from furthering down an elephant’s tusk.
Researchers in Germany have developed a tool to help grapple with enormous data sets and reveal big picture trends, such as climatic tipping points and their effects on species. The researchers created a software package based on the Python programming language that unifies complex network theory and nonlinear time series analysis – two important data analysis concepts. The researchers named the software “pyunicorn,” and they discuss their findings in this week’s CHAOS, from AIP Publishing.
Global energy demand from developed nations has an adverse impact on freshwater resources in less developed nations according to a new study.
Taking genetic engineering to the next level, Colorado State University researchers are creating modular, programmable genetic circuits that control specific plant functions.
Ancient climates on Earth may have been more sensitive to carbon dioxide than was previously thought, according to new research from Binghamton University. A team of Binghamton University researchers including geology PhD student Elliot A. Jagniecki and professors Tim Lowenstein, David Jenkins and Robert Demicco examined nahcolite crystals found in Colorado’s Green River Formation, formed 50 million years old during a hothouse climate. They found that CO2 levels during this time may have been as low as 680 parts per million (ppm), nearly half the 1,125 ppm predicted by previous experiments. The new data suggests that past predictions significantly underestimate the impact of greenhouse warming and that Earth’s climate may be more sensitive to increased carbon dioxide than was once thought, said Lowenstein.
Scientists from the University of New Hampshire and colleagues answer the question of why NASA’s Voyager 1, when it became the first probe to enter interstellar space in mid-2012, observed a magnetic field that was inconsistent with that derived from other spacecraft observations, in a study published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Winds of over 2km per second have been discovered flowing around planet outside of the Earth’s solar system, new research has found. The University of Warwick discovery is the first time that a weather system on a planet outside of Earth’s solar system has been directly measured and mapped.
A glacier in northeast Greenland that holds enough water to raise global sea levels by more than 18 inches has come unmoored from a stabilizing sill and is crumbling into the North Atlantic Ocean. Losing mass at a rate of 5 billion tons per year, glacier Zachariae Isstrom entered a phase of accelerated retreat in 2012, according to findings published in the current issue of Science.
>Wild-caught chimpanzees, who were orphaned and imported from Africa in their early infancy, exhibit an impaired social behaviour also as adults. So far long-term effects of early traumatic experiences on social behaviour were known only for humans and socially isolated chimpanzees.
The long, shallow grooves lining the surface of Phobos are likely early signs of the structural failure that will ultimately destroy this moon of Mars.
The sensitivity of marine communities to ocean warming rather than rising ocean temperatures will have strong short-term impacts on biodiversity changes associated with global warming, according to new research.
The sight of an asteroid being ripped apart by a dead star and forming a glowing debris ring has been captured in an image for the first time. Comprised of dust particles and debris, the rings are formed by the star’s gravity tearing apart asteroids that came too close. Gas produced by collisions among the debris within the ring is illuminated by ultraviolet rays from the star, causing it to emit a dark red glow which the researchers observed and turned into the image of the ring.
A Stony Brook University-led team of evolutionary biologists has discovered that the oldest known nectar-drinking bat fossil, Palynephyllum antimaster, was probably omnivorous.
In 1655 the English mathematician John Wallis published a book in which he derived a formula for pi as the product of an infinite series of ratios. Now researchers from the University of Rochester, in a surprise discovery, have found the same formula in quantum mechanical calculations of the energy levels of a hydrogen atom. The researchers report their findings in the Journal of Mathematical Physics.
The thickness of the cortex in a region of the brain that specializes in facial recognition can predict an individual's ability to recognize faces and other objects.
A groundbreaking new study shows that cougars, also known as mountain lions and pumas, are likely to recolonize portions of habitat in the middle part of the United States within the next 25 years. It is the first study to show the potential “when and where” of the repopulation of this controversial large predator.
Using Hubble Space Telescope images, astronomers have conducted a "cosmic archeological dig" of our Milky Way's heart, uncovering the blueprints of our galaxy's early construction phase. The researchers uncovered for the first time a population of ancient white dwarfs -- smoldering remnants of once-vibrant stars that inhabited the Milky Way's core.
A group of scientists have developed a three-point plan to ensure the world’s protected areas meet new biodiversity targets set by the 193 signatory nations of the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD).
The evolution of male songbirds as the colorful consorts of drab female partners is more complicated than long thought, says a McMaster researcher on a team that looked at nearly 6,000 species for a massive study published in the journal Nature.
Peering at the debris from particle collisions that recreate the conditions of the very early universe, scientists have for the first time measured the force of interaction between pairs of antiprotons. Like the force that holds ordinary protons together within the nuclei of atoms, the force between antiprotons is attractive and strong. The experiments were conducted at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory and will publish in Nature.
Discovery greatly expands the known distribution of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, which has decimated bat populations in North America
Global Temperature Report: October 2015
The highest-resolution radar images of asteroid 2015 TB145's safe flyby of Earth have been processed and yield new information about its surface features.
Diamonds may not be as rare as once believed, but this finding in a new Johns Hopkins University research report won’t mean deep discounts at local jewelry stores.
The recently commissioned MicroBooNE experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has reached a major milestone: It detected its first neutrinos on Oct. 15, marking the beginning of detailed studies of these fundamental particles whose properties could be linked to dark matter, matter’s dominance over antimatter in the universe and the evolution of the entire cosmos since the Big Bang.
A study in the Nov. 2 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first to fully document the demographic impacts of West Nile virus on North American bird populations. Data from bird-banding stations shows more species were hit than suspected, and half of those have yet to recover.
In their soon-to-be-published study, two Texas Tech University researchers said some of the venomous contents in the bats’ saliva likely evolved by recruiting ancestral genes to produce new transcript molecules rather than by creating completely new gene sequences.
For centuries, cod were the backbone of New England’s fisheries and a key species in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. Today, cod stocks are on the verge of collapse, hovering at 3-4% of sustainable levels. Even cuts to the fishery have failed to slow this rapid decline, surprising both fishermen and fisheries managers.
A team of astronomers is proposing that huge spiral patterns seen around some newborn stars, merely a few million years old, may be evidence for the presence of giant, unseen planets.
In the recent sci-fi hit, The Martian, the main character, astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon), manages to grow potatoes on the planet with a mix of ingenuity, science, and a bit of Hollywood make-believe. Could it work?
Researchers are sifting through an avalanche of data produced by one of the largest cosmological simulations ever performed, led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. The simulation, run on the Titan supercomputer at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, modeled the evolution of the universe from just 50 million years after the Big Bang to the present day—from its earliest infancy to its current adulthood. Over the course of 13.8 billion years, the matter in the universe clumped together to form galaxies, stars and planets; but we’re not sure precisely how.
Recent research on the electric eel by Vanderbilt University biologist Ken Catania has revealed that it is not the primitive creature it has been portrayed. Instead, it has a sophisticated control of the electrical fields it generates that makes it one of the most remarkable predators in the animal kingdom.
To prolong the lifespan of Hall thrusters, a team of researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research have experimentally optimized the operation of a novel, wall-less thruster prototype developed a year ago by the same team. The preliminary performance results were satisfactory, the team said, and pave the way toward developing a high-efficiency wall-less Hall thruster suitable for long-duration, deep space missions. The researchers present their work this week in Applied Physics Letters.
Researchers find that permafrost organic material is so biodegradable that as soon as it thaws, the carbon is almost immediately consumed by single-cell organisms called microbes and then released back into the air as carbon dioxide, feeding the global climate cycle. Their findings are laid out in an article published today by the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.
University of Utah scientists deciphered maternal genetic material from two babies buried together at an Alaskan campsite 11,500 years ago. They found the infants had different mothers and were the northernmost known kin to two lineages of Native Americans found farther south throughout North and South America. The study supports the theory that Native Americans descended from people who migrated from Asia to the Bering land bridge, then spent up to 10,000 years there before moving rapidly into the Americas beginning at least 15,000 years ago.
In the past, whales, giant land mammals, and other animals played a vital role in keeping the planet fertile by transporting nutrients via their feces. However, massive declines and extinctions of many of these animals has deeply damaged this planetary nutrient recycling system, threatening fisheries and ecosystems on land, a team of scientists reports.
How did Pavlov’s dogs learn to associate a ringing bell with the delayed reward that followed? Scientists have had a working theory, but now a research team has proven it.
After scientists led by NASA publish a study in the journal Earth and Space Science, the U.S. Geological Survey issues statement that raises doubts on the studies earthquake forecasts for the greater Los Angeles area.
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