Curated News: Featured: SciWire

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Variation in egg-coat and sperm expressed genes influences fertility in diverse organisms, from sea stars to mice to humans.

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Chickens that chicken out in unfamiliar surroundings may shed light on anxiety in humans, according to research published in the January issue of the journal GENETICS, a publication of the Genetics Society of America.

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Scientists and veterinarians working for WCS’s New York Aquarium have discovered something noteworthy in the near shore waters of Long Island’s Great South Bay: a nursery ground for the sand tiger shark, a fearsome-looking but non-aggressive fish.

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New research on snakes shows that eating increases the amount of damaging reactive molecules in the body, potentially shaping and constraining life history evolution across animal groups.

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Thousands bound together are still thinner than a single strand of human hair, but with research from Binghamton University, boron nitride nanotubes may help build better fighter planes and space shuttles. A team of scientists led by Changhong Ke, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Binghamton University’s Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, and researcher Xiaoming Chen were the first to determine the interface strength between boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) and epoxy and other polymers.

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The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, an independent, research-driven graduate-level university focused on advanced energy and sustainable technologies, today announced that its researchers have successfully demonstrated that desert sand from the UAE could be used in concentrated solar power (CSP) facilities to store thermal energy up to 1000°C.

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Scientists at Indiana University have created a highly efficient biomaterial that catalyzes the formation of hydrogen -- one half of the "holy grail" of splitting H2O to make hydrogen and oxygen for fueling cheap and efficient cars that run on water.

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The combination of human and computer intelligence might be just what’s needed to find solutions to the “wicked” problems of the world, say researchers from Cornell University and the Human Computation Institute.

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NTU today unveiled two social and telepresence robots. One is Nadine, a friendly human-like robot who will greet you back and shake your hand.Unlike conventional robots, Nadine has her own personality, mood and emotions.

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The genomes show unequivocal evidence for mass migrations into Ireland. These genetic influxes are likely to have brought cultural changes including the transition to agriculture, Bronze metalworking and may have been the origin of western Celtic language.

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A technique to combine the ultrasensitivity of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with a slippery surface invented by Penn State researchers will make it feasible to detect single molecules of a number of chemical and biological species from gaseous, liquid or solid samples.

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The specialized human ability to perceive the sound quality known as “pitch” can no longer be listed as unique to humans.

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Article describes mechanism that halts solar eruptions

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Permanent marine protected areas and wilderness—places where fish can grow old—are critical to the effective conservation of marine ecosystems according to a new study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, James Cook University, and Lancaster University.

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Breaking news update: SpaceX successfully lands its Falcon 9 rocket near the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

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Researchers at the University of Georgia found that pathogens, like salmonella, can survive for at least six months in cookies and crackers. The recent study was prompted by an increased number of outbreaks of foodborne diseases linked to low-water-activity, or dry, foods.

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Curious seismologists who looked at the recordings made by a seismic station four miles away from the "cook-off" of an ammunition holding area in Iraq in 2006 found they could distinguish, mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices, helicopters and drones. Seismology is increasingly being used for investigative purposes, they said, not just to detect earthquakes.

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The first national study to map U.S. wild bees suggests they're disappearing in many of the country's most important farmlands. If losses of these crucial pollinators continue, the new nationwide assessment indicates that, over time, the problem could destabilize the nation's crop production.

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Brain scans from nearly 200 adolescent boys provide evidence that the brains of compulsive video game players are wired differently. Chronic video game play is associated with hyperconnectivity between several pairs of brain networks. Some of the changes are predicted to help game players respond to new information. Other changes are associated with distractibility and poor impulse control. The new findings, a collaborative effort between the University of Utah School of Medicine, and Chung-Ang University in South Korea, were published online in Addiction Biology on Dec. 21, 2015.

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In new Nature Climate Change article, researchers estimate widespread tree death in Southwestern forests during the next century as temperatures rise under global warming scenarios.

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Ongoing studies of a massive volcanic field in the Andes mountains show that the rapid uplift which has raised the surface more than six feet in eight years has occurred many times during the past 10,000 years.

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Evolutionary biologists at Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, University of Washington and the University of Utah may have solved a century-old evolutionary riddle: How did two related fruit fly species arise from one?

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New research has revealed that the thick donut-shaped disks of gas and dust that surround most massive black holes in the universe are ‘clumpy’ rather than smooth as originally thought.

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Just in time for the release of the movie "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens," NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is releasing a new image of what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber.

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A study published today finds a surprising and very recent shift away from the steady relationship among species that prevailed for more than 300 million years. The study, published in the journal Nature, offers the first long-term view of how species associated with each other for half of the existence of multicellular life on Earth.

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Plants are able to predict when infections are more likely to occur and regulate their immune response accordingly, new research has found. Led by the University of Warwick, the researchers discovered that a plants’ molecular clock is connected to their immune system to increase levels of resistance to infection at dawn – the time at which fungal infections appear most likely to occur, with plants unable to maintain the highest level of resistance at all times of day.

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Astronomers using ALMA have found the clearest evidence yet that giant planets have recently formed around four young stars.

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The ability of baby fish to find a home, or other safe haven, to grow into adulthood will be severely impacted under predicted ocean acidification, University of Adelaide research has found.

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Mountain pine beetle populations have exploded over the past decade, and these insects have infected and killed thousands of acres of western pine forests. Researchers predicted that as trees died, streamflow would increase, but a new study disproved this hypothesis.

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Using photography and laboratory simulations, researchers studied how dogs raise fluids into their mouths to drink. They discovered that sloppy-looking actions at the dog bowl are in fact high-speed, precisely timed movements that optimize a dogs’ ability to acquire fluids.

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A survey of 10 hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets conducted with NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has led a team to solve a long-standing mystery -- why some of these worlds seem to have less water than expected. The findings, published in Nature, offer new insights into the wide range of planetary atmospheres in our galaxy and how planets are assembled.

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Tests carried out by a University of Southampton archaeologist have confirmed a former chalk quarry holds vital clues about prehistoric climate and the early human occupation of the UK.

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Tübingen researchers match bullets to wounds using organ-specific protein signatures found on projectiles.

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Half of all stars are in binaries — pairs of stars that orbit each other. Half of binary stars orbit so close that gravitational interaction significantly affects their evolution and demise. Today, scientists led by Robert Mathieu, a professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his former student Natalie Gosnell confirmed one of the possible explanations for a common group of exceptions: the blue stragglers.

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Scientists were able to deploy ruggidized seismometers that could withstand intense cold in Antarctica only recently. A line of seismometers strung across the West Antarctic Rift Valley and the Marie Byrd Land have given geologists their first good look at the mantle beneath the ice and rocks, revealing areas of hot rock that might affect the behavior of the overlying ice sheet.

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A team led by Michael Zingale of Stony Brook University is exploring the physics of Type Ia supernovas using the Titan supercomputer at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The team’s latest research focuses on a specific class of Type Ia supernovas known as double-detonation supernovas. This year, the team completed a three-dimensional (3-D), high-resolution investigation of the thermonuclear burning a double-detonation white dwarf undergoes before explosion. The study expands upon the team’s initial 3-D simulation of this supernova scenario, which was carried out in 2013.

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A new study by a team of scientists from Argentina, Brazil, California and the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University of Utah has determined that the time elapsed between the emergence of early dinosaur relatives and the origin of the first dinosaurs is much shorter than previously believed.

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University of Washington researchers have reconstructed 3-D models of celebrities such as Tom Hanks from large Internet photo collections. The models can deliver speeches that the real actor never performed - one step toward developing fully interactive digital models of people from family or historic photo collections.

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Northwestern University neuroscientists now can read the mind of a fly. In a study focused on three of the fruit fly’s sensory systems, the researchers developed a new tool that uses fluorescent molecules of different colors to tag neurons in the brain to see which connections, or synapses, were active during a sensory experience that happened hours earlier. Mapping the pattern of individual neural connections could provide insights into the computational processes that underlie the workings of the human brain.

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Using the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers have detected a very compact and faint early galaxy that was forming 400 million years after the big bang.

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The Sun demonstrates the potential to superflare, new research into stellar flaring suggests.

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Matter known as ordinary corresponds to only 5% of the Universe. Numerical simulations made it possible to predict that the rest of this ordinary matter should be located in the large-scale structures that form the “cosmic web”. A team led by the University of Geneva observed this phenomenon. The research shows that the majority of the missing ordinary matter is found in the form of a very hot gas associated with intergalactic filaments.

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A team of astronomers, including a West Virginia University professor, has uncovered the most detailed record ever of a Fast Radio Burst, or FRB, brief yet brilliant eruptions of cosmic radio waves that have baffled astronomers since they were first reported nearly a decade ago. The results of their research are published in the journal Nature.

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Current El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean have created high water temperatures that are seriously damaging coral reefs, including those on Christmas Island, which may be the epicenter for what could become a global coral bleaching event.

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Researchers for the first time have attempted to measure all the material leaving and entering a mountain range over more than a million years and discovered that erosion caused by glaciation during ice ages can, in the right circumstances, wear down mountains faster than plate tectonics can build them.

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What do mercury levels in dolphins say about mercury levels in humans? Quite a bit, according to a new study by scientists at FAU Harbor Branch, which sheds light on the potential dangers of consuming locally caught seafood. This is the first time that researchers have closed the loop between marine mammal and human health, by taking findings from their research and applying them to explore the potential risks facing humans living in the same region.

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With the aim of producing high-quality X-rays with minimal radiation exposure, particularly in children, researchers have developed a new approach to imaging patients based on the Xbox gaming system.

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A new Report from Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS Canada) warns of the potential for major negative impacts on fish and fish habitat caused by large hydroelectric dams, like that currently under evaluation through the Next Generation Hydro initiative. The Report, which focuses on north-western Canada, notes that substantial destruction of fish habitats caused by such a dam, along with additional threats and effects will be either very expensive or impossible to mitigate.

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Itai Roffman of the University of Haifa documented groups of bonobos performing complex actions to extract food – a characteristic that has hitherto been regarded as an exclusive evolutionary advantage of archaic pre-humans

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A microscopic marine alga is thriving in the North Atlantic to an extent that defies scientific predictions, suggesting swift environmental change as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the ocean.