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A new study provides fresh evidence that ancient interbreeding with archaic human species may have provided modern humans with genetic variation that helped them adapt to new environments as they dispersed across the globe. The study, published in Science, focused on a gene known as MUC19, which is involved in…
The brain controls the release of glucose in a wide range of stressful circumstances, including fasting and low blood sugar levels. However, less attention has been paid to its role in day-to-day situations. In a study published in Molecular Metabolism, University of Michigan researchers have shown that a specific population…
People recovering from heart failure should consider improving the regularity of their sleep, a study led by Oregon Health & Science University suggests. The research team found that even moderately irregular sleep doubles the risk of having another clinical event within six months, according to a study published on August…
A collaborative team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Ajou University in South Koreahas revealed that the unique fan-like propellers of Rhagovelia water striders — which allow them to glide across fast-moving streams — open and close passively, like a paintbrush, ten…
Optical microscopy is a key technique for understanding dynamic biological processes in cells, but observing these high-speed cellular dynamics accurately, at high spatial resolution, has long been a formidable task. Now, in an article published in Light: Science & Applications, researchers from The University of Osaka, together with collaborating institutions,…
The mystery at Jupiter’s heart has taken a fresh twist – as new research suggests a giant impact may not have been responsible for the formation of its core. It had been thought that a colossal collision with an early planet containing half of Jupiter’s core material could have mixed…
On Mars, the past is written in stone — but the present is written in sand. Last week, Perseverance explored inactive megaripples to learn more about the wind-driven processes that are reshaping the Martian landscape every day. After wrapping up its investigation at the contact between clay and olivine-bearing rocks…
A fast radio burst is an immense flash of radio emission that lasts for just a few milliseconds, during which it can momentarily outshine every other radio source in its galaxy. These flares can be so bright that their light can be seen from halfway across the universe, several billion…
A new discovery of how bees use their flight movements to facilitate remarkably accurate learning and recognition of complex visual patterns could mark a major change in how next-generation AI is developed, according to a University of Sheffield study. iversity of Sheffield built a digital model of a bee’s brain…
Weight-loss interventions, including gastric bypass surgery and drugs that prevent dietary fat absorption, can be invasive or have negative side effects. Now, researchers have developed edible microbeads made from green tea polyphenols, vitamin E and seaweed that, when consumed, bind to fats in the gastrointestinal tract. Preliminary results from tests…
A new study finds that a high-salt diet triggers brain inflammation that drives up blood pressure. The research, led by McGill University scientist Masha Prager-Khoutorsky in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team at McGill and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, suggests the brain may be a missing…
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital demonstrated for the first time that the protein midkine plays a preventative role against Alzheimer’s disease. Midkine is known to accumulate in Alzheimer’s disease patients. Now, researchers have connected it with amyloid beta, a protein that accumulates in the brain, causing assemblies that…
Physicists have developed a breakthrough concept in quantum encryption that makes private communication more secure over significantly longer distances, surpassing state-of-the-art technologies. For decades, experts believed such a technology upgrade required perfect optical hardware, namely, light sources that strictly emit one light particle (photon) at a time — something extremely…
Using a small bench-top reactor, researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have demonstrated that electrochemically loading a solid metal target with deuterium fuel can boost nuclear fusion rates. Large-scale magnetic confinement fusion — which puts plasmas under extreme temperatures and pressure — is being widely explored as a…
For years, engineers have sought better ways to build tiny, efficient lasers that can be integrated directly onto silicon chips, a key step toward faster, more capable optical communications and computing. Today’s commercial lasers are mostly made from III-V semiconductors grown on specialized substrates — a process that makes them…
Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems far beyond the reach of today’s fastest supercomputers. But today’s machines are notoriously fragile. The quantum bits, or “qubits,” that store and process information are easily disrupted by their environment, leading to errors that quickly accumulate. One of the most promising approaches…
A new study led by the University of Oxford in collaboration with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, University of Greenwich, and the Technical University of Denmark could provide a cost-effective and sustainable solution to help tackle the devastating decline in honeybees. An engineered food supplement, designed to provide essential compounds found…
The British evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane is said to have quipped that any divine being evidently had ‘an ordinate fondness for beetles’. This bon mot conveyed an important truth: the ‘tree of life’ – the family tree of all species, living or extinct – is very uneven. In places, it…
Approximately 4.6 billion years ago our solar system formed from a huge disk of gas and dust orbiting our Sun. The asteroids we see today are some of the most complete artifacts of this formation left for us to observe, like the screws, offcuts, and other debris leftover at a…
If an extraterrestrial intelligence were looking for signs of human communications, when and where should they look? In a new study, researchers at Penn State and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California analyzed when and where human deep space transmissions would be most detectable by an observer outside our…
Omega fatty acids could protect against Alzheimer’s disease in women, new research has found. Analysis of lipids – fat molecules that perform many essential functions in the body – in the blood found there was a noticeable loss of unsaturated fats, such as those that contain omega fatty acids, in…
Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have proposed a new explanation for some of the universe’s most puzzling early galaxies, nicknamed “little red dots.” In the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Authors Fabio Pacucci and Abraham (Avi) Loeb suggest that these galaxies are the…
Astronomers used a UC Santa Cruz-led AI system to detect a rare supernova, SN 2023zkd, within hours of its explosion, allowing rapid follow-up observations before the fleeting event faded. Evidence suggests the blast was triggered by a massive star’s catastrophic encounter with a black hole companion, either partially swallowing the…
We’re often told it is “unscientific” or “meaningless” to ask what happened before the Big Bang. But a new paper by FQxI cosmologist Eugene Lim, of King’s College London, UK, and astrophysicists Katy Clough, of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Josu Aurrekoetxea, at Oxford University, UK, published in…
The world will warm more than expected due to future changes in ozone, which protects Earth from harmful sun rays but also traps heat as it is a greenhouse gas. While banning ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs has helped the ozone layer to recover, when combined with increased air pollution…
To build a large-scale quantum computer that works, scientists and engineers need to overcome the spontaneous errors that quantum bits, or qubits, create as they operate. Scientists encode these building blocks of quantum information to suppress errors in other qubits so that a minority can operate in a way that…
A University of Queensland study suggests the antivenom given to people bitten by Eastern Brown Snakes may not be as effective as it could be, prompting a review of hospital cases. Professor Bryan Fry from UQ’s School of the Environment led a team which assessed the blood-clotting toxins in venoms…
It’s a fact of life: Some people age better than others. Some ease into their 90s with mind and body intact, while others battle diabetes, Alzheimer’s or mobility issues decades earlier. Some can withstand a bad fall or bout of the flu with ease, while others never leave the hospital…
A team of scientists from Korea and Japan has discovered a new type of crystal that can “breathe” — releasing and absorbing oxygen repeatedly at relatively low temperatures. This unique ability could transform the way we develop clean energy technologies, including fuel cells, energy-saving windows, and smart thermal devices. The…
A team of international scientists has discovered new fossils at a field site in Africa that indicate Australopithecus, and the oldest specimens of Homo, coexisted at the same place in Africa at the same time — between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago. The paleoanthropologists discovered a new species of…
