71223889
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sciencehabit writes:
In 1670, a Carthusian monk discovered a "new star," or nova, near the constellation Cygnus, pointing out to his fellow monks a star that did not appear on maps of the sky. Now astronomers report that this nova, CK Vulpeculae, had an unusual cause: The explosion probably occurred when two stars orbiting each other spiraled together and merged into one. The molecules contain lots of isotopes that arise during nuclear reactions, so they likely spilled out of the stellar interiors when the stars joined together. Astronomers have recently discovered that rare "red novae"—named for their color—result when stars merge; now the aftermath of the 17th century nova indicates what such stellar mergers look like centuries later.
71085807
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sciencehabit writes:
Using a group of high-speed cameras and x-ray videos, the scientists observed the strange way mudskipper fish feeding in the laboratory. Their analysis showed that the fish carry mouthfuls of water up onto the land and then expel the water at the moment they lunge at their prey. The water allows the fish to form an airtight seal and generate enough suction to move the water and their meal back toward the esophagus. Furthermore, the motion of a bone in the fishes’ throat, known as the hyoid, closely resembles that of other terrestrial animals, especially newts, which use true tongues to eat. The authors suggest that the mudskipper’s “hydrostatic” tongue may serve as the evolutionary bridge that allowed our aquatic ancestors to begin feeding on land.
71085739
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sciencehabit writes:
Charles Darwin called them perhaps the “strangest animal[s] ever discovered.” And evolutionary biologists have puzzled ever since over where to place certain odd-looking extinct South American hooved animals in the mammalian branches of the tree of life. Now, new molecular evidence from proteins preserved in fossilized bones reveals that the mammals—including Macrauchenia, a leggy animal that looked like a fat camel with a short elephantlike trunk, and Toxodon, a stout beast with a rhinoceroslike body and a hippolike head—are most closely related to horses, tapirs, and rhinos, and not to African elephants as had previously been suggested. The work not only solves this evolutionary conundrum; it also demonstrates the ability of an emerging technique to shed light on remains from distant eras.
71054189
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sciencehabit writes:
In February 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteorite streaked across the early morning sky over western Russia. The bulk of the body exploded high in the atmosphere, but many smaller fragments survived and rained down onto the snow-covered ground. This week, researchers report that some of the impacts carved out strange funnel-shaped “carrots” in the snow. Initially, researchers had speculated that the carrot shapes may have been caused by hot fragments that melted the snow during the impact, but the simulations showed that the fragments would have had ample time to cool to atmospheric temperatures before reaching the ground. Instead, the strange funnels appear to be formed mostly by mechanical forces.
71053989
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sciencehabit writes:
Where did the thief go? You might get a more accurate answer if you ask the question in German. How did she get away? Now you might want to switch to English. Speakers of the two languages put different emphasis on actions and their consequences, influencing the way they think about the world, according to a new study. The work also finds that bilinguals may get the best of both worldviews, as their thinking can be more flexible.
71050563
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sciencehabit writes:
A mysterious bright spot on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, is looking more and more like ice—and could even be emitting water vapor into space on a daily basis, researchers report. The bright spot, simply called feature #5, had been noticed before by the Hubble Space Telescope as sitting within an 80-kilometer-wide crater. But the Dawn spacecraft, which went into orbit around Ceres on 6 March, is now close to resolving the feature, which is less than 4 kilometers wide. Andreas Nathues, principal investigator for Dawn’s framing camera, says the feature has spectral characteristics that are consistent with ice. Intriguingly, the brightness can be seen even when the spacecraft is looking on edge at the crater rim, suggesting that the feature may be outgassing water vapor above the rim and into space.
71018295
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sciencehabit writes:
In 2013, the Syrian military allegedly launched sarin gas rockets into a rebel-held town, killing hundreds. After diplomats brokered a deal to eradicate the weapons, international organizations began the dangerous job of destroying them. One roadblock to chemical weapons disposal is that heat and humidity quickly break down enzymes that can disable the deadly chemicals. Now, researchers have developed a highly stable compound that can inactivate nerve agents like sarin in a matter of minutes.
71018259
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sciencehabit writes:
The origin of life on Earth is a set of paradoxes. In order for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule—something like DNA or RNA—capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins, the workhorse molecules of life. But modern cells can’t copy DNA and RNA without the help of proteins themselves. To make matters more vexing, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids, which provide the membranes that cells need to hold their contents inside. And in yet another chicken-and-egg complication, protein-based enzymes (encoded by genetic molecules) are needed to synthesize lipids.
Now, researchers say they may have solved these paradoxes. Chemists report today that a pair of simple compounds, which would have been abundant on early Earth, can give rise to a network of simple reactions that produce the three major classes of biomolecules—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—needed for the earliest form of life to get its start. Although the new work does not prove that this is how life started, it may eventually help explain one of the deepest mysteries in modern science.
70921239
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sciencehabit writes:
Deep brain stimulation, which now involves surgically inserting electrodes several inches into a person's brain and connecting them to a power source outside the skull, can be an extremely effective treatment for disorders such as Parkinson's disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression. The expensive, invasive procedure doesn't always work, however, and can be risky. Now, a study in mice points to a less invasive way to massage neuronal activity, by injecting metal nanoparticles into the brain and controlling them with magnetic fields. The technique could eventually provide a wireless, nonsurgical alternative to traditional deep brain stimulation surgery, researchers say.
70921189
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sciencehabit writes:
Years of psychological research have suggested that people who are politically conservative are happier than their liberal counterparts. This so-called “ideological happiness gap” has inspired elaborate theories for why conservatives enjoy life more than liberals do. But there may be no happiness gap at all. According to a new study published online today in Science, the tiny differences found in previous studies may have resulted from a slight tendency on the part of political conservatives to “self-enhance,” or view themselves in an unrealistically positive light.
70921169
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sciencehabit writes:
The solar system’s largest moon, Ganymede, in orbit around Jupiter, harbors an underground ocean containing more water than all the oceans on Earth, according to new observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. Ganymede now joins Jupiter’s Europa and two moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, as moons with subsurface oceans—and good places to look for life. Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, may also have a subsurface ocean. The Hubble study suggests that the ocean can be no deeper than 330 kilometers below the surface.
70918385
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sciencehabit writes:
Materials scientists often look to the natural world for inspiration, but usually it takes their inventions a while to catch up with biological discoveries. Not this time. Earlier this week, scientists in Switzerland revealed that chameleons change colors by expanding a lattice of tiny crystals just under their skin. Now, researchers in California are reporting that they’ve made a thin film that changes colors when they tug on it. Such films could produce color-changing sensors that give engineers a way to monitor potentially dangerous structural changes to everything from bridges to airplane wings.
70918365
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sciencehabit writes:
You’re not completely human, at least when it comes to the genetic material inside your cells. You—and everyone else—may harbor as many as 145 genes that have jumped from bacteria, other single-celled organisms, and viruses and made themselves at home in the human genome. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which provides some of the broadest evidence yet that, throughout evolutionary history, genes from other branches of life have become part of animal cells.
70914497
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sciencehabit writes:
In 2012, astronomers reported a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, an orange star that belongs to the closest star system to the sun, located a mere 4.3 light-years from Earth. But this detection, which must still be confirmed, left open a major question: Just how massive is this newfound neighbor of ours? Now astronomers report that computer simulations of the planet's history indicate that the world is only one to three times as massive as Earth. This implies that the planet may have a terrestrial composition.
70890733
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sciencehabit writes:
Like children playing a raucous game of tag, the brightly colored liquid drops shown in the video above chase each other wildly. They appear to know where they are going, but they're nothing more than water and food coloring. This mixture behaves unexpectedly, scientists have discovered, thanks to complicated vapor and surface tension interactions between drops.
