46567739
submission
sciencehabit writes
"If you are one of the 20% of healthy adults who struggle with basic arithmetic, simple tasks like splitting the dinner bill can be excruciating. Now, a new study suggests that a gentle, painless electrical current applied to the brain can boost math performance for up to 6 months. Researchers don't fully understand how it works, however, and there could be side effects."Link to Original Source
46562883
submission
sciencehabit writes
"One of the most successful missions in NASA history may be coming to an end. NASA officials announced yesterday that the Kepler spacecraft, which has found more than 2700 planetary candidates outside the solar system, has lost the ability to point in a specified direction due to the malfunctioning of one of its reaction wheels. The spacecraft has been put into safe mode while engineers attempt to figure out how to resolve the malfunction."Link to Original Source
46537793
submission
sciencehabit writes
"From the human perspective, few events in evolution were more momentous than the split among primates that led to apes (large, tailless primates such as today's gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans) and Old World monkeys (which today include baboons and macaques). DNA studies of living primates have estimated that the rift took place between 25 million and 30 million years ago, but the earliest known fossils of both groups date no earlier than 20 million years ago. Now, a team working in Tanzania has found teeth and partial jaws from what it thinks are 25-million-year-old ancestors of both groups. If the interpretations hold up, the finds would reconcile the molecular and fossil evidence and possibly provide insights into what led to the split in the first place."Link to Original Source
46462663
submission
sciencehabit writes
"The carnivorous humped bladderwort, found on all continents except Antarctica, is a model of ruthless genetic efficiency. Only 3% of this aquatic plant's DNA is not part of a known gene, new research shows. In contrast, only 2% of human DNA is part of a gene. The bladderwort, named for its water-filled bladders that suck in unsuspecting prey, is a relative of the tomato. The finding overturns the notion that this repetitive, non-coding DNA, popularly called "junk" DNA, is necessary for life."Link to Original Source
46348841
submission
sciencehabit writes
"By connecting the circulatory systems of young mice to old ones--a technique first pioneered in the nineteenth century--researchers have found a way to rejuvinate the hearts of old mice. Formerly stiff, thick cardiac tissue became young and supple, thanks to a hormone that circulates in the blood of young mice but that's lacking in older mice. "This is probably the first handle we have on what makes the heart young and what makes it old," says one expert."Link to Original Source
46311221
submission
sciencehabit writes
"In the middle of the South Atlantic, there's a patch of sea almost devoid of life. There are no birds, few fish, not even much plankton. But researchers report that they've found buried treasure under the empty waters: ancient DNA hidden in the muck of the sea floor, which lies 5000 meters below the waves. The DNA, from tiny, one-celled sea creatures that lived up to 32,500 years ago, is the first to be recovered from the abyssal plains, the deep-sea bottoms that cover huge stretches of Earth. The researchers say that the ability to retrieve such old DNA from such large stretches of the planet's surface could help reveal everything from ancient climate to the evolutionary ecology of the seas.
"Link to Original Source
46277679
submission
sciencehabit writes
"Plants are known to communicate with each other via shade, aromatic chemicals, and physical touch, promoting processes such as growth and defense against disease, as well as attraction of bees and other pollinators. Now researchers report a new type of mechanism that some plants use to communicate. The team planted common chili pepper seeds near a basil plant, with barriers that prevented the basil from deploying its usual growth-promoting tricks. Despite the separation, chili seeds germinated faster when basil was a neighbor, suggesting that a message was getting through. Because light, touch, and chemical "smell" were ruled out, the team proposes that the finding points to a new type of communication between plants, possibly involving nanoscale sound waves, traveling through the dirt to bring encouraging "words" to the growing seeds. Understanding this novel communication could help growers boost crop yields and increase global food supplies."Link to Original Source
46248545
submission
sciencehabit writes
"If you've ever cringed when your parents said "groovy," you'll know that spoken language can have a brief shelf life. But frequently used words can persist for generations, even millennia, and similar sounds and meanings often turn up in very different languages. Now, a new statistical approach suggests that peoples from Alaska to Europe may share a linguistic forebear dating as far back as the end of the Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago. Indeed, some of the words we use today may not be so different than those spoken around campfires and receeding glaciers."Link to Original Source
46175099
submission
sciencehabit writes
"Alien? Subhuman primate? Deformed child? Mummified fetus? The Internet is buzzing over the nature of "Ata," a bizarre 6-inch-long skeleton featured in a new documentary on UFOs. Garry Nolan, a Stanford University scientist who boldly entered the fray, has now put to rest doubts about what species Ata belongs to. To the chagrin of UFO hunters, Ata is decidedly of this world. After mapping more than 500 million reads to a reference human genome, equating to 17.7-fold coverage of the genome, Nolan concluded that Ata "is human, there's no doubt about it." Meanwhile, after examining x-rays, another researcher concluded that Aka's skeletal development, based on the density of the epiphyseal plates of the knees (growth plates at the end of long bones found only in children), surprisingly appears to be equivalent to that of a 6- to 8-year-old child. If that holds up, there are two possibilities, Nolan says. One, a long shot, is that Ata had a severe form of dwarfism, was actually born as a tiny human, and lived until that calendar age. The second possibility is that Ata, the size of a 22-week-old fetus, suffered from a severe form of a rare rapid aging disease, progeria, and died in the womb or after premature birth.
"Link to Original Source
46170771
submission
sciencehabit writes
"Nobody knows exactly what triggers lightning bolts. Now, two Russian researchers say that these discharges of a billion volts or more could be caused by the interaction of cosmic rays—high-energy particles from outer space—with water droplets in thunderclouds.The results, reported this week in Physical Review Letters, show that storm clouds emit "hundreds or thousands" of short, strong radio pulses just before lightning strikes. Their shape, the researchers say, matches their models of runaway breakdown triggered by energetic cosmic rays."Link to Original Source
46169423
submission
sciencehabit writes
"The Boston marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly purchased several pounds of black powder explosive before the bombing. Used in fireworks and bullets, the explosive substance is both deadly and widely available. It's also very hard to detect. Now, researchers have modified one bomb-sniffing device to accurately spot very small amounts of black powder, an advance that could make us safer from future attacks."Link to Original Source
46109477
submission
sciencehabit writes
"If you were a rat living in a completely virtual world like in the movie The Matrix, could you tell? Maybe not, but scientists studying your brain might be able to. Today, researchers report that certain cells in rat brains work differently when the animals are in virtual reality than when they are in the real world. In the experiment, rats anchored to the top of a ball ran in place as movielike images around them changed, creating the impression that they were running along a track. Their sense of place relied on visual cues from the projections and their self-motion cues, but they had to do without proximal cues like sound and smell. The rodents used half as many neurons to navigage the virtual world as they did the real one."Link to Original Source
46105969
submission
sciencehabit writes
"After more than a decade of work, engineers have built an insect-sized robot that can take off, fly back and forth, land, and take off again. The voltage comes from a thin wire that connects the robot to a power source and a computer. The robot has no sensors, so to achieve controlled flight, researchers put the robot in a box where eight cameras track it as it moves. The cameras relay position information to the computer, which then activates the muscles to correctly fly the robot. When autonomous, the robots could be used in large numbers to go into disaster sites to help locate trapped people or gas leaks and other hazards."Link to Original Source
46105899
submission
sciencehabit writes
"Borrowing a single gene from a human influenza strain can make a dangerous strain of bird flu easily transmissible between guinea pigs, researchers report in a paper published online today in Science. The scientists conclude that there is a substantial risk that the strain, H5N1, which so far has not infected many people, could touch off a pandemic."Link to Original Source
46070987
submission
sciencehabit writes
"An insect's compound eye is an engineering marvel: high resolution, wide field of view, and incredible sensitivity to motion, all in a compact package. Now, a new digital camera provides the best-ever imitation of a bug's vision, using new optical materials and techniques. This technology could someday give patrolling surveillance drones the same exquisite vision as a dragonfly on the hunt."Link to Original Source