|  7,000-Year-Old Human Bones Suggest New Date for Light-Skin Gene  | An ancient European hunter-gatherer man had dark skin and blue eyes, a new genetic analysis has revealed. The analysis of the man, who lived in modern-day Spain only about 7,000 years ago, shows light-skin genes in Europeans evolved much more recently than previously thought. The findings, which were detailed today (Jan. 26) in the journal Nature, also hint that light skin evolved not to adjust to the lower-light conditions in Europe compared with Africa, but instead to the new diet that emerged after the agricultural revolution, said study co-author Carles Lalueza-Fox, a paleogenomics researcher at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. The hunter-gatherer's dark skin pushes this date forward to only 7,000 years ago, suggesting that at least some humans lived considerably longer than thought in Europe before losing the dark pigmentation that evolved under Africa's sun.
| Read More » Dark Matter Mystery Could Be Solved in Next 10 Years  | Dark matter — the mysterious stuff that is thought to make up most of the matter in the known universe — may reveal itself during the next decade, one prominent scientist predicts. When the moment comes, it will result in "a pivotal paradigm shift in physics," Gianfranco Bertone, a physicist with the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said in a talk on dark matter research at a Royal Society Frontiers of Astronomy conference in London in November. The elusive substance may show itself as researchers set out to test "the existence of some of the most promising dark matter candidates, with a wide array of experiments, including the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and a new generation of astroparticle experiments underground and in space," Bertone said. So far, the only evidence of dark matter's existence comes from the gravitational effects it exerts on visible matter.
| Read More » Marijuana Use During Pregnancy Affects Baby's Brain Using marijuana during pregnancy could affect a baby's brain development by interfering with how brain cells are wired, a new study in mice and human tissue suggests. Researchers studied marijuana's effects on mice and brain tissue from human fetuses, and found that the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, interferes with the formation of connections between nerve cells in the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher thinking skills and forming memories. "Our advice is that [pregnant] mothers should avoid marijuana,"said neuroscientist Tibor Harkany of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and the Medical University of Vienna, in Austria, who led a study detailed today (Jan. 27) in the EMBO Journal. Read More » Source of Galapagos Volcanism Not Where Scientists Thought  | The volcanic plume that gave birth to the Galapagos Islands is not where scientists thought it was, a new study finds. Three-dimensional seismic images suggest the plume lies southeast of the chain's Fernandina Island, the spot where computer models place it. What's more, the plume is not being bent eastward by the migrating Nazca tectonic plate (atop which the Galapagos Islands sit), but appears to be moving northward. "Having the plume relocated helped explain why [many of] the Galapagos volcanoes are active," said Douglas Toomey, a geologist at the University of Oregon and leader of the study, detailed online Jan. 19 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
| Read More » China Moon Rover Hits Snag in Big Lunar Science Mission  | China's Jade Rabbit moon rover may have stubbed its lucky foot. The state-run Xinhua news agency reported Saturday that China's Yutu moon rover(the name means Jade Rabbit) "has experienced a mechanical control abnormality, and scientists are organizing repairs." It is not clear how serious the abnormality, but the news agency said the moon rover's malfunction occurred due to the "complicated lunar surface environment," citing the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND).
| Read More » Dead Plants Hold Earthquake Secrets  | With a few tricks borrowed from the oil industry, scientists are hoping to one day better understand why earthquakes start and stop. An easier alternative is to study faults exposed on Earth's surface, and look at "fossilized" earthquakes preserved along the faults. "That was the gold standard," said Heather Savage, a geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York. Just as rubbing your hands warms them on a winter's day, earthquakes heat the Earth when two sides of a fault slide past each other during a quake.)
| Read More » How Students Discovered New Supernova in Nearby Galaxy  | On Tuesday night (Jan. 21), astronomer Steve Fossey was showing undergraduates how to use a telescope at the University of London Observatory when they spotted a star explosion in Messier 82, a nearby galaxy. "The weather was closing in, with increasing cloud, so instead of the planned practical astronomy class, I gave the students an introductory demonstration of how to use the CCD camera on one of the observatory's automated 0.35–metre [13.7-inch] telescopes," Fossey said in a statement form UCL. The galaxy, also called the Cigar Galaxy, is some 12 million light-years away and it is a popular target for small telescopes because it is bright and quite photogenic. Studying the new supernova
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