|  Jupiter Shines Near the Moon Tonight: How to See It  | If your sky is clear tonight (Feb. 10), be sure to check out the southeast sky about an hour or so after sundown for an eye-catching site: Jupiter and the moon shining together. That's not a star, however, but in reality, the biggest planet in our solar system: Jupiter.
| Read More » Whales Gobble Up Endangered European Eels  | Rare European eels are thought to cross the Atlantic Ocean to breed, but not all of them finish the ambitious voyage. "It turns out that eels are hunted and eaten by whales," study researcher Magnus Wahlberg, a biologist at the University of Southern Denmark, said in a statement.
| Read More » It Took 60,000 Years to Kill Nearly Everything on Earth  | It took only 60,000 years to kill more than 90 percent of all life on Earth, according to the most precise study yet of the Permian mass extinction, the greatest die-off in the past 540 million years. But pinning down the duration of the Permian mass extinction will help researchers refine its potential trigger mechanisms, said Seth Burgess, lead study author and a geochemist at MIT. "Having an accurate timeline for the events surrounding the mass extinction and the interval itself is extremely important, because it gives us an idea of how the biosphere responds." The Permian mass extinction marks the end of the Permian geologic period, which ended approximately 252 million years ago.
| Read More » Live Cells Printed Using 'Rubber Stamp' Method  | A new printing method inspired by kids' stamps could be used to create live cells of almost any shape or configuration. The technique, called BlocC printing, could be used to recreate networks of brain cells in a petri dish or complicated immune-system interactions, according to the study detailing the method, which was published today (Feb. 10) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And unlike past cell-printing methods, "the major improvement is that cells printed by BlocC printing are alive — close to 100 percent viability," said study co-author Lidong Qin, a nanomedicine researcher at Houston Methodist Research Institute. "We were sick of using ink-jet printing and started to think of other approaches to prepare a cell pattern," Qin told Live Science in an email.
| Read More » Galileo's Optical Illusion Explained by Neuroscience  | A light-colored object on a dark background appears larger than a dark object on a light background, but until recently, no one knew why. Neurons that respond to light objects may distort the objects more than neurons that respond to dark objects — possibly an advantage for human ancestors who needed to see in low-light conditions such as nighttime on the African savanna. "Every time we think about blur in an image, we usually think about optics," said study leader Dr. Jose-Manuel Alonso, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York's College of Optometry. Galileo believed the lens of the human eye caused this so-called "irradiation illusion." But the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz showed that if the optics of the human eye were to blame, dark objects should be distorted just as much as light ones, which they were not.
| Read More » Scientists Tout El Niño Forecast, Others Doubt It  | A team of scientists now claims it can forecast disruptive El Niño events a year in advance, and that an El Niño has a 3-in-4 chance of happening later this year. El Niño, which means "little boy" or "the baby Jesus" in Spanish, was named by South American fishermen, who noticed that the ocean would heat up around Christmastime. Its counterpart, La Niña (Spanish for "little girl") occurs when equatorial Pacific waters are unusually cold, and it can also influence weather events around the world. Together, El Niño and La Niña are known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.
| Read More » Women Who Say Sex Is Important Are Likely to Keep Doing It The participants reported whether they were sexually active and how important sex was in their lives. At the start of the study, 354 (66.3 percent) of the women reported being sexually active. Four years later, 228 of those women remained sexually active, according to the study published today (Feb. 16) in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. "Popular culture tells us that as women age, they become less interested in sex, and they stop having sex," said study researcher Dr. Holly Thomas, an internal medicine physician at the University of Pittsburgh. Read More » Caution Urged Over Weight-Loss Drugs People should be cautions about using two new weight-loss drugs because it's not clear whether they increase the risk for heart problems, some doctors argue. In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration approved two weight-loss drugs: lorcaserin hydrochloride (brand name Belviq, manufactured by Eisai Inc.) and phentermine-topiramate (brand name Qsymia, manufactured by Vivus, Inc.). The drugs have raised concerns about heart safety because phentermine is known to increase heart rate, and previous weight-loss drugs were removed from the market because of their association with heart problems, including heart attacks and strokes. "In our view, approving the drugs for marketing without more definitive evidence [of heart safety] is an unnecessary gamble," wrote the editorial authors Dr. Steven Woloshin and Dr. Lisa M. Schwartz, of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, who noted that the drugs have not been approved in Europe, because of concerns over heart risks. Read More » Nazi-Looted Painting Returned to Poland  | U.S. authorities have recovered and returned an 18th-century painting looted from Poland's National Museum by Nazi troops during World War II. The painting by German artist Johann Conrad Seekatz was one of thousands of art objects pilfered during the German occupation of Poland, between 1939 and 1945. The Seekatz painting, "Saint Philip Baptizing a Servant of Queen Kandaki," had crisscrossed the globe for decades before it turned up at auction in New York in 2006, misattributed to Dutch painter J.C. Saft, investigators said. Doyle New York Auctioneers and Appraisers sold the artwork for about $24,000 to the Rafael Valls Gallery in London.
| Read More » NASA Photos Show Possible Water Flows on Mars (Images)  | The marks, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), snake down some crater walls and other inclines when the mercury rises on the Red Planet. New research finds seasonal changes in iron minerals at RSL sites, suggesting that brines containing an iron antifreeze may flow there from time to time — but direct evidence of water remains elusive. "We still don't have a smoking gun for existence of water in RSL, although we're not sure how this process would take place without water," Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, lead author of two recent RSL studies, said in a statement. (Ojha discovered the RSL in 2011, while an undergraduate at the University of Arizona.) [Photos: The Search for Water on Mars]
| Read More » Scientists find gene linking brain's grey matter to intelligence By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers have found a gene linking intelligence to the thickness of so-called "grey matter" in the brain, and say their discovery could help scientists understand how and why some people have learning difficulties. An international team of scientists analyzed DNA samples and brain scans from more than 1,500 healthy 14-year-olds and gave them a series of tests to establish their verbal and non-verbal intelligence. The researchers looked at the cerebral cortex - the outermost layer of the brain that is also known as "grey matter" and plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness. They then analyzed more than 54,000 genetic variants possibly involved in brain development and found that, on average, teenagers with a particular gene variant had a thinner cortex in the left half of their brains - and were the ones who performed less well on tests for intellectual ability. Read More » Star-rich galaxy found from universe's baby years  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronomers have found an old and distant galaxy that is believed to date back to a time when the universe was just 650 million years old, a fraction of its current age. Abell 2744_Y1 is the first distant galaxy to be found during a new Hubble Space Telescope project that makes use of naturally occurring zoom lenses in space. The technique, known as "gravitational lensing" has been used before to ferret out distant galaxies.
| Read More » Scientists find gene linking brain's grey matter to intelligence By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers have found a gene linking intelligence to the thickness of so-called "grey matter" in the brain, and say their discovery could help scientists understand how and why some people have learning difficulties. An international team of scientists analysed DNA samples and brain scans from more than 1,500 healthy 14-year-olds and gave them a series of tests to establish their verbal and non-verbal intelligence. The researchers looked at the cerebral cortex - the outermost layer of the brain that is also known as "grey matter" and plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness. They then analysed more than 54,000 genetic variants possibly involved in brain development and found that, on average, teenagers with a particular gene variant had a thinner cortex in the left half of their brains - and were the ones who performed less well on tests for intellectual ability. Read More » Scientists find gene linking brain's grey matter to intelligence By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers have found a gene linking intelligence to the thickness of so-called "grey matter" in the brain, and say their discovery could help scientists understand how and why some people have learning difficulties. An international team of scientists analysed DNA samples and brain scans from more than 1,500 healthy 14-year-olds and gave them a series of tests to establish their verbal and non-verbal intelligence. The researchers looked at the cerebral cortex - the outermost layer of the brain that is also known as "grey matter" and plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness. They then analysed more than 54,000 genetic variants possibly involved in brain development and found that, on average, teenagers with a particular gene variant had a thinner cortex in the left half of their brains - and were the ones who performed less well on tests for intellectual ability. Read More » Monster Sunspot Larger Than Jupiter Stars in Amazing Sun Photos  | A giant sunspot group takes center stage in these stunning images taken by avid sky photographer John Chumack.
| Read More » Beauty Works Like a Drug on the Brain  | Just like tasty food or good music, "being attached to someone, like a romantic partner, is rewarding for people," said study researcher Olga Chelnokova, a psychologist at the University of Oslo, in Norway. Thus, the opioid system might help humans choose the best mate by producing rewarding feelings when seeing those mates, while making unattractive mates less desirable.
| Read More » Chikungunya Fever: Will the Virus Spread to the US? Health experts are concerned that chikungunya fever — a debilitating mosquito-borne disease that was once confined to Africa and Asia — has now spread to the Caribbean and may soon begin to make its way across North and South America. And as the climate warms, "it's gradually moving northward," Harrington said — the mosquito is already found as far north as New York City. Read More » Hundreds of Cancer Apps: Do They Work? Smartphone apps aimed at preventing cancer, or helping people with the disease to manage it, have the potential to improve people's health, but many of these apps have drawbacks, researchers say. In a new study, researchers reviewed 295 cancer-focused apps available in the four major smartphone platforms (iPhone, Android, Nokia and BlackBerry). They found that most apps aimed to raise awareness about cancer (32 percent of the apps), followed by apps providing educational information about cancer (nearly 13 percent), and those designed to support fundraising efforts. Fewer of the apps aimed to help people with early detection (11.5 percent), prevention (2 percent) or management of cancer (nearly 4 percent), according to the study. Read More » Bold Prediction: Intelligent Alien Life Could Be Found by 2040  | By 2040 or so, astronomers will have scanned enough star systems to give themselves a great shot of discovering alien-produced electromagnetic signals, said Seth Shostak of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif. "I think we'll find E.T. within two dozen years using these sorts of experiments," Shostak said here Thursday (Feb. 6) during a talk at the 2014 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium at Stanford University. "Instead of looking at a few thousand star systems, which is the tally so far, we will have looked at maybe a million star systems" 24 years from now, Shostak said. Shostak's optimism is based partly on observations by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which has shown that the Milky Way galaxy likely teems with worlds capable of supporting life as we know it.
| Read More » Ancient Star May Be Oldest in Known Universe  | Astronomers have found what appears to be one of the oldest known stars in the universe. The ancient star formed not long after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, according to Australia National University scientists. The star (called SMSS J031300.362670839.3) is located 6,000 light-years from Earth and formed from the remains of a primordial star that was 60 times more massive than the sun. "This is the first time that we've been able to unambiguously say that we've found the chemical fingerprint of a first star," lead scientist Stefan Keller, of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, said in a statement.
| Read More » Coca-Cola Returns Soda to Outer Space in New Olympics Ad  | A new Olympics-themed Coca-Cola commercial features the International Space Station while recycling the soft drink company's own history in space. The minute-long TV ad, which shows a U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard the orbiting outpost watching their two nations going head-to-head in an Olympic hockey match on Earth, includes the return of the special can that Coca-Cola designed for a 1985 space shuttle mission. The commercial may have drawn inspiration from the real-life journey of an Olympic torch to the International Space Station (ISS) last November.
| Read More » 'Mother Lode' of Amazingly Preserved Fossils Discovered in Canada  | A treasure trove of fossils chiseled out of a canyon in Canada's Kootenay National Park rivals the famous Burgess Shale, the best record of early life on Earth, scientists say. "Once we started to break fresh rock, we realized we had discovered something incredibly special," said Robert Gaines, a geologist at Pomona College in Pomona, Calif., and co-author of a new study announcing the find. The renowned Burgess Shale fossil quarry, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Yoho National Park, is in a glacier-carved cliff in the Canadian Rockies. Since then, several other fossil sites have been found in the Burgess Shale, but none as rich as the original.
| Read More » How Do You Get Pink Eye? If you've seen a case of pink eye — such as the inflamed eyes that NBC sportscaster Bob Costas is sporting during the current Winter Olympics — you know it looks even worse than it sounds. Pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis, develops when the transparent membrane, or conjunctiva, lining the eyelid and the white part of the eyeball gets inflamed. This has three main causes: an allergic reaction, a viral infection or a bacterial infection. You can get pink eye from someone else if their bacterial or viral infection passes to you, making this a very common and contagious malady. Read More » World's Largest Trees Help Explain California Forests' Bald Spots  | Trees in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, including giant sequoias, need sunlight, water and just the right kind of granite to grow, a new study finds. Visitors to the western Sierra's lower elevations may find themselves abruptly stepping from a lush redwood grove onto sun-lashed bedrock. "Bedrock can be just as strong as climate in controlling where vegetation does and doesn't appear in the Sierra Nevada," said Jesse Hahm, a geologist at the University of Wyoming and lead study author. "These trees have had thousands and thousands of years to colonize this elevation band in the western Sierra, and the fact they have not done so already suggests there's something about the bedrock," influencing the growth patterns, Hahm said.
| Read More » Want to Rekindle Passion? Go on a Double Date (Op-Ed) New research we have conducted suggests that getting to know another couple can counter the decline in passionate love that happens in so many people's relationships over time. All of the effort people put into their relationships around Valentine's Day or otherwise is for a good reason: A slew of psychological research suggests that passionate love — the feeling of love that swells with excitement, obsession and physiological arousal — declines as a relationship grows with age. As a relationships blossom over the years, the interaction between romantic partners becomes more routine, familiar and predictable. Read More » How to Prevent a Broken Heart (Op-Ed) George Gibbs is director of Pastoral Care and a clinical counselorat Ohio State University (OSU)'s Harding Hospital and Talbot Hall, part of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Many hearts will be filled this Valentine holiday, but a few will also be "broken." That's because being in love, or in any relationship, means taking a risk that all won't go as planned. As the director of Pastoral Care and a clinical counselor at OSU Harding Hospitalat The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, I counsel people that entering into a romantic relationship can make you vulnerable because it gives the other person importance in your life. It can be self-defeating to focus on the other person in such a way that it deteriorates one's own mental health. Read More » Scientists to map genome of medieval English king Richard III  | By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - A year after they revealed a twisted skeleton found under a car park as the mortal remains of King Richard III, scientists in Britain plan to grind samples of his ancient bones and use them to map his genome. The project, which may alter perceptions of the last king of England to die in battle more than 500 years ago, aims to learn about Richard's ancestry and health, and provide a genetic archive for historians, researchers and the public. After taking a small sample of bone from the skeleton, Turi King of the University of Leicester genetics department will grind it to a powder, extract DNA and seek to piece together as much as possible of Richard's genetic code. Richard III's place in history is contested.
| Read More » Scientists to map genome of medieval English king Richard III  | By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - A year after they revealed a twisted skeleton found under a car park as the mortal remains of King Richard III, scientists in Britain plan to grind samples of his ancient bones and use them to map his genome. The project, which may alter perceptions of the last king of England to die in battle more than 500 years ago, aims to learn about Richard's ancestry and health, and provide a genetic archive for historians, researchers and the public. After taking a small sample of bone from the skeleton, Turi King of the University of Leicester genetics department will grind it to a powder, extract DNA and seek to piece together as much as possible of Richard's genetic code. Richard III's place in history is contested.
| Read More » King Richard III's Genome To Be Sequenced  | The genetic code of King Richard III, the medieval monarch whose body was found buried under a parking lot in Leicester, England, is set to be sequenced. Researchers at the University of Leicester announced the project today (Feb. 11). "It is an extremely rare occurrence that archaeologists are involved in the excavation of a known individual, let alone a king of England," Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester who will lead the project, said in a statement. Sequencing the genome of Richard III is a hugely important project that will help to teach us not only about him, but ferment discussion about how our DNA informs our sense of identity, our past and our future." [Photos: In Search of the Grave of Richard III]
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