|  Astronomers spy giant planet, three stars in odd celestial ballet  | With three stars in the system, the massive planet would experience triple sunrises and triple sunsets during one season and all daylight in another. Since the planet's orbit is very long, each season lasts for hundreds of years. "Depending on which season you were born in, you may never know what nighttime is like," lead researcher Kevin Wagner of the University of Arizona said.
| Read More » Nightmarish Find: Giant, Venomous Centipede Is a Powerful Swimmer  | A giant, toothy centipede with countless legs is also a swimming fiend, making it the first known aquatic centipede on record. George Beccaloni, a curator of orthopteroids at the Natural History Museum in London, discovered the critter while honeymooning in Thailand in 2001, according to National Geographic. As soon as he lifted the rock, a giant centipede skittered out and escaped into the stream, where it hid under a rock.
| Read More » Secret to Swordfish's Speedy Swimming Found  | Luckily, the study's lead author, John Videler, a biologist and professor at Groningen University in the Netherlands, had scanned a pair of adult swordfish in 1996 and 1997 using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Oil-slick skin would be more water-resistant.
| Read More » 500-Million-Year-Old 'Seaweed' Was Actually Home to Tiny Worms  | Researchers have known about the ancient worm Oesia (oh-EEZ-yah) since 1911, according to study co-author Simon Conway Morris, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved.
| Read More » Artificial Intelligence Could Help Catch Alzheimer's Early  | The devastating neurodegenerative condition Alzheimer's disease is incurable, but with early detection, patients can seek treatments to slow the disease's progression, before some major symptoms appear. Now, by applying artificial intelligence algorithms to MRI brain scans, researchers have developed a way to automatically distinguish between patients with Alzheimer's and two early forms of dementia that can be precursors to the memory-robbing disease. The researchers, from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, suggest the approach could eventually allow automated screening and assisted diagnosis of various forms of dementia, particularly in centers that lack experienced neuroradiologists. "The potential is the possibility of screening with these techniques so people at risk can be intercepted before the disease becomes apparent," said Alle Meije Wink, a senior investigator in the center's radiology and nuclear medicine department.
| Read More » Mudskipper Robot Mimics Ancient Land Animals' First 'Steps'  | A robot modeled after the mudskipper fish that "walks" short distances over rocks and mud is helping scientists understand how animals moved millions of years ago, when they first emerged from the water and transitioned to walk on land. A muscular tail in the earliest land animals may have played a more important role in their locomotion than previously thought.
| Read More » Wakey Wakey! Juno Spacecraft Turns on Science Gear at Jupiter  | NASA's Juno spacecraft is opening its eyes to prepare for its first good look at Jupiter. Juno's nine science instruments were off when the probe entered orbit around the solar system's largest planet Monday (July 4), to reduce complications during that night's make-or-break orbit-insertion engine burn. The mission team powered up five of those instruments Wednesday (July 6) and plans to turn on the other four before the end of the month, NASA officials said.
| Read More » In first, scientists use phones to track dengue outbreaks in poor nations By Sebastien Malo NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Researchers have developed a new method to pinpoint outbreaks of dengue fever by tracking phone calls to public health hotlines, a team of scientists said on Friday. Analyzing patterns of calls in Pakistan's Punjab region, the researchers forecast suspected dengue cases up to two weeks ahead of time with block-by-block accuracy, the researchers said in a study published in the journal Science Advances. Dengue infections have increased dramatically over recent decades, making the virus the world's fastest-spreading tropical disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Read More » | |
