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Friday, January 8, 2016

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Dinosaur Tracks Reveal Odd Mating Dance

An analysis of the newfound marks suggests they are the first known evidence of a type of mating display behavior known as "scraping," common in modern ground-nesting birds. Paleontologists found scores of these "scrapes," areas in the rock that were shallowly scarred by multiple scratch marks. Martin Lockley, co-author of the study and emeritus professor of geology at the University of Colorado, Denver, told Live Science that these scrape marks were unlike anything the scientists had seen before.

Ötzi the Iceman May Have Suffered Stomach Bug

The famous Ötzi, a man murdered about 5,300 years ago in the Italian Alps, had what's now considered the world's oldest known case of Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that can cause ulcers and gastric cancer, a new study finds. It's unclear whether the ancient iceman did, in fact, have ulcers or gastric cancer because his stomach tissue didn't survive. Today, about half of the world's human population has H. pylori in their gut, but only one in 10 people develop a condition from the bacteria, the researchers said.

Human imprint has thrust Earth into new geological epoch : study

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - The indelible imprint left by human beings on Earth has become so clear that it justifies naming a new geological epoch after mankind, experts said on Thursday. The dawn of the "Anthropocene" would signal the end of the Holocene epoch, considered to have begun 11,700 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. "Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth," said a report in the journal Science by an international team led by Colin Waters of the British Geological Survey.

World's first passenger drone unveiled at CES

By Ben Gruber LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, UNITED STATES (REUTERS) - There are hundreds of drones competing for attention in Las Vegas at 2016 Consumer Electronics Show. This is the Ehang 184, the world's first passenger drone. The UAV is completely autonomous, relying on sensors and computers to navigate from take off to landing.

Ancient Citadel Finds New Home in Apartment Building

A 3,400-year-old citadel near Israel's Mediterranean coast will soon be part of a modern, high-rise apartment building, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Architects are designing a building that will enclose the citadel, which will reside in the basement, said the IAA, which plans to formally announce the project tomorrow (Jan. 7) at a joint archaeological conference of the Northern Region of the IAA and the University of Haifa in Israel. Archaeologists uncovered the citadel during a recent excavation in the coastal city of Nahariya in northern Israel.

Strange New State of Hydrogen Created

By crushing Earth's lightest element with mind-boggling pressures, scientists have revealed an entirely new state of matter: phase V hydrogen. The squished hydrogen is a precursor to a state of matter first proposed in the 1930s, called atomic solid metallic hydrogen. And so, in crushing hydrogen at such high pressures, the physicists also got a glimpse of the inner atmosphere of a gas giant, where pressures reach millions of (Earth) atmospheres.

European scientists make last-ditch attempt to contact comet lander

By Victoria Bryan BERLIN (Reuters) - European scientists will send a command into space on Sunday to try to move and restore contact with the comet lander Philae that has fallen silent since the summer. After coming to rest in the shadows when it landed on a comet in November, Philae woke up in June as the comet approached the sun, giving scientists hope that the lander could complete some experiments that it had not done before its solar-powered batteries ran out.

The Big Picture: What the New Diet Guidelines Mean for You

Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Langone Medical Center, thinks this approach is a good start. A healthy eating pattern is "an easier concept for people to understand," than, for example, delineating serving sizes, calorie counts and daily totals, Heller told Live Science. Elisabetta Politi, the nutrition director at the Duke Diet & Fitness Center in North Carolina, agreed.

More Young People Report Same-Sex Attractions

In particular, more men now say they are "mostly attracted to the opposite sex," rather than "only" attracted to the opposite sex compared to previous years, according to the survey from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new trend may result from greater societal acceptance of same-sex relationships, said Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University who researches sexual orientation and behavior. This change, however, probably doesn't mean that more men now than in the past are feeling same-sex vibes, said Savin-Williams, who was not involved in the survey.

Why Crows Hold Funerals

The scientists cited an earlier study showing that American crows gather and act aggressively, behavior known as "mobbing," in response to audio playback of a crow's distress call, played near a dead crow. The researchers wanted to know if they would also learn to associate dead crows — and threats to themselves — with specific predators.

3 High-Tech Ways to Track What You Eat

One gadget, called DietSensor, claims to be able to scan your food with a beam of light and tell you its nutritional content, such as how much protein, fat and carbohydrates it contains. It does this by analyzing how the molecules in the food interact with the light, according to the company, which presented the device here at CES. This causes the molecules in the food to vibrate, and produce an optical signature that is unique for that food, the company says.

Got Allergies? Blame Neanderthals

Genetic variants found in modern humans that originally came from Neanderthals may predispose the human immune system to overreact to environmental allergens, according to two new studies published today (Jan. 7) in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The studies also found that interbreeding with Neanderthals may have helped ancient humans, who came from Africa, get a head start in settling Europe. "Neanderthals, for example, had lived in Europe and western Asia for around 200,000 years before the arrival of modern humans.

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Thursday, January 7, 2016

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Da Vinci's Iconic Bridge Recreated in Ice

One of Leonardo da Vinci's most stunning engineering plans is getting a decidedly chilly welcome to the modern world. Students in the frigid hinterlands of Finland plan to recreate one of the Renaissance man's many iconic sketches: a massive stone bridge spanning the Bosphorus River. Leonardo da Vinci, who lived between 1452 and 1519, is perhaps most famous for painting the "Mona Lisa." But the polymath also made impressive contributions to the fields of astronomy, engineering and anatomy.

Baby Sharks: Sand Tiger Nursery Spotted Off New York Coast

Shark tots just a few months old are making their way up the Atlantic coast to a nursery off New York, scientists have found. The sand tiger shark nursery, located near the shore of Long Island's Great South Bay, supports the juvenile animals, which range from just months old to 4 or 5 years old and measure 9 inches to 4 feet (23 centimeters to 1.2 meters) long, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium. "It's quite interesting, because this is sort of a resident population," said Jon Dohlin, vice president and director of the aquarium.

Jurassic 10-Armed 'Squid' Were Speedy Swimmers

The fossils represent Acanthoteuthis, a genus of squid relatives that lived during the Jurassic period and measured between 9.8 and 15.7 inches (25 and 40 centimeters) long. Acanthoteuthis is a cephalopod, part of the ocean-dwelling group that includes modern octopus, squid and cuttlefish, with an evolutionary history spanning 500 million years. Acanthoteuthis belongs to a group of cephalopods called belemnites, which are particularly abundant in the fossil record — or at least a small part of them is.

Africa takes fresh look at GMO crops as drought blights continent

By MacDonald Dzirutwe HARARE (Reuters) - A scorching drought in Southern Africa that led to widespread crop failure could nudge African nations to finally embrace genetically modified (GM) crops to improve harvests and reduce grain imports. The drought, which extends to South Africa, the continent's biggest maize producer, has been exacerbated by an El Nino weather pattern and follows dry spells last year that affected countries from Zimbabwe to Malawi. Aid agency Oxfam has said 10 million people, mostly in Africa, face hunger because of droughts and poor rains.

Ebola Fight: Survivors' Blood Doesn't Help, But Malaria Drug Might

Since the latest Ebola outbreak began, researchers have renewed their search for an effective way to fight the deadly virus. Now, a new study finds that giving Ebola patients a drug that is currently used to treat malaria may lower their risk of dying from the virus by almost one-third. Meanwhile, a separate study finds that treating Ebola patients with blood plasma taken from Ebola survivors does not lower their risk of death.

Missing Zzzs: Sleep Problems Common for Single Parents, Women

Single parents get less sleep and have more sleep-related problems than adults in households with two parents and adults living without children, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests. "These results are not surprising," said Dr. Stuart Quan, a sleep medicine specialist and researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the research for this report.

Not Your Grandma's Thermometer: 3 New Ways to Take Your Temperature

The simple task of taking your temperature is getting a new high-tech twist: Three companies recently announced "smart thermometers" that offer alternative ways to check this vital sign and send the data to a mobile device. It provides a temperature reading that corrects for ambient temperature and skin heat loss, according to Withings, the company that makes the gadget. Thermo transmits the temperature data by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to an app on a user's smartphone.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2016

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Do Girls Have 'Protection' from Autism? (Op-Ed)

Alycia Halladay, chief science officer for the Autism Science Foundation, contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. For years, scientists have reported a higher autism prevalence in males than in females. Most studies show about a 4:1 ratio in the prevalence of autism in boys compared with girls, meaning boys are four times as likely to receive an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis.

Micro Porcupines to Snow Leopards: WCS's Favorite Wildlife Photos of 2015

Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights

Top 5 Space Questions of 2015…with Answers! (Op-Ed)

Paul Sutter is a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University's Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics (CCAPP). Sutter is also host of the podcasts Ask a Spaceman and RealSpace, and the YouTube series Space In Your Face. Is the light from a supernova dangerous?

Will Concussions Keep Kids from Football? (Op-Ed)

Dr. Uzma Samadani is chair for traumatic brain injury research at Hennepin County Medical Center and associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Robert Glatter is director of sports medicine and traumatic brain injury in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital and assistant professor at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. You hear about it in news stories and see it in movies: People are struggling to understand what the risk is of a concussion causing long-term brain damage.

Can Games Be a Game-Changer for Climate? (Op-Ed)

2015 will be remembered as a watershed moment in the fight against global warming. It's against this backdrop that Barnard College Arctic scientist Stephanie Pfirman introduced a new toy she developed to explain the impact of climate change. Pfirman and her collaborator, Columbia University professor Joey Lee, set out to design a game that would be as entertaining as it was educational.

Aerojet wins U.S. contract to set standard for 3-D printed rocket engines

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc on Tuesday said it has won a $6 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to define the standards that will be used to qualify components made using 3-D printing for use in liquid-fueled rocket engine applications. The award is part of a larger drive by the U.S. military to end its reliance on Russian-built RD-180 rocket engines now used on the Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co. The Air Force plans to award additional, larger contracts for U.S.-developed propulsion systems later this year. Aerojet said it would draw upon its extensive experience with 3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, to draw up the standards that would be used to qualify 3-D printed rocket engine components for flight.

Wake Up & Smell the Tech: New Devices Use Scents to Help You Rise or Snooze

You might not think that your sense of smell could have anything to do with how much sleep you get, but several new devices aim to harness certain scents to both help you sleep and wake you up. Although it remains to be seen just how effective the devices really are — they have not been tested by independent scientists — some studies do support the idea that scents can modify sleep. One up-and-coming product, called Sleepion, from the Japanese gadget company Cheero, uses a combination of aromas, lights and sounds to promote sleep, according to the company.

Even After Weight Loss, Obesity Can Reduce Life Span

Among the people in the study, those who had ever been overweight were 19 percent more likely to die during the 23-year study period, compared with those who had never exceeded normal weight. Those who had ever been obese (with a body mass index, or BMI, from 30.0 to 34.9) were 65 percent more likely to die during the study than those who had never exceeded normal weight. The new study "sheds light on the need for greater efforts to stem the obesity epidemic," said study author Andrew Stokes, of the Boston University School of Public Health.

2,700-Year-Old Farmhouse Unearthed in Israel

A recent announcement by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) described a many-chambered farmhouse, estimated to be 2,700 years old, measuring about 100 by 180 feet (30 by 50 meters) and containing a cluster of 24 rooms connected to a central courtyard. The courtyard once held a storage compartment for protecting grain, Amit Shadman, IAA excavation director, said in the statement. Other artifacts found nearby include a number of millstones used for grinding flour, suggesting that growing and processing grain were "fairly widespread" in the region, Shadman said.

Obama's Tears: The Science of Men Crying

In his call on Tuesday for stricter gun-control measures, President Barack Obama wiped away tears as he mentioned the December 2012 massacre of innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. First graders," Obama said, referencing the youngest victims of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting.

Health Issue Brewing? 'Kefir Beer' May Someday Help

A craft beer made with ingredients from kefir — a fermented milk drink that resembles yogurt— may sound a little gross. Moreover, the researchers in Brazil found that the "kefir beer" seemed to reduce inflammation and stomach ulcers that had been induced in the rats for the study. Although the concept of kefir beer is interesting, it is too early to determine whether these health benefits would apply to humans, considering the study was done in an animal model, said Dr. Arun Swaminath, director of the inflammatory bowel disease program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved in the study.

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