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Thursday, May 26, 2016

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Enigmatic French cave structures show off Neanderthal skills

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mysterious ring-shaped structures fashioned about 176,000 years ago by Neanderthals using broken stalagmites deep inside a cave in southwestern France indicate that our closest extinct relatives were more adept than previously known. Scientists on Wednesday described six rock structures discovered about 1,100 feet (336 meters) inside Bruniquel Cave in France's Aveyron region. The scientists attributed the work to Neanderthals, who thrived in Europe at the time but vanished roughly 40,000 years ago, after our species Homo sapiens, which first appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago, trekked into Europe.

Biotech Regeneron replaces Intel as sponsor of Science Talent Search

By Ransdell Pierson NEW YORK (Reuters) - Biotechnology company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc on Thursday became the title sponsor of the most prestigious U.S. science competition for high school students, taking the baton from chipmaker Intel Corp. Regeneron pledged $100 million to support the Science Talent Search and related programs through 2026, and doubled awards for the top 300 scientists and their schools, to $2,000 each. Regeneron's two top executives competed in the annual event during the 1970s and went on to build one of the world's biggest biotech companies, with cutting-edge drugs for fighting macular degeneration, cancer and cholesterol. The fast-growing biotech company will take over as named sponsor from Intel, whose chips were helping build the personal computer industry in 1998 when it took over as sponsor from Westinghouse.

From hardy pigs to super-crops, gene editing poses new EU dilemma

It poses a thorny problem for European policymakers wary of new molecular manipulation in agriculture after a quarter century of conflict over genetically modified food. In a research lab in Norwich, 100 miles northeast of London, Wendy Harwood is making exact DNA tweaks in barley plants to produce better-germinating grain, with higher yield and quality. "We've never been able to go in and make such a precise change as we can now with gene editing," said the John Innes Centre scientist.

Missing for 72 Years: WWII Aircraft Finally Located in Pacific

An American, World War II-era aircraft that had been missing in action (MIA) since July 1944 was recently located in the waters surrounding the Pacific Island nation of Palau. The TBM-1C Avenger is one of several dozen U.S. aircraft scattered in the coral reefs or concealed within dense mangrove forests along Palau's island chain. This latest find adds to the growing list of wrecks discovered by Project Recover, an effort dedicated to the ongoing search for MIA aircraft and associated Americans since World War II.

Blazing-Fast Hypersonic Jet on Track for 2018 Launch

A hypersonic jet engine that could be used to fly people from Sydney to London in just 2 hours is on track to make its first flight in 2018, according to the Australian scientists and engineers working on the project. Last week, the researchers conducted an experimental rocket launch at the Woomera Test Range, located about 310 miles (500 kilometers) northwest of Adelaide, in the South Australian outback. A test vehicle, designed to gather data about hypersonic flight in the upper atmosphere, launched from Woomera to an altitude of 173 miles (278 km) and reached its target speed of Mach 7.5 — seven and a half times the speed of sound, or about 5,700 mph (9,200 km/h).

These 7 Foods Cause the Most Pet Deaths

In a new review of studies, two animal health researchers in Italy drew up a list of the foods that are the most common culprits in pet poisonings worldwide. "Several foods that are perfectly suitable for human consumption can be toxic to dogs and cats," the researchers wrote in their review, published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science. Sometimes, owners give these harmful foods to their dogs and cats, but a lot of times, pets accidentally ingest these foods, which happen to be commonplace in homes.

Woman Sprouts Thousands of Tiny Moles, and Doctors Aren't Sure Why

Indeed, the sheer number of moles was "unprecedented," said Dr. Hensin Tsao, a dermatologist who treated the woman and the senior author of the case report. Although an explosion of moles — called eruptive nevi — is uncommon, it's not unheard of, Tsao told Live Science.

Expandable space habitat fails to inflate in NASA's first test

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA called off an attempt to inflate an experimental habitat attached to the International Space Station after the fabric module failed to expand as planned on Thursday. Station crew member Jeff Williams spent more than two hours opening a valve to allow spurts of air to inflate the 3,100-pound (1,400 kg) module, the first expandable habitat to be tested with astronauts in space. "We'll hope for better luck tomorrow," astronaut Jessica Meir radioed to Williams from Mission Control in Houston.

Gluten-Free Diets Are Not Necessarily Healthier, Doctors Warn

Some kids are following a gluten-free diet even though they do not have a medical condition that requires avoiding gluten, and this is worrying some doctors. In fact, they can be higher in calories, and may not be enriched with vitamins and minerals that are important for children, said study co-author Dr. Eyad Almallouhi, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "Many people think that a gluten-free diet is healthier than the usual diet, which is not always true," said Almallouhi, who presented the findings here Sunday (May 22) at Digestive Disease Week, a scientific meeting focused on digestive diseases.

Scientists: Underground stone rings made by Neanderthals

BERLIN (AP) — Two mysterious stone rings found deep inside a French cave were probably built by Neanderthals about 176,500 years ago, proving that the ancient cousins of humans were capable of more complex behavior than previously thought, scientists say.

Why Some Flies Have Mega Sperm

Tiny fruit flies have record-breaking sperm cells. Researchers have long known that the peculiarities of the female fruit fly's reproductive tract are responsible for these enormous sperm, which take a huge amount of energy to produce. Female fruit flies have a sperm-storage organ in which they hold sperm from multiple matings.

School-Bus-Size Giant Squid May Be Lurking Deep in the Sea

Steeped in mystery, the elusive, deep-sea-dwelling giant squid, with eyes the size of basketballs, may be larger than it has gotten credit for. Specimens recognizable as giant squid (Architeuthis dux) have been found washed up onshore since at least 1639. Ever since giant squid were discovered, there has been considerable speculation as to how large they can get.

Brightest laser blows up water in cinematic and scientific first

Scientists have recorded the first ever microscopic movies of water being vaporized by the world's brightest X-ray laser. As each individual X-ray pulse hit the water, a single image was recorded, timed from five billionths of a second to one ten-thousandth of a second after the pulse.

Radar images reveal Mars is coming out of an ice age

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - An analysis of radar images that peered inside the polar ice caps of Mars shows that Earth's neighbor is coming out of an ice age that is part of an ongoing cycle of climate change, scientists said on Thursday. The Martian ice began its retreat about 370,000 years ago, marking the end of the last ice age, according to the research published in the journal Science. Using images taken by satellites orbiting Mars, the researchers determined that about 20,872 cubic miles (87,000 cubic km) of ice has accumulated at its poles since the end of the ice age, mostly in the northern polar cap.

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Wednesday, May 25, 2016

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Physicist Kip Thorne Talks Black Holes at the Genius Gala Awards

Four innovators received awards at the fifth annual Genius Gala at Liberty Science Center in New Jersey, turning Friday night here into a geekfest. The brilliant recipients included paleontologist Jack Horner, astrophysicist Kip Thorne, architect Frank Gehry and social psychologist Ellen Langer from Harvard University. During his acceptance speech, Thorne said he felt "like a fraud" and that he's "not a genius." Thorne honored the colleagues he worked with while discovering gravitational waves this past September.

Light Behaving Badly: Strange Beams Reveal Hitch in Quantum Mechanics

A hidden property of corkscrew, spiraled beams of light could put a hitch in quantum mechanics. The photons, or light particles, inside these light-based Möbius strips spin with a momentum previously thought to be impossible. The findings could shake up some of the assumptions in quantum mechanics, the rules that govern the menagerie of tiny subatomic particles.

Confirmed: The Soil Under Your Feet Is Teeming with Life

That's the message of a new atlas describing the biodiversity of soil, to be released tomorrow (May 25) at the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya. Soil even has its own microbiome containing at least a million bacterial species. Only about a quarter of worm species, 6 percent of fungi and less than 2 percent of soil bacteria have been studied and categorized.

Scientists: Underground stone rings made by Neanderthals

Swallow This Robot: Foldable Droid Could Mend Stomachs

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has proposed a new, minimally invasive way of using biocompatible and biodegradable miniature robots to carry out tasks inside the human body. The researchers have already demonstrated origami-inspired robots capable of swimming, climbing and carrying a load twice their weight, but creating an ingestible device that can operate inside a stomach presented a whole new set of challenges, said Shuhei Miyashita, who was part of the MIT team that developed the robot but is now a lecturer of intelligent robotics at the University of York in the United Kingdom. "The toughest problem we had to solve was that of getting the robot to work in such an unpredictable environment," Miyashita told Live Science.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2016

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5,000-Year-Old Chinese Beer Recipe Had Secret Ingredient

Barley might have been the "secret ingredient" in a 5,000-year-old beer recipe that has been reconstructed from residues on prehistoric pots from China, according to new archaeological research. Scientists conducted tests on ancient pottery jars and funnels found at the Mijiaya archaeological site in China's Shaanxi province.

Ugliest to Most Rock 'n' Roll: Top Newfound Species Named

With such a large number of species discovered each year, the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) has put together a list of the "Top 10 New Species," celebrating species named in the previous year, since 2008. In the absence of a global species registry, the annual list is a reflection the Earth's diverse species population, said Quentin Wheeler, ESF president and founder of the school's International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE). "We want to bring attention to the biodiversity crisis," Wheeler told Live Science.

Insoles That Buzz Your Feet Could Improve Balance

Insoles that electrically stimulate the feet with random vibrations that are too gentle to feel can affect a person's stride, and may boost stability, offering a potential new way to decrease the risk of falls and injury from balance loss, a new study finds. Study participants undergoing strenuous activity while wearing such insoles adjusted their strides in a way that typically improves balance, the research found. The insoles work using a process called "stochastic resonance" (SR), a method for amplifying a weak signal by adding "white noise" across a spectrum of frequencies.

Income Inequality: Is There a Grooming Gap?

The researchers found that overall, men and women who were considered more attractive earned more money than their less-attractive counterparts, according to the study, published online last month in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. For women, those who were well-groomed women actually had higher incomes than poorly groomed women, regardless of their "natural" level of attractiveness, the researchers found.

'Poop Transplant' Changes Play Out Over Several Months, Study Finds

Patients who undergo a "poop transplant" to treat severe diarrhea often see their symptoms get better within days, but their gut bacteria continue to undergo dramatic changes for at least three months afterward, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed the gut bacteria of eight patients who had Clostridium difficile, a difficult-to-treat bacterial infection that can be life-threatening. After several earlier treatments for their infection didn't work, all of the patients underwent a procedure called fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), in which fecal matter from a healthy donor is delivered into a patient's colon, in order to restore a better balance of bacteria within the gut.

Why Processed Foods May Promote Gut Inflammation

Certain food additives may interfere with your gut bacteria, causing changes that boost inflammation in the intestines and potentially promote the development of some chronic diseases, a new study suggests. In the study, researchers looked at ingredients called emulsifiers, which are added to many processed foods, including ice cream and peanut butter, to improve those foods' texture and extend their shelf life. The scientists added two emulsifiers called carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and polysorbate-80 (P80), to a simulation of normal gut contents.

How Short Bursts of Activity Can Get You Fit

If you think you don't have time to exercise, there's good news: Short bouts of activity — as brief as a few minutes each — may still have health benefits, as long as they add up to 30 minutes a day total, recent research suggests. Traditionally, experts have recommended that people exercise for at least 10 minutes at a time, at a moderate pace. Since people have trouble remembering very short activities, it was hard to study whether smaller amounts of exercise could improve your health, said Brad Cardinal, a kinesiology professor at Oregon State University.

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