Top Science News

Nov. 20, 2024 — A new study finds that, in healthy women, some breast cells that otherwise appear normal may contain chromosome abnormalities typically associated with invasive breast cancer. The findings question conventional thinking on the genetic origins of breast cancer, which could influence early cancer detection methods. The study discovered that at least 3% of normal cells from breast tissue in 49 ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — The Aztec skull whistle produces a shrill, screaming sound. A study shows that these whistles have a disturbing effect on the human brain. The Aztecs may have deliberately used this effect in sacrificial ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Up until recently, habituation -- a simple form of learning -- was deemed the exclusive domain of complex organisms with brains and nervous systems, such as worms, insects, birds, and mammals. But a new study offers compelling evidence that even tiny single-cell creatures such as ciliates and amoebae, as well as the cells in our own bodies, could exhibit habituation akin to that seen in more ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Trust between humans and robots is improved when the movement between both is harmonized, researchers have ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered the first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars -- 'dead' remnants and 'living' stars -- in young star clusters. This breakthrough offers new insights on an extreme phase of stellar evolution, and one of the biggest mysteries in ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Chemists have developed a novel way to capture and convert carbon dioxide into methane, suggesting that future gas emissions could be converted into an alternative fuel using electricity from renewable ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Humans and animals move with remarkable economy without consciously thinking about it by utilizing the natural oscillation patterns of their bodies. A new tool can now utilize this knowledge for the first time to make robots move more ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Antibacterial drugs are important for treating infections. But increasingly, bacterial resistance to current drugs -- so they don't work well, or even at all -- means new ones are urgently needed. Researchers have demonstrated a potential antibacterial treatment from a modified darobactin, a compound originally from a bacterium. The team reports proof-of-concept animal trials on infections caused ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Wings may be the obvious choice when studying the connection between dinosaurs and birds, but a pair of paleontologists prefer drumsticks. That part of the leg, they say, is where fibular reduction among some dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago helped make it possible for peacocks to strut, penguins to waddle, and turkeys to ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Scientists discovered a stretch of DNA in both C3 plants, like wheat and soybeans, and C4 plants, like corn and sorghum, that is responsible for optimizing C4 plant photosynthesis and making them better at withstanding heat and drought. The findings are insightful in understanding how some plants evolved to be more efficient, and may now be used ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — The history of a major animal group, composed of millions of species of insects, arachnids, and nemotodes, has been elusive -- until now. A team has now identified the oldest known ecdysozoan in the fossil record and the only one from the Precambrian ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Young adults at risk of psychosis show reduced brain connectivity, a deficit that cannabis use appears to worsen, a new study has found. The breakthrough paves the way for psychosis treatments targeting symptoms that current medications ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers show that genetic traits influence the cellular composition of atherosclerotic plaques, which over time will affect the risk of such lesions to cause a stroke or heart attack. The new knowledge can be used to improve the risk assessment and treatment of patients with atherosclerosis in the ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — A research team has developed a novel biomimetic speaking valve technology that could significantly increase the safety of tracheostomized ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Resembling a seahorse, as its name implies from the Greek words 'hippos' (horse) and 'kampus' (sea monster), the hippocampus is a brain region crucial for memory formation. But until recently, scientists have not been able to link memory formation to distinct molecular signals. Now, a team of scientists likely opened this black ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — A new study shows that a form of vitamin B3 can reduce lung inflammation in COPD patients. The researchers hope it will pave the way for new treatment ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers have led a clinical trial of a drug that mimics the effects of alcohol in more than 100 patients with laryngeal dystonia, a neurological condition that causes involuntary muscle spasms in the larynx and can have debilitating impacts on a person's voice. The trial was inspired by patient reports that their symptoms improved after ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses. As many as 280 million people worldwide are affected by this disease, which is why researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that helps to identify depression based on both speech and brain neural activity. This multimodal approach, combining two different data sources, allows a more accurate and objective analysis of a ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Fiber is something that most of us get far too little of. To change that, we need to actually enjoy eating it. Food researchers have now invented a 'disguise' that solves the problem of the dry and gritty mouth feel of ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — People around the world associate a trilled R sound with a rough texture and a jagged shape, and an L sound with smooth texture and a flat shape, according to the findings of a new study. Researchers believe this association may be more universal than the famous bouba/kiki ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Being born preterm is associated with an increased risk of death from birth until the third and fourth decades of ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — As rates of obesity, as defined by body mass index (BMI), continue to climb in the United States, so have efforts to lose weight, including a new era of weight-loss drugs. Yet a new systematic review and meta-analysis found that cardiorespiratory fitness was a stronger predictor of both cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality than ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to map how nearly 6 million galaxies cluster across 11 billion years of cosmic history. Their observations line up with what Einstein's theory of general relativity ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Recycled pacemakers can function as well as new devices, according to a new study. These used and reconditioned devices have the potential to increase access to pacemaker therapy in low- and middle-income countries, where many patients cannot afford the ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — A new method enables researchers to analyse magnetic nanostructures with a high resolution. The new method achieves a resolution of around 70 nanometers, whereas normal light microscopes have a resolution of just 500 nanometers. This result is important for the development of new, energy-efficient storage technologies based on spin ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — New research found confined and isolating environments changed the way people smelled and responded emotionally to certain food aromas. The team in this study compared 44 people's emotional responses and perception of eight food aromas in two environmental scenarios: sitting in reclined chairs that mimic astronauts' posture in microgravity; and then in the confined setting of the International ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Through the intricate study of lava tubes -- caves formed following volcanic eruptions when lava cools down -- an international team of researchers has uncovered clues about Earth's ancient environments that could be significant in the search for life on ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — A theoretical astrophysicist may have solved a nearly two-decade-old mystery over the origins of an unusual 'zebra' pattern seen in high-frequency radio pulses from the Crab ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — By probing chemical processes observed in the Earth's hot mantle, scientists have started developing a library of basalt-based spectral signatures that not only will help reveal the composition of planets outside of our solar system but could demonstrate evidence of water on those ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Asking children 'What does a scientist look like?' now results in more illustrations of women and people of color than decades ago. But do generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools also depict the diversity among scientists? Researchers prompted AI image generators for portraits of chemists. They found that none of the collections accurately represents the gender, racial or disability ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers have created a method that uses artificial intelligence to more accurately predict short-term river discharge using historical data from two hydrometric stations on the Ottawa River along with other weather-based parameters. They built on an existing type of algorithm called group method of data handling, which constructs predictive ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Linguistics and computer science researchers have discovered some of the root causes of why AI large language models perform poorly in human-like ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — A new theory, that explains how light and matter interact at the quantum level has enabled researchers to define for the first time the precise shape of a single ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Forests with few tree species pose considerably higher risk of being damaged and especially vulnerable is the introduced lodgepole ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — The skin microbiome plays a key role in skin health and disease. While imbalances in skin microbiome composition are linked to disease, studying it has been challenging due to limited methods for culturing multiple bacterial species together. Now, scientists have developed a new medium which allows co-culturing of key skin bacteria while ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Residential garden produce grown near the Fayetteville Works fluorochemical plant can expose those who consume it to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to a new ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — The tropical coastlines of Southeast Asia are home to some of the most important and biodiverse marine ecosystems on the planet. But as well as being essential to communities along these coastlines, fishing and tourism were found -- in new research conducted by an international study team -- to be among the most damaging from an environmental ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Sustainable rates of groundwater withdrawal in Oregon's Harney Basin were surpassed 20 years prior to the time declining groundwater levels were generally recognized, a new analysis ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers are looking at the impact of climate change in communities affected by conflict and have found that many countries most impacted by these crises are being ...

Nov. 20, 2024 — Dairy cows typically rest for 10 or more hours a day, so a dry, clean, and comfortable place -- such as a freestall -- to lie down and rest is essential for their health, well-being, and production performance. One key factor in whether stalls are comfortable for cows is the ease with which they can get up and down, so it is common on farms for ...

Nov. 15, 2024 — Scholars for the first time identified chemical signatures of the components of a liquid concoction contained in a Bes mug. A new technique helped identify a sample flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes -- commonly used to make the beverage look like ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — New research exploring the roots of modern Japanese populations has linked the genetic signature of Jomon hunter-gatherers to a higher body mass index (BMI) among individuals, underlining that ancient human ancestors can leave a genetic legacy with impacts on health in modern day ...

Nov. 13, 2024 — A collection of perforated pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel may be spindle whorls, representing a key milestone in the development of rotational tools including wheels, according to a new ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — A new study finds that the disturbance-demanding plant species oak, hazel and yew were abundant in Europe's forests before modern humans arrived, strengthening the argument that ancient vegetation was not the shady closed-canopy forests often ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers examined the Senboku Hottokenai Network Project through a combination of case study and action research methodologies. The results of this study shed new light on the importance of community-led co-creation in transdisciplinary ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Houses for sale in a flood zone are around 10% cheaper than surrounding areas, according to new research. However, the reduced price tag is not worth the extra risk and can burden buyers with long-term insurance costs, according to new ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — A new study measuring access to nature for eight major global cities found most still have inadequate canopy cover, despite access to an abundance of ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Unlike kids in the United States, hunter-gatherer children in the Congo Basin have often learned how to hunt, identify edible plants and care for babies by the tender age of six or seven. This rapid learning is facilitated by a unique social environment where cultural knowledge is passed down not just from parents but from the broader community. The research helps explain how many cultural traits ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — Researchers find a link between early vocabulary composition and later language development in children with cochlear ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Contrary to popular belief, children aren't better at learning new skills than adults. Indeed, young adults seem to learn faster than kids -- but also tend to forget more quickly. Here, better sleep seems to advantage ...

Nov. 6, 2024 — A new study shows how students can better understand and interpret conditional ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — It turns out gaming is good for you! New research indicates massive multiplayer online gamers learn by gaming and their skills in the workplace are enriched by those seemingly endless hours previously thought of as frittering away ...

Nov. 16, 2024 — Employees struggle when supervisors swing between good and bad ...

Nov. 13, 2024 — Working days lost to long covid could be costing the economy billions of pounds every year as patients struggle to cope with symptoms and return to work, finds a new ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — Physical cash not only influences how much we spend but also fosters a profound sense of psychological ownership that digital payments cannot replicate, according to new ...