News
- Oceans
3.5 billion years ago, oceans were cool, not hot
Extensive new evidence from South Africa suggests that 3.5 billion years ago, Earth was locked in a cold spell, with isolated blasts of hydrothermal heat that may have helped incubate life.
- Particle Physics
Reactor data hint at existence of fourth neutrino
A nuclear reactor experiment in China is providing new hints that a fourth type of neutrino, one more than the standard model of physics allows, may exist.
- Genetics
‘Selfish’ DNA flouts rules of inheritance
R2d2 is selfish DNA that could skew scientists’ views of adaptation and evolution.
- Animals
Rock ant decisions swayed by six-legged social media
When rock ants start influencing each other with one-on-one social contact, a colony’s collective decisions can change.
- Agriculture
FDA to test foods for controversial herbicide
Amid controversy and conflicting studies, the FDA will test food for glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world.
- Microbes
Missing gut microbes linked to childhood malnutrition
The right mix of gut microbes could prevent kids from succumbing to malnutrition.
- Archaeology
Easter Island people used sharpened stones as tools, not weapons
Sharp-edged stone tools enabled daily survival, not warfare, on Easter Island.
- Humans
Human DNA found in a Neandertal woman
Interbreeding between humans and Neandertals happened earlier than thought, leaving traces in the Neandertal genome.
- Astronomy
Black hole heavyweights triggered gravity wave event
Those gravity waves came from two black holes more massive than any known outside a galactic core and formed in an environment different than the Milky Way.
- Health & Medicine
Lead’s damage can last a lifetime, or longer
Scientists have known for decades that lead is toxic to the brain, but the mark lead exposure leaves on children may actually stretch into adulthood, and perhaps even future generations.
- Life
Memory cells enhance strategy for fighting blood cancers
Immune therapy made more powerful with memory T cells.
- Animals
Saving salamanders from amphibian killer may take extreme measures
Experience from lethal Bd fungus outbreak is helping researchers defend North America’s salamander paradise from new Bsal threat.
