November 2016 ~ Rich_sci

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Ancient rocks hold evidence for life before oxygen

By Rich_Sci_Dates30 NovemberSave The World, TOP STORIESNo comments

Somewhere between Earth's creation and where we are today, scientists have demonstrated that some early life forms existed just fine without any oxygen. The 2.52 billion-year-old sulfur-oxidizing bacteria are exceptionally large, spherical-shaped, smooth-walled microscopic structures much larger than most modern bacteria,...

Ants communicate by mouth-to-mouth fluid exchange

By Rich_Sci_Dates30 NovemberTOP STORIESNo comments

Liquids shared mouth-to-mouth by social insects contain proteins and small molecules that can influence the development and organization of their colonies, according to new research. The study from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, suggests Florida carpenter ants can collectively influence their communities...

Depression in young people affects the stomach, anxiety the skin

By Rich_Sci_Dates28 NovemberSave The World, TOP STORIESNo comments

Mental disorders and physical diseases frequently go hand in hand. For the first time, psychologists have identified temporal patterns in young people: arthritis and diseases of the digestive system are more common after depression, while anxiety disorders tend to be followed by skin diseases. Physical diseases and...

Playing video games may have positive effects on young children

By Rich_Sci_Dates25 NovemberSave The World, TOP STORIESNo comments

Video games are a favorite activity of children, yet its affect on their health is often perceived to be negative. A new study assessed the association between the amount of time spent playing video games and children's mental health and cognitive and social skills, and found that playing video games may have positive...

Your dog remembers what you did

By Rich_Sci_Dates25 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

People have a remarkable ability to remember and recall events from the past, even when those events didn't hold any particular importance at the time they occurred. Now, researchers have evidence that dogs have that kind of "episodic memory" too. The study found that dogs can recall a person's complex actions even...

Oceans act as a 'heat sink'

By Rich_Sci_Dates23 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Study sheds new light into global warming ‘hiatus’The so-called global warming "hiatus" phenomenon -- the possible temporary slowdown of the global mean surface temperature (GMST) trend said to have occurred from 1998 to 2013 -- did not in fact occur. New research points to the prominent role global ocean played in...

Archaeological excavation unearths evidence of turkey domestication 1,500 years ago

By Rich_Sci_Dates21 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Eggshells and bones from baby turkeys among earliest evidence for turkey domestication The turkeys we'll be sitting down to eat on Thursday have a history that goes way back. Archaeologists have unearthed a clutch of domesticated turkey eggs used as a ritual offering 1,500 years ago in Oaxaca, Mexico -- some of the earliest...

People with Ebola may not always show symptoms

By Rich_Sci_Dates15 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

25 percent of individuals in a Sierra Leone village were infected with the Ebola virus but had no symptoms, a research team has determined, suggesting broader transmission of the virus than originally thought. A year after the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and...

Scientists uncover genetic evidence that 'we are what we eat'

By Rich_Sci_Dates15 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Researchers have demonstrated that the diets of organisms can affect the DNA sequences of their genes. In a study on two groups of parasites, the team detected differences in DNA sequences that could be attributed to the composition of their food. The results are published in the journal Genome Biology. Study...

Peculiarities of huge equatorial jet stream in Saturn's atmosphere revealed

By Rich_Sci_Dates10 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

The atmosphere of the planet Saturn, a gas giant ten times bigger than the Earth consisting mostly of hydrogen, has a wider, more intense jet stream than all the planets in the Solar System. Winds gusting at speeds of up to 1,650 km/h blow from West to East in the equatorial atmosphere, thirteen times the strength of the...

Brazilian free-tailed bat is the fastest flyer in the animal kingdom

By Rich_Sci_Dates09 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Bats are not just skilful aviators, they can also reach record-breaking speeds Up to now, the speed record for horizontal flight was held by birds from the swift family: the common swift, for example, can reach speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour. Investigators have now discovered a new front-runner among the acrobats...

Evolution purged many Neanderthal genes from human genome

By Rich_Sci_Dates09 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Larger populations allowed humans to shed weakly deleterious gene variants that were widespread in Neanderthals, new research indicates. Neanderthal genetic material is found in only small amounts in the genomes of modern humans because, after interbreeding, natural selection removed large numbers of weakly deleterious...

New model explains the moon's weird orbit

By Rich_Sci_Dates02 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Simulations suggest a dramatic history for the Earth-moon duo The moon, Earth's closest neighbor, is among the strangest planetary bodies in the solar system. Its orbit lies unusually far away from Earth, with a surprisingly large orbital tilt. Planetary scientists have struggled to piece together a scenario that accounts...

Nanobionic spinach plants can detect explosives

By Rich_Sci_Dates01 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

After sensing dangerous chemicals, the carbon-nanotube-enhanced plants send an alert. Spinach is no longer just a superfood: By embedding leaves with carbon nanotubes, engineers have transformed spinach plants into sensors that can detect explosives and wirelessly relay that information to a handheld device similar to a...

Vaccinating against dengue may increase Zika outbreaks

By Rich_Sci_Dates01 NovemberSave The WorldNo comments

Vaccinating against dengue fever could increase outbreaks of Zika, suggests new research. The study identifies a potentially serious public health concern. More than a third of the world's population lives in areas where dengue is endemic and cases of co-infection with Zika have already been reported. The research identifies a potentially serious public health concern. More than a third of the world's population lives in areas where dengue is...