The more sensitive people are to the bitter taste of caffeine, the more coffee they drink, reports a new study. The sensitivity is based on genetics. Bitterness is natural warning system to protect us from harmful substances, so we really shouldn't like coffee. Scientists say people with heightened ability to detect coffee's...
Monday, November 26, 2018
To predict the future, the brain uses two clocks
One type of anticipatory timing relies on memories from past experiences. The other on rhythm. Both are critical to our ability to navigate and enjoy the world, and scientists have found they are handled in two different parts of the brain.
That moment when you step on the gas pedal a split second before the light changes,...
Engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving parts
Engineers have built and flown the first-ever plane with no moving parts. Instead of propellers or turbines, the light aircraft is powered by an 'ionic wind' -- a silent but mighty flow of ions that is produced aboard the plane, and that generates enough thrust to propel the plane over a sustained, steady flight....
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
The first wireless flying robotic insect takes off
Engineers have created RoboFly, the first wireless flying robotic insect. RoboFly is slightly heavier than a toothpick and is powered by a laser beam.
Insects sized flying robots could help with times consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks. These robots soar by fluttering...
Monday, May 14, 2018
Nouns slow down our speech
Speakers hesitate or make brief pauses filled with sounds like 'uh' or 'uhm' mostly before nouns. Such slowdown effects are far less frequent before verbs, as researchers working together with an international team have now discovered by looking at examples from different languages.
When we speak, we unconsciously pronounce...
Eye, hair and skin color from a DNA sample of an unidentified individual
New tool will be used when standard forensic profiling is not helpful
An international team has developed a novel tool to accurately predict eye, hair and skin color from human biological material -- even a small DNA sample -- left, for example, at a crime scene or obtained from archeological remains. This all in one...
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Discovery of episodic memory replay in rats could lead to better treatments for Alzheimer's disease
Researchers have reported the first evidence that non human animals can mentally replay past events from memory. The discovery could help improve the development of drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease by providing a way to study memory in animals that more closely addresses how memory works in people.
The study, led...
Genetic clues reveal origins of the killer fungus behind the 'amphibian plague'
New research has revealed a deadly disease that threatens the survival of the world's frogs originated from East Asia, and global trade was almost certainly responsible for the disease's spread.
The frog chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has long been identified as a cause of the decline and extinction...
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Large predators once hunted to near-extinction are showing up in unexpected places
Sightings of alligators and other large predators in places where conventional wisdom says they 'shouldn't be' have increased in recent years, in large part because local populations, once hunted to near-extinction, are rebounding. A new article finds that far from being outliers, these sightings signify the return of...
25 years of fossil collecting yields clearest picture of extinct 12-foot aquatic predator
More than two decades of exploration at a Pennsylvania fossil site have given paleontologists their best idea of how a giant, prehistoric predator would have looked and behaved.
After 25 years of collecting fossils at a Pennsylvania site, scientists at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University now have a much...
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Scientists find the first bird beak, right under their noses
Researchers have pieced together the three-dimensional skull of an iconic, toothed bird that represents a pivotal moment in the transition from dinosaurs to modern-day birds.
Ichthyornis dispar holds a key position in the evolutionary trail that leads from dinosaurian species to today's avians. It lived nearly 100...
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Hidden secret of immortality enzyme telomeras
Can we stay young forever, or even recapture lost youth?
Research has recently uncovered a crucial step in the telomerase enzyme catalytic cycle. This catalytic cycle determines the ability of the human telomerase enzyme to synthesize DNA.
Research from the laboratory of Professor Julian Chen in the School of...
Soil cannot halt climate change
Long-term field experiments, dating back as far as 1843, demonstrate that modern carbon emissions cannot be locked in the ground to halt global warming
Unique soils data from long-term experiments, stretching back to the middle of the nineteenth century, confirm the practical implausibility of burying carbon in...
The moon formed inside a vaporized Earth synestia
A new explanation for the Moon origin has it forming inside the Earth when our planet was a seething, spinning cloud of vaporized rock, called a synestia. The new model resolves several problems in lunar formation.
A new explanation for the Moon origin has it forming inside the Earth when our planet was a seething,...
Friday, February 23, 2018
Surprising new study redraws family tree of domesticated and 'wild' horses
New research overturns a long-held assumption that Przewalski's horses, native to the Eurasian steppes, are the last wild horse species on Earth.
Research published in Science today overturns a long-held assumption that Przewalski's horses, native to the Eurasian steppes, are the last wild horse species on...
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Watching too much television could cause fatal blood clots
Spending too much time in front of the television could increase your chance of developing potentially fatal blood clots known as ve...
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