Science news

• Wait, what?! Early humans learned to use stones as tools 'by watching monkeys'

  11-07-2016 22:33
  
  Yup that’s right, we have monkeys to thank for our primitive gear.
  
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• Hillary Clinton Controversy: How Do Email Servers Work?

  11-07-2016 22:30
  The controversy surrounding the private email server that Hillary Clinton used while serving as the U.S. Secretary of State has been a central theme of the 2016 presidential race. But what exactly is an email server, and how does it work?
  
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• Famed cancer theorist Dr. Alfred G. Knudson Jr. dies at 93

  11-07-2016 22:28
  PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Scientist and oncologist Dr. Alfred G. Knudson Jr., who was renowned for a groundbreaking theory of how cancer develops, has died after a long illness, according to a funeral home and the research center where he worked for decades. He was 93 years old.
  
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• Earliest evidence of monkeys’ use of stone tools found

  11-07-2016 22:06
  
  600- to 700-year-old nut-cracking stones from Brazil are earliest evidence that monkeys used tools.
  
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• Silk-based tissue chip provides promise for drug testing, implantable devices

  11-07-2016 21:59
  A new type of tissue chip has been created that can be more widely used for drug testing. Engineering the chips as a silk gel circumvents many of the problems with existing devices and could potentially be an implantable treatment itself.
  
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• Scientists identify neurochemical signal likely missing in Parkinson's

  11-07-2016 21:58
  Neuroscientists have identified the neurochemical signal likely missing in Parkinson's disease by discovering two distinctly different kinds of neurons that deliver dopamine to an important brain region responsible for both movement and learning/reward behavior. The findings provide a new framework for understanding the role of the dopamine system in movement control and learning/reward and how dysfunction of the dopamine system can result in a range of neurological disorders.
  
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• Using 'chemical origami' to generate customizable, high-value chemicals from plants

  11-07-2016 21:55
  Researchers are building a 'triterpene machine' which will enable them to custom-build valuable chemical compounds called triterpenes and produce them in large, cost-effective quantities.
  
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• Study explains how a protein deficiency causes spinal muscular atrophy

  11-07-2016 21:55
  Research that reveals what goes wrong in SMA and suggests that a mild version of the same genetic defect may protect relatives against infection, which could explain why SMA is a relatively common disease.
  
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• Changes in primate teeth linked to rise of monkeys

  11-07-2016 21:55
  Searching for simple inherited dental characteristics that could lead to genes controlling tooth development, researchers have uncovered an easy-to-measure trait that tracks primate evolution over the last 20 million years, shedding light on the mysterious decline of apes and the rise of monkeys 8 million years ago. The research shows that monkeys diversified and took over the dentition niche of the majority of apes. Apes with outlying dentition, including human ancestors, remained.
  
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• Workers at some Hanford tanks stop in dispute over vapors

  11-07-2016 21:45
  SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A coalition of labor unions on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state stopped work Monday at some of the radioactive waste tank farms because of health concerns over chemical vapors.
  
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• New Dwarf Planet Discovered Far Beyond Pluto's Orbit

  11-07-2016 21:25
  
  Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought. Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. "The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the sun," discovery team member Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in a statement.
  
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• Beetles that battle make better moms than ones that never fight

  11-07-2016 21:19
  
  Female burying beetles that have to fight before reproducing spend more time caring for offspring than beetles with no fighting experience, a new study finds.
  
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• Hops extract studied to prevent breast cancer

  11-07-2016 21:17
  An enriched hops extract activates a chemical pathway in cells that could help prevent breast cancer, according to new laboratory findings outlined in a new report.
  
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• Scientists find evidence for climate change in satellite cloud record

  11-07-2016 21:13
  Scientists have found that changes in cloud patterns during the last three decades match those predicted by climate model simulations. These cloud changes are likely to have had a warming effect on the planet.
  
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• Gut bacteria can cause, predict and prevent rheumatoid arthritis

  11-07-2016 21:13
  The bacteria in your gut do more than break down your food. They also can predict susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis, suggests a new report.
  
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• Cancer risk may rise before and immediately after a diabetes diagnosis

  11-07-2016 21:13
  A new study indicates that individuals with diabetes may have an elevated risk of developing cancer before and immediately after a diabetes diagnosis. The findings point to the need for a better understanding of the link between diabetes and cancer.
  
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• Physician payment reform has led to decrease in home-based dialysis in United States

  11-07-2016 21:11
  The US Medicare program's transition in 2004 to tiered fee-for-service physician reimbursement for dialysis care had the unintended consequence of reducing use of home dialysis, according to a new paper.
  
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• Strategies to mimic fasting during chemotherapy enhance anticancer T cell activity in mice

  11-07-2016 21:09
  Fasting is known to increase positive outcomes during cancer treatment, and now two independent studies in mice show that fasting, either through diet or drugs, during chemotherapy helps increase the presence of cancer-killing T cells. The research teams show that rodents that received caloric restriction mimetics alone or chemotherapy combined with a fasting-mimicking diet had smaller tumor masses over time than those that received only chemotherapy.
  
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• Self-prescribing antibiotics is a big problem

  11-07-2016 21:09
  Five percent of adults from a cohort of 400 people reported using antibiotics without a prescription during the previous 12 months. Twenty-five percent said they would use antibiotics without contacting a medical professional. These findings demonstrate yet another factor abetting the spread of antibiotic resistance.
  
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• Cutting nerves during breast cancer surgery is associated with chronic pain

  11-07-2016 21:09
  A systematic review has been conducted that analyzed 30 observational studies that enrolled 20,000 women undergoing surgery for breast cancer. Analysis of this data suggested that disruption of sensory nerves in the axilla (armpit) as lymph nodes are removed is associated with the development of chronic pain.
  
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• Colistin-resistant gene detected in US for the second time

  11-07-2016 21:09
  For the second time, a clinical isolate of a bacterial pathogen has been detected in the US, which carries the colistin resistance gene, mcr-1. It may also be the first plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene to show up in the US. That would be concerning because plasmids, genetic elements that are independent of the host genome, often jump between different bacterial species, spreading any resistance genes they carry. The research is published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
  
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• Astronomers discover new distant dwarf planet beyond Neptune

  11-07-2016 21:08
  Astronomers have discovered a new dwarf planet orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. The new object is about 700 km in diameter and has one of the largest orbits for a dwarf planet. Designated 2015 RR245 by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, it was found using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).
  
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• See the Milky Way move in this Cape Spear timelapse

  11-07-2016 21:07 via cbc.ca
  
  St. John's-area photographer Geoff Smith captured an hour-long timelapse of a great night sky at Cape Spear.
  
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• Regrown Brain Cells Give Blind Mice a New View

  11-07-2016 20:15 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Mix of gene manipulation and exercise raises hopes in fight against glaucoma, spinal injury and Alzheimer’s
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Q&A: Superbug precursor found in US again

  11-07-2016 20:13
  
  NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City patient was infected with bacteria that had a special type of resistance to antibiotics last year, the earliest known case in the U.S. of bacteria that could lead to a superbug impervious to medications.
  
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• South Sudan leaders order ceasefire as civil war fears grow

  11-07-2016 20:06
  By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's president and vice president ordered their rival forces to cease hostilities on Monday after days of fighting threatened to plunge the nation back into civil war and bring further instability to an impoverished region of Africa. Fighting erupted four days ago in the capital Juba between loyalists of President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the former rebel leader who became vice president under a deal to end a two-year civil war. The violence, which has
  
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• How moths invaded the Euro 2016 final — and Ronaldo's face

  11-07-2016 19:52 via cbc.ca
  
  UK butterfly expert Richard Fox explains how thousands of Silver Y moths swarmed the Stade de France for the Euro Cup finals.
  
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• Solar-powered plane leaves Spain for Egypt in final leg of around-the-world trip

  11-07-2016 19:32 via cbc.ca
  
  An experimental solar-powered airplane has left Spain for Egypt in the penultimate leg of its globe-circling voyage.
  
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• Solar-powered plane leaves Spain for 50-hour flight to Egypt

  11-07-2016 19:32 via cbc.ca
  
  An experimental solar-powered airplane has left Spain for Egypt in the penultimate leg of its globe-circling voyage.
  
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• South Sudan's vice president orders ceasefire by his forces - radio

  11-07-2016 19:20
  South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar ordered a ceasefire by his forces on Monday, reciprocating a move made his rival President Salva Kiir who had earlier ordered his SPLA army forces to halt fighting, he told the independent Eye Radio. "The president has declared a unilateral ceasefire, I want to reciprocate the declaration of unilateral ceasefire," he told the radio, saying he had ordered it to come into effect at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT), two hours after the deadline Kiir had set.
  
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• Hidden Fault Could Trigger Cataclysmic Megaquake in Asia

  11-07-2016 19:07
  
  A massive fault could trigger a cataclysmic earthquake beneath Bangladesh, parts of east India and Myanmar, new research suggests. The hidden fault, which has been buried under miles of river sediment, could release an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 to 9.0 in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, the study found. "We don't know if it's tomorrow or if it's not going to be for another 500 years," said study co-author Michael Steckler, a geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Obser
  
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• Heavy gunfire erupts in South Sudan after president calls ceasefire

  11-07-2016 18:59
  JUBA (Reuters) - Heavy gunfire erupted in South Sudan's capital late on Monday after President Salva Kiir ordered his forces to cease fire and only respond if they came under attack, Reuters witnesses reported. His rival Riek Machar, the former rebel who returned to his old post of vice president in April under the terms of a peace deal to end a civil war, called for "calm and restraint" earlier on Monday but has yet to issue a public ceasefire declaration. (Reporting by Denis Dumo and Reuters T
  
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• Federal government leaps into action to save endangered Quebec frogs

  11-07-2016 18:55 via cbc.ca
  
  The date of an emergency order to protect the habitat of an endangered frog species has been moved up after it appeared development work continued to be done in the area despite plans to halt it.
  
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• Monkey archaeology: Ancient evidence of tool use found

  11-07-2016 18:54 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Capuchin monkeys in Brazil have used stone tools for at least 700 years, according to scientists.
  
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• The humble pomegranate might just hold the key to youthful ageing

  11-07-2016 18:28
  
  It was revered in ancient times as a “food of the gods”.
  
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• Lab storing information securely in DNA

  11-07-2016 18:26
  Bioengineers in the United States have developed a new method for encrypting and storing sensitive information in DNA. Digital data storage degrades and can become obsolete and old-school books and paper require lots of space.
  
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• Helping kids with brain tumors recover beyond the disease

  11-07-2016 18:26
  Social strains and lack of social competence are common in children recovering from malignant brain tumors. A behavioral scientist and colleagues from across the U.S. and Canada, examined a peer-mediated intervention at the survivor’s school and found it was feasible to carry out in the public school setting and was acceptable to the survivor’s family.
  
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• Now Is the Best Time to Observe the Moon This Month

  11-07-2016 18:25
  
  On this particular night, the Harvest full moon was rising in the east, and one of my neighbors, with her young daughter in tow, made a request: "Could you point your telescope to the moon so that we could see it? Lunar mountains will be readily visible, as the sun lights them from the right. Several hours before first-quarter arrival, if you look carefully enough, you'll notice that the terminator is ever so slightly concave, revealing that the moon still has a crescent shape.
  
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• Did Supernova Explosion Contribute to Earth Mass Extinction?

  11-07-2016 18:24
  
  A faraway supernova explosion may have contributed to a minor mass extinction here on Earth 2.59 million years ago, a new study suggests. Fast-moving, charged particles called cosmic rays that were blasted out by asupernova may have played a role in the climatic changes that apparently led to a die-off at the end of the Pliocene epoch and the start of the Pleistocene, researchers said. Around this time and afterwards, we started having glaciations — ice ages — over and over again, an
  
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• True impact of global diabetes epidemic is vastly underestimated

  11-07-2016 18:15
  There may be more than 100 million people with diabetes globally than previously thought, a landmark paper now outlines. The prevalence of global diabetes has been seriously underestimated by at least 25 per cent, the paper suggests.
  
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• Study yields potential blood biomarkers for Gulf War Illness

  11-07-2016 18:15
  Based on a study of 85 Gulf War Veterans, Veterans Affairs researchers have developed a tentative panel of blood markers they say can verify a diagnosis of Gulf War Illness with 90 percent accuracy.
  
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• New study describes strategies for investigating microbial outbreaks

  11-07-2016 18:15
  A new study describes innovative strategies to track disease-causing pathogens like E. coli. Eppinger hopes his research will aid in halting and preventing large-scale outbreaks.
  
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• Subtropical Cornwall climate could mean exotic new crops

  11-07-2016 18:13
  The subtropical weather in Cornwall, England means new exotic crops such as quinoa and Japanese persimmon are now more likely to succeed, according to a new technique developed experts to monitor the climate.
  
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• Genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes explored

  11-07-2016 18:13
  New research from a large international team of scientists offers a more complete picture of the genes responsible for type 2 diabetes, demonstrating that previously identified common alleles shared by many in the world are the biggest culprits -- not the less common variants some scientists had hypothesized might play a large role in who gets the disease.
  
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• Discovery of insulin-producing beta cell subtypes may impact diabetes treatment

  11-07-2016 18:13
  Researchers have determined the existence of at least four separate subtypes of human insulin producing beta cells that may be important in the understanding and treatment of diabetes.
  
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• Amyloid probes gain powers in search for Alzheimer's cause

  11-07-2016 18:13
  A synthetic molecule with a rhenium core glows when attached to an amyloid fibril in the process of aggregating into a plaque, and brighter still when hit with ultraviolet light, report scientists. The molecule may therefore allow for real-time experimental monitoring of amyloid plaques implicated in Alzheimer's disease, they say.
  
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• When kids learn to conserve energy, their behavior also spreads to parents

  11-07-2016 18:09
  Girl Scouts and their parents reported increases in energy-saving behaviors, such as turning off power strips at night and washing clothes in cold water, after the children participated in an intervention program, according to a study.
  
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• Researchers find association between donor age, female sex and transfusion outcomes

  11-07-2016 18:09
  A link between blood donor characteristics and transfusion recipients' outcomes has been uncovered by researchers. This is the first study to suggest that red blood cell transfusions from young donors and from female donors may be associated with poorer survival in recipients.
  
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• Mice can see again! Visual activity regenerates neural connections between eye and brain

  11-07-2016 18:09
  A study in mice shows for the first time that visual stimulation can help damaged retinal neurons regrow optic nerve fibers (retinal ganglion cell axons). In combination with chemically induced neural stimulation, axons grew further than in strategies tried previously. Treated mice partially regained visual function. The study demonstrates that adult regenerated CNS axons are capable of navigating to correct targets in the brain.
  
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• Academic female physicians paid less than male counterparts

  11-07-2016 18:09
  Female academic physicians at public medical schools had lower average salaries than their male counterparts, a disparity that was only partly accounted for by age, experience, medical specialty, faculty rank and other factors, according to a new article.
  
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