Science news

• Obama declares a state of emergency in Florida as Hurricane Matthew approaches

  06-10-2016 23:47
  
  It is the most powerful storm to threaten the Atlantic coast in more than a decade.
  
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• [Erratum] Erratum for the Research Article: "Targeting the kinase activities of ATR and ATM exhibits antitumoral activity in mouse models of MLL-rearranged AML" by I. Morgado-Palacin, A. Day, M. Murga, V. Lafarga, M. E. Anton, A. Tubbs, H.-T. Chen, A. Erg

  06-10-2016 23:22 via stke.sciencemag.org
  An author's last name is corrected and middle initial is inserted. A closing parenthesis in a sentence in the Abstract has also been added.
  
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• [Erratum] Erratum for the Research Article: "Peripheral motor neuropathy is associated with defective kinase regulation of the KCC3 cotransporter" by K. T. Kahle, B. Flores, D. Bharucha-Goebel, J. Zhang, S. Donkervoort, M. Hegde, G. Hussain, D. Duran, B.

  06-10-2016 23:22 via stke.sciencemag.org
  An author's name is corrected.
  
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• Apes show ability to recognize someone else's beliefs, study suggests

  06-10-2016 23:09 via cbc.ca
  
  Scientists using homemade videos featuring a person in a King Kong costume have documented a remarkable cognitive skill shared by chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans: the human-like ability to recognize when someone else's beliefs are wrong.
  
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• Omega-3 oils in farmed salmon 'halve in five years'

  06-10-2016 23:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Levels of beneficial omega-3 oils in farmed salmon have fallen significantly in the past five years.
  
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• Big telecom companies must cut wholesale internet access rates for smaller rivals: CRTC

  06-10-2016 22:52 via cbc.ca
  
  Canada's major internet service providers must lower the wholesale rates they charge smaller rivals for access to their networks, the country's telecom regulator said on Thursday, in a move it said would protect consumer choice.
  
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• Apes understand that some things are all in your head

  06-10-2016 22:07
  We all know that the way someone sees the world, and the way it really is, aren't always the same. This ability to recognize that someone's beliefs may differ from reality has long been seen as unique to humans.
  
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• Some birds behave like human musicians

  06-10-2016 21:49
  The tuneful behavior of some songbirds parallels that of human musicians, according to new research.
  
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• Professor: American killed in Ethiopia had bright future

  06-10-2016 21:49
  DAVIS, Calif. (AP) — A University of California, Davis professor says an American researcher killed by rocks thrown by protesters in Ethiopia was a talented scientist with a bright future.
  
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• Apes show complex cognitive skills watching 'King Kong' videos

  06-10-2016 21:48
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists using homemade videos featuring a person in a King Kong costume have documented a remarkable cognitive skill shared by chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans: the human-like ability to recognize when someone else's beliefs are wrong.
  
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• Exotic property confirmed in natural material could lead to fundamental studies

  06-10-2016 21:16
  Researchers have confirmed the existence of a naturally occurring exotic property in which a material becomes thicker when stretched -- the opposite of most materials -- a discovery that could lead to new studies into the fundamental science of nano-materials behavior, say researchers.
  
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• Self-eating yeast, bagels and tiny robots: The 2016 Nobel Prizes in science

  06-10-2016 21:15 via cbc.ca
  
  What do baked goods have to do with the Nobel Prize? Science columnist Torah Kachur explains.
  
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• Study says apes think like humans in an important way

  06-10-2016 20:53
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that great apes show some key abilities to see the world from someone else's point of view — a trait that once was considered uniquely human.
  
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• The First People to Settle Polynesia Came from Asia

  06-10-2016 20:48
  
  The first settlers of the far-flung Pacific islands of Tonga and Vanuatu likely arrived from Taiwan and the northern Philippines between 2,300 and 3,100 years ago, a new genetic analysis suggests. Ancient DNA extracted from skeletons at two archaeological sites on the islands helps paint this picture of how the remotest reaches of the Pacific were first colonized. "The people of Vanuatu today are descended from Asia first of all.
  
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• Meet Granddad: Weird, Ancient Reptile Gave Rise to Mammals

  06-10-2016 20:47
  
  Two weird, mammal-like reptiles that sort of looked like scaly rats, each smaller than a loaf of bread, roamed ancient Brazil about 235 million years ago, likely dining on insects the predators snagged with their pointy teeth, a new study finds. "These new fossils help [us] understand in more detail the evolution of pre-mammalian forms that gave rise to the group of mammals, in which we humans (Homo sapiens) are included," the study's lead author, Agustín Martinelli, a paleontologist at t
  
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• Chicken korma, Eton mess and a genetic variant provide clues to our food choices

  06-10-2016 20:47
  People who carry variants in a particular gene have an increased preference for high fat food, but a decreased preference for sugary foods, according to a new study. The research has provided insights into why we make particular food choices, with potential implications for our understanding of obesity. This is one of the first studies to show a direct link between food preference and specific genetic variants in humans.
  
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• Are the Nobel Prizes Missing Female Scientists?

  06-10-2016 20:45
  
  The Nobel Prize has a woman problem. A total of 203 people have won the Nobel Prize in physics, but only two were women (Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963). Science writer and physicist Matthew Francis wrote on his blog, Galileo's Pendulum, that the prize favors men of European descent, and European and American researchers in general.
  
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• Hospital rankings may rely on faulty data

  06-10-2016 20:39
  A new report suggests hospital rankings may not be as reliable as thought. Researchers found that false-positive event rates were common among high-transfer and high-volume hospitals.
  
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• Scientists rev up speed of bionic enzyme reactions

  06-10-2016 20:36
  Bionic enzymes got a needed boost in speed thanks to new research. By pairing a noble metal with a natural enzyme, scientists created a hybrid capable of churning out molecules at a rate comparable to biological counterparts.
  
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• Human neurons continue to migrate after birth

  06-10-2016 20:36
  Researchers have discovered a previously unknown mass migration of inhibitory neurons into the brain's frontal cortex during the first few months after birth, revealing a stage of brain development that had previously gone unrecognized. The authors hypothesize that this late-stage migration may play a role in establishing fundamentally human cognitive abilities and that its disruption could underlie a number of neurodevelopmental diseases.
  
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• Brain cell 'executioner' identified

  06-10-2016 20:36
  Despite their different triggers, the same molecular chain of events appears to be responsible for brain cell death from strokes, injuries and even such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer’s. Now, researchers say they have pinpointed the protein at the end of that chain of events, one that delivers the fatal strike by carving up a cell’s DNA. The find, they say, potentially opens up a new avenue for the development of drugs to prevent, stop or weaken the process.
  
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• How repair protein finds DNA damage

  06-10-2016 20:35
  Researchers have demonstrated how Rad4, a protein involved in DNA repair, scans the DNA in a unique pattern of movement called 'constrained motion' to efficiently find structural faults in DNA. The findings could lead to therapies that boost existing drug treatments and counter drug-resistance.
  
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• [Working Life] The hard road to reproducibility

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Lorena A. Barba
  
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• [This Week in Science] The long and winding road to methane

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Nicholas S. Wigginton
  
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• [This Week in Science] Spin-orbit coupling in an optical lattice

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Jelena Stajic
  
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• [This Week in Science] Something like the real thing

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Nicholas S. Wigginton
  
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• [This Week in Science] Sluggish turmoil in the Fermi sea

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Jelena Stajic
  
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• [This Week in Science] More than a FLT-ing success in leukemia

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Yevgeniya Nusinovich
  
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• [This Week in Science] Megadrought risk in the American Southwest

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Kip Hodges
  
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• [This Week in Science] Making nacre shine in the lab

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Nicholas S. Wigginton
  
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• [This Week in Science] Maintaining a stable phase

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Phil Szuromi
  
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• [This Week in Science] Kinase inhibitors for viral encephalitis

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Nancy R. Gough
  
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• [This Week in Science] Earthquakes get a more flexible source

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Brent Grocholski
  
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• [This Week in Science] DNA damage-activated nuclease identified

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: L. Bryan Ray
  
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• [This Week in Science] Delivering health care to mystery patients

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Gilbert Chin
  
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• [This Week in Science] Building the human brain

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Pamela J. Hines
  
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• [This Week in Science] Apes understand false beliefs

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Sacha Vignieri
  
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• [This Week in Science] A flatter route to shorter channels

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Author: Phil Szuromi
  
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• [Special Issue Review] Writ large: Genomic dissection of the effect of cellular environment on immune response

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Cells of the immune system routinely respond to cues from their local environment and feed back to their surroundings through transient responses, choice of differentiation trajectories, plastic changes in cell state, and malleable adaptation to their tissue of residence. Genomic approaches have opened the way for comprehensive interrogation of such orchestrated responses. Focusing on genomic profiling of transcriptional and epigenetic cell states, we discuss how they are applied to investigate
  
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• [Special Issue Review] Transgenerational inheritance: Models and mechanisms of non–DNA sequence–based inheritance

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Heritability has traditionally been thought to be a characteristic feature of the genetic material of an organism—notably, its DNA. However, it is now clear that inheritance not based on DNA sequence exists in multiple organisms, with examples found in microbes, plants, and invertebrate and vertebrate animals. In mammals, the molecular mechanisms have been challenging to elucidate, in part due to difficulties in designing robust models and approaches. Here we review some of the evidence, conce
  
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• [Special Issue Review] Going global by adapting local: A review of recent human adaptation

  06-10-2016 20:28
  The spread of modern humans across the globe has led to genetic adaptations to diverse local environments. Recent developments in genomic technologies, statistical analyses, and expanded sampled populations have led to improved identification and fine-mapping of genetic variants associated with adaptations to regional living conditions and dietary practices. Ongoing efforts in sequencing genomes of indigenous populations, accompanied by the growing availability of “-omics” and ancient DNA da
  
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• [Special Issue Review] Exposing the exposures responsible for type 2 diabetes and obesity

  06-10-2016 20:28
  The rising prevalences of type 2 diabetes and obesity constitute major threats to human health globally. Powerful social and economic factors influence the distribution of these diseases among and within populations. These factors act on a substrate of individual predisposition derived from the composite effects of inherited DNA variation and a range of environmental exposures experienced throughout the life course. Although “Western” lifestyle represents a convenient catch-all culprit for s
  
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• [Research Article] The impact of training informal health care providers in India: A randomized controlled trial

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Health care providers without formal medical qualifications provide more than 70% of all primary care in rural India. Training these informal providers may be one way to improve the quality of care where few alternatives exist. We report on a randomized controlled trial assessing a program that provided 72 sessions of training over 9 months to 152 informal providers (out of 304). Using standardized patients (“mystery clients”), we assessed clinical practice for three different conditions to
  
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• [Research Article] Realization of two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling for Bose-Einstein condensates

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Cold atoms with laser-induced spin-orbit (SO) interactions provide a platform to explore quantum physics beyond natural conditions of solids. Here we propose and experimentally realize two-dimensional (2D) SO coupling and topological bands for a rubidium-87 degenerate gas through an optical Raman lattice, without phase-locking or fine-tuning of optical potentials. A controllable crossover between 2D and 1D SO couplings is studied, and the SO effects and nontrivial band topology are observed by m
  
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• [Research Article] Extensive migration of young neurons into the infant human frontal lobe

  06-10-2016 20:28
  The first few months after birth, when a child begins to interact with the environment, are critical to human brain development. The human frontal lobe is important for social behavior and executive function; it has increased in size and complexity relative to other species, but the processes that have contributed to this expansion are unknown. Our studies of postmortem infant human brains revealed a collection of neurons that migrate and integrate widely into the frontal lobe during infancy. Ch
  
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• [Research Article] A nuclease that mediates cell death induced by DNA damage and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Inhibition or genetic deletion of poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) is protective against toxic insults in many organ systems. The molecular mechanisms underlying PARP-1–dependent cell death involve release of mitochondrial apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) and its translocation to the nucleus, which results in chromatinolysis. We identified macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) as a PARP-1–dependent AIF-associated nuclease (PAAN). AIF was required for recruitment of MIF to t
  
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• [Report] Ultrafast many-body interferometry of impurities coupled to a Fermi sea

  06-10-2016 20:28
  The fastest possible collective response of a quantum many-body system is related to its excitations at the highest possible energy. In condensed matter systems, the time scale for such “ultrafast” processes is typically set by the Fermi energy. Taking advantage of fast and precise control of interactions between ultracold atoms, we observed nonequilibrium dynamics of impurities coupled to an atomic Fermi sea. Our interferometric measurements track the nonperturbative quantum evolution of a
  
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• [Report] The methanogenic CO2 reducing-and-fixing enzyme is bifunctional and contains 46 [4Fe-4S] clusters

  06-10-2016 20:28
  Biological methane formation starts with a challenging adenosine triphosphate (ATP)–independent carbon dioxide (CO2) fixation process. We explored this enzymatic process by solving the x-ray crystal structure of formyl-methanofuran dehydrogenase, determined here as Fwd(ABCDFG)2 and Fwd(ABCDFG)4 complexes, from Methanothermobacter wolfeii. The latter 800-kilodalton apparatus consists of four peripheral catalytic sections and an electron-supplying core with 46 electronically coupled [4Fe-4S] clu
  
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