Science news

• Mother birds get a bad rap, though some deserve it

  11-05-2017 23:46 via cbc.ca
  
  With Mother’s Day coming up, it’s time to get some inspiration from the animal kingdom. Birds provide the best and worst examples of motherhood from eating their young to sacrificing themselves for the survival of the chicks.
  
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• Antiproton count hints at dark matter annihilation

  11-05-2017 23:27
  
  Antimatter in cosmic rays could be a sign of dark matter.
  
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• Sniffing out stem cell fates in the nose

  11-05-2017 22:53
  Single-cell RNA sequencing has allowed researchers to identify adult stem cells as they transform into mature cells, but the process becomes complicated when stem cells can transform into several different types of cells. Neuroscientists teamed with statisticians and computer scientists to improve the analysis of their experimental results, and were able to track stem cell fates in the nose as olfactory stem cells differentiated into sensory neurons and support cells.
  
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• Scientists ID human protein essential for human cytomegalovirus replication

  11-05-2017 22:53
  Scientists have demonstrated that a human protein known as valosin containing protein (VCP) is essential for replication of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). The findings identify VCP as a potential new treatment target.
  
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• Oldest buckthorn fossilized flowers found in Argentina

  11-05-2017 22:53
  Around 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, a giant asteroid crashed into the present-day Gulf of Mexico, leading to the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. How plants were affected is less understood, but fossil records show that ferns were the first plants to recover many thousands of years afterward. Now, a team reports the discovery of the first fossilized flowers from South America, and perhaps the entire Southern Hemisphere, following the extinction event.
  
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• Migratory seabird deaths linked to hurricanes

  11-05-2017 22:53
  Stronger and more frequent hurricanes may pose a new threat to the sooty tern, a species of migratory seabird found throughout the Caribbean and Mid-Atlantic, a new study reveals. The study is the first to map the birds' annual migratory path and demonstrate how its timing and trajectory place them in the direct path of hurricanes moving into the Caribbean from the Atlantic. Climate change may increase the risk.
  
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• Knowledge of DNA repair mechanisms advances with new research

  11-05-2017 22:53
  We humans like to think our DNA is well-protected in the nucleus of each cell. But it's a hard life for the hard-working genetic code, explains a new report.
  
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• NASA releases spectacular image of Crab Nebula

  11-05-2017 22:15 via cbc.ca
  
  The Crab Nebula was created when a star, located 6,500 light-years from Earth, exploded in a spectacular supernova. A new composite image reveals the Crab Nebula in unprecedented detail.
  
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• Compressed air energy storehouse approved for old Goderich salt cave

  11-05-2017 21:34 via cbc.ca
  
  Goderich council has approved a project that will see compressed air stored in an old salt cavern, which can be converted to energy for use in the provincial electrical grid during peak times.
  
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• 'Walking a mile in their shoes' may be hazardous to your health

  11-05-2017 21:21
  When it comes to empathy, the idiom that suggests 'walking a mile in their shoes' turns out to be problematic advice, according to new research.
  
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• New understanding of superconductor's 'normal' state may help solve longstanding puzzle

  11-05-2017 21:21
  Recent experiments have shed new light on the electronic properties of an unconventional topological superconductor material at temperatures 4°K above Tc.
  
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• Selfish genes hide for decades in plain sight of worm geneticists

  11-05-2017 21:13
  
  Crossing wild Hawaiian C. elegans with the familiar lab strain reveals genes that benefit themselves by making mother worms poison offspring who haven’t inherited the right stuff.
  
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• Watery exoplanet’s skies suggest unexpected origin story

  11-05-2017 20:45
  
  Compared with Neptune, HAT-P-26b’s atmosphere has few heavy elements, suggesting it formed differently than the ice giants in Earth’s solar system.
  
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• This nasal receptor mediates the appetizing smell of fish food

  11-05-2017 20:20
  The aquatic environment is full of tantalizing chemicals that can guide a fish to mates or meals. Now, scientists in Japan have identified the olfactory receptor and brain circuitry that picks up the scent of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. Although mostly known for carrying energy within cells, ATP is also a constituent of fish prey such as brine shrimp and plankton. The newly identified receptor is unique to fish and amphibians and is the gateway to initiating foraging behaviors in the zebrafi
  
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• The human sense of smell: It's stronger than we think

  11-05-2017 20:20
  The assertion that animals have a better sense of smell than humans is a 19th century myth with no scientific proof, says a neuroscientist who spent part of the last year reviewing existing research, examining data and delving into the historical writings that helped create the long-held misconception.
  
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• 'Molecular prosthetics' can replace missing proteins to treat disease

  11-05-2017 20:20
  Researchers have demonstrated that a small molecule can transport iron in human cells and live animals when proteins that normally do the same job are missing, a condition that often causes severe anemia in patients. Such 'molecular prosthetics' might treat a host of incurable diseases caused by protein deficiencies, such as anemias, cystic fibrosis or certain types of heart disease.
  
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• Beauty requires thought: Study supports philosophical claim

  11-05-2017 20:20
  Does the experience of beauty require a person to think? And can sensuous pleasures, like eating or sex, be beautiful? Such questions have long preoccupied philosophers, with Immanuel Kant making the famous claim that beauty requires thought, unlike sensuous pleasure, which, he said, can never be beautiful. Now, researchers say that Kant was right on one count and wrong on the other.
  
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• Baleen whales' ancestors were toothy suction feeders

  11-05-2017 20:20
  Modern whales' ancestors probably hunted and chased down prey, but somehow, those fish-eating hunters evolved into filter-feeding leviathans. An analysis of a 36.4-million-year-old whale fossil suggests that before baleen whales lost their teeth, they were suction feeders that most likely dove down and sucked prey into their mouths. The study also shows that whales most likely lost the hind limbs that stuck out from their bodies more recently than previously estimated.
  
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• Trump signs cyber security executive order

  11-05-2017 20:06 via cbc.ca
  
  U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at strengthening the federal government's cyber security and protecting the nation's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, a senior administration official told reporters on a call.
  
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• Is the human sense of smell just as good as a dog's?

  11-05-2017 20:00 via cbc.ca
  
  New research suggests humans' sense of smell has been getting a bad rap, and is just as good as that of rodents and dogs.
  
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• Visualizing dynamic microvillar search and stabilization during ligand detection by T cells

  11-05-2017 19:41
  During immune surveillance, T cells survey the surface of antigen-presenting cells. In searching for peptide-loaded major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs), they must solve a classic trade-off between speed and sensitivity. It has long been supposed that microvilli on T cells act as sensory organs to enable search, but their strategy has been unknown. We used lattice light-sheet and quantum dot–enabled synaptic contact mapping microscopy to show that anomalous diffusion and fractal orga
  
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• Three-dimensional holey-graphene/niobia composite architectures for ultrahigh-rate energy storage

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Nanostructured materials have shown extraordinary promise for electrochemical energy storage but are usually limited to electrodes with rather low mass loading (~1 milligram per square centimeter) because of the increasing ion diffusion limitations in thicker electrodes. We report the design of a three-dimensional (3D) holey-graphene/niobia (Nb2O5) composite for ultrahigh-rate energy storage at practical levels of mass loading (>10 milligrams per square centimeter). The highly interconnected
  
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• The extent of forest in dryland biomes

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Dryland biomes cover two-fifths of Earth’s land surface, but their forest area is poorly known. Here, we report an estimate of global forest extent in dryland biomes, based on analyzing more than 210,000 0.5-hectare sample plots through a photo-interpretation approach using large databases of satellite imagery at (i) very high spatial resolution and (ii) very high temporal resolution, which are available through the Google Earth platform. We show that in 2015, 1327 million hectares of dryl
  
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• Reticulon 3-dependent ER-PM contact sites control EGFR nonclathrin endocytosis

  11-05-2017 19:41
  The integration of endocytic routes is critical to regulate receptor signaling. A nonclathrin endocytic (NCE) pathway of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is activated at high ligand concentrations and targets receptors to degradation, attenuating signaling. Here we performed an unbiased molecular characterization of EGFR-NCE. We identified NCE-specific regulators, including the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)–resident protein reticulon 3 (RTN3) and a specific cargo, CD147. RTN3 was c
  
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• Restored iron transport by a small molecule promotes absorption and hemoglobinization in animals

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Multiple human diseases ensue from a hereditary or acquired deficiency of iron-transporting protein function that diminishes transmembrane iron flux in distinct sites and directions. Because other iron-transport proteins remain active, labile iron gradients build up across the corresponding protein-deficient membranes. Here we report that a small-molecule natural product, hinokitiol, can harness such gradients to restore iron transport into, within, and/or out of cells. The same compound promote
  
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• Poor human olfaction is a 19th-century myth

  11-05-2017 19:41
  It is commonly believed that humans have a poor sense of smell compared to other mammalian species. However, this idea derives not from empirical studies of human olfaction but from a famous 19th-century anatomist’s hypothesis that the evolution of human free will required a reduction in the proportional size of the brain’s olfactory bulb. The human olfactory bulb is actually quite large in absolute terms and contains a similar number of neurons to that of other mammals. Moreover, hu
  
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• Neandertal and Denisovan DNA from Pleistocene sediments

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Although a rich record of Pleistocene human-associated archaeological assemblages exists, the scarcity of hominin fossils often impedes the understanding of which hominins occupied a site. Using targeted enrichment of mitochondrial DNA, we show that cave sediments represent a rich source of ancient mammalian DNA that often includes traces of hominin DNA, even at sites and in layers where no hominin remains have been discovered. By automation-assisted screening of numerous sediment samples, we de
  
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• Male sex in houseflies is determined by Mdmd, a paralog of the generic splice factor gene CWC22

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Across species, animals have diverse sex determination pathways, each consisting of a hierarchical cascade of genes and its associated regulatory mechanism. Houseflies have a distinctive polymorphic sex determination system in which a dominant male determiner, the M-factor, can reside on any of the chromosomes. We identified a gene, Musca domestica male determiner (Mdmd), as the M-factor. Mdmd originated from a duplication of the spliceosomal factor gene CWC22 (nucampholin). Targeted Mdmd disrup
  
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• Holliday junction resolvases mediate chloroplast nucleoid segregation

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Holliday junctions, four-stranded DNA structures formed during homologous recombination, are disentangled by resolvases that have been found in prokaryotes and eukaryotes but not in plant organelles. Here, we identify monokaryotic chloroplast 1 (MOC1) as a Holliday junction resolvase in chloroplasts by analyzing a green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mutant defective in chloroplast nucleoid (DNA-protein complex) segregation. MOC1 is structurally similar to a bacterial Holliday junction resolvase
  
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• HAT-P-26b: A Neptune-mass exoplanet with a well-constrained heavy element abundance

  11-05-2017 19:41
  A correlation between giant-planet mass and atmospheric heavy elemental abundance was first noted in the past century from observations of planets in our own Solar System and has served as a cornerstone of planet-formation theory. Using data from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes from 0.5 to 5 micrometers, we conducted a detailed atmospheric study of the transiting Neptune-mass exoplanet HAT-P-26b. We detected prominent H2O absorption bands with a maximum base-to-peak amplitude of 525 part
  
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• Coupling between distant biofilms and emergence of nutrient time-sharing

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Bacteria within communities can interact to organize their behavior. It has been unclear whether such interactions can extend beyond a single community to coordinate the behavior of distant populations. We discovered that two Bacillus subtilis biofilm communities undergoing metabolic oscillations can become coupled through electrical signaling and synchronize their growth dynamics. Coupling increases competition by also synchronizing demand for limited nutrients. As predicted by mathematical mod
  
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• Bottom-up construction of a superstructure in a porous uranium-organic crystal

  11-05-2017 19:41
  Bottom-up construction of highly intricate structures from simple building blocks remains one of the most difficult challenges in chemistry. We report a structurally complex, mesoporous uranium-based metal-organic framework (MOF) made from simple starting components. The structure comprises 10 uranium nodes and seven tricarboxylate ligands (both crystallographically nonequivalent), resulting in a 173.3-angstrom cubic unit cell enclosing 816 uranium nodes and 816 organic linkers—the largest
  
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• Scientists have created an exoskeleton to stop elderly people from falling

  11-05-2017 19:24 via cbc.ca
  
  Scientists in Switzerland and Italy have developed a "stumble suit" that can detect when someone's about to trip and adjusts their balance so they remain upright.
  
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• Environment groups seek hearings on GMO salmon on the Island

  11-05-2017 19:00 via cbc.ca
  
  Environmental groups say public hearings should be held on a proposed facility in P.E.I. that would produce genetically modified salmon for human consumption.
  
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• Ancient whale tells tale of when baleen whales had teeth

  11-05-2017 18:10
  
  A 36 million-year-old whale fossil bridges the gap between ancient toothy predators and modern filter-feeding baleen whales.
  
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• New pelvic exoskeleton stops people from taking tumbles

  11-05-2017 15:00
  
  A new exoskeleton helps people prone to falling stay on their feet.
  
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• Can Meadows Rescue the Planet from CO2?

  11-05-2017 14:45 via rss.sciam.com
  
  An unusual research project is determining whether restoring California’s meadows can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Rare glass sponge reefs on B.C. Coast to star in live streamed expedition

  11-05-2017 14:30 via cbc.ca
  
  The kind of glass sponge found in B.C. was thought to have died off 40 million years ago.
  
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• How to Make Molecular Movies: Scientist Thomas Allison Explains

  11-05-2017 14:30 via rss.sciam.com
  
  The winner of the 2017 Discovery Prize discusses his work watching electrons moving through molecules
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Israel Tests Wireless Charging Roads for Electric Vehicles

  11-05-2017 14:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  New technology could power buses and cars on the go, but will it be cost-effective?
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Why create a model of mammal defecation? Because everyone poops

  11-05-2017 13:00
  
  Mammals that defecate in the same fashion as humans all excrete waste within the same time frame, no matter their size, a new study finds.
  
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• Museum offers face-to-face encounter with 4,000-year-old Indigenous family

  11-05-2017 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  The Canadian Museum of History has unveiled a unique new exhibit that brings the faces of a 4,000 year old Indigenous family back to life.
  
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• Unexpectedly primitive atmosphere found around distant 'warm Neptune'

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (University of Maryland) A new study led by NASA with contributions from the University of Maryland reveals that the distant planet HAT-P-26b has a primitive atmosphere composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. Located about 437 light years away from Earth, HAT-P-26b orbits a star roughly twice as old as the sun. The analysis is one of the most detailed studies to date of a 'warm Neptune,' a planet that is Neptune-sized and orbits close to its star.
  
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• Tropical Cyclone Ella wrapped in NASA imagery

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Tropical Cyclone Ella has large bands of thunderstorms wrapping around the center and from the east of center in imagery from the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite.
  
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• Research increases distance at which supernova would spark mass extinctions on Earth

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (University of Kansas) KU researcher Adrian Melott examines the effects of a supernova on Earth's biology in new research to appear in Astrophysical Journal. The KU researcher and colleagues argue the estimated distance of the supernova thought to have occurred roughly 2.6 million years ago should be cut in half.
  
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• Primitive atmosphere discovered around 'Warm Neptune'

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (University of Exeter) A pioneering new study uncovering the 'primitive atmosphere' surrounding a distant world could provide a pivotal breakthrough in the search to how planets form and develop in far-flung galaxies.
  
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• NASA study finds unexpectedly primitive atmosphere around 'warm Neptune'

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) By combining observations from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, a new study has found that the planet HAT-P-26b has an atmosphere composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with a relatively cloudless sky.
  
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• NASA caught Tropical Storm Adrian quickly losing steam

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific Ocean season was already losing steam when the Suomi NPP satellite passed overhead the day it formed. By the next day, May 11, Tropical Storm Adrian weakened to a remnant low pressure area.
  
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• NASA analyzed powerful Tropical Cyclone Donna's extreme rainfall

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Tropical Cyclone Donna was one of the most powerful out-of-season tropical cyclones ever recorded in the southern hemisphere and generated extreme amounts of rainfall along its path. NASA analyzed and mapped rainfall totals generated by the storm.
  
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• 'Fire-streaks' are created in collisions of atomic nuclei

  11-05-2017 06:00
  
  (The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences) At very high energies, the collision of massive atomic nuclei in an accelerator generates hundreds or even thousands of particles that undergo numerous interactions. At the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, Poland it has been shown that the course of this complex process can be represented by a surprisingly simple model: extremely hot matter moves away from the impact poin
  
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