Science News

I’d quite like to open a thread discussing the possible pros and cons of using this technique in humans. Where would I post it please? Summary: Glanzman and his team gave the snails a series of electric shocks to their tails. "The result is, their reflexes were greatly enhanced. If we touched their skin, they'll contract very strongly." When the snails were good and jumpy, the team extracted RNA from their nervous systems and injected it into untrained snails. "Twenty-four hours later, we tested the reflexes of those snails, and they showed the same reflexes of those that had been given electrical shocks," Glanzman said. …

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-scientists-discovery-yellowstone-extremely-relevant.html Scientists' discovery in Yellowstone 'extremely relevant' to origin of life May 15, 2018 by Evelyn Boswell, Montana State University Montana State University scientists have found a new lineage of microbes living in Yellowstone National Park's thermal features that sheds light on the origin of life, the evolution of archaeal life and the importance of iron in early life. Professor William Inskeep and his team of researchers published their findings May 14 in the scientific journal Nature Microbiology. "The discovery of archaeal lineages is critical to our unders…

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-evidence-plumes-jupiter-moon-europa.html Old NASA spacecraft points to new evidence of watery plumes over Europa May 14, 2018: A fresh look at data from a 1997 flyby of Jupiter's moon, Europa, suggests that NASA's Galileo spacecraft flew directly through a watery plume, raising hopes of probing the jets for signs of life around the second planet from Earth. The revelations Monday came after scientists revisited a puzzling reading from an instrument aboard Galileo, which in 1995 became the first spacecraft to enter the orbit of a gas giant planet. What they found was the most direct evidence yet of plumes emerging from…

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/westerhout-43-star-formation-05962.html New Study Casts Doubt on Currently Accepted Theories of Star Formation: An international team of astronomers has found that long-held assumptions about the relationship between the mass of star-forming clouds of dust and gas and the eventual mass of the star itself may not be as straightforward as scientists think. Their work is published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The underlying reasons as to why a star eventually grows to a specific mass has puzzled astronomers for years. It has been assumed that a star’s mass mostly depends on the original structure — known as a …

Earth's magnetic field is not about to reverse, study finds April 30, 2018, University of Liverpool A study of the most recent near-reversals of the Earth's magnetic field by an international team of researchers, including the University of Liverpool, has found it is unlikely that such an event will take place anytime soon. There has been speculation that the Earth's geomagnetic fields may be about to reverse , with substantial implications, due to a weakening of the magnetic field over at least the last two hundred years, combined with the expansion of an identified weak area in the Earth's magnetic field called the South Atlantic Anomaly, which stretches from…

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-sagittarius-swarm-black-hole-bounty.html Sagittarius A* swarm: Black hole bounty captured in the Milky Way center: Astronomers have discovered evidence for thousands of black holes located near the center of our Milky Way galaxy using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This black hole bounty consists of stellar-mass black holes, which typically weigh between five to 30 times the mass of the Sun. These newly identified black holes were found within three light years—a relatively short distance on cosmic scales—of the supermassive black hole at our Galaxy's center known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Read more at: htt…

This is not a small asteroid either. Although the article does not mention the size of the asteroid, the paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters estimates the diameter of the asteroid to be 265.2 > 291.1 < 311.4 km. Free Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.10163

Would aliens who evolved on a Super Earth be trapped due to the difficulty of leaving the planet? A Super Earth 16,000 miles in diameter with a similar density would have a volume 8 times Earth's, 4 times the surface area, and twice the gravity. Escape Velocity would be twice Earth normal? I'm not sure if my numbers are accurate but you get the idea. https://www.space.com/40375-super-earth-exoplanets-hard-aliens-launch.html

Here is an example of pseudo scorpions engaging in group hunting behavior. Could this be part of how other colonial arthropods evolved? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2168506-ferocious-pack-hunting-pseudoscorpions-believe-in-sharing-fairly/?

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-ancient-scientists-climate-deep.html Earth's orbital changes have influenced climate, life forms for at least 215 million years May 7, 2018, Columbia University Scientists drilling deep into ancient rocks in the Arizona desert say they have documented a gradual shift in Earth's orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000 years, playing a role in natural climate swings. Astrophysicists have long hypothesized that the cycle exists based on calculations of celestial mechanics, but the authors of the new research have found the first verifiable physical evidence. They showed that the cycle has been stable for hundreds of millions…

Hubble still doing work http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1809/

Fascinating. A whole new communication method has been discovered between cells: tunnelling nanotubes. https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-talk-and-help-one-another-via-tiny-tube-networks-20180423/

Archaeologists find ancient mass child sacrifice in Peru April 30, 2018 by Franklin Briceno This April 22, 2011 handout photo provided by National Geographic shows more than a dozen bodies preserved in dry sand for more than 500 years, at the Huanchaquito-Las Llamas site near Trujillo, Peru. Researchers reported that, "except for three adult burials (two females and one male), all the human skeletal remains were of children, ranging in age from approximately five to fourteen years, with the majority falling in the range of eight to twelve years of age." (Gabriel Prieto/National Geographic via AP) Archaeologists in northe…

Hi folks, I saw this in the news yesterday and thought it would be worth posting in case anyone here missed it. Scientists have observed advanced galactic forms over 12 billion years old which is apparently a first. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/the-largest-thing-in-the-universe-cosmic-collision-12bn-years-ago-created-mega-galaxy/ar-AAwlpr5 link to a U.K. news agency.

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-team-aims-nasa-telescope-capture.html Team aims to use new NASA telescope to capture light from the first stars to be born in the universe About 200 to 400 million years after the Big Bang created the universe, the first stars began to appear. Ordinarily stars lying at such a great distance in space and time would be out of reach even for NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope, due for launch in 2020. However, astronomers at Arizona State University are leading a team of scientists who propose that with good timing and some luck, the Webb Space Telescope will be able to capture light from the first stars to be born in the u…

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-blocks-life-space.html How the building blocks of life may form in space April 25, 2018, American Institute of Physics Low-energy electrons, created in matter by space radiation (e.g., galactic cosmic rays, GCR, etc.), can induce formation of glycine (2HN-CH2-COOH) in astrophysical molecular ices; here, icy grains of interstellar dust (or ices on planetary satellites) are simulated by ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide condensed at 20 K on Pt in UHV, and irradiated by 0-70 eV LEEs. CREDIT: Public domain image from NASA, Hubble, STScI. Star forming region (Pillars of Creation) in the Eagle N…

Breakthroughs in the next 50 years which will increase our life quality dramatically I am always curious about the future. How will things evolve? How much fun and opportunities will arise? Specially in technology, everything is improving so fast! I have been thinking about it and i will tell you the most important breakthroughs that are highly probable to happen (they are my life goals too) for the next 50 years (and how they relate to technology). 1 — Quantum Computing I always hated being limited by classic physics (one of my greatest fears). Quantum theories have expanded the horizons a lot. One of its greatest practical u…

http://www.absolute-knowledge.com/scientists-created-a-chemical-reaction-which-was-impossible-till-now-they-made-two-atoms-fuse-together/

Hello everyone, I would like utilise this community to get some feedback regarding my composed formula to diminish hangover symptoms and support our body during the degradation process of ethanol in a healthy way. My startup FENIX Hangover Care is currently performing a seed investment round to gather enough cash to start our first production in our Benelux (Belgium, Luxembourg & Netherlands) region. Doing so I'm of course also interested what this science community thinks about this idea/product, so all feedback is highly appreciated! We picked the ingredients for 2 main reasons: 1) Support the body while getting rid of the harmful by-products of alcohol…

I wanted to add this article to those interested. The paper does not have much data behind it so just treat it as an interesting idea. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.10503.pdf

Interesting article on what has been found and, just as importantly, not found by the LHC: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/five-years-after-the-higgs-what-else-has-the-lhc-found-95b3149751b1

Can evolution be predicted? Scientists from AMOLF in Amsterdam and the ESPCI in Paris seem to have found a way to do so. https://phys.org/news/2018-04-method-evolution.html

LIGO and Virgo seem to have been quite of late, so I thought I would peak in... I hope most find the following interesting if not entirely new.... LIGO: A Discovery that Shook the World: This is the third video in Advanced LIGO Documentary Project's eight-part series on LIGO's historic discovery of gravitational waves and the birth of the new age of gravitational wave astronomy. In August 2017, LIGO and its Italian partner, VIRGO, made a discovery as important as its historic first detection of gravitational waves in 2015. They detected gravitational waves from two colliding neutron stars, which ejected a spectacular gamma ray burst that was seen by seven sp…

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-fine-structure-constant-dark-photon-theories.html Measurement of the fine-structure constant casts doubt on dark photon theories: A team of researchers from the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has conducted an ultra-precise measurement of the fine-structure constant, and in so doing, have found evidence that casts doubts on dark photon theory. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their measurement process and what they found by using it. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-fine-structure-constant-dark-photon-theories.html#jCp <<<<<<…

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-04/ras-pop040318.php Only the second study so far, but interesting nonetheless. I used to be one of those guys who thought it inevitable there was life out there somewhere, longer im alive the more i think it the other way round.