Culture
Hidden away on a trio of tiny and under-explored Wallacean islands off the eastern Indonesian coast, researchers discovered 10 new species and subspecies of songbirds, according to a new study, bringing a long-overlooked pocket of local biodiversity to light. The findings mark the largest number of new species identified from such a small geographically confined region in more than a century. Birds are perhaps the best-known groups of animals on Earth. However, despite the roughly 11,000 presently recognized species, it's estimated that many thousands more remain undiscovered.
New dates from the World Heritage archeological site at Sangiran on the island of Java suggest that that the first appearance of Homo erectus occurred more recently than previously thought, researchers report. The new findings place the arrival of the first hominins in Sangiran between 1.3-1.5 million years ago (Ma), suggesting that early humans migrated from Asia to Southeast Asia and Java nearly 300,000 years later than previously believed.
An international study led by Drs Miguel Torres and Ghislaine Lioux of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), has identified and characterized a new vasculogenic niche that contributes to the development of the cardiac lymphatic system. The study shows that the coronary lymphatic vessels have varied origins and functions: the results of the study reveal that the coronary lymphatic vasculature does not have a single origin, but instead forms through the participation of cells from different tissues.
[HILLSBOROUGH, NJ - January 2020] On Thursday, January 9, The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) will release updated Feline Retrovirus Testing and Management Guidelines to the veterinary community, which will be published in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. In publishing these Guidelines, the AAFP aims to provide the most current information about feline retrovirus infections to veterinary practitioners so they may optimize the care and management of their feline patients.
The peaceful and delicate co-existence of friendly gut bacteria and the immune system relies on highly coordinated information exchange between immune system cells and certain cells lining the intestine. Until now, scientists generally believed these two cell types were also central to the production of antibacterial molecules that fend off dangerous infections.
Researchers have devised a straightforward technique for building a laboratory device known as an electroporator - which applies a jolt of electricity to temporarily open cell walls - from inexpensive components, including a piezoelectric crystal taken from a butane lighter.
The flight navigation strategy of moths can be used to develop programs that help drones to navigate unfamiliar environments, report Ioannis Paschalidis at Boston University, Thomas Daniel at University of Washington, and colleagues, in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
The small red planet is losing water more quickly than what theory as well as past observations would suggest. The gradual disappearance of water (H2O) occurs in the upper atmosphere of Mars: sunlight and chemistry disassociate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms that the weak gravity of Mars cannot prevent from escaping into space. An international research team,1 led partly by CNRS researcher Franck Montmessin, has just revealed that water vapour is accumulating in large quantities and unexpected proportions at an altitude of over 80 km in the Martian atmosphere.
The ongoing social unrest in Hong Kong may be affecting the mental health of the general adult population--potentially leading to substantial increases in demand for mental and psychosocial support services, according to a 10-year observational study published in The Lancet.
Plant life is expanding in the area around Mount Everest, and across the Himalayan region, new research shows.
Scientists used satellite data to measure the extent of subnival vegetation - plants growing between the treeline and snowline - in this vast area.
Little is known about these remote, hard-to-reach ecosystems, made up of short-stature plants (predominantly grasses and shrubs) and seasonal snow, but the study reveals they cover between 5 and 15 times the area of permanent glaciers and snow.
RICHLAND, Washington -- A protein newly identified as important in type 1 diabetes can delay onset of the disease in diabetic mice, providing a new target for prevention and treatment in people, according to research led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Indiana University School of Medicine. Because type 1 diabetes is incurable and has serious lifelong health consequences, prevention is a major research goal.
Scientists could soon better investigate the feeding behaviors of extinct dolphin and whale species. A third year student at Japan's Nagoya University has found that the range of motion offered by the joint between the head and neck in modern-day cetaceans, a group of marine mammals that also includes porpoises, accurately reflects how they feed. The authors of the study, published in the Journal of Anatomy, suggest this method could help overcome current limitations in extrapolating the feeding behaviors of extinct cetaceans.
In a world first, University of Sydney researchers have found evidence of how hydrogen causes embrittlement of steels. When hydrogen moves into steel, it makes the metal become brittle, leading to catastrophic failures. This has been one of the major challenges in moving towards a greener, hydrogen-fuelled future, where steel tanks and pipelines are essential components that must be able to survive in pure hydrogen environments.
When a non-scientist tries to imagine a scientist, the image that often arises is one of a somewhat remote, rather idealistic genius sitting alone in their room or laboratory and somehow discovering the most amazing things without every having contact with the 'normal' world. But science is just as much a part of life as any other activity. So it's perhaps not all that surprising to learn that - just like in normal life - intuition can occasionally play a major role in scientific progress.
One of the last obstacles hindering the photography and filming of processes occurring on a scale of attoseconds, i.e. billionths of a billionth of a second, has disappeared. The key to its removal lies in the random nature of the processes responsible for the formation of X-ray laser pulses.