Choir’s hearts beat as one
Swedish researchers studying how music affects the human body have found that when people sing in a choir their heartbeats…
Brain regions where ideas become contagious identified
How do ideas spread? Why do some videos go viral? UCLA scientists have taken a first step toward answering these…
Parrots solve complex mechanical problems
Untrained parrots have been solving complex mechanical problems that involved undoing a series of locks one after another; impressive feats…
“Extreme” astrophysical event likely cause of mysterious radio bursts
Mysterious bursts of radio waves detected on Earth may be coming from magnetars, say the scientists who first detected them.…
Oceanic food-chain undergoing dramatic changes
Increasing levels of carbon dioxide appear to be changing the biodiversity of the oceanic ecosystem, most notably the keystone bacterial…
Global warming getting El Niño all hot and bothered
Spawning droughts, floods, and other weather disturbances, the El Niño – Southern Oscillation affects the daily lives of millions of…
Lots more habitable planets out there, thanks to clouds
‘ An intriguing new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable…
Penicillin – not The Pill – behind the sexual revolution, suggests new analysis
The rise in casual sex that marked the swinging ’60s actually began a decade earlier, according to a new analysis…
Cheap and simple desalination unit runs from battery
Using a small electrical field that removes the salts from seawater, German and American scientists have invented a new method…
Nil by mouth: oral ingestion blamed for rapid rise of antibiotic resistance
A new study into antibiotic resistance in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy points the finger of blame squarely at…
Nearby star may have 3 habitable planets
Astronomers have announced that the star Gliese 667C in the constellation of Scorpius is likely orbited by between five and…
Eyes used to measure pleasure response
The brain’s pleasure response to tasting food can be accurately measured through the eyes using a common, low-cost ophthalmological tool,…
Dramatic images of Singapore haze from orbit
NASA satellites have captured striking images of vast palls of smoke billowing from wildfires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.…
It’s alive! Nutritional value of fresh produce varies with time of day
The fruits and vegetables we buy in the grocery store are actually still alive, leading scientists to conclude that the…
Population growth makes wildlife conservation pointless, concludes new report
A growing human population will inevitably crowd out mammals and birds and has the potential to threaten hundreds of species…
Striking correlation found between infection and mood disorders
Researchers have found that every third person who is diagnosed for the first time with a mood disorder had been…
New evidence for climate change creating modern humans
While archaeological and genetic evidence suggest that Homo sapiens originated in Africa around 200,000 years ago, it is more difficult…
Robo-cat offers speed and agility for search and rescue
Swiss robotics researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne say the design of their cat-like robot is based on meticulous…
Menopause – it’s a guy thing
After decades of trying to shoehorn menopause into a variety of evolutionary contexts that never seemed to add up, a…
Novel epigenetic messaging system found in sperm
A dad’s exposure to stress leaves a lasting impression on his sperm, say researchers who have been investigating a never-before-seenepigenetic…
Plastic could work as shield against space radiation hazards
xperiments carried out aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) indicate that light plastic materials may provide sufficient radiation shielding for…
Dark matter observations: missed it by that much
A theory which endows dark matter particles with a rare type of electromagnetism has been strengthened by a detailed analysis…
Neanderthal bone reveals modern day affliction
The first-known case of a bone tumor has been discovered in a fragment of the rib of a young Neanderthal…
Kinect-like gesture recognition leveraged from standard WiFi signals
In a clever use of Doppler frequency shifts, computer scientists have shown it’s possible to use the existing WiFi signals…
Comet smash simulations hint at life’s cosmic origins
Life on Earth could have its origins in space, say Lawrence Livermore scientist Nir Goldman and University of Ontario Institute…
Thought-controlled drone demonstrated
In what they say is the first step toward restoring the autonomy of paralysis sufferers, University of Minnesota researchers have…
Earth’s Milky Way neighborhood gets upsized
Earth resides between two major spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy in what was thought to be a smaller…
Txting tested for battlefield comms
Radios, gunfire, explosions, and live voices all combine during combat to create extreme auditory overload for military personnel, but defense…
CO2 not to blame for global warming, claims new study that argues global cooling has already begun
Conventional thinking on climate change holds that human emissions of carbon dioxide have been the major contributor to global warming,…
Mysterious “anti-glitch” observed in neutron star’s rotation
Astronomers using NASA’s Swift X-ray Telescope have observed a spinning neutron star suddenly slowing down, a never before seen event…