News
- Plants
Stressed plants make ultrasonic clicking noises
Tomato and tobacco plants emit high frequency sounds, which could one day find a use in agriculture, as a way to detect thirsty crops.
- Neuroscience
Your brain wires itself to match your native language
MRI scans of nearly 100 native speakers of either German or Arabic revealed differences in how the language circuits of their brains are connected.
- Chemistry
Here’s why some Renaissance artists egged their oil paintings
Some Renaissance artists created eggs-quisite paintings by adding yolks to oil paints, which may have helped add texture and prevent yellowing.
- Planetary Science
Baby Jupiter glowed so brightly it might have desiccated its moon
During its infancy, Jupiter may have glowed about 10 thousand times brighter than it does today, which may explain why its moon Io is completely dry.
- Astronomy
A neutron star collision may have emitted a fast radio burst
Astronomers spotted both a fast radio burst and gravitational waves from a cosmic smashup in the same part of the sky and at about the same time.
- Astronomy
The biggest planet orbiting TRAPPIST-1 doesn’t appear to have an atmosphere
TRAPPIST-1b is hotter than astronomers expected, suggesting there’s no atmosphere to transport heat around the planet.
- Animals
Volcanic sulfur may make barn owls grow redder feathers
Barn owls on volcanic islands tend to have redder plumage than those on nonvolcanic islands, possibly due to an influx of sulfur in the environment.
- Math
Chia seedlings verify Alan Turing’s ideas about patterns in nature
New experiments confirm that complex patterns in plants emerge from a model proposed by mathematician Alan Turing.
- Math
Mathematicians have finally discovered an elusive ‘einstein’ tile
After half a century, mathematicians succeed in finding an ‘einstein,’ a shape that forms a tiled pattern that never repeats.
- Animals
Scientists have now recorded brain waves from freely moving octopuses
The data reveal some unexpected patterns, though it’s too early to know how octopus brains control the animals’ behavior, a new study finds.
- Genetics
DNA from Beethoven’s hair hints at what killed the composer
Many historians suspect Beethoven died from liver failure. A new analysis shows he had a heightened genetic risk for liver disease, researchers say.
- Health & Medicine
A hormone shot helped drunk mice sober up quickly
Drunk mice injected with the hormone FGF21 woke up and regained their balance faster than inebriated mice that did not receive the shot.
