News
- Life
A protein variant can provide protection from deadly brain-wasting
If cannibalism hadn’t stopped, a protective protein may have ended kuru anyway.
- Anthropology
Modern-day trackers reinterpret Stone Age cave footprints
African trackers help researchers interpret ancient human footprints in French caves.
By Bruce Bower - Anthropology
Human laugh lines traced back to ape ancestors
Chimps make laughing faces that speak to evolution of human ha-ha’s.
By Bruce Bower - Archaeology
Bronze Age humans racked up travel miles
A new study indicates long journeys and unexpected genetic links in Bronze Age Eurasian cultures.
- Paleontology
New analysis cuts massive dino’s weight in half
Gigantic dinosaur Dreadnoughtus may have weighed only about half of what scientists estimated last year.
By Meghan Rosen - Paleontology
Traces of dino blood, soft tissue found even in junk bones
Hints of blood and collagen found in poorly preserved dinosaur bones suggest that soft tissue from the creatures may be easier to come by.
- Life
Tracing molecules’ movement in nails may help fight fungus
Tracking chemicals through the human nail may provide valuable insight for drug development.
- Physics
Rogue waves don’t always appear unannounced
Scientists may be able to forecast the arrival of anomalously large ocean swells, suggest scientists who analyzed the moments before rogue water waves and freak light flashes.
By Andrew Grant - Climate
Global warming ‘hiatus’ just an artifact, study finds
Skewed data may have caused the appearance of the recent global warming hiatus, new research suggests.
- Neuroscience
Female’s nose blocks scent of a male
When a female mouse is in an infertile stage of her reproductive cycle, her nose cells don’t alert her brain to the presence of a potential mate.
- Paleontology
Triceratops relative reveals dino diversity
A newly discovered relative of Triceratops provides new insight into the evolution of horned dinosaurs.
- Genetics
DNA tags mostly deleted in human germ cells
Human embryos come with some heavy-duty erasers. Chemical tags on DNA get mostly wiped out in the womb.
By Meghan Rosen