Uncategorized
- Animals
Chimps catch people’s yawns in sign of flexible empathy
Chimpanzees may show humanlike empathy, as evidenced by their contagious yawning.
- Neuroscience
Brain chemicals help worms live long and prosper
Serotonin and dopamine accompany long lives in C. elegans worms under caloric restriction.
- Health & Medicine
Second wave of bird flu ups pandemic worries
The H7N9 avian influenza virus, which first appeared in 2013, is sweeping China with a second, larger wave of illness.
- Life
Acid-bath method for making stem cells under fire
No one has been able to reproduce a new technique for creating stem cells called STAP cells, leading some researchers to call for the retraction of the original research papers.
- Planetary Science
Feedback
Readers respond to a special report on neuroscience and discuss moon dust.
- Health & Medicine
MS milder when patients begin with higher vitamin D levels
Multiple sclerosis patients with low concentrations of vitamin D early in their disease have more nerve damage several years later.
- Animals
Elephants can tell men’s voices from women’s
Amboseli elephants may pick out age and gender — and even distinguish between languages — when listening to human voices.
- Physics
Shifting grains may explain earthquake lightning
Mysterious lightning before or during earthquakes could get its spark from underground shifting.
- Materials Science
Phosphorene introduced as graphene alternative
Sheets of ultrathin phosphorus could lead to faster semiconductor electronics.
- Cosmology
Gravitational wave detection a big day for the Big Bang
On a snowy St. Patrick’s Day, our offices officially shut down by a late-winter storm, the Science News staff was abuzz over the biggest thing since the Higgs boson. On March 17, scientists announced the first direct evidence of the theory of cosmic inflation: primordial gravitational waves.
- Ecosystems
City spiders may spin low-vibe webs
Spider webs built on human-made materials have less background bounce than those built on trees and other natural surfaces, which might shrink the arachnid’s hunting success.
- Animals
Pelican spiders: slow, safe assassins
Spiders, thank goodness, haven’t evolved assassin drones. But the specialized hunters of the family Archaeidae can kill at a distance.
