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Magazine
In the March 30 SN: Inside the saber-toothed lifestyle, CBD craze vs. science, a second HIV remission, singing mice, galactic patterns hint at relic neutrinos, DNA gets around and more.
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News in Brief
Peruvian fossils yield a four-legged otterlike whale with hooves
04/05/2019 - 15:22 Paleontology, EvolutionAn ancient four-legged whale walked across land on hooved toes and swam in the sea like an otter.
The newly discovered species turned up in 2011 in a cache of fossilized bones in Playa Media Luna, a dry coastal area of Peru. Jawbones and teeth pegged it as an ancient cetacean, a member of the whale family. And more bones followed.
“We were definitely surprised to find this type of...
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News in Brief
Hayabusa2 has blasted the surface of asteroid Ryugu to make a crater
04/05/2019 - 13:44 Planetary ScienceHayabusa2 has blasted the asteroid Ryugu with a projectile, probably adding a crater to the small world’s surface and stirring up dust that scientists hope to snag.
The projectile, a two-kilogram copper cylinder, separated from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft at 9:56 p.m. EDT on April 4, JAXA, Japan’s space agency, reports.
Hayabusa2 flew to the other side of the asteroid to hide from...
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News in Brief
Testing mosquito pee could help track the spread of diseases
04/05/2019 - 08:00 Health, Genetics, AnimalsThere are no teensy cups. But a urine test for wild mosquitoes has for the first time proved it can give an early warning that local pests are spreading diseases.
Mosquito traps remodeled with a pee-collecting card picked up telltale genetic traces of West Nile and two other worrisome viruses circulating in the wild, researchers in Australia report April 4 in the Journal of Medical...
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50 years ago, scientists were unlocking the secrets of bacteria-infecting viruses
Unusual virus is valuable tool —04/05/2019 - 06:00 MicrobiologyViruses, which cannot reproduce on their own, infect cells and usurp their genetic machinery for use in making new viruses.... But just how viruses use the cell machinery is unknown.… Some answers may come from work with an unusual virus, called M13, that has a particularly compatible relationship with ... [E. coli] bacteria. — Science News, April 5...
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News
How emus and ostriches lost the ability to fly
04/04/2019 - 14:05 Evolution, Genetics, Molecular EvolutionEvolutionary tweaks to DNA that bosses genes around may have grounded some birds.
New genetic analyses show that mutations in regulatory DNA caused ratite birds to lose the ability to fly up to five separate times over their evolution, researchers report in the April 5 Science. Ratites include emus, ostriches, kiwis, rheas, cassowaries, tinamous and extinct moa and elephant birds. Only...
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News
This planetary remnant somehow survived the death of its sun
04/04/2019 - 14:00 Exoplanets, Planetary Science, AstronomyAgainst all odds, a small planetary body called a planetesimal has survived the infernal death of its sunlike star and now orbits the white dwarf that remains.
When most planet-hosting stars run out of hydrogen fuel, they blow out their outer shells of gas, obliterating anything within their inner solar systems and leaving behind a dead star called a white dwarf. Planets orbiting farther...
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News in Brief
Cats recognize their own names
04/04/2019 - 09:00 AnimalsWhether practical, dramatical or pragmatical, domestic cats appear to recognize the familiar sound of their own names and can distinguish them from other words, researchers report April 4 in Scientific Reports.
While dog responses to human behavior and speech have received much attention (SN: 10/1/16, p. 11), researchers are just scratching the surface of human-cat interactions. Research...
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News
A major crop pest can make tomato plants lie to their neighbors
04/04/2019 - 06:00 Plants, Animals, AgricultureDon’t blame the tomato. Tiny pests called silverleaf whiteflies can make a tomato plant spread deceptive scents that leave its neighbors vulnerable to attach.
Sap-sucking Bemisia tabaci, an invasive menace to a wide range of crops, are definitely insects. Yet when they attack a tomato plant, prompting a silent shriek of scents, the plant starts smelling as if bacteria or fungi have...
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News
Metal asteroids may have once had iron-spewing volcanoes
04/03/2019 - 13:23 Planetary ScienceImagine a metal asteroid spewing molten iron, and you’ve got the gist of ferrovolcanism — a new type of planetary activity proposed recently by two research teams.
When NASA launches a probe to a metal asteroid called Psyche in 2022, planetary scientists will be able to search for signs of such volcanic activity in the object’s past. The new research “is the first time anyone has worked...
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Context
This Greek philosopher had the right idea, just too few elements
04/03/2019 - 12:00 History of ScienceLong before there was a periodic table of the elements, there was no need for a table — just four chairs.
From ancient through medieval into early modern times, natural philosophers could count the known elements with the fingers of only one hand (with no need for the thumb). All material reality, nearly every authority concurred, was built from only four elements. And those four...