John Long, Conv
Palaeontologists and the famous Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz were once in search of the same thing: a heart. But in our case, it was the search for a fossilised heart. And now we’ve found one.A new discovery, announced today in the journal eLife, shows the perfectly preserved 3D fossilised heart in a 113-119 million-year-old fish from Brazil called Rhacolepis.
Erika Check Hayden, Nature
Scientists who have studied the genomes of hundreds of healthy older people say that one of their secrets might be genetic protection against the loss of mental function. The researchers' study, published on 21 April in Cell1, is the largest ever to sequence the genomes of people who have lived long, disease-free lives.
Maya Wei-Haas, Smithsonian
You can actually hear a tree dying.No, it doesn’t scream in pain as a denim-clad lumberjack joyfully chops its trunk. However, during the increasingly common periods of extreme drought and heat, a tree’s slow desiccation becomes audible through a microphone pressed to its trunk.
Eric Berger, Ars Tech
Over the next couple of decades, NASA wants to extend the human presence into the Solar System, including onto the surface of Mars. Elon Musk founded SpaceX expressly to colonize the Red Planet by the 2020s or 2030s. For now, both the government and private sector have focused on hardware: the rockets, spacecraft, and technology needed to keep humans alive en route to Mars and on its surface. And these are not simple or inexpensive problems to solve.
Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic
Condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of cancer’s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. If it were 50 years old, human beings would know very little about its first 49 years, except that it killed men and women with the ease of a scythe slicing through wheat.
MIT Tech Review
About 10 years ago, a little-known aerospace engineer called Roger Shawyer made an extraordinary claim. Take a truncated cone, he said, bounce microwaves back and forth inside it and the result will be a thrust toward the narrow end of the cone. Voila … a revolutionary thruster capable of sending spacecraft to the planets and beyond. Shawyer called it the EmDrive.About 10 years ago, a little-known aerospace engineer called Roger Shawyer made an extraordinary claim. Take a truncated cone... Читать дальше...
Jessica Firger, Newsweek
Most of the public knows of Botox as a quick fix for wrinkles, and a mainstay moneymaker in the world of cosmetic treatment. But botulinum toxin (BTX)a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinumhas also been used for several decades as an effective therapy for a number of chronic medical problems. In particular, regular injections are often helpful for treating certain central nervous system conditions related to involuntary muscle movement and pain.
Anna Vedel, Scientific American
Have you ever wondered if people in the same academic major are similar somehow? Or likewise, have you ever wondered if people in different majors are different somehow? My guess is that you have. Whether emanating from cheerful conversations with peers, or from Hollywood’s entertaining caricatures, many of us have this sense that there seem to be different “types” in different academic majors. Is there some truth to this? The short answer is yes. Researchers have... Читать дальше...
Eric Niiler, Discovery News
One of the country’s leading commercial forecasters, AccuWeather, said earlier this month that it could predict the weather conditions and temperature three months ahead of time. It’s a bold claim that has been refuted by some meteorologists who say such a 90-day forecast will only be as good as historical averages and not much use to someone planning a hike or outdoor wedding this summer.
V. Bell, Atlantic
There is a brief time, between waking and sleep, when reality begins to warp. Rigid conscious thought starts to dissolve into the gently lapping waves of early stage dreaming and the world becomes a little more hallucinatory, your thoughts a little more untethered. Known as the hypnagogic state, it has received only erratic attention from researchers over the years, but a recent series of studies have renewed interest in this twilight period, with the hope it can reveal something fundamental about consciousness itself.
Jonathan Amos, BBC News
Scientists think they can now tie the disruption that hit Mayan civilisation in the 6th Century to an eruption of the El Chichon volcano.
Tim Lott, Guardian
Darker than grief, an implosion of the self, a sheet of ice: no matter how you describe it, this is a terrifying state to be trapped in.
Elaine Kurtenbach, AP
TOKYO (AP) The latest scientific assessment paints a likely bleak future for the Pacific bluefin tuna, a sushi lovers' favorite whose population has dropped by more than 97 percent from its historic levels.
A. Macfarlane, Quartz
In the wake of terrorist attacks in Brussels, Paris, Istanbul, Ankara, and elsewhere, nations are rethinking many aspects of domestic security.
Anna Salleh, ABC Science
People often find it harder to adapt to new situations as they age and now a new mouse study may have shed light on why.
Julie Kelly & Henry Miller, Forbes
Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, some politicians have a hard time setting priorities.
