Claire Eamer, Hakai
About 24,000 years ago, when much of North America was buried under the ice of the Last Glacial Maximum, a few hunters took shelter in a small cave above the Bluefish River in what is now northwestern Yukon. The hunters had killed a Yukon horse and were butchering it using super-sharp stone shards called microblades. As they sliced out the horse's meaty tongue, the microblades left distinctive cuts in its jaw bone.
Jennifer Viegas, Seeker
Megalodon, the largest known shark that ever lived, had a taste for small whales and it went extinct when populations of their favorite prey collapsed as the Pliocene Epoch (5.32.58 million years ago) drew to a close, new evidence indicates.
Beth Mole, Ars Technica
In a new 400-page analysis that blows through the current state of scientific knowledge on the health risks and benefits of marijuana, one of the strongest conclusions is that it can effectively treat chronic pain in some patients.The sweeping report, released Thursday by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, covered more than 10,000 scientific studies and came to nearly 100 other conclusions.
Bob Yirka, PhysOrg.com
(Phys.org)Space researchers James Vesper and Paul Mason with New Mexico State University have given a presentation at this year's American Astronomical Science meeting outlining the results of simulations they have been running to learn more about Planet Ninea planet that many in the space science community believe exists far beyond Pluto. They presented evidence suggesting that if Planet Nine is out there, it is likely a rogue.
Sara Reardon, Nature News
Could US president-elect Donald Trump be close to choosing a leader for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)?Current NIH chief Francis Collins and Representative Andy Harris (Republican, Maryland), both front-runners for job, met separately with Trump on 11 January, as did billionaire surgeon Patrick Soon-Shiong on 10 January. Several people familiar with the Collins and Harris meetings described them as job interviews.
Catarina Dutilh Novaes, Aeon Magazine
The history of logic should be of interest to anyone with aspirations to thinking that is correct, or at least reasonable. This story illustrates different approaches to intellectual enquiry and human cognition more generally. Reflecting on the history of logic forces us to reflect on what it means to be a reasonable cognitive agent, to think properly. Is it to engage in discussions with others? Is it to think for ourselves? Is it to perform calculations?
Ethan Siegel, SWaB!
Once we discovered that the Universe was expanding, the next scientific step was to determine what the rate of expansion was. Despite the fact that it's been more than 80 years, we still don't have agreement on how fast that rate actually is. By looking at the largest cosmic scales and the oldest signals -- the leftover radiation from the Big Bang and the largest-scale galaxy correlations -- we get one number for the rate: 67 km/s/Mpc. But if we look at individual stars... Читать дальше...
The Economist
THE winds of the Oklahoma panhandle have a bad reputation. In the 1930s they whipped its over-tilled topsoil up into the billowing black blizzards of the Dust Bowl. The winds drove people, Steinbeck's dispossessed, away from their livelihoods and west, to California.Today, the panhandle's steady winds are a force for creation, not destruction. Wind turbines can generate electricity from them at rock-bottom prices. Unfortunately, the local electrical grid does not serve enough people to match this potential supply. Читать дальше...
Beth Mole, Ars Technica
Pharmaceutical giant CVS announced Thursday that it has partnered with Impax Laboratories to sell a generic epinephrine auto-injector for $109.99 for a two-packa dramatic cut from Mylan's Epipen two-pack prices, which list for more than $600 as a brand name and $300 as a generic.The lower-cost auto-injector, a generic form of Adrenaclick, is available starting today nationwide in the company's more than 9,600 pharmacies. Its price resembles that of EpiPen's before... Читать дальше...
Samantha Mathewson, Space.com
A crew of six scientists and engineers is geared up and ready for an eight-month mock mission to study how humans living in Mars-like conditions behave and interact.This will be the fifth mock Mars mission for the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS), which is funded by NASA. HI-SEAS' goal is to simulate what life might be like for astronauts on long-duration space-exploration missions, such as the journey to Mars, by putting groups of volunteers... Читать дальше...
Nola Taylor Redd, Astronomy
Volcanoes may not just exist on moons and planets. A comet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter seems to have its own signs of icy volcanism, spewing frozen material instead of hot lava. Rather than a single stagnant mound, however, the eruptions come from a single location multiple times before eventually traveling to another point in the icy crust.The slow rotation of the comet allows the crust to weaken over the course of its day, while carbon monoxide piles up on the surface again during the night. Читать дальше...
Daily Galaxy
Twenty years ago, this would have been heretical; finding evidence of life 3.8 billion years ago was shocking, said Mark Harrison, co-author of the research and a professor of geochemistry at UCLA. Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously, added co-author Harrison, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly.The research suggests life in the universe could be abundant, Harrison said. On Earth, simple life appears to have formed quickly... Читать дальше...
Joshua Sokol, SM
Here's a thought experiment that has unsettled astrophysicists: Start the clock at the beginning of time. Form a black hole in the usual way, through the collapse of a massive star. To make it grow, force-feed it with gas, which will resist being devoured by heating up and dispersing as it nears the black hole's maw. Try to grow a black hole fast enough to explain the ones that existed in the real universe when it was just a billion years old: monsters a billion times the mass... Читать дальше...
Amy Middleton, CM
Think bacteria aren't sophisticated? Think again. New research shows these microorganisms can send messages to potential new recruits in an effort to strengthen their communities known as biofilms.These signals from within the biofilm can influence the behaviour of nearby bacteria even those of different species recruiting them to come and join the ranks.We've discovered that bacterial biofilm communities can actively modulate the motile behaviour of diverse bacterial species through electrical signals... Читать дальше...
Alison Abbott, Nature News
Bats have brain cells that keep track of their angle and distance to a target, researchers have discovered. The neurons, called vector cells', are a key piece of the mammalian's brain complex navigation system and something that neuroscientists have been seeking for years.Our brain's navigation system has many types of cells, but a lot of them seem designed to keep track of where we are. Researchers know of place' cells, for example, which fire when animals are in a particular location... Читать дальше...
Peter Gwynne, Inside Science
(Inside Science) -- Early in the 1960s, a group of enthusiasts advanced the concept of freezing humans as soon as they die, in hopes of reviving them after the arrival of medical advances able to cure the conditions that killed them. The idea went into practice for the first time 50 years ago.On Jan. 12, 1967, James Bedford, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, became the first person to be
