Ancient marriage traditions —and politics—revealed in giant family trees built from DNA
The burial jar, found under the floor of a mountaintop citadel called La Almoloya in southeastern Spain, held a puzzle. Almost 1 meter in diameter, the vessel entombed a woman in her late 20s with a shining silver diadem on her forehead. She also had silver earplugs threaded through with silver hoops, an awl covered in silver—and a companion: a middle-age man laid to rest in the same jar with a fraction of her wealth. The pair were likely prominent members of a Bronze Age protostate called El Argar, which dominated much of the Iberian Peninsula from hilltop strongholds for nearly 700 years, beginning around 2200 B.C.E.
...
Source: ScienceNOW - October 5, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Immunity-enhancing cocktail protects mice against multiple hospital germs
Some people in hospital die not from the illness or accident that got them admitted but from germs they catch once there. In the United States alone, there are hundreds of thousands of hospital-acquired infections each year, leading to tens of thousands of deaths. Seeking to lower this toll, researchers have now come up with an
immune-boosting cocktail that increases the survival
of mice exposed to the microbes responsible.
The three-compound formulation, which the researchers unusually refer to as a vaccine, provided up to 28 days of protection from the notorious hospital bacterium
Pseudomonas aerugin...
Source: ScienceNOW - October 4, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
How do cats purr? New finding challenges long-held assumptions
One of the most delightful sounds to a cat lover is their feline friend’s rumbling noise when they get a little scritch behind the ears. Yet how cats produce their contented purrs has long been a mystery.
A new study may finally have the answer. Domestic cats possess “pads” embedded within their vocal cords, which add an extra layer of fatty tissue that allows them to vibrate at low frequencies, scientists report today in
Current Biology
. What’s more, the larynx of these animals
doesn’t appear to need any input from the brain to produce such purring
.
“Purring has historically h...
Source: ScienceNOW - October 3, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
U.S. avoids shutdown, but prospects for boosting science funding remain dim
U.S. scientists
bracing for a government shutdown
that would have furloughed federal researchers and disrupted grantmaking are relieved that Congress averted a closure over the weekend with a temporary spending agreement. But Congress is still a long way from approving 2024 spending bills for research agencies. And scientists are likely to be disappointed with many of the final numbers.
The so-called continuing resolution (CR) passed overwhelmingly on 30 September by both chambers allows agencies to operate until 17 November with spending at current levels. That means science agencies can continue to accept...
Source: ScienceNOW - October 2, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Another retraction looms for embattled physicist behind blockbuster superconductivity claims
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Facing a mutiny by his co-authors, Ranga Dias, the University of Rochester (U of R) physicist embroiled in controversy over his superconductivity research and allegations of scientific misconduct, is set to have a third paper retra...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 27, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Scientists reveal half-billion-year-old ‘last supper’
About 465 million years ago, an armored critter resembling a sea roach died near what is now Prague. The final meal of this animal—a trilobite—still sat in its guts as sediment buried its body in the sea floor of an ancient Paleozoic sea. There, it remained entombed for ages. Now, scientific sleuths have deduced the contents of this meal, providing the first direct evidence of the diet and lifestyle of this primal and iconic group of arthropods.
A private collector first discovered the trilobite fossil more than a century ago—or at least the small sphere of ancient sediment that contained it. Such balls, called...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 27, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Antimatter falls down, just like ordinary matter
Gravity pulls antimatter down just like ordinary matter, a new experiment shows. The finding won’t shock many physicists. But it does put a damper on some offbeat theories that, in order to solve some of cosmology’s biggest mysteries, posit that gravity pushes rather than pulls on antimatter—so that the stuff is subject to “antigravity.”
“I’m not surprised,” says Alan Kostelecky, a theoretical physicist at Indiana University Bloomington. “On the other hand, this is the kind of thing people take for granted, and such things need to checked.” Gabriel Chardin, a cosmologist with CNRS, France’s nati...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 27, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Deadly avian flu reaches Gal ápagos Islands
In a development that has alarmed conservation biologists, the avian flu strain that has devastated birds and marine mammals on five continents has reached Ecuador’s Galápagos National Park, home to species that are found nowhere else.
“It is extremely concerning from a conservation perspective,” says Marcela Uhart, a wildlife veterinarian at the University of California (UC), Davis. “Outbreaks could pose an acute threat to the future of these endemic species.”
So far only a few animals have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, which migratory birds can carry over long distances. But the highly contag...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 25, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Months after hospitalization for COVID-19, MRIs reveal multiorgan damage
This study found abnormal MRI results in 20% to 25% of both controls and hospitalized patients, suggesting
“a lot of these cardiac abnormalities that were seen in the COVID group must have been there beforehand.” Post–COVID-19 patients with lingering cardiac symptoms might have disorders like heartbeat irregularities that aren’t always visible with MRI, or dysfunction in other organs, he adds.
Although it can offer clues to an organ’s health, MRI is an imperfect measure of how a patient is faring after infection. Researchers found no connection between abnormal liver MRIs and symptoms such as gas...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 22, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Americas ’ first cowboys were enslaved Africans, ancient cow DNA suggests
Think “cowboy,” and you might picture John Wayne riding herd across the U.S. West. But the first cowboys lived in Mexico and the Caribbean, and
most of them were Black
.
That’s the conclusion of a recent analysis of DNA from 400-year-old cow bones excavated on the island of Hispaniola and at sites in Mexico. The work, published in
Scientific Reports
, also provides evidence that African cattle made it to the Americas at least a century earlier than historians realized.
The timing of these African imports—to the early 1600s—suggests the growth of cattle herds may have been connecte...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 22, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
No brain, no problem. Jellyfish learn just fine
When it comes to learned behavior, even the simplest minds are capable of advanced thought. The Caribbean box jellyfish (
Tripedalia cystophora
), which doesn’t even have a brain, can alter its behavior based on past experiences, new research reveals. Scientists believe the creature uses this learning ability along with its astoundingly complex visual system to navigate the murky mangrove swamps it calls home.
Scientists have known for some time that animals in the phylum Cnidaria—which includes jellyfish, corals, and sea anemones—are capable of basic forms of learning when repeatedly presented with a...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 22, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
News at a glance: Diphtheria treatment shortage, prisoner release, and iNaturalist ’s growth
CONSERVATION
Popular biodiversity app to expand
The nonprofit that runs iNaturalist, a popular app and website for identifying species, has received a $10 million grant to expand. The funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, announced last week, will allow iNaturalist—whose website is one of the largest generators of crowd-sourced species-occurrence data—to add users, technology, and observations to inform conservation. iNaturalist hopes to grow in nature-rich parts of the world, such as Asia and South America, which have fewer users uploading data. Since iNaturalist’s founding in 20...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 21, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Ancient Amazonians created mysterious ‘dark earth’ on purpose
Mysterious patches of fertile black soil pepper the verdant Amazon rainforest. They sit in stark contrast with the reddish, eroded soil that dominates the basin. Researchers have long thought this Amazonian dark earth—or
terra preta
—was created by pre-Hispanic Indigenous civilizations, which have inhabited the region for millennia, but it wasn’t clear how. Now, a multidisciplinary team of scientists and Indigenous partners suggests the ancient Amazonians intentionally created the rich soil thousands of years ago to better foster their crops, and that their modern-day descendants are still making new
t...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 20, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
How much stuff does it take to not be poor? About 6 tons per year
How much stuff do people need to lead a decent life? It’s a hard, and subjective, question. But researchers have now estimated for the first time what it takes, quantitatively speaking, to
keep one person out of abject poverty
: about 6 tons per year of food, fuel, clothing, and other supplies, researchers report this month in
Environmental Science & Technology
.
The first-of-its-kind estimate is “a remarkable step forward,” says Stefan Bringezu, an expert in sustainable resource management at the University of Kassel who was not involved with the research. “They shed light on the phys...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 20, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Worms with spider genes spin silk tougher than bulletproof Kevlar
Spider silk is stretchy, strong, and tough. But genetically engineering a more cooperative organism to produce it has proved elusive. Now, researchers have used gene editing to make silkworms that can spin spider fibers tougher than the Kevlar used in bulletproof vests.
The material
, described today in
Matter
, is “a really high-performance fiber,” says Justin Jones, a biologist who engineers spider silks at Utah State University but who was not involved with the research. It could be used to make lightweight but tough structural materials for fuel-efficient planes and cars, he says, wound dres...
Source: ScienceNOW - September 20, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
