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Dinosaurs ended -- and originated -- with a bang!

Dinosaurs ended — and originated — with a bang!

It is commonly understood that the dinosaurs disappeared with a bang – wiped out by a great meteorite impact on the Earth 66 million years ago.

But their origins have been less understood. In a new study, scientists from MUSE – Museum of Science, Trento, Italy, Universities of Ferrara and Padova, Italy and the University of Bristol show that the key expansion of dinosaurs was also triggered by a…

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Moss capable of removing arsenic from drinking water discovered

Moss capable of removing arsenic from drinking water discovered

A moss capable of removing arsenic from contaminated water has been discovered by researchers from Stockholm University. And it happens quickly – in just one hour, the arsenic level is so low that the water is no longer harmful for people to drink. The study has been published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

The aquatic moss Warnstofia fluitans, which grows in northern Sweden, has the…

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University of Waterloo develops new way to fight HIV transmission

University of Waterloo develops new way to fight HIV transmission

Scientists at the University of Waterloo have developed a new tool to protect women from HIV infection.

The tool, a vaginal implant, decreases the number of cells that the HIV virus can target in a woman’s genital tract. Unlike conventional methods of HIV prevention, such as condoms or anti-HIV drugs, the implant takes advantage of some people’s natural immunity to the virus.

HIV infects the body…

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Mississippi River diversions will produce new land, but more slowly than shoreline is lost

Mississippi River diversions will produce new land, but more slowly than shoreline is lost

The best solution to sustaining portions of the Mississippi Delta may be river diversions that bring sediment to shrinking coastlines. However, a new study concludes that the rate of land-building will likely be dwarfed by the rate of wetland loss.

“Scientists studied how fast the Mississippi River Delta grew each year before people inhabited the area and began changing the environment,” said…

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Newly identified bacteria may help bees nourish their young

Newly identified bacteria may help bees nourish their young

A team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside have isolated three previously unknown bacterial species from wild bees and flowers. The bacteria, which belong to the genus Lactobacillus, may play a role in preserving the nectar and pollen that female bees store in their nests as food for their larvae.

The results were published Thursday in the International Journal of Systematic…

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Quantum physicists achieve entanglement record

Quantum physicists achieve entanglement record

Some of the new quantum technologies ranging from extremely precise sensors to universal quantum computers require a large number of quantum bits in order to exploit the advantages of quantum physics. Physicists all over the world are therefore working on implementing entangled systems with more and more quantum bits. The record is currently held by Rainer Blatt’s research group at the Institute…

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'Scaffolding' method allows biochemists to see proteins in remarkable detail

‘Scaffolding’ method allows biochemists to see proteins in remarkable detail

UCLA biochemists have achieved a first in biology: viewing at near-atomic detail the smallest protein ever seen by the technique whose development won its creators the 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry. That technique, called cryo-electron microscopy, enables scientists to see large biomolecules, such as viruses, in extraordinary detail.

Until now, this method has not worked with the thousands of…

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Brief exposure to tiny air pollution particles triggers childhood lung infections

Brief exposure to tiny air pollution particles triggers childhood lung infections

Even the briefest increase in airborne fine particulate matter PM2.5, pollution-causing particles that are about 3 percent of the diameter of human hair, is associated with the development of acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) in young children, according to newly published research.

Increases in PM2.5 levels also led to increased doctor visits for these lung infections.

The…

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How highly contagious norovirus infection gets its start

How highly contagious norovirus infection gets its start

Credit: CDC

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Norovirus — the highly contagious gastrointestinal illness best known for spreading rapidly on cruise chips, in nursing homes, schools and other densely populated spaces — kills an estimated 200,000 people annually, mostly in the developing world. There’s no treatment or vaccine to prevent the illness, and scientists have understood little about how the…

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Mountain erosion may add CO2 to the atmosphere

Mountain erosion may add CO2 to the atmosphere

Scientists have long known that steep mountain ranges can draw carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere–as erosion exposes new rock, it also starts a chemical reaction between minerals on hill slopes and CO2 in the air, “weathering” the rock and using CO2 to produce carbonate minerals like calcite.

A new study led by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), however,…

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Improving Memory with Magnets

Improving Memory with Magnets

The ability to remember sounds, and manipulate them in our minds, is incredibly important to our daily lives — without it we would not be able to understand a sentence, or do simple arithmetic. New research is shedding light on how sound memory works in the brain, and is even demonstrating a means to improve it.

Scientists previously knew that a neural network of the brain called the dorsal…

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How Reliable are Traditional Wildlife Surveys?

How Reliable are Traditional Wildlife Surveys?

To effectively manage a wildlife species, one of the most basic things you need to know is how many of them are out there. However, it’s almost never feasible to count every single individual — so how do the results of wildlife surveys compare to true population size? A new study in The Condor: Ornithological Applicationstests this using the results of more than thirty years of surveys of the…

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Mars Volcano, Earth's Dinosaurs Went Extinct About the Same Time

Mars Volcano, Earth’s Dinosaurs Went Extinct About the Same Time

New NASA research reveals that the giant Martian shield volcano Arsia Mons produced one new lava flow at its summit every 1 to 3 million years during the final peak of activity. The last volcanic activity there ceased about 50 million years ago–around the time of Earth’s Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, when large numbers of our planet’s plant and animal species (including dinosaurs) went extinct.

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Kea Parrot: 'Laughter' Is Contagious

Kea Parrot: ‘Laughter’ Is Contagious

When people are feeling playful, they giggle and laugh, making others around them want to laugh and play too. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on March 20 have found that the particularly playful kea parrot from New Zealand has a “play call” with a similarly powerful influence. When other kea hear that call, it puts them into a playful mood.

The findings make kea the first known…

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How Sperm Swim Revealed in Mathematical Formula

How Sperm Swim Revealed in Mathematical Formula

Researchers have developed a mathematical formula based on the rhythmic movement of a sperm’s head and tail, which significantly reduces the complexities of understanding and predicting how sperm make the difficult journey towards fertilizing an egg.

Researchers at the Universities of York, Birmingham, Oxford and Kyoto University, Japan, found that the sperm’s tail creates a characteristic…

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Is Spring Getting Longer?

Is Spring Getting Longer?

With the first day of spring around the corner, temperatures are beginning to rise, ice is melting, and the world around us is starting to blossom. Scientists sometimes refer to this transition from winter to the growing season as the “vernal window,” and a new study led by the University of New Hampshire shows this window may be opening earlier and possibly for longer.

“Historically, the…

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How poaching is changing the face of African elephants

How poaching is changing the face of African elephants

Elephants and their ancestors have roamed the African continent for millions of years. They are the largest land animals on earth and can live up to 70 years. Elephants are profoundly intelligent and social creatures. They have trunks that serves as their nose, arm, and fingers. But elephant populations have taken a massive hit to their populations. Despite an international ban on the ivory trade…

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