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As an animal develops from an embryo, its cells take diverse paths, eventually forming different body parts — muscles, bones, heart. In order for each cell to know what to do during development, it follows a genetic blueprint, which consists of complex webs of interacting genes called gene regulatory networks. Biologists at the California Institute…
A Christian geneticist has posted an online rebuttal to Bill Nye the Science Guy, who says in a web video that America is being held back by parents who teach their children to disbelieve in evolution. On the Big Think website, Nye says adults can deny evolution, but he pleads, “Don’t make your kids do…
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has led to a bonanza of newfound supermassive black holes and extreme galaxies. Images from the telescope have revealed millions of dusty black hole candidates across the universe and about 1,000 even dustier objects thought to be among the brightest galaxies ever found. These powerful galaxies that burn…
To those who enjoy the pleasures of the dining table, the news may come as a relief: drastically cutting back on calories does not seem to lengthen lifespan in primates. The verdict, from a 25-year study in rhesus monkeys fed 30% less than control animals, represents another setback for the notion that a simple, diet-triggered…
Large volumes of the greenhouse gas methane could have been produced under the Antarctic Ice Sheet over millions of years, which could add to global warming if released into the atmosphere by a thaw, a study said. Scientists from the universities of Bristol, Utrecht, California and Alberta simulated the accumulation of methane in Antarctic sedimentary…
Fossil evidence suggests a feathered but flightless dinosaur was able to snag and consume smaller flying dinosaurs, Canadian paleontologists say. A University of Alberta paleontology team has found the fossilized remains of three flying dinosaurs in the belly of a raptor-like predator called Sinocalliopteryx. Sinocalliopteryx was about 6 feet long and roughly the size of…
Scientists have produced a digital image of a genome tens of thousands of years old with the resolution of a typical living person’s, enabling them to describe the life and history of the ancient humans in great detail, they reported in Science magazine. Led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,…
Two Stone Age statuettes, one depicting a ram and the other a wild bovine, have emerged from the highway connecting Jerusalem with Tel Aviv. Found at Tel Moza, a couple miles north of Jerusalem, during a dig ahead of the widening of Highway 1, the 5.9-inch-long figurines are estimated to date between 9,000 and 9,500…
A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has spotted sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young Sun-like star. This is the first time sugar been found in space around such a star, and the discovery shows that the building blocks of life are in the right place, at the right…
Scientists first detected ripples in the fabric of space-time by using radio signals, but now a team of astronomers has detected the same effect at optical wavelengths.