Say “pseudoscience,” and immediately a bunch of doctrines leap to mind: astrology, phrenology, eugenics, ufology, and so on. Do they have anything in common? Some posit unknown forces of nature, others don’t. Some are advocated by outsiders to the scientific community, while others have been backed by the elite. And the status of each can…
An international team of physicists has pushed the boundaries on ultra-precise measurement by harnessing quantum light waves in a new way. It is one thing to be able to measure spectacularly small distances using “squeezed” light, but it is now possible to do this even while the target is moving around. An Australian-Japanese research collaboration…
The melting pot of early human history has just been given a good stir. The largest study of genetic variance across present-day populations in southern Africa suggests that there is no single place in Africa from which all modern humans emerged. Instead, our species is the result of mixing between numerous early human populations across…
From time to time, the sun projects billion-ton clouds of charged particles from its scorching surface, surrounded by a solar atmosphere scientists dub corona, into space. Sometimes, these blasts hit the Earth’s magnetic field with a high potential for wrecking havoc to satellites and communications, and in extreme cases massive electrical power surges. It’s become…
Human brains follow the same basic molecular pattern despite different individual personalities, a 3D map of where our genes are expressed suggests. The map draws on more than 100 million gene expression measurements found in three human brains cut into 900 pieces. Researchers from the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle and Edinburgh University…
A fossilized forest that flourished more than 2.5 million years ago could return to life thanks to a warming planet, scientists say. The paleo-scene won’t sprout up overnight, of course, said Alexandre Guertin-Pasquier of the University of Montreal, who will present his research at the Canadian Paleontology Conference in Toronto. Rather, he said, climate forecasts…
Homo sapiens appeared 180,000 years ago, but for the next hundred thousand years stuck to a comparatively small area centered around a number of central African lakes. After this time, though, the species moved out from central Africa and across the continent in what has been called the great expansion – ultimately ending up in…
A team of researchers at Michigan State University has documented the step-by-step process in which organisms evolve new functions. The results, published in the journal Nature, are revealed through an in-depth, genomics-based analysis that decodes how E. coli bacteria figured out how to supplement a traditional diet of glucose with an extra course of citrate.
Scientists are one step closer to understanding how to erase painful fear memories by successfully erasing them in a small group of people, according to a study published in the journal Science. The intervention requires no drug, acting through behavioral intervention alone. The new report follows a series of studies in which researchers have made…
Bumblebees will buzz around flowers throughout the day in a seemingly random manner. But a recent study, published in PLOS Biology, has discovered that in fact bees are constantly working out the quickest route to collect the most amount of food. Despite having brains the “size of grass seeds”, bumblebees are able to calculate the…