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Thursday, October 16, 2014

ScienceDaily: Top Science News

ScienceDaily: Top Science News


Informative visit to the toilet, for lemurs

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 06:08 PM PDT

Emily loves Justin, Stop global warming, Two more weeks till I graduate! The exchange of information in public toilets is widespread. It also occurs in the world of white-footed sportive lemurs. Only instead of writing on the walls, they use scent-marks in order to communicate with their own kind. Biologists have found that, in particular, the urine left on latrine trees serves as a method to maintain contact to family members. It also serves as a means to inform an intruder that there is a male that will defend his partner. Latrines serve as information exchange centers and promote social bonding in territorial nocturnal animals that do not live in closely-knit groups.

Getting to know super-Earths: Using Hubble to study mysterious exoplanet

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 12:25 PM PDT

Results from NASA's Kepler mission have indicated that the most common planets in the galaxy are super-Earths -- those that are bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. We have no examples of these planets in our own solar system, so astronomers are using space telescopes to try to find out more about these worlds. Most recently they used Hubble to study the planet HD 97658b, in the constellation Leo.

Milky Way ransacks nearby dwarf galaxies

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 12:25 PM PDT

Astronomers have discovered that our nearest galactic neighbors, the dwarf spheroidal galaxies, are devoid of star-forming gas, and that our Milky Way Galaxy is to blame.

These roos were 'made' for walking, study suggests of extinct enigmas

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 11:31 AM PDT

Based on a rigorous comparative analysis of kangaroo anatomy, researchers posit that the ancient family of sthenurine kangaroos that lived until 30,000 years ago likely preferred walking to hopping.

Potential Kuiper belt targets for new horizons Pluto mission

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 11:28 AM PDT

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered three Kuiper Belt objects that the agency's New Horizons spacecraft could potentially visit after it flies by Pluto in July 2015.

Boosting heart's natural ability to recover after heart attack

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 11:28 AM PDT

Researchers have discovered that fibroblasts, which normally give rise to scar tissue after a heart attack, can be turned into endothelial cells, which generate blood vessels to supply oxygen and nutrients to the injured regions of the heart, greatly reducing the damage done following heart attack.

Researchers develop world's thinnest electric generator

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 11:28 AM PDT

Researchers have made the first experimental observation of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide, resulting in a unique electric generator and mechanosensation devices that are optically transparent, extremely light, and very bendable and stretchable.

Study questions 21-day quarantine period for Ebola

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 08:23 AM PDT

One of the tenets for minimizing the risk of spreading Ebola Virus has been a 21-day quarantine period for individuals who might have been exposed to the virus. But a new study suggests that 21 days might not be enough to completely prevent spread of the virus. Experts say there could be up to a 12 percent chance that someone could be infected even after the 21-day quarantine.

Prehistoric crocodiles' evolution mirrored in living species

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 07:17 AM PDT

Crocodiles which roamed the world's seas millions of years ago developed in similar ways to their modern-day relatives, a study has shown. Fresh research into a group of prehistoric marine crocs known as Machimosaurus reveals key details of how and where they lived.

Chimpanzees have favorite 'tool set' for hunting staple food of army ants

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 07:17 AM PDT

New research shows that chimpanzees search for the right tools from a key plant species when preparing to 'ant dip' -- a crafty technique enabling them to feast on army ants without getting bitten. The study shows that army ants are not a poor substitute for preferred foods, but a staple part of chimpanzee diets.

Ancient fossils of bizarre figure-eight water creatures confirmed among our strangest distant cousins

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 07:13 AM PDT

More than 100 years since they were first discovered, some of the world's most bizarre fossils have been identified as close relatives of vertebrates. The fossils belong to 500-million-year-old blind water creatures, known as "vetulicolians". Alien-like in appearance, these marine creatures were "filter-feeders" shaped like a figure eight. In a new paper, researchers argue for a change in the way these creatures are viewed, placing them with the same group that includes vertebrate animals, such as humans.

Construction secrets of a galactic metropolis: APEX reveals hidden star formation in protocluster

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 06:22 AM PDT

Astronomers have used the APEX telescope to probe a huge galaxy cluster that is forming in the early Universe and revealed that much of the star formation taking place is not only hidden by dust, but also occurring in unexpected places. This is the first time that a full census of the star formation in such an object has been possible.

Effects of high-risk Parkinson's mutation are reversible, study in animal model suggests

Posted: 15 Oct 2014 06:04 AM PDT

Researchers have found vital new evidence on how to target and reverse the effects caused by one of the most common genetic causes of Parkinson's.

Hydraulic fracturing linked to earthquakes in Ohio

Posted: 14 Oct 2014 06:17 PM PDT

Hydraulic fracturing triggered a series of small earthquakes in 2013 on a previously unmapped fault in Harrison County, Ohio, according to a new study.

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