ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Stronger winds may explain puzzling growth of sea ice in Antarctica, model shows
• Human activity affects vertical structure of atmospheric temperature
• How birds got their wings: Fossil data show scaling of limbs altered as birds originated from dinosaurs
• Video games improve your motion perception, but only when walking backwards
• Who was eating salmon 45,000 years ago in the Caucasus? Neandertals probably not as rigid in their diet as thought
• Biologists develop new method for discovering antibiotics

Stronger winds may explain puzzling growth of sea ice in Antarctica, model shows Posted: 17 Sep 2013 09:19 PM PDT Much attention is paid to melting sea ice in the Arctic. But less clear is the situation on the other side of the planet. Despite warmer air and oceans, there's more sea ice in Antarctica now than in the 1970s -- a fact often pounced on by global warming skeptics. The latest numbers suggest the Antarctic sea ice may be heading toward a record high this year. The reason may lie in the winds. A new modeling study shows that stronger polar winds lead to an increase in Antarctic sea ice, even in a warming climate.

Human activity affects vertical structure of atmospheric temperature Posted: 17 Sep 2013 10:23 AM PDT Human influences have directly impacted the latitude/altitude pattern of atmospheric temperature. That is the conclusion of a new report. The research compares multiple satellite records of atmospheric temperature change with results from a large, multi-model archive of simulations.

How birds got their wings: Fossil data show scaling of limbs altered as birds originated from dinosaurs Posted: 17 Sep 2013 09:36 AM PDT Birds originated from a group of small, meat-eating theropod dinosaurs called maniraptorans sometime around 150 million years ago. Recent findings from around the world show that many maniraptorans were very bird-like, with feathers, hollow bones, small body sizes and high metabolic rates. But the question remains, at what point did forelimbs evolve into wings -- making it possible to fly?

Video games improve your motion perception, but only when walking backwards Posted: 17 Sep 2013 06:01 AM PDT Psychologists examined whether action video game players had superior motion perception. They discovered that playing first-person action games can enhance your perception of movement – but only when you're walking backwards.

Who was eating salmon 45,000 years ago in the Caucasus? Neandertals probably not as rigid in their diet as thought Posted: 17 Sep 2013 06:01 AM PDT Why did anatomically modern humans replace Neandertals in Europe around 40,000 years ago? One hypothesis suggests that Neandertals were rigid in their dietary choice, targeting large herbivorous mammals, such as horse, bison and mammoths, while modern humans also exploited a wider diversity of dietary resources, including fish. This dietary flexibility of modern humans would have been a big advantage when competing with Neandertals and led to their final success. But new research does not support this hypothesis.

Biologists develop new method for discovering antibiotics Posted: 16 Sep 2013 01:20 PM PDT Biologists have developed a revolutionary new method for identifying and characterizing antibiotics, an advance that could lead to the discovery of new antibiotics to treat antibiotic resistant bacteria.

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