ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• As chimpanzees grow, so does yawn contagion
• For celebrated frog hops, scientists look to Calaveras pros
• Chimpanzees: Alarm calls with intent?
• Without plants, Earth would cook under billions of tons of additional carbon
• Babies know when you're faking, psychology researchers show
• Curiosity confirms origins of Martian meteorites
• New survey tools unveil two celestial explosions
• Extinct 'mega claw' creature had spider-like brain
• Sinking teeth into the evolutionary origin of our skeleton
• New light on star death: Super-luminous supernovae may be powered by magnetars
• Genetic errors identified in 12 major cancer types
• Wari, predecessors of the Inca, used restraint to reshape human landscape
• Schizophrenia linked to abnormal brain waves: Neurological hyperactivity produces disordered thinking
• Carbon cycle models underestimate indirect role of animals
• Glowing neurons reveal networked link between brain, whiskers
• Software uses cyborg swarm to map unknown environs
• Cuckoos impersonate hawks by matching their 'outfits'
• Brain connections underlying accurate introspection revealed
• ALMA probes mysteries of jets from giant black holes
• How the largest star known is tearing itself apart
• I'm singing in the rainforest: Researchers find striking similarities between bird song and human music

As chimpanzees grow, so does yawn contagion Posted: 16 Oct 2013 06:32 PM PDT As sanctuary-kept chimpanzees grow from infant to juvenile, they develop increased susceptibility to human yawn contagion, possibility due to their increasing ability to empathize.

For celebrated frog hops, scientists look to Calaveras pros Posted: 16 Oct 2013 06:30 PM PDT The Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee has entered the scientific record via a new article. Experienced bullfrog "jockeys" at the event routinely get their frogs to jump much farther than researchers had ever measured in the lab. How? Decades of refined technique, uncommonly motivated humans and herps, and good old-fashioned large sample size.

Chimpanzees: Alarm calls with intent? Posted: 16 Oct 2013 06:26 PM PDT Major research led by University of York scientists has discovered remarkable similarities between the production of vocalisations of wild chimpanzees and human language.

Without plants, Earth would cook under billions of tons of additional carbon Posted: 16 Oct 2013 11:56 AM PDT Researchers found that Earth's terrestrial ecosystems have absorbed 186 billion to 192 billion tons of carbon since the mid-20th century, which has significantly contained the global temperature and levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

Babies know when you're faking, psychology researchers show Posted: 16 Oct 2013 11:56 AM PDT Psychology researchers demonstrate that infants can detect whether a person's emotions are justifiable given a particular context.

Curiosity confirms origins of Martian meteorites Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:40 AM PDT Earth's most eminent emissary to Mars has just proven that those rare Martian visitors that sometimes drop in on Earth -- a.k.a. Martian meteorites -- really are from the Red Planet. A key new measurement of Mars' atmosphere by NASA's Curiosity rover provides the most definitive evidence yet of the origins of Mars meteorites while at the same time providing a way to rule out Martian origins of other meteorites.

New survey tools unveil two celestial explosions Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:22 AM PDT A team of researchers used a novel astronomical survey software system -- the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) -- to link a new stripped-envelope supernova, named iPTF13bvn, to the star from which it exploded. The iPTF team also pinpointed the first afterglow of an explosion called a gamma-ray burst that was found by the Fermi satellite.

Extinct 'mega claw' creature had spider-like brain Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:22 AM PDT Scientists have discovered the earliest known complete nervous system exquisitely preserved in the fossilized remains of a never-before described creature that crawled or swam in the ocean 520 million years ago. The find solves a long-standing debate as to when the ancestors of chelicerates -- spiders and their kin -- made their first appearance and provides evidence that their biting mouthparts evolved from the claw-like appendages of a long-extinct group known as megacheirans.

Sinking teeth into the evolutionary origin of our skeleton Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:22 AM PDT Did our skeletons evolve for protection or for violence? The earliest vestiges of our skeleton are encountered in 500-million-year-old fossil fishes, some of which were armor-plated filter feeders, while others were naked predators with a face full of gruesome, vicious teeth.

New light on star death: Super-luminous supernovae may be powered by magnetars Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:21 AM PDT Astronomers have shed new light on the rarest and brightest exploding stars ever discovered in the universe. Their research proposes that the brightest exploding stars, called super-luminous supernovae, are powered by magnetars -- small and incredibly dense neutron stars, with gigantic magnetic fields, that spin hundreds of times a second.

Genetic errors identified in 12 major cancer types Posted: 16 Oct 2013 10:21 AM PDT Examining 12 major types of cancer, scientists have identified 127 repeatedly mutated genes that appear to drive the development and progression of a range of tumors in the body. The discovery sets the stage for devising new diagnostic tools and more personalized cancer treatments.

Wari, predecessors of the Inca, used restraint to reshape human landscape Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:30 AM PDT The Wari, a complex civilization that preceded the Inca empire in pre-Columbia America, didn't rule solely by pillage, plunder and iron-fisted bureaucracy, a new study finds. Instead, they started out by creating loosely administered colonies to expand trade, provide land for settlers and tap natural resources across much of the central Andes.

Schizophrenia linked to abnormal brain waves: Neurological hyperactivity produces disordered thinking Posted: 16 Oct 2013 09:30 AM PDT Schizophrenia patients usually suffer from a breakdown of organized thought, often accompanied by delusions or hallucinations. For the first time, neuroscientists have observed the neural activity that appears to produce this disordered thinking.

Carbon cycle models underestimate indirect role of animals Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:28 AM PDT While models typically take into account how plants and microbes affect the carbon cycle, they often underestimate how much animals can indirectly alter the absorption, release, or transport of carbon within an ecosystem.

Glowing neurons reveal networked link between brain, whiskers Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:27 AM PDT New research on mouse whiskers reveals a surprise -- at the fine scale, the sensory system's wiring diagram doesn't have a set pattern. And it's probably the case that no two people's touch sensory systems are wired exactly the same at the detailed level, according to this study.

Software uses cyborg swarm to map unknown environs Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:27 AM PDT Researchers have developed software that allows them to map unknown environments -- such as collapsed buildings -- based on the movement of a swarm of insect cyborgs, or "biobots."

Cuckoos impersonate hawks by matching their 'outfits' Posted: 16 Oct 2013 08:27 AM PDT An evolutionary trick allows cuckoos to 'mimic' the plumage of birds of prey, and may be used to scare mothers from their nests -- allowing cuckoos to lay eggs. Parasitism in cuckoos may be more much more widespread than previously thought.

Brain connections underlying accurate introspection revealed Posted: 16 Oct 2013 07:04 AM PDT The human mind is not only capable of cognition and registering experiences but also of being introspectively aware of these processes. Until now, scientists have not known if such introspection was a single skill or dependent on the object of reflection. Also unclear was whether the brain housed a single system for reflecting on experience or required multiple systems to support different types of introspection.

ALMA probes mysteries of jets from giant black holes Posted: 16 Oct 2013 07:04 AM PDT Astronomers have focused on jets from the huge black holes at the centers of galaxies and observe how they affect their surroundings. They have now obtained the best view yet of the molecular gas around a nearby, quiet black hole and caught an unexpected glimpse of the base of a powerful jet close to a distant black hole.

How the largest star known is tearing itself apart Posted: 16 Oct 2013 07:03 AM PDT Astronomers have observed part of the final death throes of the largest known star in the Universe as it throws off its outer layers. The discovery is a vital step in understanding how massive stars return enriched material to the interstellar medium - the space between stars - which is necessary for forming planetary systems.

I'm singing in the rainforest: Researchers find striking similarities between bird song and human music Posted: 16 Oct 2013 07:03 AM PDT The musician wren is aptly-named, because these birds use the same intervals in their songs that are heard as consonant in many human cultures. This is a what composer and musicologist and a biologist found out in their zoomusicological study. Consonant intervals are perceived to fit well together. They sound calm and stable, and are the basis for keys in Western Music. It is because Musician Wrens preferentially produce successive perfect octaves, fifths, and fourths that their songs sound musical to human listeners.

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