ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Smarter than a first-grader? Crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-olds on cause-and-effect water displacement tasks
• Dog jealousy: Study suggests primordial origins for the 'green-eyed monster'
• Age of puberty in girls influenced by which parent 'imprinted' genes are inherited from
• Genetics of cancer: Non-coding DNA can finally be decoded
• Strategy proposed for preventing diseases of aging
• Voyager spacecraft might not have reached interstellar space
• New approach in search for extraterrestrial intelligence: Target alien polluters
• Bats use polarized light to navigate: First mammal known to use polarization patterns in the sky to navigate
• Boosting the force of empty space: Theorists propose way to amplify force of vacuum fluctuations
• Sea level rising in western tropical Pacific anthropogenic as result of human activity, study concludes
• Viral relics show cancer's 'footprint' on our evolution
• Do women perceive other women in red as more sexually receptive?

Smarter than a first-grader? Crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-olds on cause-and-effect water displacement tasks Posted: 23 Jul 2014 03:08 PM PDT In Aesop's fable about the crow and the pitcher, a thirsty bird happens upon a vessel of water, but when he tries to drink from it, he finds the water level out of his reach. Not strong enough to knock over the pitcher, the bird drops pebbles into it -- one at a time -- until the water level rises enough for him to drink his fill. New research demonstrates the birds' intellectual prowess may be more fact than fiction.

Dog jealousy: Study suggests primordial origins for the 'green-eyed monster' Posted: 23 Jul 2014 11:17 AM PDT Dogs exhibit jealous behaviors. The first experimental test of jealousy in dogs supports the view that there may be a more basic form of jealousy, which evolved to protect social bonds from interlopers.

Age of puberty in girls influenced by which parent 'imprinted' genes are inherited from Posted: 23 Jul 2014 10:14 AM PDT The age at which girls reach sexual maturity is influenced by 'imprinted' genes, a small sub-set of genes whose activity differs depending on which parent passes on that gene, according to new research.

Genetics of cancer: Non-coding DNA can finally be decoded Posted: 23 Jul 2014 10:14 AM PDT Cancer is a disease of the genome resulting from a combination of genetic modifications, or mutations. We inherit from our parents strong or weak predispositions to developing certain kinds of cancer; in addition, we also accumulate new mutations in our cells throughout our lifetime. Although the genetic origins of cancers have been studied for a long time, researchers were not able to measure the role of non-coding regions of the genome until now.

Strategy proposed for preventing diseases of aging Posted: 23 Jul 2014 10:12 AM PDT Researchers argue that medicine focuses too much on fighting diseases individually instead of concentrating on interventions that prevent multiple chronic diseases and extend healthy lifespan. They call for moving forward with strategies that have been shown to delay aging in animals. In addition to promoting a healthy diet and regular exercise, these strategies include manipulating molecular pathways that slow aging and promote healthy longevity.

Voyager spacecraft might not have reached interstellar space Posted: 23 Jul 2014 08:41 AM PDT In 2012, the Voyager mission team announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft had passed into interstellar space, traveling further from Earth than any other humanmade object. But, in the nearly two years since that historic announcement, and despite subsequent observations backing it up, uncertainty about whether Voyager 1 really crossed the threshold continues.

New approach in search for extraterrestrial intelligence: Target alien polluters Posted: 23 Jul 2014 08:12 AM PDT Humanity is on the threshold of being able to detect signs of alien life on other worlds. By studying exoplanet atmospheres, we can look for gases like oxygen and methane that only coexist if replenished by life. But those gases come from simple life forms like microbes. What about advanced civilizations? Would they leave any detectable signs? They might, if they spew industrial pollution into the atmosphere.

Bats use polarized light to navigate: First mammal known to use polarization patterns in the sky to navigate Posted: 22 Jul 2014 08:18 AM PDT The bats use the way the sun's light is scattered in the atmosphere at sunset to calibrate their internal magnetic compass, which helps them to fly in the right direction, a new study has shown.

Boosting the force of empty space: Theorists propose way to amplify force of vacuum fluctuations Posted: 22 Jul 2014 06:14 AM PDT Vacuum fluctuations may be among the most counter-intuitive phenomena of quantum physics. Theorists have now proposed a way to amplify their force. The researchers believe that their proposed enhancement of the power of vacuum fluctuations can have profound implications for understanding Casimir and Van der Waals forces and it may even be used for applications in quantum information processing and other emerging quantum technologies.

Sea level rising in western tropical Pacific anthropogenic as result of human activity, study concludes Posted: 20 Jul 2014 05:43 PM PDT Sea levels likely will continue to rise in the tropical Pacific Ocean off the coasts of the Philippines and northeastern Australia as humans continue to alter the climate, a study concludes. The study authors combined past sea level data gathered from both satellite altimeters and traditional tide gauges as part of the study. The goal was to find out how much a naturally occurring climate phenomenon called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, influences sea rise patterns in the Pacific.

Viral relics show cancer's 'footprint' on our evolution Posted: 17 Jul 2014 11:20 AM PDT Cancer has left its 'footprint' on our evolution, according to a study which examined how the relics of ancient viruses are preserved in the genomes of 38 mammal species. The team found that as animals increased in size they 'edited out' potentially cancer-causing relics from their genomes so that mice have almost ten times as many ERVs as humans. The findings offer a clue as to why larger animals have a lower incidence of cancer than expected compared to smaller ones, and could help in the search for new anti-viral therapies.

Do women perceive other women in red as more sexually receptive? Posted: 11 Jul 2014 06:21 AM PDT Women are more likely to wear a red shirt when they are expecting to meet an attractive man, relative to an unattractive man or a woman. But do women view other women in red as being more sexually receptive? And would that result in a woman guarding her mate against a woman in red? A study has sought to answer these questions.

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