ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Odor communication in wild gorillas: Wild gorillas signal using odor
• Bee foraging chronically impaired by pesticide exposure: Study
• Birdlike fossil challenges notion that birds evolved from ground-dwelling dinosaurs
• Urban heat: Not a myth, and worst where it's wet
• First snapshots of water splitting in photosynthesis
• Human cells' protein factory has an alternate operating manual: Process may help body rein in disease-fighting side effects
• Cosmic grains of dust formed in supernova explosion
• New paths into the world of quasiparticles
• Study cracks how brain processes emotions
• Ancient arachnid brought 'back to life': Video recreates 410-million-year-old animal walking
• Children on dairy farms run one-tenth the risk of developing allergies; Dairy farm exposure also beneficial during pregnancy
• Even geckos can lose their grip

Odor communication in wild gorillas: Wild gorillas signal using odor Posted: 09 Jul 2014 12:16 PM PDT Silverback gorillas appear to use odor as a form of communication to other gorillas. Mammals communicate socially through visual, auditory, and chemical signals. The chemical sense is in fact the oldest sense, shared by all organisms including bacteria, and mounting evidence suggests that humans also participate in social chemical signaling. However, not much is known about this type of signaling in closely related hominoids, like wild apes.

Bee foraging chronically impaired by pesticide exposure: Study Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:03 AM PDT A new study that involved fitting bumblebees with tiny radio frequency tags shows long-term exposure to a neonicotinoid pesticide hampers bees' ability to forage for pollen. The study shows how long-term pesticide exposure affects individual bees' day-to-day behavior, including pollen collection and which flowers worker bees chose to visit.

Birdlike fossil challenges notion that birds evolved from ground-dwelling dinosaurs Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:02 AM PDT The re-examination of a sparrow-sized fossil from China challenges the commonly held belief that birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs that gained the ability to fly. The birdlike fossil is actually not a dinosaur, as previously thought, but much rather the remains of a tiny tree-climbing animal that could glide.

Urban heat: Not a myth, and worst where it's wet Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:01 AM PDT A new quantifies for the first time the primary causes of the 'urban heat island' (UHI) effect, a common phenomenon that makes the world's urban areas significantly warmer than surrounding countryside and may increase health risks for city residents. In an analysis of 65 cities, researchers found that variation in how efficiently urban areas release heat back into the lower atmosphere is the dominant factor in the daytime UHI effect.

First snapshots of water splitting in photosynthesis Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:01 AM PDT Scientists have taken the first snapshots of photosynthesis in action as it splits water into protons, electrons and oxygen, the process that maintains Earth's oxygen atmosphere. The revealing of the mechanism of this water splitting process is essential for the development of artificial systems that mimic and surpass the efficiency of natural systems.

Human cells' protein factory has an alternate operating manual: Process may help body rein in disease-fighting side effects Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:01 AM PDT Working with a gene involved in HIV infection, researchers discovered some human genes have an alternate set of operating instructions written into their protein-making machinery, which can quickly alter the proteins' contents, functions and ability to survive. The study is the first to demonstrate the phenomenon of programmed ribosomal frameshifting in a human gene. Frameshifting helps regulate the gene's immune response, the authors report.

Cosmic grains of dust formed in supernova explosion Posted: 09 Jul 2014 11:01 AM PDT There are billions of stars and planets in the universe. The planets are formed in dust clouds that swirled around a newly formed star. But where does the cosmic dust come from? New research shows that not only can grains of dust form in gigantic supernova explosions, they can also survive the subsequent shockwaves they are exposed to.

New paths into the world of quasiparticles Posted: 09 Jul 2014 10:59 AM PDT Quasiparticles can be used to explain physical phenomena in solid bodies even though they are not actual physical particles. Physicists have now realized quasiparticles in a quantum system and observed quantum mechanical entanglement propagation in a many-body system.

Study cracks how brain processes emotions Posted: 09 Jul 2014 10:58 AM PDT Although feelings are personal and subjective, the human brain turns them into a standard code that objectively represents emotions across different senses, situations and even people, reports a new study. "Despite how personal our feelings feel, the evidence suggests our brains use a standard code to speak the same emotional language," one researcher concludes.

Ancient arachnid brought 'back to life': Video recreates 410-million-year-old animal walking Posted: 09 Jul 2014 06:56 AM PDT Scientists have recreated the walking gait of a 410-million-year-old arachnid, one of the first predators on land, based on fossil evidence. The scientists used the fossils -- thin slices of rock showing the animal's cross-section -- to work out the range of motion in the limbs of this ancient, extinct early relative of the spiders.

Children on dairy farms run one-tenth the risk of developing allergies; Dairy farm exposure also beneficial during pregnancy Posted: 09 Jul 2014 06:56 AM PDT Children who live on farms that produce milk run one-tenth the risk of developing allergies as other rural children. According to researchers, pregnant women may benefit from spending time on dairy farms to promote maturation of the fetal and neonatal immune system.

Even geckos can lose their grip Posted: 09 Jul 2014 06:55 AM PDT Not even geckos and spiders can sit upside down forever. Nanophysics makes sure of that. Mechanics researchers have demonstrated this in an article that can be of great industrial benefit.

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