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Ramsey et al identified eight components of lavender and tea tree oils as endocrine disruptor chemicals. Image credit: Ilona Couleur.

Study: Lavender and Tea Tree Oils Contain Hormone-Disrupting Components

Mar 20, 2018 by News Staff

A new study from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences lends new evidence to a suspected link between regular exposure to lavender oil...

This artist’s impression shows ‘Oumuamua. Image credit: Joy Pollard / Gemini Observatory / AURA / NSF.

Interstellar Asteroid Oumuamua Likely Came from Double Star System

Mar 20, 2018 by News Staff

1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, the first asteroid of extrasolar origin identified in the Solar System, likely came from a binary star system, according to new...

Phenotypes of osteoarthritis: evidence suggests that patients with osteoarthritis fall into multiple phenotypic subgroups defined on the basis of the main driver of disease, one of which is a distinct metabolic phenotype, although all osteoarthritis phenotypes probably involve metabolic alterations; cartilage, bone and synovium are all affected by external and internal drivers of disease such as inflammation, injury or biomechanical alterations, metabolic reprogramming and immunomodulation, but different synovial joint tissues dominate the disease in different patients with osteoarthritis. Image credit: Mobasheri et al / Nature Reviews Rheumatology, doi: 10.1038/nrrheum.2017.50.

Researchers Identify Nine New Genes for Osteoarthritis

Mar 19, 2018 by News Staff

A multinational group of scientists led by the Wellcome Sanger Institute has discovered nine novel genes for osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease...

The Waorani dog-faced bat (Cynomops tonkigui) in Ecuador. Image credit: Diego Tirira.

Two New Dog-Faced Bat Species Discovered

Mar 19, 2018 by News Staff

Two new species of dog-faced bats have been discovered in the tropical forests of Central and South America. Both new species are described in the March...

Retoucher from the early hominin Lingjing site, China; white brackets indicate the areas where impact scars are present. Scale bars - 1 cm. Image credit: Doyon et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194318.

Archaeologists Unearth 115,000-Year-Old Bone Tools in China

Mar 19, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of researchers led by Université de Montréal’s Dr. Luc Doyon has found seven bone soft hammers at the early hominin Lingjing...

Beta-carboline compounds offer great promise for the treatment of alcoholism. Image credit: Imagens Evangelicas / CC BY 2.0.

Alcohol Use Disorders are Major Risk Factor for Dementia, Study Claims

Mar 19, 2018 by News Staff

According to a new observational study carried out in France, alcohol use disorders are the most important preventable risk factors for the onset of all...

Solenodon Genome Sequenced

Mar 19, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of scientists has sequenced and assembled the genome of a venomous shrew-like insectivore called the Hispaniolan solenodon. The Hispaniolan...

The first evidence of human life in the Olorgesailie Basin comes from about 1.2 million years ago. For hundreds of the thousands of years, people living there made and used large stone-cutting tools called handaxes (left). According to three new studies, early humans in East Africa had -- by about 320,000 years ago -- begun using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools (right) than those of the Early Stone Age handaxes, tens of thousands of years earlier than previous evidence has shown in eastern Africa. The sophisticated tools (right) were carefully crafted and more specialized than the large, all-purpose handaxes (left). Many were points designed to be attached to a shaft and potentially used as projectile weapons, while others were shaped as scrapers or awls. Image credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian.

320,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Push Back Origins of Human Innovation

Mar 16, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of anthropologists has discovered that early humans in East Africa had — by about 320,000 years ago — begun trading with...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Dwarf Planet Ceres Continues to Evolve and Change

Mar 16, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has detected recent changes in Ceres’ surface, revealing that the dwarf planet is a dynamic planetary body that continues to...

Hunter-gatherers. Image credit: T.P.S. Dave.

Humans Interbred with Denisovans Twice in History, Researchers Discover

Mar 16, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Washington and Princeton University has found that the genomes of two groups of modern humans with Denisovan...

Among Swedish women, a high cardiovascular fitness in midlife was associated with a decreased risk of subsequent dementia. Image credit: Brisbane City Council / CC BY 2.0.

Study: Women with High Cardiovascular Fitness Less Likely to Develop Dementia

Mar 16, 2018 by News Staff

According to a 44-year longitudinal population study, published online in the journal Neurology, women with high cardiovascular fitness in midlife were...

On October 19, 2014, Comet Siding Spring made a remarkably close encounter with Mars, buzzing the planet at just one third of the Earth-Moon distance. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Physicists Solve Mystery of Why Comets Emit X-Rays

Mar 15, 2018 by News Staff

The long-standing mystery of why comets give off X-ray emission has been solved by a group of experimental physicists led by the University of Oxford,...

This image of the Great Red Spot was taken on July 10, 2017, as Juno performed its seventh close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 8,648 miles (13,917 km) from the tops of the clouds of the planet. Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.

Great Red Spot Getting Taller as It Shrinks, Planetary Scientists Say

Mar 15, 2018 by News Staff

Planetary scientists have noticed that Jupiter’s most distinctive feature — the Great Red Spot (GRS) — has been getting smaller in area over...

Obese and thin mice (Shannon Reilly / University of Michigan)

New Study Finds Link between Body Temperature and Obesity

Mar 15, 2018 by News Staff

According to a study in mice published in the Journal of Neuroscience, reduced ability to maintain body temperature in colder environments may contribute...

According to Meurer et al, galaxies behave as clocks, rotating once a billion years at the very outskirts of their discs. This Hubble image shows the face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101. Image credit: NASA / ESA / K. Kuntz, JHU / F. Bresolin, University of Hawaii / J. Trauger, JPL / J. Mould, NOAO / Y.-H. Chu, UIUC / STScI.

Cosmic Clocks: Galaxies Behave Like Clocks, Rotating Once Every Billion Years

Mar 15, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers from Australia, China and the United States has discovered that all galaxies rotate once every billion years, no matter...

Malik et al conducted a multiancestry genome-wide-association meta-analysis in 521,612 individuals (67,162 cases and 454,450 controls) and discovered 22 new stroke risk loci, bringing the total to 32. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

Scientists Identify 22 New Genetic Risk Factors for Stroke

Mar 14, 2018 by News Staff

A large-scale international collaboration called MEGASTROKE has identified 22 new genetic risk factors for stroke, thus tripling the number of gene regions...

This view shows the entire sky at energies greater than 1 GeV based on five years of data from the LAT instrument on NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope; the most prominent feature is the bright band of diffuse glow along the map’s center, which marks the central plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: NASA / DOE / Fermi LAT Collaboration.

Mysterious Gamma-Ray Signal Comes from Ancient Stars at Milky Way’s Center

Mar 14, 2018 by News Staff

An international group of researchers has discovered that an anomalous gamma-ray signal from Milky Way’s center comes from 10 billion-year-old stars,...

An artist’s impression of what Archaeopteryx lithographica, one of the earliest known birds, would have looked like in flight. Image credit: Carl Buell / Nicholas Longrich.

Archaeopteryx Was Active Flyer, Paleontologists Say

Mar 14, 2018 by News Staff

Archaeopteryx is an iconic fossil species with feathered wings from the Late Jurassic of Germany. The question of whether this dino-bird was an elaborately...

Astronomers Find ‘Relic Galaxy’ in Milky Way’s Backyard

Mar 14, 2018 by News Staff

NGC 1277, a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Perseus, about 220 million light-years from us, has remained essentially unchanged for the past ten...