Science – Page 2 – odiaspora.org

An Ice Shelf Is Cracking In Antarctica, But Not For The Reason You Think

17 January 2017

A group of scientists is gathering today in the U.K. to discuss a slab of ice that’s cracking in Antarctica. The crack could soon split off a frozen chunk the size of Delaware. One glacier scientist, Heidi Sevestre, spent six weeks last year living on […]

Byzantine skeleton yields 800-year-old genomes from a fatal infection

11 January 2017

The skeleton of a woman who died 800 years ago on the outskirts of the ancient city of Troy in modern Turkey has yielded the first record of maternal sepsis in the fossil record. DNA locked inside the calcified nodules, found at the base of […]

Cultural differences may leave their mark on DNA

11 January 2017

Signatures of ethnicity in the genome appear to reflect an ethnic group’s shared culture and environment, rather than their common genetic ancestry, report scientists. Epigenetic signatures distinguishing Mexican and Puerto Rican children in this study cannot be explained by genetic ancestry alone, the researchers say. […]

Here’s how Earth and the Moon look from Mars, and we’re not sure what to make of it

11 January 2017

Here’s how Earth and the Moon look from Mars, and we’re not sure what to make of it If you have aspirations to become a Red Planet colonizer some day, we now have an idea of how Earth and the moon look from Mars so […]

Scientists might be seriously underestimating the risk of a major freeze in Europe

6 January 2017

(Reuters/NASA) A warm, freshwater mass rises and moves north across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s headed toward the Arctic. There, frigid winds will scrape heat and liquid from its surface and it will sink, colder, saltier, and denser to the ocean bottom — and begin a slow journey back toward […]

A meteorite recently slammed into Mars and left this giant black stain of a crater

6 January 2017

Like Earth, planet Mars is a shooting gallery for rogue space rocks that zip around at tens of thousands of miles per hour. But the red planet has barely 1% of the atmosphere of Earth’s to slow down, vaporize, and break up any of these […]

Mystery Radio Waves Are Coming From A (Dwarf) Galaxy Far, Far Away, Scientists Say

6 January 2017

Scientists used the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array near Socorro, N.M., to detect fast radio bursts. Patrick Semansky/AP Unexplained, short radio bursts from outer space have puzzled scientists since they were first detected nearly a decade ago. The elusive flashes — known as […]

Mediterranean diet may have lasting effects on brain health

6 January 2017

Older people who followed a Mediterranean diet retained more brain volume over a three-year period than those who did not follow the diet as closely, new research shows. But contrary to earlier studies, eating more fish and less meat was not related to changes in […]

Will the mysterious shadow planet Nibiru obliterate Earth in October? No.

6 January 2017

If all goes according to wild conjecture, planet Earth and the planet Nibiru are set to collide in the autumn, twin cosmic shooters in a game of apocalyptic marbles. Nibiru is playing for keeps, bringing sinkholes, fire storms and the general annihilation of life as we […]

Autism breakthrough: One protein’s sweeping influence on development of autism revealed

18 December 2016

A drop in one protein is enough to cause autism, according to the results of a new study. Scientists were able to trigger autistic-like behavior in mice that were engineered to have lower levels of the nSR100 protein, which had previously been found to be […]

Winds of rubies and sapphires strike the sky of giant planet

18 December 2016

Signs of powerful changing winds have been detected on a planet 16 times larger than Earth, over 1,000 light years away — the first time ever that weather systems have been found on a gas giant outside our solar system — according to new research. […]

New robot has a human touch

13 December 2016

Most robots achieve grasping and tactile sensing through motorized means, which can be excessively bulky and rigid. Scientists have now devised a way for a soft robot to feel its surroundings internally, in much the same way humans do. Stretchable optical waveguides act as curvature, […]