Science – Page 4 – odiaspora.org

Scientists create heart cells better, faster, stronger

11 November 2016

Two chemicals have improved the speed, quantity, and quality of direct cardiac reprogramming, bringing the technology one step closer to regenerating damaged hearts, report scientists. Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes identified two chemicals that improve their ability to transform scar tissue in a heart into […]

Female chimpanzees employ babysitters to wean young faster

11 November 2016

A babysitter can make a big difference in a parent’s life. For wild chimps in Uganda, it may even mean that mothers can wean their infants faster, which can allow them to reproduce again more quickly, report investigators. A babysitter can make a big difference […]

Male chimpanzees can be players and good fathers

11 November 2016

Male chimpanzees are focused on offspring rather than building relationships with females, new research on humans’ closest living relatives suggests. New research suggests that male chimpanzees are more invested in protecting their own offspring than previously thought. Researchers found male chimpanzees spend time with non-mating […]

Natural compound reduces signs of aging in healthy mice

5 November 2016

Safety of NMN being tested in small clinical trial Date: October 27, 2016 Source: Washington University School of Medicine Summary: Much of human health hinges on how well the body manufactures and uses energy. For reasons that remain unclear, cells’ ability to produce energy declines […]

Nanobionic spinach plants can detect explosives

4 November 2016

After sensing dangerous chemicals, the carbon-nanotube-enhanced plants send an alert Date: November 1, 2016 Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Summary: Spinach is no longer just a superfood: By embedding leaves with carbon nanotubes, engineers have transformed spinach plants into sensors that can detect explosives and […]

Fuel from sewage is the future — and it’s closer than you think

4 November 2016

Technology converts human waste into bio-based fuel Date: November 2, 2016 Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Summary: It may sound like science fiction, but wastewater treatment plants across the United States may one day turn ordinary sewage into biocrude oil, thanks to new research. The […]

Autism spectrum disorder linked to mutations in some mitochondrial DNA

30 October 2016

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have greater numbers of harmful mutations in their mitochondrial DNA than family members, report Zhenglong Gu of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and colleagues, in a study published October 28th, 2016 in PLOS Genetics. Increasingly, studies point […]

Ancient human history more complex than previously thought, researchers say

30 October 2016

Relationships between the ancestors of modern humans and other archaic populations such as Neanderthals and Denisovans were likely more complex than previously thought, involving interbreeding within and outside Africa, according to a new estimator developed by geneticists. Findings were reported at the American Society of […]

NASA’s New ‘Intruder Alert’ System Spots An Incoming Asteroid

30 October 2016

A large space rock is going to come fairly close to Earth later tonight. Fortunately, it’s not going to hit Earth, something astronomers are sure of thanks in part to a new tool NASA is developing for detecting potentially dangerous asteroids. The tool is a […]

The transition from daylight saving time to standard time leads to depressions

30 October 2016

“The year has 16 months: November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, November, November, November,” writes the Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt in a disheartening comment on the month we are about to enter. And Nordbrandt is not the only […]

More Than a Year Later, We Finally Have All the Data From the Pluto Flyby

29 October 2016

On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft captured the world’s attention with the photograph above—an instantly iconic image of the Tombaugh Regio, or as it has become more commonly known, Pluto’s heart. Just after transmitting this photo back to Earth, New Horizons went into […]

Space Trash: US Air Force Satellite Latest to Break Apart in Orbit

28 October 2016

Rapidly aging in orbit, US Air Force (USAF) weather satellites are dropping like flies. Since 2004, two of the USAF’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites have broken up in orbit. On Monday, the military branch admitted that a third, identified as DMSP Flight 12, […]