Curated News: Featured: SciWire

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Several exploding stars have been found outside the cozy confines of galaxies, where most stars reside. These wayward supernovae are also weird because they exploded billions of years before their predicted detonations. Using archived observations from several telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have developed a theory for where these doomed stars come from and how they arrived at their current homes.

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The first whole genome analysis of an octopus reveals unique genomic features that likely played a role in the evolution of traits such as large complex nervous systems and adaptive camouflage. The findings are published in Nature on Aug 12, 2015.

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The installed price of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States continues to fall precipitously. This is according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost tracking report produced by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

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Mice lacking a set of receptors in one type of neuron in the brain developed compulsive, anti-social behaviors, Salk scientists found

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Wind energy pricing is at an all-time low, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Berkeley Lab. The prices offered by wind projects to utility purchasers averaged under 2.5¢/kWh for projects negotiating contracts in 2014, spurring demand for wind energy.

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A world-first underwater study of fish in their natural environment by University of Adelaide marine ecologists has shown how predicted ocean acidification from climate change will devastate temperate marine habitats and biodiversity.

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Dr. Deborah Cvikel and Mr. Micky Holtzman from the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa suggest that the shipwreck discovered in 1976 off the coast at Dor (Tantura) lagoon may be identified as the missing Baron’s Ship. “The ship we found is structurally consistent with the specifications of the Baron’s ships, carried a similar cargo, and sailed and sank during the right period,” the scholars conclude.

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Combining Hubble data with observations from a suite of ground-based and space telescopes, two independent teams of astronomers have uncovered a unique process for how the universe's largest elliptical galaxies continue making stars long after their peak years of star birth.

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Last December, researchers identified more than 1,000 gene mutations in individuals with autism, but how these mutations increased risk for autism was unclear. Now, UNC researchers are the first to show how one of these mutations disables a molecular switch in one of these genes to cause autism.

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Insecticides that are sprayed in orchards and fields across North America may be more toxic to spiders than scientists previously believed.

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Sleeping in the side position, as compared to on one’s back or stomach, may more effectively remove brain waste and prove to be an important practice to help reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

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It’s happy hour at a lab in College Station. The cocktail of choice, developed by scientists with Texas A&M AgriLife Research, is one that stops or prevents the deadly Pierce’s disease on wine grapes. The discovery could turn a new leaf on the multimillion-dollar U.S. wine industry. Hear, hear.

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Researchers at McGill University have discovered that to learn new motor skills, neurons within the cerebellum engage in elegant, virtually mathematical, computations to quickly compare expected and actual sensory feedback. They then quickly readjust, changing the strength of connections between other neurons to form new patterns in the brain in order to accomplish the task at hand.

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As grasses grew more common in Africa, most major mammal groups tried grazing on them at times during the past 4 million years, but some of the animals went extinct or switched back to browsing on trees and shrubs, according to a study led by the University of Utah.

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After debuting the world’s first solar air battery last fall, researchers at The Ohio State University have now reached a new milestone. In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, they report that their patent-pending design—which combines a solar cell and a battery into a single device—now achieves a 20 percent energy savings over traditional lithium-iodine batteries.

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As the demand grows for ever smaller, smarter electronics, so does the demand for understanding materials’ behavior at ever smaller scales. Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory are building a unique optical magnetometer to probe magnetism at the nano- and mesoscale.

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Astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and members of the NCCR PlanetS have teased out a secret planetary system hiding in the arms of Cassiopea, just 21 light years away from us. The remarkable system, named HD219134, hosts one outer giant planet and three inner super-Earths, one of which transits in front of the star. The transiting super-Earth has a density similar to the Earth’s.

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Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have confirmed the existence of a Uranus-sized exoplanet orbiting far from its central star, discovered through a technique called gravitational microlensing. These results appear in two papers in The Astrophysical Journal.

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Health experts have warned for years that the overuse of antibiotics is creating “superbugs” able to resist drugs treating infection. Now scientists at Indiana University and elsewhere are finding evidence that an invisible war between microorganisms may also be catching humans in the crossfire.

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NASA has awarded grants to a University of Arkansas-affiliated technology firm to design complex integrated circuits that can operate on the surface of Venus, where the temperature can reach 500 degrees Celsius.

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Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population, but the paddies it’s grown in contributes up to 17 percent of global methane emissions -- about 100 million tons a year. Now, with the addition of a single gene, rice can be cultivated to emit virtually no methane, more starch for a richer food source and biomass for energy production, as announced in the July 30 edition of Nature and online.

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New research has revealed abrupt warming, that closely resembles the rapid man-made warming occurring today, has repeatedly played a key role in mass extinction events of large animals, the megafauna, in Earth’s past.

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Measurements of iron speciation in ancient rocks were used to construct the chemistry of ancient oceans. Analysis suggests that it took less oxygen than previously thought to trigger the appearance of complicated life forms.

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A 3D printed aircraft has successfully launched off the front of a Royal Navy warship and landed safely on a Dorset beach.

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The 11 percent decrease in climate change-causing carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. between 2007 and 2013 was caused by the global financial recession – not the reduced use of coal, research from the University of California Irvine, the University of Maryland, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis shows.

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A team of researchers in Colombia and Chile has explored the role of chaos in the dynamics of vehicles within cities, keeping traffic and the bus systems of various countries in mind, and this week in the journal Chaos, the team presents and analyzes the consequences of "discrete mapping" the exact evolution of a bus operating under ideal city conditions.

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Gravity data captured by satellite has allowed researchers to take a closer look at the geology deep beneath the Tibetan Plateau.

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Over a 35-year period, the length of forest fire seasons worldwide increased by 18.7 percent due to more rain-free days and hotter temperatures, according to South Dakota State University professor Mark Cochrane, a senior scientist at the Geospatial Sciences Center of Excellence. The wildfire expert is part of a team of researchers led by W. Matt Jolly of the U.S. Forest Service Fire Science Laboratory that examined weather data from 1979 through 2013 to determine how a changing climate impacts forest ecosystems.

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For the first time, advanced technologies made it possible to read parts of a damaged scroll that is at least 1,500 years old, discovered inside the Holy Ark of the synagogue at Ein Gedi in Israel. High-resolution scanning and UK Professor Brent Seales' revolutionary virtual unwrapping tool revealed verses from the Book of Leviticus.

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The National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) will join in the most powerful, comprehensive, and intensive scientific search ever for signs of intelligent life in the Universe.

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Marine species that already roam far and wide throughout our oceans are extending their territories further and faster in response to climate change, according to new research involving the University of Southampton and an international team of biodiversity experts.

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Anyone who’s ever noticed a water puddle drying in the sun has seen an environment that may have driven the type of chemical reactions that scientists believe were critical to the formation of life on the early Earth.

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How clouds form and how they help set the temperature of the earth are two of the big remaining questions in climate research. Now, a study of clouds over the world's remotest ocean shows that ocean life is responsible for up to half the cloud droplets that pop in and out of existence during summer.

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Salk and Carnegie Mellon researchers uncover how the brain prunes back synapses in development

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A team of NYU neuroscientists has identified the “acoustic signature” of screams, a study that points to the unique attributes of this form of expression and suggests we are able to generate sounds reserved exclusively for signaling distress.

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A new study in Developmental Cell, from Stowers Institute for Medical Research Associate Investigator Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., zeros in on an important component in fish: the support cells that surround centrally-located hair cells in each garlic-shaped sensory organ, or neuromast.

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"No swimming" signs have already popped up this summer along coastlines where fecal bacteria have invaded otherwise inviting waters. Some vacationers ignore the signs while others resign themselves to tanning and playing on the beach. But should those avoiding the water be wary of the sand, too? New research in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology investigates reasons why the answer could be "yes."

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Salk scientists have created mutation-free lines of stem cells from human patients with mitochondrial diseases.

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Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have found that key parts of the human brain network that give us the power to control and redirect our attention—a core cognitive ability—may be unique to humans.

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An international team of researchers has developed a new map of the distribution of dark matter in the universe using data from the Dark Energy Survey.

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Scientists attending a workshop at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory slipped the leash of scientific caution and tried to imagine what they would do if they could redesign plants at will. The ideas they dreamed up may make the difference between full bellies and empty ones in the near future when population may outrun the ability of traditional plant breeding to increase yields.

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Today, Nature is publishing a paper "The evolution of human and ape hand proportions," a study that discovers that human hands may be more primitive than chimp's.

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A team of scientists participating in a radio astronomy summer school had the unexpected opportunity to observe a recently discovered near-Earth asteroid as it zipped past our planet on July 7.

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Groundbreaking work at two Department of Energy national laboratories has confirmed plutonium’s magnetism, which scientists have long theorized but have never been able to experimentally observe.

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More than a quarter of the rain and snow that falls on continents reaches the oceans as runoff. Now a new study helps show where the rest goes.

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A team of radio astronomers, including Sam Connolly from the University of Southampton, are watching a previously dormant black hole wake up in a dramatic display as material falls on to it for the first time for perhaps millions of years.

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A WWII aircraft carrier used for atomic-bomb target practice is scuttled off the coast of California in the 1950s. Berkeley Lab researchers help scientists determine the radiation risk of exploring the sunken ship.

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When electrons move in a phosphorus transistor, they do so only in two dimensions, according to a study published in Nature Communications . The finding suggests that black phosphorus could help engineers surmount one of the big challenges for future electronics: designing energy-efficient transistors.

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Researchers have used an X-ray laser to record, in detail never possible before, the microscopic motion and effects of shock waves rippling across diamond. The technique, developed at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, allows scientists to precisely explore the complex physics driving massive star explosions, which are critical for understanding fusion energy, and to improve scientific models used to study these phenomena.

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Imagine a fleet of driverless taxis roaming your city, ready to pick you up and take you to your destination at a moment’s notice. While this may seem fantastical, it may be only a matter of time before it becomes reality. And according to a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, such a system would both be cost-effective and greatly reduce per-mile emissions of greenhouse gases.