Wed, 17/11/2010 - 10:46 by Prince damin
Cambridge, Mass. -- Modern humans are slower to reach full maturity than our early ancestors were, and that may have given us an evolutionary advantage, U.S. researchers say.
Scientists at Harvard University say our characteristically slow development and long childhood are recent and unique to our species, and may have provided an evolutionary boost past earlier humans like Neanderthals, ScienceDaily.com reported.
The findings are based on sophisticated new analysis of teeth from 11 Neanderthal and early human fossils, researchers say.
"Teeth are remarkable time recorders, capturing each day of growth much like rings in trees reveal yearly progress," Tanya M. Smith, assistant professor of human evolutionary biology, says.
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Tue, 16/11/2010 - 11:21 by Prince damin
Washington -- U.S. and Brazilian scientists say they've discovered a species of tiny bat on the western slopes of the Andes in Ecuador, where its habitat is under threat.
The first specimen of Myotis diminutus was collected more than 30 years ago but the researchers have only now confirmed that the little creature, which weighs just a few grams, is a distinct species, the BBC reported.
The researchers, writing in the journal Mammalian Biology, said, "As with many other newly described species, we know nothing about the natural history of this bat.
"Unfortunately, the prospects for learning more about it are bleak," they wrote.
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Tue, 16/11/2010 - 10:35 by Prince damin
Washington -- Two Russian cosmonauts took a spacewalk from the International Space Station Monday to accomplish a number of maintenance tasks, officials said.
Veteran space walker Fyodor Yurchikhin and first-timer Oleg Skripochka worked about 6 1/2 hours while floating outside the space station, SPACE.com reported.
They installed a new staging ground for future spacewalks and finished off some routine maintenance tasks, kept from completing the list of intended projects only by a balky television camera that could not be secured in its new location, mission controllers said.
Russian space officials decided to postpone that job for a subsequent spacewalk as the cosmonauts were running out of time.
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Tue, 16/11/2010 - 10:25 by Priyanka
In the wake of protests against British Natural History Museum’s (NHM) expedition into a remote region in Paraguay, as the contact might disturb the 'un-contacted' aboriginal people’s lifestyle and health, the Paraguayan government Monday suspended the expedition.
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Mon, 15/11/2010 - 23:25 by Prince damin
Washington -- U.S. researchers say dolphins found weakened or dead near shore often have one thing in common -- they are nearly deaf.
University of South Florida scientists say in a marine world where hearing is as vital as sight dolphins unable to use sound to locate food or find family members often wind up weak and disoriented, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 1,200 to 1,600 whales and dolphins are found stranded off the U.S. coast each year.
Without the ability to hear sounds, researchers say, dolphins can be helpless.
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Sun, 14/11/2010 - 00:36 by Prince damin
Tokyo -- Researchers in Japan say they have found that crows can tell the difference between men and women
Scientists studied four jungle crows, considered a pest in Japanese cities, The Daily Telegraph reported.
They showed the birds color photographs of humans with their hair hidden. One pair was trained to pick men's faces and the other pair women's. They were rewarded with cheese for the correct answer.
When the faces of other men and women were added and the faces shuffled, three of the four crows picked the correct faces every time, and the fourth was right seven times out of 10.
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Fri, 12/11/2010 - 10:26 by Prince damin
Mountain View, Calif. -- Finding life on Mars should be the top priority for any future robotic probes or rovers sent to the planet, some U.S. scientists argue.
The first and only attempts to search for life on Mars were the Viking missions launched in 1975, and when they failed to find evidence it was generally assumed that cold, radiation, the lack of water and other environmental factors ruled out the chances for microbial activity on or near the surface of Mars, SPACE.com reported.
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Wed, 10/11/2010 - 09:47 by Prince damin
West Lafayette, Ind. -- U.S. researchers say they've developed a new heart pump that could help infants born with congenital heart defects survive necessary surgeries.
Scientists at Purdue University have created a "viscous impeller pump" for children born with univentricular circulation, a congenital heart disease that is the leading cause of death from birth defects in the first year of a child's life, a university release said Tuesday.
The normal human heart contains two pumping chambers, called ventricles.
One circulates oxygenated blood throughout the body, while the other less-powerful ventricle circulates deoxygenated blood to the lungs.
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Tue, 09/11/2010 - 10:40 by Prince damin
Seattle -- U.S. climate scientists hoping to collect sea temperature data in the icy, remote waters of Baffin Bay say they have enlisted some unusual helpers -- narwhals.
A total of 14 of the tusked marine mammals were fitted with thermometers and satellite transmitters during a biological study by a researcher from the University of Washington.
When UW marine biologist Kristin Laidre offered to share temperature data collected during her study of narwhals, climate scientists leaped at the opportunity, the journal Nature reported.
The animals gave the most comprehensive coverage of the bay, between Canada and Greenland, ever recorded, occasionally even diving as deep as 5,800 feet.
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Mon, 08/11/2010 - 12:53 by Anter Prakash Singh
Now human skin cells can be directly converted into blood cells without first reversing them into flexible pluripotent stem cells, which are used to grow tissues, Canadian scientists have reported in the journal 'Nature.'
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Sat, 06/11/2010 - 10:36 by Prince damin
University Park, Pa. -- U.S. scientists say they've discovered dying corals and other sea creatures in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Biologists on a research ship made the discovery Tuesday of a community of corals with numbers of recently dead colonies and others that are clearly dying, a Penn State University release said Friday.
"We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic," Charles Fisher, a professor of biology at Penn State who is chief scientist on the cruise, said.
Fisher said a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora at a depth of 4,500 feet appeared to be unhealthy.
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Sat, 06/11/2010 - 08:04 by Prince damin
Atlanta -- People with a genetic flaw in a particular chromosome have a higher risk of autism and schizophrenia, U.S. researchers say.
While both conditions are known to be influenced by genetic factors, this is the first time a specific flaw or variation leading to a very high risk has been identified, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.
Researchers at Emory University analyzed the DNA of more than 23,000 patients with autism, developmental delay, intellectual disability or schizophrenia and say they detected a genetic deletion known as a copy number variation on a particular area -- chromosome 17 -- in 24 of those patients.
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