Science News

A newfound blood biomarker may one day predict longevity Levels of six RNA molecules in the blood ID’d older adults likely to survive two more years. Whether it will work for other people is a big question.

Researchers have discovered that levels of certain RNA molecules in the blood may serve as aging biomarkers and predict survival, though the results need to be confirmed.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/blood-biomarker-predict-longevity-life

Why we fail to notice climate change People quickly normalize extreme weather. Simple visuals highlighting abrupt change could help climate change break through our mental blind spots.

Thinking in black and white usually leads people astray. When it comes to climate change, that way of thinking can help.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-binary-frozen-weather

Yaks may hint at a way to treat brain diseases like MS A genetic mutation tied to keeping the brain healthy at high altitudes may point to a way to repair nerve damage, experiments in mice show.

Animals that live at high altitudes have a genetic mutation that may suggest new ways to treat brain diseases like multiple sclerosis.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/yaks-brain-diseases-ms-genetic-mutation

Why African striped mice can be the best of dads — or the worst Environmental cues can flip a molecular switch in the brain, turning males from caregivers to killers.

What makes the difference between a doting dad and a deadbeat one? Princeton researchers find it comes down to a molecular switch in the brain — at least in African striped mice.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/african-striped-mice-male-caregiving

A large fossil leg bone hints at T. rex’s origins, but scientists disagree A new analysis of a large fossil shinbone suggests T. rex ancestors came from North America instead of Asia. Not everyone agrees.

What’s in a leg bone? A team of researchers say their new analysis of a tyrannosaur fossil from New Mexico points to a North American origin for T. rex. Other researchers disagree.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fossil-leg-t-rex-origins-bones-dinosaur

AI may be giving teens bad nutrition advice AI-generated meal plans for fictional teens cut an entire meal’s worth of calories and carbs while overemphasizing protein and fats, a new study reports.

What meal plans designed by popular chatbots for teens get wrong.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-teen-nutrition-advice-chatbot-diet-food

Tree tops sparkle with electricity during thunderstorms Ultraviolet cameras captured faint electrical flashes from leaves and branches as storm charges built up in the atmosphere.

Tree tips glow a faint blue during thunderstorms, no Christmas lights required.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tree-sparkle-electricity-thunderstorms

One possible recipe for life on Titan is a bust An experiment mimicking conditions on the Saturn moon suggests that cell-like bubbles don’t form in methane lakes, puncturing hopes for alien life.

Scientists thought alien life on Saturn’s moon Titan might be encased in membranes composed of vinyl cyanide. A new experiment suggests such membranes don’t form.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/azotosome-alien-life-titan-moon-saturn

AI autocomplete may subtly shape views on social issues People are increasingly using AI auto-complete features when writing. Unbeknownst to them, that feature may change how they think.

People are increasingly turning to chatbots for writing help. But AI may also change how people think through an issue.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-autocomplete-social-issues-views

A strange ‘chirp’ in a brilliant stellar blast points to a magnetar Superluminous supernovas are the brightest stellar explosions in the universe. Astronomers may have found a mechanism that can trigger these events.

Superluminous supernovas are the brightest stellar explosions in the universe, and astronomers believe they have found a mechanism that can trigger these extraordinary events.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/superluminous-supernova-magnetar

The Amazon molly — a sex-skipping fish — hacks evolution The Amazon molly reproduces without sex. A genomic copy-and-paste trick called gene conversion may explain how it avoids evolutionary meltdown.

No sexual reproduction? No problem, says the Amazon molly. Scientists think they’ve figured out how this fish keeps harmful mutations at bay.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sex-skipping-fish-hacks-evolution-gene

Submerged bumblebee queens breathe underwater Submerged bees breathe and use strategies that don’t require oxygen, lab tests show. In nature, that trick could help the bees survive floods.

Hibernating bumblebee queens can breathe underwater to survive a flood, a new study shows. Their metabolisms also switch to strategies that don’t rely on oxygen.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bumblebee-queens-breathe-underwater

‘Smart underwear’ measures how often humans fart “Zen digesters” rarely fart. “Hydrogen hyperproducers” fart a lot. Scientists are investigating what is typical.

When it comes to farting, what is normal? Scientists have devised “smart underwear” to figure it out.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/smart-underwear-human-fart-frequency

Lakes are growing in Alaska. That's not entirely a bad thing Alaska’s glacial lakes are growing as glaciers retreat out of basins. These lakes will change desolate glacial rivers into thriving salmon habitat.

Alaska’s glacial lakes will soon quadruple in area, transforming vast landscapes — and potentially shifting the path of a major river.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/glacier-lakes-alaska-growing-climate

When the pressure’s off, this superconductor appears to break records A sudden release of pressure allowed a copper-based compound to superconduct at the highest temperature yet for atmospheric pressure, a study claims.

A record-breaking superconductor is made by letting loose. By squeezing a material to high pressure and then rapidly releasing it, scientists reduced the amount of cooling it needs to become a superconductor.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pressure-superconductor-record-break

How does early pregnancy lower breast cancer risk? Odd cells could offer clues Suspicious cells build up in mice that haven’t given birth, a new study finds. They could help explain a longstanding mystery of breast cancer biology.

For women, giving birth by their 20s may cut lifetime breast cancer risk, but no one knows how. New clues may come from abnormal cells in mice.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/early-pregnancy-breast-cancer-risk-women

NASA’s DART spacecraft changed an asteroid’s orbit around the sun A 2022 NASA mission changed the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos around its companion. New data shows their joint orbit around the sun also changed.

A spacecraft slowed the orbit of a pair of asteroids around the sun by more than 10 micrometers per second — the first time human activity has altered the orbit of a celestial object, researchers report.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/spacecraft-changed-asteroid-orbit-nasa

The remarkable brains of ‘SuperAgers’ hold clues about how we age A new study reports signs that nerve cells in the brain keep dividing over the decades. It’s not so simple.

A small study of cells deep inside donated brains suggests that quick-witted older people might generate newborn nerve cells, though the results are far from conclusive.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/superagers-brain-aging-nerve-cells

Robots with fingernails can grasp thin edges A robotic hand with fingernail-like tips lets robots peel fruit, open lids and pick up thin, flat objects with more precise, human-like dexterity.

Researchers have designed a new three-fingered robotic hand whose digits come with a rigid fingernail on a soft material.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/robots-fingernails-grasp-thin-edges

A koala population’s rapid rebound may let it escape inbreeding perils As koalas in southern Australia have grown from a few hundred to almost half a million, the marsupials show signs of regaining lost genetic variation.

Some koalas in Australia have rebounded their numbers from a small pool of individuals. Their genes are now catching up, restoring the genetic variation that was lost.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/koalas-genetic-rebound-australia

This molecule puts a new twist on the Möbius strip A molecule made of carbon and chlorine is half as twisty as the paper loops common in math classes.

Scientists created half-Möbius molecules, similar to the Möbius strips common in math classes, but half as twisty. It’s a type of topology, or geometrical structure, that is new to molecules, scientists report.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/molecule-mobius-strip-carbon-chlorine

Chickpeas can grow in moon dirt and make seeds Chickpeas produced seeds in simulated lunar soil, offering clues for future space farming.

Chickpeas were able to grow, flower and produce seeds in fake lunar soil that had been treated with fungi and compost.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chickpeas-moon-dirt-seeds-space-farming

A chemical ‘Goldilocks zone’ may limit which planets can host life Life needs nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. But without the right balance of oxygen, these elements get locked away in planets’ cores.

Finding life elsewhere in the universe might require considering more than one “Goldilocks zone.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chemical-planets-core-life-oxygen

A Titan collision may link Saturn’s tilt, its moon Hyperion and its rings A new study proposes that a crash between Titan and another moon spawned Hyperion and, much later, destabilized Saturn’s inner moons into rings.

Two of Saturn’s satellites — its largest and one of its weirdest — may owe their current forms and orbits to a two-moon pileup about 400 million years ago.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/titan-collision-saturn-moon-rings

Hundreds of studies have missed how much the oceans are rising A widely used method to calculate sea level rise may have missed up to a century of change, so the risks could hit home for millions sooner than thought.

Hundreds of global and regional studies on sea level rise and coastal flooding may have underestimated sea levels by an average of 20 to 30 centimeters.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/studies-missed-sea-level-rise-oceans

Cockroaches that eat each other’s wings turn into a fierce fighting force The wood-feeding cockroach’s cannibalistic love bites lead to a lasting bond. Afterward, the pair prefer each other over all other roaches.

Humans might show commitment with a ring, penguins offer rocks, and beetles gift a ball of dung. Wood-feeding cockroaches show commitment with a little cannibalism —and then fighting off everyone else.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cockroach-eat-wings-bond-fight-together

The right sounds may turn sleep into a problem-solving tool Lucid dreamers who heard puzzle-linked soundtracks while sleeping were more likely to solve those unsolved problems the next day.

In a study of lucid dreamers, playing soundtracks linked with unsolved puzzles helped the sleepers solve the problems the next day, researchers report.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sleep-problem-solving-tool-lucid-dream

Over 40? Your rotator cuff probably looks a little rough MRI scans of over 600 Finnish adults found that nearly all had frayed, torn or otherwise abnormal rotator cuffs — yet most had no symptoms.

After age 40, we may all have busted-looking shoulders. But that doesn’t mean anything is wrong.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/shoulder-rotator-cuff-mri

Simulations of your gut may predict which probiotics will stick A “digital gut” predicted which probiotics and high‑fiber diets would take hold in people's guts and produce healthier outcomes.

In the future, gut bacteria simulations could allow researchers to “test-drive” bacterial interventions and design custom probiotics.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/probiotics-gut-simulations-microbiome

A rising percentage of U.S. teens aren’t getting enough sleep Teens need eight to 10 hours of sleep each night. A large majority get less than that, according to a national survey of U.S. high school students.

With puberty, the timing of melatonin secretion changes, meaning that adolescents can have a hard time falling asleep before 11 p.m. or waking up before 8 a.m.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/teens-sleep-deprived-us-high-school