Magnets and shot glasses serve as fun holiday souvenirs, but certain foods synonymous with a country’s identity can make for extra meaningful gifts for friends and loved ones; think French cheese, Dutch Stroopwafels and Canadian maple syrup. According to new research, communities that lived in western Iran about 11,000 years ago during the Early Neolithic…
A team of scientists has developed a powerful new way to detect subtle magnetic signals in common metals like copper, gold, and aluminum—using nothing more than light and a clever technique. Their research, recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, could pave the way for advances in everything from smartphones to quantum computing. The…
Kyoto, Japan — Many people tend to trust dogs’ instincts regarding humans. If dogs gravitate towards you, dog lovers will likely see you as safe and trustworthy, but if dogs are apprehensive around you, some may begin to question your character. Yet how and even if dogs socially evaluate people remains a mystery. Studies have…
Nematode worms can learn to prefer plastic-contaminated prey over cleaner food Heiti Paves/Alamy Predators can learn to prefer eating prey that is contaminated with microplastics, even when clean food is available. This behaviour could have implications for the eating habits and health of entire ecosystems, including humans. Researchers discovered this preference for plastic after studying…
Did Neanderthals have family recipes? A new study suggests that two groups of Neanderthals living in the caves of Amud and Kebara in northern Israel butchered their food in strikingly different ways, despite living close by and using similar tools and resources. Scientists think they might have been passing down different food preparation practices. “The…
A study led by a scientist at the University of California San Diego offers new warnings on the dangers of human interactions with wildlife. Assistant Professor Shermin de Silva of the School of Biological Sciences studies endangered Asian elephants and has reported on their shrinking habitats, a downturn that has resulted in territorial conflicts between…
Vitamin D is not only an essential nutrient, but also the precursor of the hormone calcitriol, indispensable for health: it regulates the uptake of phosphate and calcium necessary for bones by the intestines, as well as cell growth and the proper function of muscles, nerve cells, and the immune system. Now, researchers have shown for…
The UK’s pioneering licensed IVF technique to reduce the risk of mitochondrial diseases carried out in Newcastle has seen eight babies born, published research shows. All eight babies show no signs of having mitochondrial DNA disease. The babies, four girls and four boys, including one set of identical twins, were born to seven women at…
In his sci-fi novel Lake of Darkness, Adam Roberts set out to write a utopia, a genre predating science fiction that imagines a better or perfect world. “I wanted to investigate the logic of utopia itself. Is utopia possible?” he says. Despite this, he admits that utopia novels are hard: “There can be, by definition,…
J1025+1402, one of the three little red dot galaxies seen up to 2.5 billion light years away DESI Legacy Survey/D. Lang (Permieter Institute) A weird type of galaxy seen in the early universe has now been spotted in a more recent part of the cosmos, raising questions about their true nature. Over the past few…
