Dogs Understand Us Better Than Chimps Do
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 628 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Chimpanzees may be our closest living relatives, but they do not understand us as well as dogs do.
The study in the latest issue of PLoS ONE. found that chimpanzees could care less when people pointed to objects, but dogs paid attention and knew precisely what the person wanted.
NEWS: Can Dogs Read Minds? Not Exactly
"We think that we are looking at a special adaptation in dogs to be sensitive to human forms of communication,"
[Read More]Fountain of Youth: Drug Restores Muscles
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 340 words
| Fernande Dalal
A daily dose of an investigational medication has been found to restore muscle mass in the arms and legs of older adults and improve some of their biochemistry to levels found in healthy young adults, suggesting an anti-frailty drug has been found.
The drug, called MK-677, was evaluated for its safety and effectiveness in a study that showed the drug restored 20 percent of muscle mass loss associated with normal aging.
[Read More]Ghost Busters! Night-Vision Camera Touted As Paranormal Tracker
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 437 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
If you're looking for something spooky to do this Halloween, you might consider walking around the block to search for ghosts in your neighborhood.
Just in time for the scariest night of the year, networking and communications company D-Link announced it is offering customers free refurbished cameras equipped with motion detectors and night-vision capabilities — perfect for keeping an eye out for things that go bump in the night. These Wi-Fi-enabled cameras, which let users monitor footage in real time from a mobile device, will be given away to those "
[Read More]How Do Aquatic Creatures Get Fossilized in Tree Sap?
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 1 minutes
| 155 words
| Fernande Dalal
They probably never saw it coming. Minding their business, swimming around and then suddenly, their lives end in sticky resin from high up in a tree.
Bodies of freshwater creatures found frozen in amber have always puzzled scientists. Previously, scientists assumed the yellow-colored fossil of amber formed only on land. But researchers at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin recently discovered just how trees’ ancient, slow-moving sticky stuff might have caught swimming creatures and then turned to amber.
[Read More]Hurricane Ida could slam into Louisiana just shy of Category 5
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 455 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Hurricane Ida is already lashing the coast of southeastern Louisiana with winds reaching 150 mph (240 km/h) and life-threatening storm surge, as the Category 4 storm gets closer to landfall.
The hurricane is expected to slam into southeastern Louisiana in the next few hours, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The storm would be the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2021 season to make landfall on U.S. soil, Accuweather reported. And if Ida strengthens even a little, its maximum sustained winds could reach Category 5 status, which is 156 mph (251 km/h) on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
[Read More]Images: Camera Traps 'Catch' Rare Afghan Cats
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 1 minutes
| 191 words
| Trudie Dory
Persian LeopardUsing camera trap surveys to collect data on the wildlife of Afghanistan's central highlands, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society have made a surprise discovery: a Persian leopard, thought to have been extirpated from the region.
Wild CatThe camera trap imagespart of a wildlife survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society and local Afghan rangersrevealed several other species as well, including the wild cat, distant relative to the domestic house cat.
[Read More]Ingestible Snake Robot Could Slither Through Your Intestines
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 682 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A tiny, swallowable robot that snakes its way through the small intestines could one day be used to actively visualize the digestive system.
The robot, called SAW (single actuator wave-like robot), moves in a wave-like motion and can travel through the extremely squishy environment of the small intestine.
"The external shape of the robot is a 2D projection of a rotating helix. The result is a continuously moving wave. We can simply reverse the direction by reversing the direction of rotation of the motor,"
[Read More]Like Humans, Chimps Show Selfless Behaviors
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 848 words
| Patria Henriques
Chimpanzees, long considered reluctant to share, apparently can display selfless tendencies, revealing one more key way our closest living relatives are like humans, scientists find.
These findings could shed light on the evolution of altruism in humans, showing that selflessness is less of an anomaly among our relatives than before suggested, researchers added.
In recent years, research has revealed just how much chimpanzeeshave in common with us. They can hunt with spears, play with improvised dolls and mourn their dead.
[Read More]Marijuana with 'CBD' May Pose Less Risk to Long-Term Users
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 657 words
| Trudie Dory
Marijuana with relatively high levels of a compound called cannabidiol may be less risky to smoke over the long term, because this ingredient may counteract some of the drug's harmful effects, according to a new study in mice.
The study found that adolescent mice injected with frequent doses of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — the ingredient in marijuana that produces a "high" — showed signs of impaired memory and increased anxiety over the long term.
[Read More]Oldest English Words Revealed?
Posted on January 8, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 416 words
| Patria Henriques
A game of Scrabble might not have been all that different in Stone Age times.
Using a computer simulation, a British researcher says he's examined the rate of change of words in languages to reveal the oldest English-sounding words, which would have been used by Stone Age humans 20,000 years ago.
Among the Stone Age words that presumably would've sounded then much like they do now in the English language: I, we, two and three.
[Read More]