Can a Pill Give You Perfect Pitch?

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  663 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Before your next karaoke contest, you might want to visit a pharmacist: Researchers have found that a drug known as valproate, or valproic acid, might help people learn how to produce perfect pitch. Besides the assistance valproate could give to "American Idol" contestants, the study is intriguing because it suggests the adult brain can learn better and faster through drugs that enhance its "neuroplasticity." Perfect pitch, which scientists refer to as absolute pitch, is the rare ability to identify or produce the pitch of a musical note without any reference point. [Read More]

Cave Men Loved to Sing

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  747 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests. Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there. The Upper Paleolithic people responsible for the paintings had likely fine-tuned their hearing to recognize the sound qualities in certain parts of the cave and chose to do their artwork there as a kind of landmark, perhaps as part of a singing ritual, said researcher Iegor Reznikoff, a specialist in ancient music at the University of Paris X in Nanterre. [Read More]

Cavefish Not Blind to Attractions of Surface-Dwelling Cousins

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  515 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Cavefish that have lost their eyesight and body coloring as means to adapt to the dark depths where they dwell show no prejudice against their surface-dwelling, eye-equipped counterparts at the surface of the water. In fact, new research suggests the two fish — one with eyes and a silvery-gray body, and the other with skin flaps covering their eyes and no pigmentation — are the same species of Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus). [Read More]

Earth Lost Half Its Trees to Humans

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  587 words  |  Fernande Dalal

A new global census of all the trees on Earth estimates that more than 3 trillion call this "pale blue dot" home. But the total number of trees on the planet has dropped by almost 50 percent since human civilization began. The study is billed as the most accurate inventory of Earth's tree population to date, revealing that there are 3.04 trillion trees, which is roughly equivalent to 422 trees for every person on the planet. [Read More]

Electrical Stimulation Makes Old Brains Act Young Again

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  6 minutes  |  1189 words  |  Trudie Dory

A short session of brain zapping can reverse some of the effects of aging in older adults, a new study suggests. The technique isn't ready for non-experimental use yet, and it's not clear how long the benefits last. But the study authors said they hope that their findings will set the stage for improving cognition in both healthy adults and in people experiencing Alzheimer's and other types of dementia. "These findings are important because they not only give us new insights into the brain basis for age-related working-memory decline, but they also show us that the negative age-related changes are not unchangeable," [Read More]

In Photos: ROV Explores Deep Ocean Trench

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  386 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Deep ExplorerThe hybrid remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Nereus (shown here) has been tasked with exploring the deepest parts of the Earth's ocean where pressure can be as great as 16,000 pounds per square inch. It has explored the world's deepest trench, the Marianas Trench, and the second-deepest trench, the Kermadec Trench. NereusOn the HADES cruise, Nereus brought back to the surface, from the Kermadec Trench, specimens of animals previously unknown to science and seafloor sediment destined to help reveal the physical, chemical, and biological processes that shape the deep-ocean ecosystem and that make ocean trenches unlike almost any other part of the planet. [Read More]

Mysterious Indus Valley People Gave Rise to Modern-Day South Asians

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  998 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Ancient DNA evidence reveals that the people of the mysterious and complex Indus Valley Civilization are genetically linked to modern South Asians today.  The same gene sequences, drawn from a single individual who died nearly 5,000 years ago and was buried in a cemetery near Rakhigarhi, India, also suggest that the Indus Valley developed farming independently, without major migrations from neighboring farming regions. It's the first time an individual from the ancient Indus Valley Civilization has yielded any DNA information whatsoever, enabling researchers to link this civilization both to its neighbors and to modern humans. [Read More]

Photos: See the ancient faces of a man-bun-wearing bloke and a Neanderthal woman

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  594 words  |  Trudie Dory

Whitehawk womanThe Whitehawk woman lived about 5,500 years ago. Researchers found her in 1933 near what is now the Brighton Racecourse, in the United Kingdom, but it's only now that a facial reconstruction shows us what she looked like. The Whitehawk woman stood about 4 feet, 9 inches (1.45 meters) tall, which was small, even for a Neolithic woman. She didn't have any signs of illness of injury, and because the bones of a baby were found on her pelvis, archaeologists say it's likely that she died in childbirth. [Read More]

Should You Take Out a Perfectly Good Prostate?

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  895 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Dr. David Samadi is chairman of urology and chief of robotic surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, and a board-certified urologist and oncologist specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, urologic diseases, kidney cancer and bladder cancer. He developed the Samadi Modified Advanced Robotic Technique (SMART) surgery to perform nearly 6,000 robotic prostate surgeries, and is one of the few urologic surgeons in the United States trained in oncology, open, laparoscopic and robotic surgery. [Read More]

What If the Supercontinent Pangaea Had Never Broken Up?

 Posted on October 4, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  357 words  |  Patria Henriques

During the new DC Comics Universe series "Flashpoint," in which a time-traveling supervillain alters the past to warp the present, Life's Little Mysteries presents a 10-part series that examines what would happen if a major event in the history of the universe had gone just slightly different. Part 3: What if ... the supercontinent Pangaea never broke up? From about 300 million to 200 million years ago, all seven modern continents were mashed together as one landmass, dubbed Pangaea . [Read More]