Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Great ape's consonant and vowel-like sounds travel over distance without losing meaning

Scientists have shown that orangutan call signals believed to be closest to the precursors to human language, travel through forest over long distances without losing their meaning. This throws into question the accepted mathematical model on the evolution of human speech according to researchers from the University of Warwick.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-great-ape-consonant-vowel-like-distance.html

Birds' eye size offers clues to coevolutionary arms race between brood parasites, hosts

Eye size likely plays a role in the contest between avian brood parasites—birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other species—and their hosts, who sometimes detect the foreign eggs and eject or abandon them, scientists report in the journal Biology Letters.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-birds-eye-size-clues-coevolutionary.html

Zeroing in on the origins of Earth's 'single most important evolutionary innovation'

Some time in Earth's early history, the planet took a turn toward habitability when a group of enterprising microbes known as cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis—the ability to turn light and water into energy, releasing oxygen in the process.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-zeroing-earth-important-evolutionary.html

Birds' eye size offers clues to coevolutionary arms race between brood parasites, hosts

Eye size likely plays a role in the contest between avian brood parasites—birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other species—and their hosts, who sometimes detect the foreign eggs and eject or abandon them, scientists report in the journal Biology Letters.

Great ape's consonant and vowel-like sounds travel over distance without losing meaning

Scientists have shown that orangutan call signals believed to be closest to the precursors to human language, travel through forest over long distances without losing their meaning. This throws into question the accepted mathematical model on the evolution of human speech according to researchers from the University of Warwick.

Zeroing in on the origins of Earth's 'single most important evolutionary innovation'

Some time in Earth's early history, the planet took a turn toward habitability when a group of enterprising microbes known as cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis—the ability to turn light and water into energy, releasing oxygen in the process.

Bird poop reveals that when birds migrate, their gut bacteria change

The trillions of bacteria living in our guts play a crucial role in our ability to digest food and fight off disease. All other animals also have communities of bacteria living inside them, that scientists call microbiomes, and learning about them can help scientists put together a more complete picture of how those animals interact with the world. In a new study in the journal Molecular Ecology, researchers used tiny radio trackers to follow the movements of birds that migrated between The Bahamas and Michigan, and they found that the same individual birds' gut bacteria were different in the two locations. And to figure that out, the scientists had to get up close and personal with a lot of bird poop.

Drugs in river at UK's Glastonbury music festival harming fish: scientists

High levels of illegal drugs have been found in a river running through Britain's Glastonbury music festival site, endangering a rare species of fish and other wildlife, scientists said on Tuesday.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-drugs-river-uk-glastonbury-music.html

Drugs in river at UK's Glastonbury music festival harming fish: scientists

High levels of illegal drugs have been found in a river running through Britain's Glastonbury music festival site, endangering a rare species of fish and other wildlife, scientists said on Tuesday.

Aftershocks rattle quake-hit Crete as Greek PM to visit

Aftershocks rattled Greece's largest island Crete on Tuesday, a day after a strong earthquake that killed one person, damaged hundreds of buildings and left many homeless.

NYC to hire forecaster, beef up warnings after Ida flooding

New York City is planning to hire a private weather forecaster, install more drainage features and issue earlier and more aggressive warnings to residents under a new plan to respond to heavy rainfall like the deadly deluge Hurricane Ida dropped on the city earlier this month.

How SNPs can be used to detect disease pathways

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new computational tool that can identify pathways related to diseases, including breast and prostate cancer, using single-nucleotide polymorphisms. SNPs, which refer to mutations in a person's DNA, are the most common type of genetic variation among people. The researchers hope that the tool can help them discover new pathways that have been previously overlooked.

Deep dive into global Twitter posts reveals possible drop in negativity towards COVID-19 pandemic

The devastation and distress brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to millions of lives goes without question, but trying to gauge an entire planet's changing perception of the disease over time can seem an almost impossible task.

Aftershocks rattle quake-hit Crete as Greek PM to visit

Aftershocks rattled Greece's largest island Crete on Tuesday, a day after a strong earthquake that killed one person, damaged hundreds of buildings and left many homeless.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-aftershocks-rattle-quake-hit-crete-greek.html

Ford to add 10,800 jobs making electric vehicles, batteries

Ford and a partner company say they plan to build three major electric-vehicle battery factories and an auto assembly plant by 2025—a dramatic investment in the future of EV technology that will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker's future manufacturing footprint toward the South.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-ford-jobs-electric-vehicles-batteries.html

NYC to hire forecaster, beef up warnings after Ida flooding

New York City is planning to hire a private weather forecaster, install more drainage features and issue earlier and more aggressive warnings to residents under a new plan to respond to heavy rainfall like the deadly deluge Hurricane Ida dropped on the city earlier this month.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nyc-hire-beef-ida.html

How SNPs can be used to detect disease pathways

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new computational tool that can identify pathways related to diseases, including breast and prostate cancer, using single-nucleotide polymorphisms. SNPs, which refer to mutations in a person's DNA, are the most common type of genetic variation among people. The researchers hope that the tool can help them discover new pathways that have been previously overlooked.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-snps-disease-pathways.html

Deep dive into global Twitter posts reveals possible drop in negativity towards COVID-19 pandemic

The devastation and distress brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to millions of lives goes without question, but trying to gauge an entire planet's changing perception of the disease over time can seem an almost impossible task.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-09-deep-global-twitter-reveals-negativity.html