Ancient armored fish revises early history of jaws
adminA freaky fish with a head like a dolphin and a body like a tank may be to thank for human jaws. The discovery of a 423-million-year-old armored fish from…
Blame bad incentives for bad science
Most of us spend our careers trying to meet — and hopefully exceed — expectations. Scientists do too. But the requirements for success in a job in academic science don’t…
Gene gives mice and chipmunks their pinstripes
Chipmunks and other rodents’ light stripes are painted with a recycled brush, a new study suggests. A protein previously known to guide facial development was repurposed at least twice during…
Stone adze points to ancient burial rituals in Ireland
A stone chopping tool found in Ireland’s earliest known human burial offers a rare peek at hunter-gatherers’ beliefs about death more than 9,000 years ago, researchers say. The curved-edge implement,…
Sounds and glowing screens impair mouse brains
SAN DIEGO — Mice raised in cages bombarded with glowing lights and sounds have profound brain abnormalities and behavioral trouble. Hours of daily stimulation led to behaviors reminiscent of attention-deficit/hyperactivity…
Dogs form memories of experiences
Dogs don’t miss much. After watching a human do a trick, dogs remembered the tricks well enough to copy them perfectly a minute later, a new study finds. The results…
Solar panels are poised to be truly green
The solar panel industry has nearly paid its climate debt. The technology will break even in terms of energy usage by 2017 and greenhouse gas emissions by 2018 at the…
First signs of boron on Mars hint at past groundwater, habitability
SAN FRANCISCO — A new element has been found in Mars’ chemical arsenal. While sampling rocks from Gale Crater, the Curiosity rover detected boron concentrations of about 10 to 100…
Antimatter hydrogen passes symmetry test
An antimatter atom abides by the same rules as its matter look-alike. Scientists studying antihydrogen have found that the energy needed to bump the atoms into an excited, or high-energy,…
Some pulsars lose their steady beat
GRAPEVINE, TEXAS — A pair of cosmic radio beacons known as pulsars keep switching off and on, suggesting that there might be vast numbers of undiscovered pulsars hiding in our…