Science News
New human-like species discovered in S Africa
By Pallab Ghosh
Scientists have discovered a new human-like species in a burial chamber deep in a cave system in South Africa.
The discovery of 15 partial skeletons is the largest single discovery of its type in Africa.
The researchers claim that the discovery will change ideas about our human ancestors.
The studies which have been published in the journal Elife also indicate that these individuals were capable of ritual behaviour.
The species, which has been named naledi, has been classified in the grouping, or genus, Homo, to which modern humans belong.
The researchers who made the find have not been able to find out how long ago these creatures lived - but the scientist who led the team, Prof Lee Berger, told BBC News that he believed they could be among the first of our kind (genus Homo) and could have lived in Africa up to three million years ago.
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All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists
By Lawrence M. Krauss
As a physicist, I do a lot of writing and public speaking about the remarkable nature of our cosmos, primarily because I think science is a key part of our cultural heritage and needs to be shared more broadly. Sometimes, I refer to the fact that religion and science are often in conflict; from time to time, I ridicule religious dogma. When I do, I sometimes get accused in public of being a “militant atheist.” Even a surprising number of my colleagues politely ask if it wouldn’t be better to avoid alienating religious people. Shouldn’t we respect religious sensibilities, masking potential conflicts and building common ground with religious groups so as to create a better, more equitable world?
I found myself thinking about those questions this week as I followed the story of Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who directly disobeyed a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and, as a result, was jailed for contempt of court. (She was released earlier today.) Davis’s supporters, including the Kentucky senator and Presidential candidate Rand Paul, are protesting what they believe to be an affront to her religious freedom. It is “absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberties,” Paul said, on CNN.
The Kim Davis story raises a basic question: To what extent should we allow people to break the law if their religious views are in conflict with it?
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Technology News
Apple introduces iPhone upgrade program
Apple is helping customers who want to upgrade to the latest iPhone every year with a new iPhone upgrade program.
by Marguerite Reardon
Apple will offer its own device upgrade program for customers who want to buy a new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus without agreeing to a carrier contract.
The new program will allow customers to upgrade to a new iPhone every year for a monthly fee, the company announced at its event in San Francisco on Wednesday. This is the first time that Apple has offered a device upgrade program.
"You get a new iPhone every year; you choose your carrier; it's an unlocked phone," said Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple. "It starts at just $32 a month. It's a 24-month installment, but you can get a new iPhone every single year."
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Google to test same-day grocery delivery service
The search giant is expanding its delivery options to include fresh foods like fruits and vegetables as it competes with rivals like Amazon. First stops: San Francisco and a to-be-named city.
by Richard Nieva
Google wants to bring you your groceries.
The search giant on Tuesday confirmed it will test a same-day delivery service for fresh foods later this year. Bloomberg earlier reported the news.
Google will first test the service in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as one other, to-be-named US city. The service, called Google Express, already delivers packaged foods, but this is the first time the company will deliver fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables. Google will partner with chains including Whole Foods and Costco for the delivery service.
The move puts Google in more direct competition with rival Amazon, which has a similar grocery service called AmazonFresh. A number of smaller startups, like Instacart and Good Eggs, also deliver fresh food.
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Environmental News
Fish compromised after exposure to crude oil; study may explain crash after Alaska spill
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Federal scientists have determined that extremely low levels of crude oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez caused heart problems in embryonic fish, a conclusion that could shape how damage is assessed in other major spills.
In a study published Tuesday in the online journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that embryonic herring and salmon exposed to low levels of crude oil developed misshapen hearts.
"Metabolically, they're different," said John Incardona, a research toxicologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. "They can't grow as well. They can't swim as fast."
The defects and subsequent vulnerability may explain why the herring population crashed several years after the spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound and has not recovered, scientists said.
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Where Have All the Atlantic Hurricanes Gone?
Study asks if Atlantic has shifted from 25-year cycle of lots of storms to era with fewer.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new but controversial study asks if an end is coming to the busy Atlantic hurricane seasons of recent decades.
The Atlantic looks like it is entering in to a new quieter cycle of storm activity, like in the 1970s and 1980s, two prominent hurricane researchers wrote Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Scientists at Colorado State University, including the professor who pioneered hurricane seasonal prognostication, say they are seeing a localized cooling and salinity level drop in the North Atlantic near Greenland. Those conditions, they theorize, change local weather and ocean patterns and form an on-again, off-again cycle in hurricane activity that they trace back to the late 1800s.
Warmer saltier produces periods of more and stronger storms followed by cooler less salty water triggering a similar period of fewer and weaker hurricanes, the scientists say. The periods last about 25 years, sometimes more, sometimes less. The busy cycle that just ended was one of the shorter ones, perhaps because it was so strong that it ran out of energy, said study lead author Phil Klotzbach.
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Medical News
Brain cells get tweaked 'on the go'
King's College London
Researchers from the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology (MRC CDN) at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London, have discovered a new molecular 'switch' that controls the properties of neurons in response to changes in the activity of their neural network. The findings, published in Science, suggest that the 'hardware' in our brain is tuneable and could have implications that go far beyond basic neuroscience -- from informing education policy to developing new therapies for neurological disorders such as epilepsy.
Computers are often used as a metaphor for the brain, with logic boards and microprocessors representing neural circuits and neurons, respectively. While this analogy has served neuroscience well in the past, it is far from correct, according to the researchers from King's. They suggest that the brain is a highly dynamic, self-organising system, in which internal and external influences continuously shape information processing 'hardware' by mechanisms not yet understood, and in a way not achieved by computers.
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The Problem With Teens Is That They're Just Too Rational
Nancy Shute
Teenagers get dissed for being irrational and making bad decisions, which can lead to very bad things, like drunken driving, risky sex and drug use.
But what if the problem is really that teens are just a little too rational?
That's the argument of Scott Huettel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
He and other researchers were wondering about the presumptions we make about rational/good and irrational/bad when it comes to decision-making.
"It's often very good to be irrational and simplify decisions; find rules that work for you most of the time," Huettel says.
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Space News
Ceres’ mysterious bright spots come into focus
by Christopher Crockett
The Dawn spacecraft is getting up close and personal with two puzzling bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. Seen from an altitude of just 1,470 kilometers, the glaring patches show a lot of complexity. One bright bullseye lies in the center of a crater, named Occator, whose nearly vertical walls plummet 2 kilometers in some places. To the right, a half dozen smaller spots surround a fuzzy smudge.
Researchers won’t know what the spots are made of until they finish analyzing spectra taken by Dawn. Later this year, the spacecraft will drop to a final altitude of 375 kilometers for an unprecedented look at its new home.
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Rare cosmic find: Astronomers find galaxy cluster with bursting heart
ESA/Hubble Information Centre
An international team of astronomers has discovered a gargantuan galaxy cluster with a core bursting with new stars -- an incredibly rare find. The discovery, made with the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the first to show that gigantic galaxies at the centres of massive clusters can grow significantly by feeding off gas stolen from other galaxies.
Galaxy clusters are vast families of galaxies bound together by gravity. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way resides within a small galaxy group known as the Local Group, which itself is a member of the massive Laniakea supercluster.
Galaxies at the centres of clusters are usually made of stellar fossils -- old, red or dead stars. However, astronomers have now discovered a giant galaxy at the heart of a cluster named SpARCS1049+56 that seems to be bucking the trend, instead forming new stars at an incredible rate.
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Odd News
Can You Create an Infinite Number of Reflections?
By Science Buddies
Can you imagine a bouncy ball that could bounce back and forth between two walls, infinitely—that is, forever? Wouldn't that be amazing?
What if, instead of a ball, light was bouncing between two walls, which were both covered in mirrors? Do you think that could bounce back and forth forever? Imagine each light bounce added one reflection of an object in the mirror—for example, you! Would it look like there were an infinite number of "yous"? Perhaps you have noticed something like this in a fun house or a room with multiple mirrors. But can we create an infinite number of reflections?
Try this activity, and be amazed by the many images mirrors can create! Before you know it, you might be inspired to create some real works of beauty.
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