Can Humans Smell Fear?

If humans can indeed smell fear they wouldn’t be unusual in the animal kingdom. Sea anemones, earthworms, minnows, fruit flies, rats, mice, and deer, among others, have all been shown to signal unease through odor. Some responses are even more overt. For example, the offspring of one bird species vomits up a pungent, orange liquid when frightened by a predator; if a parent catches a whiff, it becomes warier in the nest. 

From an evolutionary perspective, a silent signal makes sense. “If you find yourself in a fearful situation, you might want your cohorts to know about it, but without calling attention to yourself by screaming or jumping around,” says Charles J. Wysocki, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. The same could hold true for humans. “Primates have become much more visual creatures [over time],” he says, “and I suspect that smell in general, including the perception of the fearful notes, have taken second place. But they’re still there.”

Tiny Traps Capture Individual Blood Cells

Gotcha! These little pyramids are actually microscopic traps designed to gently enclose single cells without killing them. The idea is that in the future, such traps could be a part of a system for capturing and analyzing individual cells, perhaps as a part of cancer monitoring.

The traps, which are made out of silicon oxides, start out as flat, star-like shapes. When they're dipped into a saline solution, the arms automatically begin to fold inward along their hinges, capturing any cells that might be nearby at the time. In a new study, the traps' creators have shown the little nano-stars are able to grip two different kinds of mouse cells without killing them: red blood cells and fibroblasts, which are a type of connective tissue cell.

Microscopically Structuring Steel Like Bamboo Makes It Stronger Yet More Flexible

People's teeth and bamboo stalks may not seem very durable compared to bars of steel. But, a new series of experiments finds, making metals mimic those materials could improve metals' endurance and strength.
A team of chemists from China and the U.S. manufactured steel with a particular microstructure, inspired by teeth and bamboo. The resulting material was both more flexible and able to handle higher amounts of stress than conventionally made steel. In factories, you want both qualities. Structural steel should be able to handle a lot of stress, but it should also bend a little when it comes near its stress limit. That way, it will give engineers more time to fix it before it fails, instead of shattering suddenly.

Wearable Tech Gets A Makeover

The market for wearable gadgets will reach about $1.8 billion within the next four years, according to Juniper Research, a firm that specializes in mobile telecommunications. Trouble is, it’s hard to wear a gadget without looking like you’re wearing a gadget. Plastic or silicone fitness monitors, such as the Fitbit and Nike Fuelband, practically scream “activity tracker!” And smart watches are large, heavy, and obvious—the calculator watches of the 21st century.
But that awkward stage may be drawing to a close. As sensors become smaller and cheaper, and low-energy Bluetooth data sharing mitigates the need for bulky batteries, designers can integrate smart components in unobtrusive ways. The Misfit Shine activity tracker, for instance, looks like a piece of jewelry (and can last four months on one watch battery). Start-up Cuff will embed location sensors into a line of bracelets and necklaces. Fitbit has even signed a deal with designer Tory Burch to create accessories for its products.
Baking smart components into clothes and accessories is also getting easier to do. In March, Google unveiled the Android Wear operating system, which is optimized to deliver at-a-glance information, such as appointments and text messages, so designers won’t have to spend months developing custom code for their devices. Instead, they can just do what they’ve always done: focus on the fashion.

Squid Protein Could Help Brains 'Talk' to Computers

Scientists have discovered a new feature of a protein called reflectin, found in a group of animals called pencil squid. It turns out reflectin conducts protons and may be able to bridge the communication divide between cells and biomedical implants. It's ability to move around these positive charges and it's "tunability," or versatile nature, could be used to build implants and prosthetics that can more easily communicate with the human body. The fact that it is biological and flexible means that it may be better than existing materials for integrating into the human body, and with a lower chance of being rejected, the researchers (from the University of California, Irvine) said. And since it is a protein, it could be modified in other desirable ways, such as possibly being able to biodegrade after it is done serving a useful purpose, which could help patients avoid additional surgeries. 

See For Yourself How Many Animals Are Close To Extinction

Mass extinctions have happened before in Earth's history, for example when an enormous meteorite slammed into our planet and (likely) wiped out the dinosaurs. But we are now in the midst of one caused by, you guessed it, human beings--with species going extinct between 100 to 1,000 times the natural "background" level. But these numbers are a bit hard to picture. Thankfully, the online journalism outfit ProPublica has created an amazing visualization called "A Disappearing Planet" that tells the story very well through data. The visualization shows how many mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds are endangered, and it breaks it down into families, genera and species. Just clicking at random to find a critically endangered species, I came across the Yanbaru whiskered bat, which was only discovered in Okinawa in 1996 isn't in very good shape. I also learned that 63 percent of primates, 69 percent of big cats, and 100 percent of rhinoceroses are at risk for extinction.

This Bot Has Written More Wikipedia Articles Than Anybody

You might think writing 10,000 articles per day would be impossible. But not for a Swede named Sverker Johansson. He created a computer program that has written a total of 2.7 million articles, making Johansson the most prolific author, by far, on the "internet's encyclopedia." His contributions account for 8.5 percent of the articles on Wikipedia, the Wall Street Journal reports.
But how can a bot write so many articles, and do it coherently? As Johansson--a science teacher with degrees in linguistics, civil engineering, economics and particle physics--explained to the WSJ, the bot scrapes information from various trusted sources, and then cobbles that material together, typically into a very short entry, or "stub." Many of the articles cover the taxonomy of little-known animals such as butterflies and beetles, and also small towns in the Philippines (his wife is Filipina).

Scientists Create Map of Martian Surface Properties

The new map uses nighttime temperature images to derive the thermal inertia – a calculated value that represents how fast a surface heats up and cools off – for areas of Mars, each the size of a football field.
“We used more than 20,000 THEMIS nighttime temperature images to generate the highest resolution surface property map of Mars ever created,” explained team member Dr Robin Fergason at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. As day and night alternate on Mars, loose, fine-grain materials such as sand and dust change temperature quickly and thus have low values of thermal inertia. Bedrock represents the other end of the thermal inertia range: because it cools off slowly at night and warms up slowly by day, it has a high thermal inertia.“Darker areas in the map are cooler at night, have a lower thermal inertia and likely contain fine particles, such as dust, silt or fine sand. The brighter regions are warmer, she explains, and have surfaces with higher thermal inertia. These consist perhaps of coarser sand, surface crusts, rock fragments, bedrock or combinations of these materials,” Dr Fergason said. A version of the map optimized for scientists is available at the U.S. Geological Survey.
“The map has an important practical side. NASA used THEMIS images to find safe landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers in 2004, and for Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, in 2012,” Dr Fergason said. “THEMIS images are now helping NASA select a landing site for its next Mars rover in 2020.”

Solar Sponge Efficiently Makes Steam

The spongey device is made of graphite on top, with a carbon foam on the bottom. The graphite is highly porous and fractured, a crown of flakes, created by putting the material in a microwave oven and allowing bubbles to come to the surface and burst, in a way "just like popcorn," the researchers said.  Graphite absorbs the sun's rays and heats up. This creates a pressure differential that sucks water from the bottom into the top, where it vaporizes. This sponge converts 85 percent of the solar energy in sunlight it absorbs into heat, the authors wrote in the study, which is extremely efficient.
Current methods to create steam involve heating liquids or using a system of mirrors to concentrate sunlight, which are both more expensive and inefficient--whereas the graphite and carbon used in this sponge are relatively easy to get your hands on, the scientists said. 

Strong Personalities Skew Study Samples

All pet owners will happily explain to you their dog or cat's character traits -- probably in far more detail than you ever wanted to know. But the idea of animal personality is not one that's been formally studied all that much.

A new study has classed a species of bird into groups of more and less aggressive males. Researchers gauged the response of male collared flycatchers to female birds, to a strange object, and to other males. They found that each type of individual displayed consistent behavior in each of these situations.

However, they also found that the birds more likely to take risks also were the ones most likely to be trapped -- and thus studied further -- raising important questions about the skewed sample set presented when researchers base their findings on animals caught in traps. It's kind of like when talk show hosts say "95 percent of 13-year olds (who responded to our online survey) are smoking pot!!!" -- leaving out the part about it really being 95 percent oft he particular 20 teenagers who felt like responding to our survey.

Astronomers Discover Three Surprisingly Dry Jupiter-Like Exoplanets

According to the core accretion theory of planet formation, planetary systems form from a huge disk of hydrogen gas and dust around a star.
Over a period of a million years or more, the dust particles stick together, forming larger and larger grains.
Eventually, the grains collect to form planetesimals which eventually coalesce into a planet.
At the same time, the gravity of the planet attracts an atmosphere of gas from the disk.
The theory predicts that a planet’s most abundant element will be oxygen, which would take the form of water vapor in the atmosphere.
The very low levels of water vapor discovered in the atmospheres of HD 189733b, HD 209458b and WASP-12b raise questions about our understanding of the chemical processes involved in planet formation.
Located between 60 and 900 light-years away from Earth, these exoplanets belong to a class of planets known as hot Jupiters. They have average temperatures between 900 and 2,200 degrees Celsius and were thought to be ideal candidates for detecting water vapor in their atmospheres.

New Study Highlights Importance of Oceans for Exoplanet Habitability

The potential habitability of an exoplanet crucially depends on how its atmospheric and ocean circulation transports heat from warmer to cooler regions. Previous studies have concentrated on modeling the dynamics of atmospheres, while dramatically simplifying the treatment of oceans.
“We know that many exoplanets are completely uninhabitable because they are either too close or too far from their Sun. An exoplanet’s habitable zone is based on its distance from the Sun and temperatures at which it is possible for the planet to have liquid water. But until now, most habitability models have neglected the impact of oceans on climate,” explained Prof David Stevens from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who is a co-author on the study. Prof Stevens and his colleagues created a computer simulated pattern of ocean circulation on a hypothetical ocean-covered Earth-like exoplanet.
They looked at how different planetary rotation rates would impact heat transport with the presence of oceans taken into account. “Oceans have an immense capacity to control climate. They are beneficial because they cause the surface temperature to respond very slowly to seasonal changes in solar heating. And they help ensure that temperature swings across a planet are kept to tolerable levels,” Prof Stevens said.
“This new model will help us to understand what the climates of other planets might be like with more accurate detail than ever before".

Dogs Can Experience Jealousy, Scientists Say

It is commonly assumed that jealousy is unique to humans, partially because of the complex cognitions often involved in this emotion. However, some researchers predict that jealousy, at its most basic level, might even exist in other social species, like the cognitively sophisticated dog. To evaluate dogs’ jealous behaviors, Dr Harris and Dr Prouvost modified a test used to assess jealousy in 6-month old infants.
The scientists worked with 36 dogs in their own homes and videotaped the owners ignoring them in favor of a stuffed, animated dog or a jack-o-lantern pail. In both these conditions, the owners were instructed to treat the objects as though they were real dogs – petting them, talking to them sweetly, etc.
In the third scenario, the owners were asked to read aloud a pop-up book that played melodies. The dogs’ behavior was then analyzed for aggression, attention seeking, and/or interest in the owner or object. Dogs were about twice as likely to push or touch the owner when the owner was interacting with the faux dog (78 %) as when the owner was attending to the pail (42 %). Even fewer (22 %) did this in the book condition. About 30 % of the dogs also tried to get between their owner and the stuffed animal. And while 25 % snapped at the ‘other dog,’ only one did so at the pail and book.

James Dean of star family burns brightest

This mesmerising image shows a family of stars nestled together, surrounded by clouds of glowing gas and dust.
Known as Open Star Cluster NGC 3293, this family of over 50 stars is located 8000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina, the Keel.
The stars in NGC 3293 are all less than ten million years old, making them cosmic babies (our Sun is 4.6 billion years old). They were all born at the same time and from the same molecular cloud — so they have the same chemical composition and only differ from each other in mass. However, because of their different masses they are all at different stages in their evolution.
The biggest and brightest stars are those with the most mass. They reach higher temperatures and burn through their nuclear fuel supply quicker than the smaller stars — they're the James Dean of the star family, they live fast and die young.
The bright orange star at the front of the photo is an example of one of these stars — it's a red giant that has burned through its huge supply faster than its siblings, and is now reaching the end of its life cycle.
The white stars glowing brightly against the red background are the same age as the red giant, but they're in the prime of their life.
This range in life cycle is one of the reasons why star clusters provide a perfect opportunity for astronomers to look at how stars evolve.
This image was captured European Southern Observatory's La Silla facility in Chile by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope.

Debate continues over next lunar step

Under current plans, it will be another 11 years before US astronauts travel beyond the International Space Station, a permanently staffed research laboratory that flies about 420 kilometres above Earth. A mission to Mars is at least a decade or more beyond that - if it happens at all.
"It is clear to me that we will not be able to build a long-term research base on Mars if we don't first do it on the Moon," planetary scientist Chris McKay wrote in a paper entitled "The Case for a NASA Research Base on the Moon" that was published last year in the journal New Space.
"New technologies and approaches, and increased international interest in the Moon make the time right to consider pushing for a base that is 10 times less expensive than previous base designs," McKay added in an email.
Development of the Orion space capsule, Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and launch pad renovations at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida currently cost NASA more than $3 billion a year.
Ultimately, the hurdles on the path to Mars are political, not technical, in nature, the National Research Council report concludes.
"Probably the most significant single factor in allowing progress beyond low Earth orbit is the development of a strong national (and international) consensus about the pathway to be undertaken and sustained discipline in not tampering with that plan over many administrations and Congresses," the panel said.

Extracting Family Trees From Ancient Genomes

For millennia, the stories of long-extinct species — including our own progenitors — have been buried with their skeletal remains. But in 2013, ultramodern DNA extraction and sequencing techniques enabled researchers to access ancient genetic codes and translate their evolutionary tales: Researchers in Denmark reconstructed a record-breaking 700,000-year-old horse genome, and geneticists in Germany began parsing the DNA of 400,000-year-old hominids.

Geologists saw the first glint of the horse’s history in 2003 when they plucked its toe bone from permafrost in a remote Yukon gold mine. The uninterrupted freeze of the permafrost preserved DNA in the horse bone, but since DNA decays into smaller and less intelligible fragments over time, the specimen seemed too ancient to analyze. “When that fossil was found, no one would have believed that we could get DNA out of it,” says Yukon government paleontologist Grant Zazula.

Armed with a decade of improvements in next-generation sequencing techniques, Denmark-based evolutionary geneticist Ludovic Orlando could finally piece together what was left of the bone’s DNA. Using what’s called true single molecule sequencing, Orlando lit up the A’s, C’s, T’s and G’s, one by one, to assemble the horse’s genome — six times older than any nuclear DNA specimen ever sequenced.

The results, published in July, radically revise the timeline for equine evolution, revealing that the common ancestor of contemporary horses, zebras and donkeys originated at least 4 million years ago, twice as far back as previously thought.

Feathers More Common Among Dinosaurs Than Previously Thought

A new dinosaur is ruffling a few feathers in the ongoing debate over when and why dinosaurs evolved plumage — and which dinosaurs were rocking the feathered look.Feathers have been associated with several dinosaurs directly ancestral to birds. Additional studies have determined that some non-avian theropod dinosaurs — not directly ancestral to birds but still closely related — also had various types of plumage. Based on an older dinosaur not related to birds that was recently unearthed in Siberia, however, researchers believe many more dinosaurs — possibly all or most of them — had feathers. The newly described Siberian dinosaur, Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus, also helps paleontologists understand why feathers evolved at all.Researchers described K. zabaikalicus for the first time today in Sciencebased on hundreds of fossils, including six partial skulls, from two sites in Russia. The animal belongs to the Ornithischian order of dinosaurs and is several branches away from birds on the Dinosauria family tree. Fossil finds dated from the Middle to Late Jurassic, roughly 176-145 million years ago.