SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
Mastering a new skill – whether a sport, an instrument, or a craft – takes time and training. While it is understood that a healthy brain is capable of learning these new skills, how the brain changes in order to develop new behaviors is a relative mystery. More precise knowledge of this underlying neural circuitry … Read more
Corruption affects all of us. It impedes equitable development, destabilizes societies, and undermines the institutions and values of democracy. It is viewed by many as one of the world’s greatest problems. According to the Gallup Poll, a majority of people even place its negative impacts ahead of global problems like climate change, poverty, and terrorism. … Read more
Soil food webs play a key role in supporting grassland ecosystems, which cover about one-quarter of the land on Earth. Climate change poses a threat to these environments, partly because of the uncertainty of extremes in rainfall, which is projected to increase. To learn more about the effects of these extreme events, a team of soil … Read more
Analysis of the first fully-sequenced genome of the Siberian hamster shows how these small, seasonal breeders adapt their bodies and energy usage to survive the winter. The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also includes transcriptome analysis of gene expression in the brain during both summer and winter conditions, … Read more
With the help of an extensive genetic database of modern grapevines, researchers were able to test and compare 28 archaeological seeds from French sites dating back to the Iron Age, Roman era, and medieval period. Utilising similar ancient DNA methods used in tracing human ancestors, a team of researchers from the UK, Denmark, France, Spain, … Read more
Bacteria are everywhere. They are the most abundant form of life on our planet. Pick up just about any surface and its likely covered in bacteria. The aquatic environment is no different. Indeed, the ocean is full of small particles and debris, some inert, some highly nutritious. But how do bacteria differentiate between these surfaces, how do they hold onto … Read more
In “Avengers: Endgame,” Tony Stark warned Scott Lang that sending him into the quantum realm and bringing him back would be a “billion-to-one cosmic fluke”. In reality, shrinking a light beam to a nanometer-sized point to spy on quantum-scale light-matter interactions and retrieving the information is not any easier. Now, engineers at the University of California, … Read more
Humankind has entered uncharted territory: atmospheric CO2 levels soared to record-breaking 415ppm for the first time in human history. The need to find a sustainable alternative to CO2-producing fuels is in dire need. One of the most promising environmentally-friendly energetic sources is hydrogen generated via water splitting – the reaction in which water is broken down into … Read more
The winter ice on the surface of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea occasionally forms an enormous hole. A hole that appeared in 2016 and 2017 drew intense curiosity from scientists and reporters. Though even bigger gaps had formed decades before, this was the first time oceanographers had a chance to truly monitor the unexpected gap in Antarctic … Read more
In the eternal search for understanding what makes us human, scientists found that our brains are more sensitive to pitch, the harmonic sounds we hear when listening to music, than our evolutionary relative the macaque monkey. The study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, highlights the promise of Sound Health, a joint … Read more