Chronic wasting disease has been spreading among deer in the United States, which has raised concerns that the fatal neurological illness might make the leap to people. But a recent study suggests that the disease has a tough path to take to get into humans.
The culprit behind chronic wasting disease, or CWD, isn’t a virus or bacterium but a misfolded brain protein called a prion. A new study using miniature, lab-grown organs called organoids supports previous work, showing that
The High Seas
Olive Heffernan
Greystone Books, $32.95
The ocean is a rich, fertile and seemingly lawless frontier. It’s a watery wild west, irresistible to humans hoping to plunder its many riches.
That is the narrative throughout The High Seas: Greed, Power and the Battle for the Unclaimed Ocean, a fast-paced, thoroughly reported and deeply disquieting book by science journalist Olive Heffernan, also the founding chief editor of the journal Nature Climate Change.
The book begins by churning
Unlike many of their mostly meat-eating peers, a group of late Stone Age hunter-gatherers living in what is now northeastern Morocco had a largely plant-based diet. But despite dining for millennia on local, wild plants — such as acorns, pistachios and wild oats, the Iberomaurusians never started cultivating those plants. The finding aligns with recent challenges to scientists’ theory that heavy reliance on plants ultimately leads to their domestication (SN: 11/9/21).
Before humans figured out farming, they relied on
It’s the age-old question – if humans were wiped off the face of the planet, what would happen to the rest of Earth’s species?
Well, according to one expert, dogs would all look the same within five years – and breeds would cease to exist.
Dr Dan O’Neill, professor of animal epidemiology at Royal Veterinary College, says pooches of all shapes and sizes would be able to mate with each other.
As a result, ‘unnatural’ and unhealthy attributes like flat
Here is an origin story about origin stories. Once upon a time, we knew where we came from: Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Fall. Then came modern science, modern doubt. Geology, paleontology: The world grew older very fast. Skulls were discovered, and stone tools. Human origins became a problem and a fascination. Who are we? How did we emerge? And given who we think we may be, how should we live?
If you’ve ever cooked a complex meal with someone, you know the level of coordination required. Someone dices this, someone sautés that, as you dance around holding knives and hot pans. Meanwhile, you might wordlessly nudge each other, placing ingredients or implements within the other’s reach when you’d like something done.
How might a robot handle this type of interaction?
Research presented in late 2023 at the Neural Information Processing Systems, or NeurIPS, conference, in New Orleans, offers some clues.
Future interplanetary explorers beware: Hitchhiking bacteria brought to Mars on human bodies might not only survive the harsh conditions on the Red Planet’s surface but also potentially thrive.
Recent experiments exposed four common disease-causing microbes to a simulated Mars-like environment, with its lack of water, scant atmospheric pressure, deadly ultraviolet radiation and toxic salts. The bacteria remained alive for various periods of time and, in some cases, even grew in the imitation Martian sands, researchers report in the January Astrobiology
Despite never even setting foot on the planet, human-made space junk is already piling up on Mars.
A new map reveals the locations of debris from spacecraft that have landed on Mars in the past 53 years, including the now defunct Ingenuity helicopter.
This junk includes bits of metal landing equipment, heat shields, used parachutes, clipped rotor blades, drill bits and even fabric netting.
Cagri Kilic, a professor of aerospace engineering at West Virginia University, estimates that there’s already a
Elon Musk’s Neuralink hit the headlines this morning, after the entrepreneur announced that his firm had implanted a chip in the brain of a human for the first time.
Having gained FDA approval, Musk announced that a device called ‘Telepathy’ had been implanted and that the unnamed patient was recovering well.
But after Neuralink’s early trials saw 1,500 animals killed during rushed experiments, experts have raised serious concerns about the implant’s safety.
Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Dean Burnett, honorary research
In 1969, the idea of building a permanent settlement on the moon might have seemed impossible.
But as the US, China, and Japan battle it out in a new space race, Earth’s territorial disputes may soon extend into space.
When Neil Armstrong first planted the American flag on the moon, it might have looked a lot like he was staking the US’s claim.
But can anybody really own the moon, or was Armstrong’s flag planting no more legally significant than
