If you're a cat owner, then you probably have a pretty good sense of whether your cat is happy, angry, or frustrated. But do cats, like humans, actually have common "facial expressions" that accompany these emotions? People have actually been studying questions like this for decades (and even back to Charles Darwin), but not always in a scientifically rigorous manner. Enter these scientists, who set out to create a "facial coding system" for cats, which they term "CatFACS" (fortunately not r ...read more

Hey, your shoe is untied, and now scientists know why: the combination of foot stomping and leg swinging cause the laces to slip apart. Yes, a child could have told you this, but there’s a reason scientists gave knots a closer look. Knots are everywhere, from stitches used in surgery to steel cables used in construction. Sailors are familiar with the clove hitch, bowline and cleat hitch. Even DNA is a snarled knot. With knots holding so much together, scientists thought it couldn’t ...read more

How has neuroscience changed over the past decade? In a new paper, Hong Kong researchers Andy Wai Kan Yeung and colleagues take a look at brain science using the tools of citation analysis. Yeung et al. extracted data from 2006-2015 from Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports (JCR), which track publications and citations. All journals that the JCR classifies in the "Neurosciences" category were included. The first change Yeung et al. noticed was that the number of published neuros ...read more

After epic drought, California experienced an equally epic rainy season this past winter. And the state's deserts have responded with an explosion of wildflowers and other vegetation. Maybe you've seen those almost unreal photos of hills blanketed in emerald green grass, and bright yellow, orange and purple wildflowers? If not, check it out: https://twitter.com/Interior/status/849048725867679745 Now, NASA's Earth Observatory has published before-and-after satellite images of the Anz ...read more

Going to the dentist may not be any fun today, but 13,000 years ago it would have been outright traumatic. Before the age of painkillers, specialized tools and antibiotics, dentists used a variety of crude implements to ply their trade. A pair of incisors unearthed in Tuscany and recently analyzed by Italian researchers were hollowed out with sharpened rocks and stuffed with traces of bitumen and organic matter in what appears to be an early attempt at dental fillings.  Open Wide ...read more

When a sore throat and sinus congestion warrant a visit to the doctor, your physician will attempt to determine whether a cold virus or bacterial infection is to blame—oftentimes without success. So, just to be safe, they might write a potentially unnecessary script for an antibiotic. But what if a nurse could swipe your saliva and run a quick genetic test for bacteria? If the test results are negative, you get a prescription for a decongestant and orders to get some rest, rather than con ...read more

The auto industry had the Fords, oil had the Rockefellers, and politics had the Kennedys. Science, too, has its legacy lineages. ...read more