For the first time, researchers have identified blubber, and other soft tissue, preserved in an Early Jurassic ichthyosaur. The new interpretation of the 180-million-year-old fossil suggests that the extinct marine reptiles were warm-blooded.
Ichthyosaurs swam the Mesozoic Era seas and were roughly contemporary with dinosaurs. They are often compared with modern toothed whales, particularly porpoises (though at least one ichthyosaur species attained blue whale-like size). Many paleont ...read more
Scientists have announced a breakthrough in stem cell research that could have major implications for medical treatments that involve regenerating human cells. And their discovery came from an unlikely source: royal jelly. It's the same substance honey bees use to turn a common bee larvae into a queen.
Royal Jelly
A queen bee starts her life just like any other bee – a larva in the honey bee hive, taken care of by her siblings. But when it’s time for a new queen, this larva is pulled ...read more
Nearly 25 percent of the world is anemic. Now researchers have created a smartphone app that can detect the condition with a photo. The new tech could mean diagnosing and monitoring the blood disorder without a finger poke or blood draw.
“This is a way for anyone to screen themselves for anemia and all they have to do is download an app,” said Wilbur Lam, a bioengineer and pediatric hematologist at Georgia Tech and Emory University in Atlanta, who led the new research. “It doe ...read more
It’s easy to stereotype mice: They really can all look alike. In fact, even armed with genetic knowledge about their DNA, it can be hard for biologists to tell apart different species. They’re just so similar. Well, not every bit of them is. A group at biologists recently found a new way to tell apart their murine specimens — by looking at mouse sperm.
Their findings appear in the Journal of Mammalogy, and could mean not just improved games of Guess Who in the lab, but also sh ...read more
Black Hole Fountains
Where once were donuts, now there may be fountains. Not literally, unfortunately, but new astronomical observations are rewriting scientists' conceptions of what the area around a black hole looks like, and the new evidence seems to lean heavily away from the morning delicacy.
Scientists estimate that most galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their center, pulling in everything around them with tremendous gravitational forces. Up until now, astronomers believed&n ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine