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They could also have delivered similar building blocks of life to other planets. Scientists at Cambridge University propose that comets may "bounce" around the universe, carrying the essential ingredients to create life on alien worlds. They specifically looked at systems carrying rocky planets around low-mass stars — stars that are smaller than our sun. AdvertisementStill, Bonsor said the research suggests a low-mass planetary system is less likely to carry life than a system with a brighter star. "We're all super excited in the community about the fact that we can find habitable zone planets around low-mass stars.
Persons: , Richard Anslow, it's, Amy Bonsor, Bonsor, she's Organizations: Service, Cambridge University, Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Royal Society
Rats tend to avoid reproducing in cold weather, Jason Munshi-South, a biologist and associate professor at Fordham University, told Insider. "It's going to be an issue," Munshi-South said, "especially in northern cities like New York City. Rats on the rise Efforts to control the rat population have highly mixed results. AdvertisementAdvertisementBy running his own surveys with exterminators around the city, Corrigan concluded, "there are more rats. In previous years, it would've been cold by then and rats would've stopped reproducing," in NYC, he told Insider.
Persons: it's, Jason Munshi, Munshi, Robert Corrigan, Corrigan, we'll, would've Organizations: Service, Fordham University, Anadolu Agency, Royal Society B, Guardian Locations: York City, New York, Anadolu, New York City
Scientists create chimeric monkey with two sets of DNA
  + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com   time to read: +7 min
CNN —Scientists based in China have created a monkey chimera with two sets of DNA, experimental work they say could ultimately benefit medical research and the conservation of endangered species. It’s the world’s first live birth of a primate chimera created with stem cells, the researchers said. Scientists have created mouse embryos that are part human, and in 2021, scientists reported that they had grown human-monkey chimeric embryos. In September, researchers reported that they had grown kidneys containing mostly human cells inside pig embryos. Then they selected a subset of cells to inject into genetically distinct 4- to 5-day-old embryos from the same monkey species.
Persons: , , Miguel Esteban, chimeras, Zhen Liu, Liu, Jun Wu, hadn’t, Wu wasn’t, Jacob Hanna, ” Hanna, Penny Hawkins, Organizations: CNN —, Cell, Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Research, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Weizmann Institute of Science, Royal Society for, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Covid Locations: China, Health, Research Hangzhou, Israel, United States
Cheetahs are usually daytime hunters, but the speedy big cats will shift their activity toward dawn and dusk hours during warmer weather, a new study finds. While cheetahs only eat fresh meat, lions and leopards will sometimes opportunistically scavenge from smaller predators. But the new study found that on the hottest days, when maximum daily temperatures soared to nearly 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), cheetahs became more nocturnal — increasing their overlapping hunting hours with rival big cats by 16%. In addition to competition with lions and leopards, cheetahs already face severe pressure from habitat fragmentation and conflict with humans. The fastest land animal, cheetahs are the rarest big cat in Africa, with fewer than 7,000 left in the wild.
Persons: , Briana Abrahms, Bettina Wachter, Wachter, Kasim Rafiq, Rafiq —, it's Organizations: Cheetahs, Royal Society, University of Washington, , Cheetah Research, Leibniz Institute for Zoo, Wildlife Research, Botswana Predator Conservation, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science, Educational Media Group, AP Locations: “ Lions, Namibia, Botswana, Africa, Zambia
Britain to invest 300 million pounds in AI supercomputing
  + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +2 min
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech on AI at Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace on October 26, 2023 in London, England. Funding for the "AI Research Resource" will be increased to 300 million pounds ($363.57 million) from a previously announced 100 million pounds, the government said at an AI safety summit aimed at charting a safe way forward for the rapidly evolving technology. "Frontier AI models are becoming exponentially more powerful," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on social media platform X. "This investment will make sure Britain’s scientific talent have the tools they need to make the most advanced models of AI safe." The machines, which will be running from summer next year, will be used to analyse advanced AI models to test safety features, as well as to drive breakthroughs in drug discovery and clean energy, the government said.
Persons: Rishi Sunak, Peter Nicholls, Bristol's, Kylie MacLellan, Kirsten Donovan Organizations: British, Royal Society, Carlton, Terrace, REUTERS, Nvidia, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell, SME, Thomson Locations: London, England, Britain, Cambridge, Bristol
Where it's being heldThe AI summit will be held in Bletchley Park, the historic landmark around 55 miles north of London. What it seeks to addressThe main objective of the U.K. AI summit is to find some level of international coordination when it comes to agreeing some principles on the ethical and responsible development of AI models. The British government wants the AI Summit to serve as a platform to shape the technology's future. They say that, by keeping the summit restricted to only frontier AI models, it is a missed opportunity to encourage contributions from members of the tech community beyond frontier AI. "By focusing only on companies that are currently building frontier models and are leading that development right now, we're also saying no one else can come and build the next generation of frontier models."
Persons: Rishi Sunak, Peter Nicholls, Rishi Sunak's, ChatGPT, Getty, codebreakers, Alan Turing, It's, Kamala Harris, Saul Loeb, Brad Smith, Sam Altman, Global Affairs Nick Clegg, Ursula von der, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Olaf Scholz, Sunak, , Xi Jinping, Biden, James Manyika, Manyika, Mostaque, we're, Sachin Dev Duggal, Carl Court Organizations: Royal Society, Carlton, Getty, U.S, Microsoft, Coppin State University, AFP, Meta, Global Affairs, Global Affairs Nick Clegg U.S, Ministry of Science, Technology European, Joe Biden Canadian, Britain, Afp, Getty Images Washington, U.S ., Google, CNBC, Big Tech Locations: London, China, Bletchley Park, British, America, Baltimore , Maryland, Chesnot, U.S, Nusa Dua, Indonesian, Bali, EU
Two experts explain how long it could take until fusion power plants are possible. Fusion plants could theoretically produce almost 4 million times as much energy as burning coal or oil — with none of the carbon emissions. It's what Andrew Christlieb, who is part of a US Department of Energy fusion project at Michigan State University, calls "step zero." The US Department of Energy's Fusion Energy Sciences program has a $763 million budget for 2023, which could grow to over $1 billion next year. Achieving commercial fusion power in two decades won't be quick enough to address many countries' goals of adapting clean energy and limiting global warming by 2035.
Persons: It's, Andrew Christlieb, Christlieb, Michael Livingston, PPPL, Jean, Paul Pelissier, it's, Jason Laurea, Lawrence, Jonathan Menard, Menard, Bill Gates, Sam Altman Organizations: Service, Ignition, NIF, US Department of Energy, Michigan State University, Royal Society, Reactor, REUTERS, European Union, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics, US Department of Energy's Fusion Energy Sciences, Fusion Industry Association, Tech Locations: PPPL, Saint, Durance , Southern France, US, China, Russia, Lawrence Livermore, Princeton
CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories witnessed a massive explosion in space that created rare chemical elements, some of which are necessary for life. Tracking stellar explosionsAstronomers have long believed that neutron star mergers are the celestial factories that create rare elements heavier than iron. What was unusual about this burst is that it lasted for 200 seconds, making it a long gamma-ray burst. One of the pair exploded as a supernova, leaving behind a neutron star, and then the same thing happened to the other star. Finding cosmic elementsAstronomers have been trying to determine how chemical elements are created in the universe for decades.
Persons: James Webb, , Andrew Levan, Levan, Webb, Fermi, Neil Gehrels, , Dmitri Mendeleev, ” Levan, it’s, supernovas, Eric Burns, Om Sharan Salafia, Nancy Grace, “ Webb, Ben Gompertz, ” Gompertz Organizations: CNN, James Webb Space Telescope, Way Galaxy, Telescope, Radboud University, Observatory, Royal Society of Chemistry, Astronomers, Louisiana State University, National Institute for Astrophysics, Institute, Gravitational, School of Physics, University of Birmingham Locations: Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom
But they weren’t always that way, according to a new study, which found the famous 2,500-year-old Parthenon sculptures were colorful, painted with floral patterns and other elaborate designs. Researchers found microscopic traces of paint by using infrared light that is absorbed by the blue paint and appears on camera as a glowing white (right). By illuminating the sculptures with the red light, a pigment known as “Egyptian blue” absorbs the light and appears on camera as a glowing white. “Egyptian blue” was a popular pigment of its time that was made using calcium, copper and silicon, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry. Verri said he hopes that further imaging will soon be developed to find other colors present on the sculptures.
Persons: Giovanni Verri, ” Verri, “ It’s, Lord Elgin, Verri, Dione, Aphrodite, Kekrops, Demeter, Persephone, Dione ,, , Michael Cosmopoulos, Louis, William Wootton, conservators Organizations: CNN, British, , King’s College London, Art Institute of Chicago, British Museum, Royal Society of Chemistry, University of Missouri, Acropolis Museum Locations: Greece, Athens, Ottoman Empire, Verri
Researchers said on Monday the solar storm - the sun sending a large burst of energetic particles into space - occurred 14,300 years ago. Nine such extreme solar storms now have been identified using tree-ring radiocarbon evidence, with the most recent in 774 and 993 AD. The largest directly observed solar storm, called the Carrington Event, occurred in 1859, wreaking havoc on telegraphs and creating a nighttime aurora so bright that birds sang as if the sun was rising. The effects of solar storms can disable electronics. "If similar solar storms happened today, they could be catastrophic for society, as we are so reliant upon technology," Heaton said.
Persons: Cecile Miramont, eked, Tim Heaton, Heaton, Edouard Bard, Cécile Miramont, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: REUTERS, University of Leeds, Engineering Sciences, Marseille University, Thomson Locations: Gap, Handout, England, France, paleoclimates, Aix, Washington
What the Nobel Prizes get wrong about science
  + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com   time to read: +9 min
Peter Brzezinski, the secretary of the committee for the Nobel chemistry prize, said there were no plans to change the rule. He said the Nobel Prize committees, at least for science prizes, are “innately conservative.”DiversityOther criticism leveled at the Nobel Prizes includes the lack of diversity among winners. Of course, these flaws and gaps only matter because the Nobels are far better known than other science prizes, Rees added. The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday and the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Prize for literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
Persons: Alfred Nobel, Martin Rees, Rees, , Jonathan Nackstrand, Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, Kip Thorne, David Pendlebury, “ Nobel, ” Pendlebury, Nobel’s, Peter Brzezinski, , ” Brzezinski, John Jumper, AlphaFold, Lasker, Pendlebury, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, it’s, Carolyn Bertozzi, Andrea Ghez, Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea, ” Rees Organizations: CNN, Royal Society, Getty, Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific, Nobel Foundation, Academy, Google, Harvard University Locations: Swedish, AFP, Stockholm
Industrial-scale whaling in the 19th and 20th centuries nearly drove many whale species into extinction. But it turns out that whaling’s effects on where whales live go back much deeper into human history. As early as 8,000 years ago, humans carved their attempts to capture whales into South Korean cliffs. More recently, medieval texts described the whaling preferences of Europeans. So he and his colleagues examined 719 pieces of whale bones collected at archaeological sites from Norway to Portugal.
Persons: Moby, Dick, , Ahab, Ishmael, van den Organizations: Royal Society Open Science, Norwegian University of Science, Technology Locations: Norway, Portugal
Depleted uranium is a dense by-product left over when uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. The depleted uranium is still radioactive, but has a much lower level of the isotopes U-235 and U-234 - way less than the levels in natural uranium ore - reducing its radioactivity. The United States, Britain, Russia, China, France and Pakistan produce depleted uranium weapons, which are not classified as nuclear weapons, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons. Ingesting or inhaling quantities of uranium - even depleted uranium - is dangerous: it can depress renal function and raises the risk of developing a range of cancers. A United Nations Environment Programme report on the impact of depleted uranium on Serbia and Montenegro found "no significant, widespread contamination".
Persons: Sergei Ryabkov, Ryabkov, Guy Faulconbridge, Frank Jack Daniel, Tomasz Janowski, Kevin Liffey Organizations: Pentagon, International Atomic Energy Agency, Associated Universities, of, DU, WHO, International Coalition, Uranium, NATO, Royal Society, IAEA, United Nations Environment, TASS, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Tennessee, United States, Britain, Russia, China, France, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Balkans, London, Serbia, Montenegro, RUSSIA, Washington
Millions of years ago, a simian ancestor of humanity decided to climb a tree. It may have been looking for a meal, escaping a predator or seeking a shady place to rest. Later, like anyone who has ascended high into a forest’s canopy, our relative discovered that getting down in one piece is less simple than it seems. Any human can relate to this, like climbing up a fireman’s pole, for example, is challenging,” said Nathaniel Dominy, an evolutionary biologist at Dartmouth. The researchers posit that this adaptation persisted even as early humans swapped out trees for grassland habitats, their versatile upper limbs now making it possible to forage, hunt and defend.
Persons: , Nathaniel Dominy, , Dominy Organizations: Dartmouth, Royal Society Open Science
CNN —Warming global temperatures are dangerous for people in many ways, but they’re proving ideal for one type of animal: venomous snakes. As Australia’s east coast experiences one of its warmest winters on record, snake season appears to have started early. The Australian Reptile Park has issued an “urgent warning” for people to be on the look out for venomous snakes. A rise in temperatures, coupled with winter rainfall, is the perfect environment for venomous snakes to become more active, the Australian Reptile Park said in a statement. As the world continues to burn planet-warming fossil fuels, and global temperatures soar, Australia’s winters have been steadily warming.
Persons: Billy Collett Organizations: CNN, New, Australian, of Meteorology, Royal Society for, Animals Locations: New South Wales
Nile crocodiles react to the cries of infants from species like bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans. Researchers played audio recordings of infants crying to the carnivorous crocodiles and discovered they were drawn to those in the most distress. While humans primarily responded to the pitch of the cries, crocodiles responded based on levels of "deterministic chaos, harmonicity, and spectral prominences." Nile crocodiles can grow to about 20 feet long and can weigh up to 1,650 pounds, per National Geographic. According to the publication, Nile crocodiles generally live close to humans, meaning encounters happen relatively often.
Persons: Organizations: Service, Royal Society B, Royal, Geographic Locations: Wall, Silicon, CrocoParc, Agadir, Morocco, Saharan Africa, Madagascar
Detail of the portrait of W.H. Hudson by Frank Brooks that hangs above the fireplace at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds headquarters in Sandy, England. A beanpole of a man, decked out in tweeds, waistcoat and laced boots, looking more British than the British, he kept himself cool by carrying a moist handkerchief inside his hat. Some believed that Hudson, sharp-eyed and constantly on the move, was like a wild bird himself—a hawk, perhaps, or an eagle. His laugh sounded like that of the green woodpecker, reports Conor Mark Jameson in his new biography, adding that he could no longer listen to that bird without thinking of Hudson.
Persons: . Hudson, Frank Brooks, Conor Mark Jameson William Henry Hudson, Hudson, Conor Mark Jameson Organizations: Royal Society for Locations: ., Sandy , England, tweeds, British
CNN —The oldest examples of swimming jellyfish, which lived in Earth’s oceans 505 million years ago, have been discovered high within the Canadian Rockies. The multitude of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis fossils at the site showed that large, swimming bell-shaped jellyfish evolved more than 500 million years ago. The Burgess Shale was first discovered in 1909 by Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The more that researchers study fossils from the Burgess Shale, the more complex the ancient food chain becomes. “This adds yet another remarkable lineage of animals that the Burgess Shale has preserved chronicling the evolution of life on Earth.”
Persons: Burgess, Jean, Bernard Caron, Medusozoans, , Joe Moysiuk, Desmond Collins, Raymond Quarry, Charles D, Walcott, Royal Ontario Museum’s Richard Ivey Organizations: CNN, Canadian Rockies, Royal Ontario Museum, Royal Society, University of Toronto, Royal Ontario, Smithsonian Institution Locations: Burgess, Canada's, British Columbia, Washington ,
Jellyfish have been floating through Earth’s oceans seemingly forever. They rarely show up in the fossil record because jellyfish are 95 percent water and are prone to rapid decay. But Dr. Caron and other scientists recently described a cache of jellyfish fossils from the Cambrian period that found an improbable pathway to preservation. In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the scientists posit that these 505-million-year-old animals are among the oldest swimming jellyfish known to science. “These new fossils represent the most compelling evidence of Cambrian jellyfish to date,” said David Gold, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the new study.
Persons: , Jean, Bernard Caron, Caron, David Gold, Davis Organizations: Royal Ontario Museum, Royal Society B, University of California Locations: Toronto
For animals that humans almost drove into extinction, there’s a lot about whales we still don’t know. Consider the bowhead whale in particular. “But even today, we’re still learning very basic things about the reproductive cycle of animals like these. That would edge out elephant pregnancies — the longest known within the mammalian kingdom — by a month. Their findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, illuminate the complexities underlying the whale’s population growth, which Dr. Lysiak hopes can guide conservation efforts, especially as an inhospitable climate looms.
Persons: , Nadine Lysiak, Lysiak Organizations: Royal Society Open Science
Researchers found what appeared to be pendants made from the now-extinct giant sloth. It suggests humans lived in South America thousands of years earlier than previously thought. "It's very likely that multiple waves of people came to Americas," she said, according to The AP. Giant ground sloths could reach 13 feet long, weighed more than a thousand pounds and were equivalent in size to an Indian elephant. It walked on all fours and was one of the largest creatures in South America, per the report.
Persons: Mirian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, Jeffrey Greenberg, Briana, paleoanthropologist Organizations: Service, Royal Society B, Royal, North America, Federal University of Sao, Associated Press, Universal, AP, Smithsonian Institution's National, of Locations: South America, Wall, Silicon, Siberia, Alaska, South, North, Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil, Florida, Americas, Washington
The crows seemed to use the spikes differently, turning the sharp pins toward the interior of the nest. Although the idea remains unproven, positioning the spikes this way might provide the nests with more structural support, Mr. Hiemstra speculated. It is not entirely clear whether the birds are simply using the spikes because they are available — in the urban wild, they might be easier to come by than thorny branches — or whether they might be even better suited for the job than natural materials are. But the use of artificial nesting materials is common across the avian universe, according to a new review of the scientific literature by Dr. Mainwaring and his colleagues, which was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on Monday. They found reports of tens of thousands of nests — built by 176 different bird species, on every continent except for Antarctica — that contained artificial materials, including plastic bags, cloth straps, fishing line, paper towels, dental floss, rubber bands and cigarette butts.
Persons: Hiemstra, Mainwaring Organizations: Royal Society
While G. phoenesis was thought to have been a relatively small species of giant sloth, some ancient sloth species were so big that their fossilized burrows are now caves in southern Brazil that humans can walk through. One of the three pendants made from giant sloth bone. However, Pansani said the team dated other material — sediment, charcoal and other giant sloth bones — from the same layer as where the artifacts were recovered. Many experts are skeptical that humans occupied the Americas any earlier than 16,000 years ago, the study noted. For the new study, Pacheco said the team hadn’t considered the possibility of trying to extract genetic material from the sloth-bone pendants.
Persons: , Thais Pansani, Federal University of São Carlos, phoenesis, Thaís Pansani, Pierre Gueriau, Mírian Pacheco, Pacheco, ” Pansani, Pansani, , ” Pacheco, hadn’t, Organizations: CNN, Federal University of São, Paleobiology, Royal Society Locations: Brazil, Santa, Americas, South America, New Mexico, Russia
Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN —With appendages growing out of its head and an armored mouth, an ancient shrimplike creature was thought to be the quintessential apex predator of its time. The 2-foot-long (0.6-meter-long) Anomalocaris canadensis was one of the largest marine animals to live 508 million years ago. The model was based on a well-preserved but flattened fossil found in the Burgess Shale formation in the Canadian Rockies. The marine animal was one of the largest of its time.
Persons: , Russell Bicknell, Anomalocaris canadensis Bicknell, Bicknell, ” Bicknell Organizations: CNN, American Museum, Natural, University of New, Canadian Rockies, Royal Society Locations: University of New England, Australia, Germany, China, Switzerland, United Kingdom
[1/2] John B. Goodenough, 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner, speaks during a news conference at the Royal Society in London, Britain October 9, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File PhotoJune 26 (Reuters) - Nobel laureate John Goodenough, a pioneer in the development of lithium-ion batteries that today power millions of electric vehicles around the globe, died on Sunday just a month short of his 101st birthday. In recent years, Goodenough and his university team had also been exploring new directions for energy storage, including a “glass” battery with solid-state electrolyte and lithium or sodium metal electrodes. Goodenough also was an early developer of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes as an alternative to nickel- and cobalt-based cathodes. After completing a bachelors in mathematics at Yale University, Goodenough received an masters and a PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.
Persons: John B, Goodenough, Peter Nicholls, John Goodenough, , Jay Hartzell, Britain's Stanley Whittingham, Japan's Akira Yoshino, Paul Lienert Organizations: Royal Society, REUTERS, University of Texas, Chemistry, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Yale University, University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Thomson Locations: London, Britain, Austin, Jena, Germany, Detroit
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