Catherine Griffin : Science World Report

Dec 16, 2013 07:12 AM EST

Engineers Create Artificial Cartilage with Hydrogel and Scaffold

Cartilage is one of the most important tissues in the body. It can keep joints moving smoothly and painlessly. Yet over time, cartilage can become damaged or worn down, which can cause pain and lack of mobility. Now, scientists have combined two innovative technologies to create artificial cartilage...

Dec 14, 2013 11:04 AM EST

Rapid Evolution Triggered in Blind Cavefish

The classical view of evolution is that species experience spontaneous genetic mutations over time that produce traits that either benefit them, or don't. Now, though, it seems as if there may be some other mechanism that drives evolution--at least when it comes to blind cavefish.

Dec 14, 2013 11:04 AM EST

Fast Radio Bursts May Originate from Nearby Stars in Milky Way Galaxy

Fast radio bursts, which are cosmic chirps that last for only a thousandth of a second, continue to defy explanation. While the characteristics of these radio bursts suggest that they come from galaxies billions of light-years away, scientists have recently uncovered a new origin. It turns out that ...

Dec 14, 2013 11:03 AM EST

Mathematical Formula Describes Human Struggles: From Crying Babies to Wars

It turns out that a broad range of struggles that humans face on a daily basis could be explained by math. Scientists have created a mathematical expression called a "power-law" that actually mathematically describes the severity and timing of human confrontations that affect us personally and as a ...

Dec 13, 2013 12:17 PM EST

How Benign Bacteria Evolve into Virulent Pathogens

Bacteria can evolve quickly in order to adapt to environmental change. But what happens when the "environment" is an immune response from an infected host? Relatively harmless bacteria can quickly turn into virulent pathogens. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at this evolutionary process in ...

Dec 13, 2013 11:13 AM EST

Sniffing Out Danger: Memories of Fear Can Trigger Heightened Sense of Smell

It turns out that we may just be able to sniff out danger--sort of. Scientists have discovered that a reaction to fear in mice can occur at the sensory level, even before the brain has the opportunity to interpret that the odor could mean trouble. The findings show that the nervous system can become...

Dec 13, 2013 10:44 AM EST

Astronomers Discover Noble Gas Compound in Crab Nebula

It turns out that Earth isn't the only place where you can find a molecule containing a noble gas. Using an instrument aboard Europe's Herschel Space Observatory, researchers have discovered a noble gas, argon hydride, in the Crab Nebula.

Dec 13, 2013 10:01 AM EST

Chimpanzees are Rational, Not Conformist: Chimps Choose Logic Over Popularity

It turns out that chimpanzees are more rational than you might expect. Scientists have discovered that while chimps are sensitive to social influences, they maintain their own strategy to solve a problem rather than conforming to what the majority of group members are doing.

Dec 13, 2013 09:24 AM EST

Mars Rover Curiosity Dates Rocks on Red Planet

Determining the age of rocks is an important part of finding out more about a planet. That's why researchers have determined ages of rocks from planetary bodies in the past. Yet these experiments have always been conducted on Earth. Now, researchers have successfully determined the age of a Martian ...

Dec 13, 2013 08:31 AM EST

Italian Alps Glacier, Unchanged for Thousands of Years, is Now Melting

The Italian Alps have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Now, though, scientists have taken some new ice cores from this location and have discovered that the Alps have been strongly warming since the 1980s. The findings reveal that as our climate changes, ice is continuing to melt across sn...

Dec 13, 2013 07:43 AM EST

Collapse of the Universe is Closer Than Before: How the World May End

It's the end of the universe as we know it--sort of. Physicists have long predicted that the universe may one day collapse and that everything within it will be compressed into a small, hard ball. Now, new calculations confirm this prediction and shows that the risk of collapse is actually greater t...

Dec 13, 2013 07:38 AM EST

Comb Jelly Reveals New Secrets of Animal Evolution

For more than a century, scientists believed that complex cell types, such as neurons and muscles, evolved only once. The simple animals that lack these cell types branched off from the rest of the animals on the evolutionary tree. Now, though, a comb jelly has challenged this belief and has shown t...