Anthropology: Cultures Anthropology: Early Humans Anthropology: General Paleontology: Fossils Paleontology: General
Published

Immune system of modern Papuans shaped by DNA from ancient Denisovans, study finds      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Modern Papuans' immune system likely evolved with a little help from the Denisovans, a mysterious human ancestor who interbred with ancient humans, according to a new study.

Paleontology: General
Published

Fjords, small in size and number, are significant carbon reservoirs      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Fjords comprise a mere 0.1 percent of the surface area of the ocean yet store a whopping 11-12 percent of the carbon stored in the ocean. New research shows they sock away 18 million tons of carbon during interglacial periods, like the one we're in now.

Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds Paleontology: Fossils Paleontology: General
Published

Smilodon's sabre teeth      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have tested the biting efficiency of Smilodon, an extinct species of carnivore close to the extant felines. Using high-precision 3D scans and simulation methods, the team has just revealed how these animals managed to bite despite the impressive length of their teeth.

Ecology: Endangered Species Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Climate Paleontology: Fossils Paleontology: General
Published

Discovery of world's oldest DNA breaks record by one million years      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Two-million-year-old DNA has been identified -- opening a 'game-changing' new chapter in the history of evolution. Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone. The ancient DNA has been used to map a two-million-year-old ecosystem which weathered extreme climate change.

Anthropology: Cultures Anthropology: General Archaeology: General Environmental: Ecosystems Environmental: Wildfires Paleontology: General
Published

For 400 years, Indigenous tribes buffered climate's impact on wildfires in the American Southwest      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Devastating megafires are becoming more common, in part, because the planet is warming. But a new study suggests bringing 'good fire' back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today's wildfires.

Ecology: Endangered Species Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Dinosaurs Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds Paleontology: General
Published

Dinosaurs were on the up before asteroid downfall      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

An exotic interplay of electrons      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Water that simply will not freeze, no matter how cold it gets -- a research group has discovered a quantum state that could be described in this way. Experts have managed to cool a special material to near absolute zero temperature. They found that a central property of atoms -- their alignment -- did not 'freeze', as usual, but remained in a 'liquid' state. The new quantum material could serve as a model system to develop novel, highly sensitive quantum sensors.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Wireless earphones as inexpensive hearing aids      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Some commercial earbuds can perform as well as hearing aids. The result could help a large proportion of people with hearing loss access more affordable sound amplification devices.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Want to fire up the dance floor? Play low-frequency bass      (via sciencedaily.com) 

To find out how different aspects of music influence the body, researchers turned a live electronic music concert into a lab study. By introducing levels of bass over speakers that were too low to hear and monitoring the crowd's movements, scientists found that people danced 11.8 percent more when the very low frequency bass was present.

Engineering: Biometric Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Automatic speaker recognition technology outperforms human listeners in the courtroom      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The forensic-voice-comparison system, based on state-of-the-art automatic-speaker-recognition technology, outperformed all the listeners.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Using sound to model the world      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have developed a machine-learning technique that captures and models the underlying acoustics of a scene from a limited number of sound recordings. The system can accurately simulate what any sound, like a song, would sound like if a person were to walk around to different locations in a scene.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Capturing and analyzing subtle combination tones produced by violins      (via sciencedaily.com) 

When two musical notes are played simultaneously, the human ear can perceive weak additional tones called combination tones. While less perceivable, objective combination tones are also generated by some musical instruments. Researchers have now used violins to explore these rarely studied objective combination tones. They found that the combination tones produced by higher-quality violins were much stronger and clearly audible and powerful air resonance and violin sound quality are linked. The higher-quality violins produced a stronger air resonance due to several factors, including structural material and crafting techniques.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

How low-cost earbuds can make newborn hearing screening accessible      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have created a newborn hearing screening system that uses cheap earbuds and a smartphone instead of an expensive commercial device.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Skin-attachable auditory sensor that functions even in noisy environments      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A research team has developed a skin-attachable auditory sensor, which recognizes human voices in noisy environments and when users wear facemasks. The new sensor will be useful in microphones that facilitate communication in disaster situations and for healthcare devices that diagnose respiratory diseases.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Would traffic noise from future flying cars cause stress?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Study shows that not only are loud vehicles flying overhead a cause of noise pollution-related stress, the effect of that stress remains on the body even after noise levels have decreased.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

The Secret of Swing: Downbeat delays      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Jazz must swing -- jazz musicians agree on that. However, even 100 years after the beginnings of jazz, it is still unclear what exactly constitutes the swing feel. With a sophisticated experiment and data analyses on more than 450 well-known jazz solos, physicists together with psychologists have unraveled a secret of swing. They were able to demonstrate that certain systematic deviations in timing are a key component of swing. These microtiming deviations are so small that they are not perceived as such even by professional jazz musicians, who nonetheless are using them unconsciously.

Energy: Alternative Fuels Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Wind music causes less transmission than singing, study finds      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The risk of transmission from an infected person on a wind instrument is generally much lower than for people who sing or speak, provided that one spends the same amount of time in their vicinity, according to a new study.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

The super-fast MRI scan that could revolutionize heart failure diagnosis      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have developed cutting-edge technology to diagnose patients with heart failure in record time. The state-of-the-art technology uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to create detailed 4D flow images of the heart. But unlike a standard MRI scan, which can take up to 20 minutes or more, the new 4D heart MRI scan takes just eight minutes.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound
Published

Low-cost disease diagnosis by mapping heart sounds      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers develop a method to identify aortic valve dysfunction using complex network analysis that is accurate, simple to use, and low-cost. They used heart sound data to create a complex network of connected points, which was split into sections, and each part was represented with a node. If the sound in two portions was similar, a line was drawn between them. In a healthy heart, the graph showed two distinct clusters of points, with many nodes unconnected. A heart with aortic stenosis contained many more correlations and edges.

Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound Space: Exploration Space: The Solar System
Published

Saturn V was loud but didn't melt concrete      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Abundant internet claims about the acoustic power of the Saturn V suggest that it melted concrete and lit grass on fire over a mile away, but such ideas are undeniably false. Researchers used a physics-based model to estimate the rocket's acoustic levels and obtained a value of 203 decibels, which matched the limited data from the 1960s. So, while the Saturn V was extremely loud, that kind of power is nowhere near enough to melt concrete or start grass fires.