Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

Do school-based interventions help improve reading and math in at-risk children?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

School-based interventions that target students with, or at risk of, academic difficulties in kindergarten to grade 6 have positive effects on reading and mathematics, according to a new article.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Endangered songbird challenging assumptions about evolution      (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research looked at a newly discovered, endangered songbird located only in South America -- the Iberá Seedeater -- and found that this bird followed a very rare evolutionary path to come into existence at a much faster pace than the grand majority of species.

Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

Big data tells story of diversity, migration of math's elite      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Research uses artificial intelligence to map connections between the world's top mathematicians.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Mummified parrots point to trade in the ancient Atacama desert      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Ancient Egyptians mummified cats, dogs, ibises and other animals, but closer to home in the South American Atacama desert, parrot mummies reveal that between 1100 and 1450 CE, trade from other areas brought parrots and macaws to oasis communities, according to an international and interdisciplinary team.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Warriors' down bedding could ease journey to realm of the dead      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Feathers, an owl head and oars suggest the people in this Iron Age grave were prepared for a long journey.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Giant fossil's 'bird-brain'      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The largest flightless bird ever to live weighed in up to 600kg and had a whopping head about half a meter long - but its brain was squeezed for space. Dromornis stirtoni, the largest of the 'mihirungs' (an Aboriginal word for 'giant bird'), stood up to 3m and had a cranium wider and higher than it was long due to a powerful big beak, leading Australian palaeontologists to look inside its brain space to see how it worked.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Extinct Caribbean bird's closest relatives hail from Africa, South Pacific      (via sciencedaily.com) 

In a genetic surprise, ancient DNA shows the closest family members of an extinct bird known as the Haitian cave-rail are not in the Americas, but Africa and the South Pacific, uncovering an unexpected link between Caribbean bird life and the Old World.

Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

Sum of cubes: New math solution for 3      (via sciencedaily.com) 

After cracking the 'sum of cubes' puzzle for 42, mathematicians discover a new solution for 3.

Computer Science: Encryption Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

Laser system generates random numbers at ultrafast speeds      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have developed a system that can generate random numbers over a hundred times faster than current technologies, paving the way towards faster, cheaper, and more secure data encryption in today's digitally connected world.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Quartz crystals in the stomach of fossil bird complicates the mystery of its diet      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The fossil of a bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs was found with some sort of rocks in its stomach. Previously, researchers thought that these rocks were swallowed on purpose to help clean its stomach, like modern birds of prey do, giving a hint at its diet. But in a new study, scientists discovered that these rocks are quartz crystals that likely formed after the bird died -- its diet is still a mystery.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Genetic evolution doesn't always take millions of years      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Love them or hate them, there's no doubt the European Starling is a wildly successful bird. A new study examines this non-native species from the inside out to learn what exactly happened at the genetic level as the starling population exploded across North America?

Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

The Ramanujan Machine: Researchers develop 'conjecture generator'      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Using AI and computer automation, researchers have developed a 'conjecture generator' that creates mathematical conjectures, which are considered to be the starting point for developing mathematical theorems.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Fossil pigments shed new light on vertebrate evolution      (via sciencedaily.com) 

This new paper shows that melanin is more than just something that gives colour to the body. It played an important role in the evolution of warm-blooded animals and helped defined what birds and mammals look like today. By studying where melanin occurs in the body in fossils and modern animals researchers have produced the first model for how melanin has evolved over the last 500 million years.

Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

Researchers use deep learning to identify gene regulation at single-cell level      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers describe how they developed a deep-learning framework to observe gene regulation at the cellular level.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Unusual sex chromosomes of platypus, emu and pekin duck      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Three studies uncovered the unusual sex chromosomes of platypus, emu and Pekin duck. Platypus have five pairs of sex chromosomes forming an unusual chain shape, while the sex chromosomes of emu and duck are not as different between sexes as those of human.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Why crocodiles have changed so little since the age of the dinosaurs      (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research explains how a 'stop-start' pattern of evolution, governed by environmental change, could explain why crocodiles have changed so little since the age of the dinosaurs.

Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

Traditional model for disease spread may not work in COVID-19      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A mathematical model that can help project the contagiousness and spread of infectious diseases like the seasonal flu may not be the best way to predict the continuing spread of the novel coronavirus, especially during lockdowns that alter the normal mix of the population.

Mathematics: Puzzles
Published

To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Neuroscientists have found reading computer code does not rely on the regions of the brain involved in language processing. Instead, it activates the 'multiple demand network,' which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

New dinosaur showed descendants how to dress to impress      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have found the most elaborately dressed-to-impress dinosaur ever described and say it sheds new light on how birds such as peacocks inherited their ability to show off.

Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds
Published

Archaeopteryx fossil provides insights into the origins of flight      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Molting is thought to be unorganized in the first feathered dinosaurs because they had yet to evolve flight, so determining how molting evolved can lead to better understanding of flight origins. Recently researchers discovered that the earliest record of feather molting from the famous early fossil bird Archaeopteryx found in southern Germany in rocks that used to be tropical lagoons ~150 million years ago.