We know now that asteroids are relics that can tell us what the planets in our solar system may have been like before they formed cores and mantles and crusts. But that wasn't always the case. Until the past few decades asteroids were viewed in a more static way. Those that formed near the sun remained near the sun, those that formed farther out stayed on the outskirts.

Then it was discovered that some asteroids have compositions that don't match their locations in space. Those that looked like they formed in warmer environments were found further out in the solar system, and vice versa. Anomalous "rogue" asteroids.

By analyzing whole-genome sequencing data from 665 people from Europe and East Asia  as part of the 1,000 Genomes Project, researchers have determined that more than 20 percent of the Neanderthal genome survives in the DNA of this contemporary group. 

That means a substantial fraction of the Neanderthal genome persists in modern human populations. Neanderthals became extinct about 30,000 years ago but their time on earth and their geographic range overlapped with us. 

Yield is economically important in field corn production, and there is no question that has been a success, but sweet corn has an additional metric for being considered a win. It's reported that  crop yield responses due to sweet corn research are actually helpful to the industry, but are they?

Writing
in Field Crops Research, Marty Williams, a USDA-ARS ecologist and University of Illinois crop sciences researcher, analyzes results after collecting and studying sweet corn data representing 31 hybrids across 22 locations in Illinois over an 8-year period. The result: A disconnect in what researchers are measuring in the field and what processors and seed companies need to know in order to make improved production decisions.

Voice voting is still used at some civic, local and county meetings. In more of a traditional sense, it's also still employed in Congress and some state meetings.

But new paper finds that a single loud voice can skew the result if that's not accounted for - the louder the voice, the cloudier the choice, according to a paper in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

In voice voting, if you have never witnessed it, a presiding officer states a question, and the group that replies either yea or nay. The loudest is declared the winner, because volume is usually representative of numbers.

Everyone claims to care about diversity, individualism and tolerance. Very few people (R.I.P. Pete Seeger) really do. Instead, they want their beliefs affirmed and they want to demonize the opposition at every turn

The remoteness and anonymity of social media makes aggressive and cultural political posturing easy - that is why people  who think the majority of their friends have differing opinions than their own engage less on Facebook. Politically active tend to stick in their own circles, ignore those on the other side and become more polarized.   

Why were there old, enormously massive galaxies no longer forming new stars in the very early universe?

The first stars already emerged in the very early universe about 200 million years after the Big Bang. Gas is the raw material used to form stars and giant clouds of hydrogen and helium and dust (and whatever "dark matter" will eventually be) contracted and eventually the gas became so compact that the pressure heated the matter so that glowing gas balls were formed and new stars were born.