Emergence of black-colored wolves is the direct result of humans raising dogs as pets and beasts of burden, according to new research by a University of Calgary biologist in Science. The dark coloring may also aid the survival of the species as wolf habitat is affected by climate change in the future, the study suggests.

A missing link in the evolution of the front claw of living scorpions and horseshoe crabs was identified with the discovery of a 390 million-year-old fossil by researchers at Yale and the University of Bonn, Germany.

Show Me The Science Month Day 9

In what is now central Pakistan, an eight-and-a-half foot long, pregnant aquatic mammal went belly-up, and sank to the bottom of the shallow coastal waters. 47 million years later, a huckster by the name of Duane Gish denied that such mammals ever existed:

There simply are no transitional forms in the fossil record between the marine mammals and their supposed land mammal ancestors . . . It is quite entertaining, starting with cows, pigs, or buffaloes, to attempt to visualize what the intermediates may have looked like. Starting with a cow, one could even imagine one line of descent which prematurely became extinct, due to what might be called an “udder failure” (Gish DT. Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record. El Cajon (CA): Creation-Life Publishers, 1985 p.78-9, quoted at Talk Origins).

Gish may have found it entertaining to imagine what a half-whale, half-buffalo looked like, but today's scientists don't have to imagine the appearance of land-based ancestors of whales. The fossil series leading up to whales tells a very detailed and remarkable story of how furry, four-legged land mammals eventually gave rise to behemoth marine descendants. A spectacular fossil find, reported yesterday in PLoS One, reveals some amazing details from the evolutionary history of whales.



Figure 5A from Gingerich, et al.

In physics classes, we are all taught that the acceleration due to gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters/second². For the purpose of basic physics education, this value is fine - it represents the average value of the gravitational attraction every object experiences at sea level, and is always directed straight down toward the center of the planet. However, the actual gravitational attraction an object experiences is influenced by the presence of irregularities in the shape of the Earth, the non-uniform distribution of mass beneath the crust, and even large buildings.

My Dear Mr. Darwin,

Happy 200th birthday! I hope you are as well as can expected for someone who has been dead for nearly 130 years. I suppose that your final book, the one about earthworms, has a special significance for you these days. Are the worms of Westminster Abbey superior to the ones you studied so carefully in the grounds of your home at Downe in Kent?   They’ve certainly mulched some distinguished people over the years!

The use of stem cell research in medical therapies has been hotly debated by the political, scientific, ethical and religious communities alike. Ethical considerations are weighed against the potential of life-saving therapies offered through the development of stem cell research.

But the debate over stem cells is no longer between adamant pro-lifers and research scientists anymore, it has grown into multiple debates over the efficacy, ethical implications, and overall viability of the different types of stem cells available.

It seems that a new study is always uncovering new health benefits of hot peppers. Garnering a high-profile endorsement  from Hillary Clinton as well as doctors and scientists, peppers' heat producing chemical capsaicin has been linked to benefits ranging from anti-inflammatory properties to cancer killing.  Though capsaicin is beneficial to humans, packing heat isn't a cure-all for the peppers themselves.  A recent study busted the myth that hotter peppers are more resistant to Phytopthora blight.

Throughout history, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and Phd students lacking funding for actual research have turned to the thought experiment in hopes of discovering something publishable, thereby retaining tenure and/or attracting the admiration of comely undergraduates. The best thought experiments throw light into dark corners of the universe and also provide other scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and destitute Phd students a way to kill time while waiting for the bus. Below is a classic thought experiment, pillaged from my book The Geeks' Guide to World Domination (Be Afraid, Beautiful People). I'll post a new thought experiment each day this week.

Schrödinger’s Cat

Excavations in Colombia co-organized by Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History, have unearthed fossil remains of a new snake species they named Titanoboa cerrejonensis. 

Surrounded by huge trucks extracting coal from Cerrejon, one of the world's largest open-pit mines, researchers discovered fossilized bones of super-sized snakes and their prey, crocodiles and turtles, in the Cerrejon Formation, along with fossilized plant material from the oldest known rainforest in the Americas, which flourished at the site 58-60 million years ago.

As many as 2.4 million Americans have schizophrenia so a late or incorrect diagnosis and the lack of effective treatment options can destroy a sufferer's quality of life. Schizophrenia usually emerges between the ages of 18 and 30 but diagnosis before the disease manifests itself could be the key to developing more successful treatments, says Prof. Talma Hendler, of Tel Aviv University's Department of Psychology.



Until now, detecting mental illness before symptoms appear has been nearly impossible. Building on her groundbreaking work on facial recognition and brain imaging, Prof. Hendler is hoping to make early diagnosis a reality by identifying the physical markers of mental illness — particularly schizophrenia — inside the brain.