Is artificial super-intelligence lurking nearby, under wraps? eugenia_loli, CC BYBy Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield

A study of circadian rhythms in skin stem cells finds that this biological clock plays a key role in coordinating daily metabolic cycles and cell division. The paper shows how the body's intrinsic day-night cycles protect and nurture stem cell differentiation and provides insights into a mechanism whereby an out-of-synch circadian clock can contribute to accelerated skin aging and cancers.

Bogi Andersen, professor of biological chemistry and medicine at University of California - Irvine, and Enrico Gratton, professor of biomedical engineering, focused their efforts on the epidermis, the outermost protective layer of the skin that is maintained and healed by long-lived stem cells.

Rock soil droplets formed by heating are part of the evidence used to content that a disastrous cosmic impact 12,900 years ago triggered the Younger Dryas cold period but they most likely instead came from Stone Age house fires, according to new research of soil from Syria.

The Younger Dryas lasted a thousand years and coincided with the extinction of mammoths and other great beasts and the disappearance of the Paleo-Indian Clovis people.

In the 1980s, some researchers put forward the idea that the cool period, which fell between two major glaciations, began when a comet or meteorite struck North America.

The way we relate to other people shapes our moral life – and that's something that requires imagination. David Galindo/Flickr

By Matthew Beard, University of Notre Dame Australia

Creativity and imagination - it’s impossible to discuss one without reference to the other - are often discussed with regard to the great artists, thinkers, and visionaries of our world. Those are the people who are able to visualize things in a way that others simply aren’t able to.

Noninvasive brain scans, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, have led to basic science discoveries about the human brain and have also been wildly misused, claiming to correlate everything from the biology of voting to ideas like that people with messy offices are racist.

Though fMRI-based claims get lots of mainstream media attention, along with most weak observational studies, the actual value for society hasn't been there.

But it could be, according to a review of other studies in Neuron. They even believe brain imaging can help predict an individual's future learning, criminality, health-related behaviors, and response to drug or behavioral treatments.

The mythology among the people who really care about what is happening on the left or the right is that the people opposite them are uneducated and being exploited by elites.

The opposite is true: Polarized people tend to be highly educated. Sorry, Republicans, those Democrats did not register for the wrong party because they are dumb. and sorry, MSNBC viewers, Rush Limbaugh is one of the smartest people in America, whether you like his show or not. 

But that means some polarization is good. An educated public is a crucial element to a democratic society and educated people will have stronger opinions than those who always waffle and take the middle ground and say it depends on what the definition of something is.

Biofuels have long been studied and, like many alternative fuels, given corporate subsidies by the government, but they haven't made much progress. And that isn't just because subsidies discourage innovation, it is because of biology. Lignin, which helps cell walls thick in plants, is tough.

Plant geneticists have discovered the gene regulatory networks that control cell wall thickening by the synthesis of the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.  If they can know it, and understand it, they can modify it, and that may mean viable biofuels.

In a new ESO image of LDN 483 and its surroundings, located about 700 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent), some of the stars are missing.

But it's not a portent of doom, it's space pollution - gas and dust are obscuring Lynds Dark Nebula 483. LDN 483 and its dark cloud are intriguing because such clouds are the birthplaces of future stars. 

A 12-year study of two measles-containing vaccines has found that seven main adverse outcomes were unlikely after either vaccine.

The study conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center included children ages 12 to 23 months from January 2000 through June 2012 who received measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) or separately administered, same-day measles-mumps-rubella and varicella (MMR + V) vaccines.

A total of 123,200 MMRV doses and 584,987 MMR + V doses were evaluated.

Splash form tektites are tiny shards of natural glass created from spinning drops of molten rock flung from the earth during an extra-terrestrial impact, such as when the earth is hit by asteroids or comets.

They come in many shapes, from dumbbells to doughnuts, and how the shapes are formed has been the subject of scientific investigation for centuries.  Until now, the shapes of rapidly spinning, highly deformed droplets have been derived entirely from numerical simulations.

Using magnetic levitation to imitate weightlessness, researchers have manufactured solid wax models of these shapes.  It is hoped this new experimental technique can be used to better reproduce and understand tektite formation.