Data collected on speleothem encrustations, a type of mineral deposit, in coastal caves on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca indicate that sea level was about one meter above present-day levels around 81,000 years ago. The finding challenges other data that indicate sea level was as low as 30 meters below present-day levels. Theories about the rates of ice accumulation and melting during the Quaternary Period may need to be revised as a result of the findings, which appear this week in Science.

The sea level high stand of 81,000 years ago was preceded by rapid ice melting, on the order of 20 meters of sea level change per thousand years and the sea level drop following the high water mark, accompanied by ice formation, was equally rapid.

Arizona State University researchers have developed the first versatile DNA reader that can discriminate between DNA's four core chemical components, the key to unlocking the vital code behind human heredity and health. If the process can be perfected, DNA sequencing could be performed much faster than current technology, and at a fraction of the cost.

Depicting a cause-and-effect scenario that spans thousands of miles, scientists report in Geophysical Research Letters that ocean waves originating along the Pacific coasts of North and South America could play a role in the catastrophic collapse of Antarctic ice shelves.

Storm-driven ocean swells travel across the Pacific Ocean and break along the coastlines of North and South America, where they are transformed into very long-period ocean waves called "infragravity waves." The transformed waves then travel vast distances to Antarctica.

Contradictions and puzzles surround Prototaxites, organisms that existed during the Late Silurian to Late Devonian periods-- approximately 420-370 million years ago (ma). The existing fossils resemble tree trunks, yet they are from a time before trees existed. The stable carbon isotope values are similar to those of fungi, but the fossils do not display structures usually found in fungi. Plant-like polymers have been found in the fossils, but nutritional evidence supports heterotrophy, which is not commonly found in plants.

Although it is well established that all behaviors and experiences, spiritual or otherwise, must originate in the brain, information on the causative link between brain activity and spirituality is lacking. Neuroimaging studies have associated activity within a large network in the brain that connects the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes with spiritual experiences, but researchers have been unable to establish a causative relationship between such a network and spirituality.

In order to establish that relationship, researchers studied the personality trait self-transcendence (ST), which is thought to be a measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors, in patients before and after surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Researchers have isolated an independent processing channel of synapses inside the brain's auditory cortex that deals specifically with shutting off sound processing at appropriate times. The discovery, detailed this week in Neuron, challenges a long-held assumption that the signaling of a sound's appearance and its subsequent disappearance are both handled by the same pathway.

The new finding could lead to new, distinctly targeted therapies such as improved hearing devices, said Michael Wehr, a professor of psychology and member of the University of Oregon Institute of Neuroscience.