New Experiments Hint Human Language Likely Didn’t Start With Grunts

Our ability to elaborately communicate is one of humanity’s greatest superpowers. It allows us to retain and build knowledge across generations, cooperating at a global scale unlike anything else seen on Earth. But much about how this ability evolved is still a mystery, including its origins.   Recently, a team of researchers set up some … Read more

Pandemic signals from the sewer—what virus levels in wastewater tell us | Science

In March 2020, the Austrian ski town of Ischgl—known for 239 kilometers of uninterrupted runs and an exuberant après-ski scene—suddenly became infamous as the site of the one of the first COVID-19 superspreading events. Hundreds of infected skiers took the virus home and seeded outbreaks all around Europe. As the pandemic progressed, however, Ischgl was … Read more

Elon Musk says SpaceX focusing on cyber defense after some Starlink signals jammed near Ukraine conflict areas

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said Friday that his company is now focusing on cyber defense and overcoming signal jamming of its Starlink internet satellites amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Musk and SpaceX sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine at the request of a government official after internet service was disrupted across the country … Read more

Nanotechnology: Particles can translate chemical signals from bacteria to yeast

Particles that facilitate communication from one type of cell to another could have applications in medicine and agriculture Life 28 February 2022 By Jason Arunn Murugesu Electron microscope image of an E. coli cell dividing CNRI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Specially designed nanoparticles have been used to let bacteria communicate with yeast cells by “translating” chemical messages … Read more

Mysterious Repeating Fast Radio Burst Traced to Very Unexpected Location

A recently discovered repeating fast radio burst (FRB) named FRB 20200120E is deepening the mystery of these already deeply mysterious space signals. Astronomers have tracked its location to a galaxy 11.7 million light-years away, which makes it the closest known extragalactic fast radio burst, 40 times closer than the next-closest extragalactic signal.   But it … Read more

New Treatment Helps Frogs Regenerate Limbs With Functioning Nerves in Just 18 Months

Our bodies connect us to the world. When people lose parts of their bodies to disease or traumatic injury, they often feel that they’ve lost a part of who they are, even experiencing a grief akin to losing a loved one.   Their sense of personal loss is justified because unlike salamanders or snarky comic … Read more

Astronomers Detect Strange Signals We’ve Never Seen Before in Our Cosmic Vicinity

Something in Earth’s cosmic neighborhood is emitting weird signals of a kind we’ve never seen before. Just 4,000 light-years away, something is flashing radio waves. For roughly 30 to 60 seconds, every 18.18 minutes, it pulses brightly, one of the most luminous objects in the low-frequency radio sky. It matches the profile of no known … Read more

We Have a ‘Sixth Sense’ That Is Key to Our Wellbeing, But Only if We Listen to It

Most people are familiar with the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste), but not everyone knows that we have an additional sense called interoception. This is the sense of our body’s internal state. It helps us feel and interpret internal signals that regulate vital functions in our body, like hunger, thirst, body temperature, … Read more

Samsung Eco Remote: TV remote control charges itself with Wi-Fi signals

The latest version of Samsung’s Eco Remote gets energy from both spare Wi-Fi signals and solar power Technology 5 January 2022 By Matthew Sparkes Samsung’s Jong-Hee Han announced the new remote at the CES trade show in Las Vegas Samsung Samsung has created a television remote control that doesn’t require batteries, as it draws power … Read more

Brain Signals Associated With OCD Discovered by Scientists For First Time

Scientists have been able to observe brain activity linked with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in more detail than ever before – and if these neural signals can be identified, it opens up the possibility of being able to change them as well.   OCD can affect up to two in every 100 adults, and while various … Read more