turns

It Turns Out Species Can Go Extinct Twice… And The Second Time Is For Keeps

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Species can actually go extinct more than once. In a biological sense, species become extinct when the last animal of a species stops breathing. But they can also become extinct a second time, researchers say.   When a species disappears from our collective memory and cultural knowledge, it becomes extinct in a different way. That second … Read more

Did Neanderthals and modern humans take turns living in a French cave? | Science

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A single, broken molar found buried within a windswept rock shelter in southeastern France could push back the first evidence of modern humans in Europe by nearly 10,000 years. According to an international team, the tooth and dozens of stone tools from the same sedimentary layer belonged to a member of Homo sapiens who lived … Read more

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope turns on cameras to look at first star target

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Spacecraft controllers started powering up the four cutting-edge instruments on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as they prepare for the observatory’s first glimpses of a target star. That star, called HD 84406, is located 241 light-years from Earth and part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The images will not be used for … Read more

The Mysterious ‘Pareidolia’ Phenomenon Turns Out to Have a Surprising Bias

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It’s fun sometimes when your eyes play tricks on you, and you see a face that isn’t really there, staring back at you from a power plug or a potato. This phenomenon is called face pareidolia, and it’s something that humans, and even chimps, naturally do.   But it looks like facial features aren’t the … Read more

It Turns Out That Everything We Know About The Runner’s High Could Be Wrong

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Many people have experienced reductions in stress, pain, and anxiety, and sometimes even euphoria after exercise. What’s behind this so-called ‘runner’s high’? New research on the neuroscience of exercise may surprise you.   The runner’s high has long been attributed to endorphins. These are chemicals produced naturally in the body of humans and other animals … Read more

This Robot Learned to Solve a Maze Using Mammal-Like ‘Brain’ Circuits For Memory

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Rather than engineering robotic solutions from scratch, some of our most impressive advances have come from copying what nature has already come up with. New research shows how we can extend that approach to robot ‘minds’, in this case by getting a robot to learn the best route out of a maze all by itself – even … Read more