science news 18.1.2019

Today's round-up of science stories. Links are normally to press releases on EurekAlert (at the bottom end I may also add a couple of newspaper stories). I include quotes from the summary (using quotation marks) in cases where the title alone doesn't reveal what the story is about.


astro

Scientists find increase in asteroid impacts on ancient Earth by studying the Moon
Did the frequency of asteroid hits increase around 290 million years ago?

Saturn hasn't always had rings
"In its last days, the Cassini spacecraft looped between Saturn and its rings so that Earth-based radio telescopes could track the gravitational tug of each. Scientists in Italy and the U.S. have now used these measurements to determine the mass of the rings and estimate its age, which is young: 10-100 million years. This supports the hypothesis that the rings are rubble from a comet or Kuiper Belt object captured late in Saturn's history."


bees

Orchards in natural habitats draw bee diversity, improve apple production

Bee surveys in newest US national park could aid pollinator studies elsewhere


neuroscience

Mapping the neural circuit of innate responses to odors
as studied in flies


conservation

More animal species under threat of extinction, new method shows

Penguins, starfish, whales: Which animals will win and lose in a warming Antarctic?

Researchers race against extinction to uncover tree's cancer-fighting properties


cute picture department

Emperor penguins' first journey to sea


Caption: "When the chicks first go in the water, they are very awkward and unsure of themselves," says Sara Labrousse, a postdoctoral investigator at WHOI and lead author of the paper. "They are not the fast and graceful swimmers their parents are."

Credit: Photo by Vincent Munier



humans

Understanding our early human ancestors: Australopithecus sediba

Study highlights lack of fair access to urban green spaces


nanoworld

Models of life
Friedrich Simmel und Aurore Dupin, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), have for the first time created artificial cell assemblies that can communicate with each other. The cells, separated by fatty membranes, exchange small chemical signaling molecules to trigger more complex reactions, such as the production of RNA and other proteins.

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from the news media:

possibly the oldest surviving wall chart of the Periodic Table found in St. Andrews.

tardigrades under the ice of Antarctica