Adopting a more sustainable energy portfolio is imperative to address and alleviate the impacts of climate change. A key process is energy harvesting versus energy “production”. In this vein, a potentially viable approach involves the conversion of dissipated heat into electrical energy via the use of thermoelectricity. This method has the potential to contribute significantly […]
The evolution of the human being has a complex form in which some branches bifurcate and form two different species and some different branches come together again and form individuals with a certain degree of hybridization. The only hominin remaining today is Homo sapiens and the last to disappear was Homo neanderthalensis. Neanderthals, our closest […]
You can think of our atmosphere as a big chemistry set, a global churn of gaseous molecules and particles that constantly bounce off and change each other in complicated ways. While the particles are very small, often less than 1% of the thickness of human hair, they have outsized impacts. For example, particles are the […]
Analysis amends human-Neanderthal genetic exchange Human genes may have been replacing Neanderthal genes as long ago as 250,000 years, accounting for the disappearance of the Neanderthal Y chromosome, according to a paper in Science that closely analyzes the gene flow from humans to Neanderthals instead of the reverse, as past research has done. The study […]
The evolution of the cosmic star formation rate density paints a dynamic picture of galaxy evolution, with rapid stellar build-up at redshifts above 2, followed by a stark drop in SFRs of galaxies towards the present day. The origins of this down-turn are likely due to a mixture of feedback processes, broadly categorized as caused […]
Memory is so much more than a storage unit in our minds. The people involved in memories influence what we recall, and, as our study shows, the connections we make between memories. Our memory helps us learn from experiences and develop new knowledge by integrating and updating information. This process goes beyond recalling individual events […]
As the world’s largest unfrozen freshwater resource, groundwater is crucial for life on Earth. Now, a team of researchers has investigated how global warming is affecting groundwater temperatures and what that means for humanity and the environment . The study indicates that by 2100, more than 75 million people are likely to be living in […]
Our DNA is a puzzle resulting from millions of years of evolution. An ancient part of it is composed of the genetic material of viruses that integrated in our genome and became part of “us.” Though it may seem strange, about 7% of our genomes are comprised by these old viral sequences. What’s more, recent […]
Denisovans, humans may have shared Tibetan Plateau A 40,000-year-old rib bone from a cave on the Tibetan Plateau adds to limited fossil evidence of Denisovans and suggests modern humans coexisted with these close cousins in the region at the time. The fossil is the youngest Denisovan bone found to date, and researchers say modern Tibetans […]