Science Bulletins: Stomach Bacteria Show Early Human Travels
Evolutionary scientists are increasingly turning to an unusual tool to explore ancient human history: bacteria. Some microorganisms, like Helicobacter pylori, ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Sharks—the Present (1 of 2)
Marine biologists in South Carolina head out on the water to catch and tag sharks, and to collect genetic samples that will be analyzed back in the lab.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Light Pollution—Beyond the Glare
Scientists have long understood that artificial light can disrupt wildlife that takes cues from natural light. It's becoming increasingly clear that light reflected off ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Inside the Teenage Brain
More and more, neuroscientists are finding evidence that the brains of adolescents are wired differently than adults'. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: The Final Voyage of Enterprise
Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise was the first of NASA's space shuttles. Its original name, "Constitution", commemorated the United States Bicentennial in 1976, but a ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Ardi Unveiled
Fifteen years after the first fragments of a nearly complete skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus were found in Ethiopia's fossil-rich Awash River Valley, ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Scientists Map Human Brain Connections
The human brain contains about 100 billion interconnecting neurons, or cells that create and transmit messages. Scientists are just beginning to understand how ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Deep-Sea Cephalopods Hide Using Light
Many kinds of octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are masters of disguise. They conceal themselves using chromatophores—specialized skin cells that hold pigment ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: When Young Brains Become Social
A brain imaging study from MIT and Yale researchers reveals the neural regions underlying social cognition—the ability to recognize other people's thoughts ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Stem Cells Made from Eggs Alone
Stem cells are cells that can develop into virtually any type of body tissue. Evenutally, it may be possible to use stem cells to create healthy tissues to replace ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Ancient Immunity May Have Upped HIV Risk
Retroviruses insert their genetic material into an organism's DNA to replicate. Over time, the viral DNA can inactivate and remain as a "fossil" relic the DNA ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: New Fossils Extend Branches of Family Tree
Interpretation of fossil finds and what they imply about human evolution often mean different things to different scientists. To many, evidence shows that the ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: New Fossil Show Ancient Disease
Tuberculosis has a long history in humans. While Egyptian mummies a few thousand years old show evidence of the disease, a new fossil find traces the ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: How Old is "Old"?
The human population in the U.S. and Canada is getting older—meaning that the proportion of elderly people is growing year by year. By 2050, researchers ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Gene Patterns Point to Long Lives
To better understand the biology of healthy aging, the Boston University School of Medicine is studying a unique population of Americans—centenarians, ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Extinct Cave Bear DNA Decoded
Scientists have traditionally looked to fossil evidence of extinct species to understand how Earth's plant and animal life evolved from ancestral forms.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Amazon People Offer Clues to Heart Health
A long-term study of the Tsimane, a traditional community that lives in the Bolivian Amazon, is offering scientists a new perspective on the risks of heart disease.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Baby Black Hole Lives Close By
Astronomers say a black hole recently formed in a nearby galaxy.
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Science Bulletins: Decoding the DNA of Extinct Species
Caves were important refuges for humans and animals that coexisted during the late Pleistocene, the epoch of ice ages that ended 10000 years ago.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: How Did Saturn Get Its Rings?
Astronomers propose a new theory to explain Saturn's unusual rings.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: The Transit of Venus
For a handful of hours in June 2012, Venus's orbit carried it directly across the face of the Sun, providing a spectacular backlit view visible from Earth. Only six ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Gamma-Ray Bursts—Flashes in the Sky
Gamma-ray bursts—flashes of intense radiation in space that are often just seconds long—were accidentally discovered in the 1960's by satellites built to ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Full Gene Set Decoded for Three More People
In June 2000, scientists triumphantly announced they had deciphered the full human genome—the 3.2 billion units of DNA that make up the blueprint for human ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Bipolar Disorder and the Body Clock
Many body processes operate on 24-hour cycles called circadian rhythms. Triggered by the environmental cue of daylight, circadian rhythms are complex series ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: "Body Clock" Found in Bone
Many body processes operate in rhythms, often called "biological clocks." A team of researchers led by Timothy Bromage at the New York University College of ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Stem Cell Advance Study of Lou Gehrig's Disease
Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), has no cure. It causes motor neurons in the central nervous system to shrink, resulting in severe ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Massive Study Links Genes to Disease
A sweeping new study by 50 research groups that comprise the Wellcome Trust Case Control Constortium has identified genetic markers for seven common ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Elusive Y-Dwarfs Discovered
Brown dwarfs are cosmic objects that are intermediate between stars and planets. Scientists have spent more than a decade seeking confirmation of the coolest, ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Fuller Gene Map May Help Disease Study
Scientists have released the largest survey yet of human genetic variation.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: An Odd Ellipse
A new Hubble Space Telescope image shows a galaxy with a complex identity.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Ancient "Kitchen" Reveals Modern Hunting Skills
How early humans hunted and ate their food can be a gauge of cognitive ability. It takes more strategic planning to capture large, healthy, adult game, transport it ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Mapping the Heat Beneath
As seismic waves from earthquakes pass through the planet, their patterns can reveal hidden dynamics—hotspots, deep-diving rock, melting mantle—in Earth's ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Supernovas Step by Step
Scientists are reproducing supernova explosions on computer screens.
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Acid Oceans
If youre an ocean creature with a hard shell—like a sea urchin, a hermit crab, or a coral polyp—you prefer ocean water with a pH of about 8.2. This chemistry ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Signs of Speech Ability Seen in Neanderthals
Could Neanderthals speak? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany—the same team that sequenced large ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Twitter Tracks Cholera Spread in Haiti
In the early stages of an epidemic, access to information about emerging cases is critical for health care workers trying to control the spread of disease. A recent ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Eight New "Natural Wonders" Listed
In July, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added eight new natural sites to its World Heritage List. The designation ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Oil Spills Affect Aquatic Life
Two ship accidents in one week caused more than a million gallons of oil to leak into sensitive marine areas. This Bio Bulletin highlights the locales—San ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Mammal Migrations under Threat
The migrations of many large hoofed mammals are in serious decline worldwide, says a new report led by Grant Harris of the Center for Biodiversity and ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: New Lactose Tolerance Mutation Found
Geneticists working in East Africa have discovered a gene mutation that enables certain adults to digest milk. The finding is a striking example of how a cultural ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Making Faces for Survival
Ask any person, from any country‚ to make a fearful face and you'll get the same response-eyebrows raised, eyes wide open, flared nostrils. A disgusted face, on ...
American Museum of Natural History
Science Bulletins: Making Fossils Hear
When did human beings first develop the ability to speak? This remains one of the most exciting and perplexing questions for researchers of human evolution ...
American Museum of Natural History
