SciTechDaily

Jars from what may be the world’s oldest shipwreck still hold visible residues, offering a chance to identify what Mediterranean traders carried around 4,500 years ago. A shipwreck off the coast of Turkey is the oldest shipwreck in the world, our team of archaeologists believes. There’s little left of the ship itself but based on [...]

Lost quality of life accounts for the largest share of dementia’s estimated $818 billion U.S. toll, offering a broader measure of what better care could preserve. Family members and friends caring for Americans with dementia provide billions of hours of unpaid help, often during their prime working years. Their time, lost earnings, and the physical [...]

A cannabis compound sold to help people sleep caused withdrawal symptoms in mice after just three days of repeated use. Researchers at the University of Connecticut found that repeated doses of cannabinol, or CBN, produced tolerance and withdrawal symptoms in mice. The study, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, raises questions about a substance whose [...]

Arthritis may leave a memory in the joints, and mouse experiments suggest stress can reawaken it with help from the body’s heat-producing fat. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can flare in previously affected joints even after the disease has gone into remission. Psychological stress has long been associated with worsening symptoms, but how it might help inflammation [...]

The comfort you find in a cat’s company may have less to do with years together than with everyday closeness, a small observational study suggests. Cat owners often credit their pets with making life better, but research has produced mixed evidence about whether owning a cat benefits human health and well-being. Some studies have found [...]

A stranger’s face can hold a cow’s attention longer than a familiar handler’s, video tests suggest, offering clues to how cattle recognize the people around them. When cows watched videos of people, they looked longer when the face on screen matched the voice they heard. The finding suggests that these highly social animals, which live [...]

Bigger animals generally have bigger body parts, but new research reveals that certain ants defy this biological rule. In the insect world, bigger bodies usually come with bigger body parts. But some ants break this rule in an unexpected way. A massive soldier ant, equipped with an oversized head and powerful jaws, can have smaller [...]

Scientists have discovered distinct bacterial patterns in the saliva of patients with a deadly form of esophageal cancer. Bacteria living in the mouth may hold clues to a deadly form of esophageal cancer that often goes undetected until treatment options are limited. Researchers in South Africa have identified distinctive bacterial patterns in patients’ saliva, raising [...]

Researchers uncovered how a high-cholesterol diet weakens the liver’s defenses and lowered LDL in mice by blocking the pathway, pointing to a potential new use for a shelved heart failure drug. A diet high in cholesterol can gradually weaken the liver’s ability to remove harmful cholesterol from the blood. Cholesterol-related heart disease remains the leading [...]

New compounds have overcome a longstanding challenge by directly targeting β-arrestins, proteins that regulate cellular signals, providing laboratory tools that could help guide more precise treatments with fewer side effects. A drug can hit its intended target and still have its effects cut short. That’s because cells have built-in molecular brakes that dial down signals [...]

Solar grazing is helping sheep farmers expand their businesses, opening opportunities for rural jobs, new investment, and stronger agricultural supply chains. Sheep can feed on the vegetation growing around solar panels while farmers get paid to keep it under control. Too few sheep may leave farmers with grass they still need to mow, while heavier [...]

Nearly identical butterflies share the same tropical forests, yet scientists still cannot fully explain how they recognize their own kind. When Andrés Orellana found caterpillars stripping the leaves from a Cecropia sapling in Venezuela, they had the familiar black bodies and yellow spines of Colobura butterflies. None, however, had the cream-colored markings seen in the [...]

Ancient tooth proteins raise the possibility that Homo naledi, an extinct human relative, reserved a burial site for females, hinting at complex customs once thought unique to modern humans. For more than a decade, researchers have wondered why the adult fossils in South Africa’s Dinaledi Chamber look so much alike. The remains of Homo naledi, [...]

Chemicals that disrupt hormones may leave a molecular “scar” that could someday help identify people at higher risk of breast cancer, research in human breast tissue models suggests. People are typically exposed to several chemicals at once, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can interfere with the body’s hormones. Scientists have increasingly questioned whether these exposures contribute [...]

Scientists have uncovered new clues about the evolution of a rare, deadly Brazilian virus that has circulated largely undetected for more than a century. A rare and deadly virus went undetected in Brazil after genetic changes allowed it to escape existing laboratory tests. Scientists investigating two fatal infections have now identified the mutations responsible, developed [...]

Natural killer cells reprogrammed inside mice eliminated lymphoma tumors and helped damaged livers heal, though whether this approach could help people with cancer or autoimmune disease remains unknown. To make a cancer treatment from a patient’s T cells, doctors first collect a blood sample and send it to a laboratory. There, these immune cells are [...]

Ancient DNA from cave walls offers clues to prehistoric visitors’ sex and ancestry, potentially allowing scientists to investigate who used these spaces without disturbing archaeological deposits. A cave wall can hold traces of prehistoric visitors even when it has no paintings or other visible signs of human activity. Scientists have recovered ancient human DNA from [...]

Ancient eruptions may have helped shape the air we breathe, with laboratory experiments revealing magma’s unexpected ability to store extra oxygen. Molten rock deep inside Earth can take up an extra supply of oxygen under pressure, according to a new study. That finding raises the possibility that rising magma could release oxygen on its way [...]

A gravity model that lets dark energy change sign could help resolve a persistent disagreement over how fast the universe is expanding. In an existing theory of gravity, the same present-day matter density can fit two very different histories of the universe. Researchers had largely pursued the one that kept dark energy’s density positive. Exploring [...]

A simple membrane uses crude oil’s own deposits to separate lighter components at room temperature, with simulations suggesting nearly one-third less energy use when paired with distillation. Refineries heat crude oil above 350°C (662°F) to separate a mixture that supplies transportation fuels and raw materials for plastics, packaging, textiles, and other consumer products. This century-old [...]