ability | Common News Update

Oct222020 by adminNo Comments

Bird-sized dinosaurs evolved ability to glide, but time in the skies was short-lived

Science

Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Often, evolutionary biologists focus on success. The planet's tremendous biodiversity offers a treasure trove of success stories, but evolutionary history is also littered with short-lived experiments and forgotten failures. Yi and Ambopteryx are two such failures. Roughly 160 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic, evolutionary tinkering allowed the pair of bird-like dinosaurs to take the skies across Asia -- kind of. Their achievement was short-lived. Advertisement New research, published Thursday in the journal iScience, suggest Yi and Ambopteryx were unable to actually fly. Despite their bat-like wings, analysis of the duo's skeletal and musculature makeup suggests the two dinosaurs species were only able to glide short distances -- and clumsily. To more precisel...

Mar272020 by adminNo Comments

Study: Cognitive ability is a whole-brain phenomenon

Science

March 27 (UPI) -- New research suggests intelligence, or general cognitive ability, can't be traced to a single region of the brain. According to an international team of neuroscientists, cognitive intelligence is a whole-brain phenomenon. For the study, researchers used diffusion tensor imaging to study whether small variations in the the neural wiring systems of test subjects could account for differences in IQ. The international survey involved the brain scans and IQ tests of 1,717 participants from all over the world, including healthy subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Scientists at the National University of Ireland Galway used novel statistical methods to synchronize and analyze the data collected by participating researchers. "To date, this is the largest meta-analysis stu...

Jan102020 by adminNo Comments

‘My ability to see depends on men giving blood’

Health

A woman who would lose her vision if there was not enough male blood available to treat her condition is urging more men to donate. Jo Daniels, 39, from Bristol, has the autoimmune disease Sjogren's syndrome, which attacks her tear glands and leaves her with painful ulcers on her corneas. She uses a daily eye serum, made from male blood, to keep her sight. Only 41% of new blood donors in England last year were men. The high level of iron present in male blood makes it especially helpful to patients who rely on regular life-saving transfusions. Unlike men, women produce antibodies during pregnancy which makes their blood unviable for numerous specialist transfusions and blood-based products, such as complete blood transfusions in newborn babies. 'In the da...

Aug242018 by adminNo Comments

Hybrid snakes with ability to live in various areas unexpectedly discovered: Study

Technology

While examining the invasive python population in Florida, researchers stumbled across the unexpected: a kind of hybrid super snake. A small number of the invasive pythons were found to be a crossbreed between two separate species, the Burmese and Indian pythons, and what's more is that this hybrid snake has the potential to thrive in new environments, according to a new study conducted by scientists with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). “We found that out of 400 Burmese pythons investigated, 13 had mitochondrial genetic signatures from the Indian python, a separate species,” Margaret Hunter, a research geneticist at USGS who led the study, told ABC News. Researchers were analyzing the tail tissue from roughly 400 Burmese pythons captured between 2001 and 2012 ...