ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Australia's deadly eruptions were reason for the first mass extinction
• Can narcissists be moved to show empathy?
• Smells like deceit: A record number of species use the same odor to exploit each other
• Amber discovery indicates Lyme disease is older than human race
• Huge tooth fossil shows marine predator had plenty to chew on
• Four-billion-year-old rocks yield clues about Earth's earliest crust
• Zeroing in on the proton's magnetic moment
• Melting Arctic opens new passages for invasive species
• Age-old relationship between birds and flowers: World’s oldest fossil of a nectarivorous bird
• Striking lack of diversity in prehistoric birds
• NASA-funded rocket to study birthplace of stars

Australia's deadly eruptions were reason for the first mass extinction Posted: 30 May 2014 09:43 AM PDT Ancient volcanic eruptions in Australia 510 million years ago significantly affected the climate, causing the first known mass extinction in the history of complex life. Scientists used radioactive dating techniques to precisely measure the age of the eruptions of the Kalkarindji volcanic province.

Can narcissists be moved to show empathy? Posted: 30 May 2014 09:43 AM PDT Researchers have investigated whether narcissists can elicit empathy for another person's suffering. It has been well documented that narcissists lack empathy, but why is that the case, and do they have the capacity to change that behavior? New research suggests that with the right focus, people with narcissistic tendencies can feel empathy for another person's suffering.

Smells like deceit: A record number of species use the same odor to exploit each other Posted: 29 May 2014 03:26 PM PDT Ecologists discover a fascinating story of hijacked signals, deceit, stowaways, and eavesdropping in the natural world. It involves the citrus tree, an infectious plant disease called huánglóngbìng, a sap-sucking plant louse, and a predatory wasp -- all communicating with each other through a single odor.

Amber discovery indicates Lyme disease is older than human race Posted: 29 May 2014 11:25 AM PDT Lyme disease is a stealthy, often misdiagnosed disease that was only recognized about 40 years ago, but new discoveries of ticks fossilized in amber show that the bacteria which cause it may have been lurking around for 15 million years -- long before any humans walked on Earth. The findings were made by researchers who studied 15-20 million-year-old amber from the Dominican Republic that offer the oldest fossil evidence ever found of Borrelia, a type of spirochete-like bacteria that to this day causes Lyme disease.

Huge tooth fossil shows marine predator had plenty to chew on Posted: 29 May 2014 11:24 AM PDT A fossilized tooth belonging to a fearsome marine predator has been recorded as the largest of its kind found in the UK, following its recent discovery. A team of palaeontologists have verified the tooth, which was found near Chesil Beach in Dorset, as belonging to a prehistoric relative of modern crocodiles known as Dakosaurus maximus. The tooth, which has a broken tip, is approximately 5.5 cm long.

Four-billion-year-old rocks yield clues about Earth's earliest crust Posted: 29 May 2014 08:20 AM PDT It looks like just another rock, but what researchers are examining is a four-billion-year-old chunk of an ancient protocontinent that holds clues about how Earth's first continents formed. Continents today form when one tectonic plate shifts beneath another into Earth's mantle and cause magma to rise to the surface, a process called subduction. It's unclear whether plate tectonics existed 2.5 billion to four billion years ago or if another process was at play.

Zeroing in on the proton's magnetic moment Posted: 28 May 2014 10:28 AM PDT As part of a series of experiments designed to resolve one of the deepest mysteries of physics today, researchers have made the most precise ever direct measurement of the magnetic moment of a proton. The work seeks to answer the fundamental question of why we exist at all. It is believed that the Big Bang some 13 billion years ago generated equal amounts of matter and antimatter -- which annihilate when they collide -- and yet the universe today seems to contain only matter.

Melting Arctic opens new passages for invasive species Posted: 28 May 2014 07:49 AM PDT For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened passages leave both coasts and Arctic waters vulnerable to a large wave of invasive species, biologists assert.

Age-old relationship between birds and flowers: World’s oldest fossil of a nectarivorous bird Posted: 27 May 2014 06:49 PM PDT Scientists have described the oldest known fossil of a pollinating bird. The well-preserved stomach contents contained pollen from various flowering plants. This indicates that the relationship between birds and flowers dates back at least 47 million years. The fossil comes from the well-known fossil site "Messel Pit."

Striking lack of diversity in prehistoric birds Posted: 27 May 2014 06:49 PM PDT Birds come in astounding variety -- from hummingbirds to emus -- and behave in myriad ways: they soar the skies, swim the waters, and forage the forests. But this wasn't always the case, according to new research.

NASA-funded rocket to study birthplace of stars Posted: 27 May 2014 12:17 PM PDT In deep space, floating between the stars, lies an abundance of atoms -- carbon, oxygen, hydrogen -- that over millions of years will grow into new stars and new planets. NASA successfully launched the Colorado High-resolution Echelle Stellar Spectrograph, or CHESS, payload aboard a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket on May 24, 2014, for a 15-minute flight to observe this star nursery more comprehensively and in better detail than has been done by a single instrument ever before.

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