In the analysis, which examined newly sequenced ancient DNA from more than 700 individuals across the region, a complex population history is revealed from the earliest farming cultures to post-Medieval times. Until relatively recently, much of the ancient history of the Southern Arc – stories concerning its people and populations – have been told through archaeological data and the thousands of years of historical accounts and texts from the region....

The researchers published their findings in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Two integrons, genetic elements that can be traded between microbes or persist on their own, called sul1 and tet(W), confer resistance to sulphonamide and tetracycline antibiotics, which are two classes of drugs used in both humans and animals. Over a year, the scientists sampled ten different sites in the watershed, including upstream areas and those downstream of human activity....

Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the Universe held together by gravity but their formation is not well understood. The Spiderweb Galaxy (formally known as MRC 1138-262 [1]) and its surroundings have been studied for twenty years, using ESO and other telescopes [2], and is thought to be one of the best examples of a protocluster in the process of assembly, more than ten billion years ago. But Helmut Dannerbauer (University of Vienna, Austria) and his team strongly suspected that the story was far from complete....

The taste and aroma of a fruit, including berries, determine its flavor profile. The sweetness of a fruit is usually derived from the concentration of dissolved glucose or fructose, while its unique scent is produced by volatile compounds like esters and terpenes. Furthermore, fruits are often rich in nutrients such as vitamin C, folic acid, and antioxidants. But because fungicides are designed to disrupt the cellular processes of detrimental fungi, they could accidentally interfere with these processes in crops, inhibiting the production of these important flavors and nutritional compounds....

Steve Chang and his colleagues from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, have discovered that monkeys have a specific area in their brains to keep track of altruistic acts. This might help researchers understand the mechanisms underlying normal social behavior in primates and humans, and could even provide insight into autism spectrum disorder. The scientists published their findings in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They used electrodes to directly record neuronal activity in three areas of the prefrontal cortex, an area that is known to be involved in social decision-making while the monkey performed reward-related tasks....

“Our finding reverses the previous perception that silkworm silk cannot compete with spider silks on mechanical performance,” says senior author Zhi Lin, a biochemist at Tianjin University. Historically, silkworm silk was used in fashion as a source of luxury robes and apparel fitting for royalty. However, today, silk-based materials are more likely to be found in biomedicine as a material for stitches and surgical mesh. It’s also used for tissue regeneration experiments due to its biocompatibility, mechanical properties, and biodegradability....

Billions of years ago, asteroid collisions resulted in the ejection of fragments hundreds of kilometers across and sharing similar orbits. The resulting groups are known as asteroid families. Other asteroid groups formed as a result of rotational fission, which happens when a rapidly spinning body reaches critical rotation speed and splits into relatively small fragments only a few kilometers across. Scientists have always thought about fission clusters as entirely distinct from collisional families....

A nearby short duration gamma-ray burst may be the cause of an intense blast of high-energy radiation that hit the Earth in the 8th century, according to new research led by astronomers Valeri Hambaryan and Ralph Neuhӓuser. The two scientists, based at the Astrophysics Institute of the University of Jena in Germany, publish their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 2012 scientist Fusa Miyake announced the detection of high levels of the isotope Carbon-14 and Beryllium-10 in tree rings formed in 775 CE, suggesting that a burst of radiation struck the Earth in the year 774 or 775....

“The discovery and confirmation of this new exoplanet was very rapid, thanks to the collaboration that my advisor, Björn Benneke, and I are a part of,” Peterson said. “In May, I just started my graduate studies when the latest release of Kepler K2 data came in. We were able to quickly analyze the new data quickly and found many interesting candidate exoplanets. Wolf 503b was one of them.” The team identified distinct, periodic dips that appear in the light curve of the star when the planet passes in front of it....

Because AGN play an important role in the evolution of galaxies, astronomers are studying galaxies with AGN at cosmological distances. It is in earlier epochs of the universe, about ten billion years after the big bang, when the most significant AGN fueling is thought to occur. But AGN at these distances are also faint and more difficult to find. Historically, they have been spotted by their having very red colors due to heavy dust obscuration, characteristic emission lines (signaling very hot gas), and/or their variability....

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft will make its seventh science flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops on Friday, September 1, at 2:49 p.m. PDT (5:49 p.m. EDT and 21:49 UTC). At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno’s orbit when it is closest to the planet’s center), the spacecraft will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops. Juno launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016....

Dark matter is a mysterious cosmic phenomenon that accounts for 27 percent of all matter and energy. Though dark matter is all around us, we cannot see it or feel it. But scientists can infer the presence of dark matter by looking at how normal matter behaves around it. Galaxy clusters, which consist of thousands of galaxies, are important for exploring dark matter because they reside in a region where such matter is much denser than average....

“Everything you’d ever want to learn about the way big black holes interact with little black holes, you can learn by studying this distribution,” said Columbia Astrophysicist Chuck Hailey, co-director of the Columbia Astrophysics Lab and lead author on the study. “The Milky Way is really the only galaxy we have where we can study how supermassive black holes interact with little ones because we simply can’t see their interactions in other galaxies....

The center of the Milky Way galaxy is currently a quiet place where a supermassive black hole slumbers, only occasionally slurping small sips of hydrogen gas. But it wasn’t always this way. A new study shows that 6 million years ago, when the first human ancestors known as hominins walked the Earth, our galaxy’s core blazed forth furiously. The evidence for this active phase came from a search for the galaxy’s missing mass....

“Often in physics, we build our understanding then test the extreme cases or test the cases in a different environment,” Elizabeth MacDonald, a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, explains. “STEVE is different than the usual aurora, but it is made of light and it is driven by the auroral system. In finding these tiny little streaks, we may be learning something fundamentally new in how green auroral light can be produced....

A leading expert from The Australian National University (ANU) who will analyze the samples says they could provide major insights into the origin of life on Earth. The subsurface material collected from the asteroid will be dropped off by Hayabusa2. Testing will start almost immediately on the returned material. The mission aims to shed light on the nature of asteroids and the origins of planets in our solar system, as well as the origin of Earth’s water, which is vital for all life....

In humans, people with strong social ties live longer, have healthier lives, whereas hostile tendencies can lead to an early death. In animals, this seems to be the case as well. Strong social networks contribute to longer lives and healthier offspring. Personality might also be a factor in other primates’ longevity. The scientists published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Baboons that had the most stable relationships with other females weren’t always highest up in the dominance hierarchy, but they were the nicest....

The perplexing picture was captured soon after JWST began scientific operations and published its first full batch of images. It rapidly sparked a heated debate on the internet, with some speculating that the enormous ripples were caused by aliens. The picture was described as “bonkers” by Mark McCaughrean, a senior adviser for science and exploration at the European Space Agency and a member of the James Webb Space Telescope Science Working Group....

Researchers employing a century-old observational technique have determined the precise configuration of humulones, substances derived from hops that give beer its distinctive flavor. That might not sound like a big deal to the average brewmaster, but the findings overturn results reported in scientific literature in the last 40 years and could lead to new pharmaceuticals to treat diabetes, some types of cancer, and other maladies. “Now that we have the right results, what happens to the bitter hops in the beer-brewing process makes a lot more sense,” said Werner Kaminsky, a University of Washington research associate professor of chemistry....

Physicists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) are learning more about the bizarre behavior of “strange metals,” which operate outside the normal rules of electricity. Theoretical physicist Yashar Komijani, an assistant professor in UC’s College of Arts and Sciences, contributed to an international experiment using a strange metal made from an alloy of ytterbium, a rare earth metal. Physicists in a lab in Hyogo, Japan, fired radioactive gamma rays at the strange metal to observe its unusual electrical behavior....