ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Humans climb like geckos using bio-inspired climbing technology
• Human language's deep origins appear to have come directly from birds, primates
• Making new species without sex
• Map of universe questioned: Dwarf galaxies don't fit standard model
• Newly discovered paddle prints show how ancient sea reptiles swam
• High Tibet was cradle of evolution for cold-adapted mammals
• Herpes infected humans before they were human

Humans climb like geckos using bio-inspired climbing technology Posted: 11 Jun 2014 08:21 AM PDT DARPA's Z-Man program has demonstrated the first known human climbing of a glass wall using climbing devices inspired by geckos. The historic ascent involved a 218-pound climber ascending and descending 25 feet of glass, while also carrying an additional 50-pound load in one trial, with no climbing equipment other than a pair of hand-held, gecko-inspired paddles. A novel polymer microstructure technology was used in those paddles.

Human language's deep origins appear to have come directly from birds, primates Posted: 11 Jun 2014 07:22 AM PDT Human language builds on birdsong and speech forms of other primates, researchers hypothesize in new research. From birds, the researchers say, we derived the melodic part of our language, and from other primates, the pragmatic, content-carrying parts of speech. Sometime within the last 100,000 years, those capacities fused into roughly the form of human language that we know today.

Making new species without sex Posted: 11 Jun 2014 07:22 AM PDT Plants can transfer their entire genetic material to a partner in an asexual manner, researchers report. Occasionally, two different plant species interbreed with each other in nature. This usually causes problems since the genetic information of both parents does not match. But sometimes, instead of passing on only half of each parent's genetic material, both plants transmit the complete information to the next generation. This means that the chromosome sets are totted up. The chromosomes are then able to find their suitable partner during meiosis, allowing the plants to stay fertile and a new species is generated.

Map of universe questioned: Dwarf galaxies don't fit standard model Posted: 11 Jun 2014 06:36 AM PDT Dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies defy the accepted model of galaxy formation, and recent attempts to wedge them into the model are flawed, reports an international team of astrophysicists. A new study pokes holes in the current understanding of galaxy formation and questions the accepted model of the origin and evolution of the universe.

Newly discovered paddle prints show how ancient sea reptiles swam Posted: 11 Jun 2014 06:36 AM PDT Trackways formed on an ancient seabed have shed new light on how nothosaurs, ancient marine reptiles that lived during the age of the dinosaurs, propelled themselves through water.

High Tibet was cradle of evolution for cold-adapted mammals Posted: 10 Jun 2014 05:53 PM PDT A new study identifies a newly discovered 3- to 5- million-year-old Tibetan fox from the Himalayan Mountains, Vulpes qiuzhudingi, as the likely ancestor of the living Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), lending support to the idea that the evolution of present-day animals in the Arctic region is intimately connected to ancestors that first became adapted for life in cold regions in the high altitude environments of the Tibetan Plateau.

Herpes infected humans before they were human Posted: 10 Jun 2014 05:49 PM PDT Researchers have identified the evolutionary origins of human herpes simplex virus (HSV) -1 and -2, reporting that the former infected hominids before their evolutionary split from chimpanzees 6 million years ago while the latter jumped from ancient chimpanzees to ancestors of modern humans -- Homo erectus -- approximately 1.6 million years ago.

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