ScienceDaily: Top Science News

Researchers have documented in a vertical wind tunnel the amazing ability of one species of salamander -- which spends its entire life in the tops of redwoods -- to parachute, glide and maneuver in mid-air. Ground-dwellers, on the other hand, freak out during free-fall. The salamander's skydiving skills are likely a way to steer back to a tree it has fallen or jumped from to avoid terrestrial predators.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and aspirin are widely used to treat pain and inflammation. But even at similar doses, different NSAIDs can have unexpected and unexplained effects on many diseases, including heart disease and cancer.

Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to new research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms.

A specific retinal pathway enables mice to detect incredibly dim shadows -- nearly reaching the limit of what's physically possible. The same circuit is in human eyes, which might enable researchers to probe visual diseases at unprecedented resolution.

A comprehensive family tree, based on DNA sequences, has revealed that drywood termites have made at least 40 oceanic journeys over the last 50 million years to reach far flung landmasses.

New research fills a longstanding gap in carbon material science, potentially opening brand-new possibilities for electronics, optics and semiconducting material research.

Once dubbed 'forever chemicals,' per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, might be in the market for a new nickname. Adding iodide to a water treatment reactor that uses ultraviolet (UV) light and sulfite destroys up to 90% of carbon-fluorine atoms in PFAS forever chemicals in just a few hours, reports a new study led by environmental engineers. The addition of iodide accelerates the speed of the reaction up to four times, saving energy and chemicals.

Most research looking at the impact of climate change on human life has focused on how extreme weather events affect economic and societal health outcomes on a broad scale. Yet climate change may also have a strong influence on fundamental daily human activities -- including a host of behavioral, psychological, and physiological outcomes that are essential to wellbeing. Investigators now report that increasing ambient temperatures negatively impact human sleep around the globe.

What links a finger bone and some fossil teeth found in a cave in the remote Altai Mountains of Siberia to a single tooth found in a cave in the limestone landscapes of tropical Laos? The answer to this question has been established by an international team of researchers from Laos, Europe, the US and Australia. The human tooth was chanced upon during an archaeological survey in a remote area of Laos. The scientists have shown it originated from the same ancient human population first recognised in Denisova Cave (dubbed the Denisovans), in the Altai Mountains of Siberia (Russia).