A new Tel Aviv University study suggests that the genetic profiles of two extinct mammals with African ancestry — woolly mammoths, elephant-like animals that evolved in the arctic peninsula of Eurasia around 600,000 years ago, and Neanderthals, highly skilled early humans who evolved in Europe around 400,000 years ago — shared molecular characteristics of adaptation… Read More
The ability to turn while walking is impaired among patients with Parkinson’s disease. This difficulty is also associated with freezing of gait and falls, which can have devastating medical consequences in an older population. A new Tel Aviv University study advances the understanding of turns in Parkinson’s patients, providing new insights into an everyday motor… Read More
Radar technologies were originally designed to identify and track airborne military targets. Today they’re more often used to detect motor vehicles, weather formations and geological terrain. Until now, scientists have believed that radar accuracy and resolution are related to the range of frequencies or radio bandwidth used by the devices. But a new Tel Aviv… Read More
The good news: A new Tel Aviv University study published in Pediatrics on March 7 finds that positive interactions with patients drive improved medical team performance under most conditions. The bad news: Positive interactions with superiors had no significant effect. Moreover, a second in-press study by the same researcher to be published in Human Relations… Read More
Lightning was the main electromagnetic presence in the Earth’s atmosphere long before the invention of electricity. There are some 2,000 thunderstorms active at any given time, so humans and other organisms have been bathed in extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields for billions of years. These electromagnetic fields — the result of global lightning activity… Read More
Supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions times more than our sun and lie at the center of most galaxies. A supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun is situated in the heart of our very own Milky Way. Despite how commonplace supermassive black holes are, it remains unclear how they… Read More
A new Tel Aviv University study finds that microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic ingested by aquatic life — are present in solitary ascidians all along the Israeli coastline. Ascidians are sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. The research also confirmed the presence of plastic additives, i.e. “plasticizers,” in ascidians. Plasticizers are substances added to plastics… Read More
A new Tel Aviv University study describes a process to make bioplastic polymers that don’t require land or fresh water — resources that are scarce in much of the world. The polymer is derived from microorganisms that feed on seaweed. It is biodegradable, produces zero toxic waste and recycles into organic waste. The invention was… Read More