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This calendar week in scientific discipline news , we chance out what your kat ’s face might be telling you , gear up for an imminent solar upper limit and discover the gruesome answer to the " mermaid " mummy mystery .
Caterpillar , orphic creatures that they are , always seem to be up to something , but we ’re never completely trusted what ’s go on in those feline brains . Scientists ' curiosity into what bozo might be think go to a study of the felines in bozo cafes , which discover they havenearly 300different facial expressions — butcan they recognize themselves in the mirror ?
Science news this week includes the many facial expressions cats can make and an incoming solar maximum.
Even more dumfounding animal discoveries this workweek deal us further back in time , to100,000 - year - old gigantic bonesin a Russian river , amosasaur with " angry eyebrows"that lived 80 million years ago , andflesh - eating ' killer ' lampreysthat last 160 million years ago in what is nowChina .
nigher to our own epoch , no doubt the nontextual matter world will be " rocked " by the news ofancient petroglyphsrising from the drouth - stricken Amazon River , or500 - year - onetime cave art discovered in Puerto Rico .
— Pristine coral reefs discovered near Galápagos Islands are thousands of years honest-to-goodness and teeming with life
If you look closely, you can see the thick filament (in blue and mint green) interacting with the thin filament of muscle (in lime green).
— 5,000 - year - older quite a little grave of devolve warrior in Spain shows evidence of ' sophisticated ' warfare
— Can rats ' imagine ' ? Rodents show signs of imagination while playing VR games
— The ' safe ' threshold for globular warming will be go through in just 6 twelvemonth , scientists say
Who is this man? (a) an Oscar-winning actor (b) a Nobel Prize winner (c) Ramesses II, an Egyptian pharaoh
In space news this week , we obtain out aboutprotoplanets , amassive solar eruptionand an’impossible ' aurora . There was also a frank admission that scientist got their solar cycle per second predictions amiss , and that we arefast approaching the sun ’s volatile heyday . What does that reckon like ? Well we wo n’t have to wait long forthe solar maximumto find out .
In wellness tidings , anRSV drug shortageprompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) to correct recommendations , while scientists see that a somebody ’s epigenetic " clock " may revealhow much a person ’s memory function has declined over time . investigator also predict theeffectiveness of Chinese medicineand take to have reveal CBD in aplant that ’s not cannabis .
And finally , a mysterious , malevolent - looking " mermaid " mummy from Japan has been flummox scientists for more than 100 years . Now we have an estimate of what it is — agruesome Frankenstein ’s monster of Pisces the Fishes , scamp and lounge lizard parts .
Picture of the week
Theskeletalandheartmuscle cells of mammals are made up of build blocks experience assarcomeres . These contain stocky and thin filaments , called myosin and actin respectively , that interact and start the muscle to contract . This arresting , multicolored image is theclearest impression to dateof what the thick fibril in mammalian heart tissue paper see like .
The image was taken using a geld - edge technique known ascryo - electron imaging , or cryo - ET , which helps scientists to paint a clearer picture of the show of expectant molecules within livelihood cells . The team behind it , from the Max Planck Institute ( MPI ) of Molecular Physiology in Germany , says that it is the world ’s first true - to - life 3D image of the thick strand in mammalian heart tissue , and that a good understanding of how brawniness work could speed up the development of Modern therapies to care for nitty-gritty and brawniness disorder .
" Our aim is to paint a complete picture of the sarcomere one day,“Stefan Raunser , a director of structural biochemistry at the MPI of Molecular Physiology , order in astatement . " The persona of the buddy-buddy filament in this study is ' only ' a snapshot in the relaxed state of the muscle . To amply realise how the sarcomere functions and how it is regulated , we want to analyze it in unlike states for example during contraction , " he said .
Sunday reading
Live Science long read
This man was Ramesses II , one ofancient Egypt’smost powerful Pharaoh . The nineteenth - dynasty male monarch ruled for 66 old age , start in 1279 B.C. , and his likeness has been chiseled into colossal statue and printed in textbooks around the world . But until recently , only those who see the man knew what he really looked like .
But earlier this year , researchersdigitally construct the iconic mogul ’s faceusing a computed imaging ( CT ) CAT scan of the pharaoh ’s mummified skull . The last image brought the long - stagnant swayer back to life .
For 10 , research worker have make facial approximations of people from the past times , from iconic diachronic figures likeKing Tutand English kingHenry VIIto ordinary individuals lose to time , such as anIncan " ice maiden , " anunnamed Stone Age womanand aNeanderthal man .
Buthow well do these approximations capture what the people looked like in life ? And is there any room to measure their accuracy ?
icon capturing a starve lion , fighting bison and pit of vipers respect in environmental photography awards
Hoatzin : The foreign ' stinkbird ' abide with taloned wings that appear to be an evolutionary ' orphan '
The unremitting surveillance of advanced life could worsen our brain subroutine in way we do n’t fully empathize , disturbing studies evoke
