Science X Newsletter Week 18

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Here is your customized Science X Newsletter for week 18:

	Plants can use underground communication to find out when neighbors are stressed Corn seedlings that grow close together give off underground signals that impact the growth of nearby plants, reports a study published May 2, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Velemir Ninkovic from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, and colleagues.
	Physicists find signs of a time crystal Yale physicists have uncovered hints of a time crystal—a form of matter that "ticks" when exposed to an electromagnetic pulse—in the last place they expected: a crystal you might find in a child's toy.
	DNA sequences suggest 250 people made up original Native American founding population A University of Kansas anthropological geneticist is part of an international research team working to shed light upon one of the unanswered questions concerning the peopling of the New World: Namely, what was the size of the original founding population of the Americas?
	New proof reveals fundamental limits of scientific knowledge A new proof by SFI Professor David Wolpert sends a humbling message to would-be super intelligences: you can't know everything all the time.
	Scientists define critical period for learning language—children remain adept learners until the age of 17 or 18 A great deal of evidence suggests that it is more difficult to learn a new language as an adult than as a child, which has led scientists to propose that there is a "critical period" for language learning. However, the length of this period and its underlying causes remain unknown.
	New study links gray hair with immune system activity and viral infection A new study on mice offers insights into why some people's hair may turn gray in response to a serious illness or chronic stress. Publishing May 3 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, researchers at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Alabama, Birmingham have discovered a connection between the genes that contribute to hair color and the genes that notify our bodies of a pathogenic infection.
	New find shows early humans were in the Philippines 700,000 years ago New archaeological evidence shows that humans were living in the Philippines by 709,000 years ago – hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
	Taming the multiverse—Stephen Hawking's final theory about the big bang Professor Stephen Hawking's final theory on the origin of the universe, which he worked on in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog from KU Leuven, has been published today in the Journal of High Energy Physics.
	Frequent sauna bathing reduces risk of stroke Frequent sauna bathing is associated with a reduced risk of stroke, according to a new international study. In a 15-year follow-up study, people taking a sauna four to seven times a week were 61 per cent less likely to suffer a stroke than those taking a sauna once a week. This is the first prospective large-scale study on this topic, and the findings were reported in Neurology.
	Walnuts impact gut microbiome and improve health Diets rich in nuts, such as walnuts, have been shown to play a role in heart health and in reducing colorectal cancer. According to a new study from the University of Illinois, the way walnuts impact the gut microbiome—the collection of trillions of microbes or bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract—may be behind some of those health benefits.
	Drug epidemic ensnares 25-year-old pill for nerve pain The story line sounds familiar: a popular pain drug becomes a new way to get high as prescribing by doctors soars.
	City upbringing, without pets, boosts vulnerability to mental illness Children raised in a rural environment, surrounded by animals and bacteria-laden dust, grow up to have more stress-resilient immune systems and might be at lower risk of mental illness than pet-free city dwellers, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
	Fasting boosts stem cells' regenerative capacity As people age, their intestinal stem cells begin to lose their ability to regenerate. These stem cells are the source for all new intestinal cells, so this decline can make it more difficult to recover from gastrointestinal infections or other conditions that affect the intestine.
	Scientists identify two hormones that burn fat faster, prevent and reverse diabetes in mice UCLA geneticists have created a new technique to hunt for hormones that influence how organs and tissues communicate with each other. The method enabled them to find naturally occurring molecules that play major roles in Type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
	Researchers develop water-based battery to store solar and wind energy Stanford researchers have developed a water-based battery that could provide a cheap way to store wind or solar energy generated when the sun is shining and wind is blowing so it can be fed back into the electric grid and be redistributed when demand is high.
	Brown widow male spiders prefer sex with older females likely to eat them afterwards Male brown widow spiders seek to mate with older, less-fertile females that are 50 percent more likely to eat them after sex, according to Israeli researchers in a study published in the journal Animal Behaviour.
	Even brief maternal deprivation early in life alters adult brain function and cognition When a baby is taken from its mother for even a brief period early in life, this traumatic event significantly alters the future, adult function of the brain, according to a new animal model study from the School of Science at IUPUI. These changes in the brain are similar to disturbances in brain structure and function that are found in people at risk for neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia.
	Which is better, one space or two after a period in a sentence? A trio of researchers at Skidmore College has found that text with two spaces after the period in sentences allows people to process the information they are reading faster. In their paper published in the journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, Rebecca Johnson, Becky Bui and Lindsay Schmitt outline their study and what they found.
	Keep calm and carry on: Scientists make first serotonin measurements in humans Scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have begun to unravel how serotonin acts, based on data collected in a first-of-its-kind experiment that utilized electrochemical probes implanted into the brain of awake human beings.
	Engineers upgrade ancient, sun-powered tech to purify water with near-perfect efficiency The idea of using energy from the sun to evaporate and purify water is ancient. The Greek philosopher Aristotle reportedly described such a process more than 2,000 years ago.

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