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Tag: scientists

Scientists link gene to emergence of spoken language
- A new study links a particular gene and a protein variant found only in humans to the origins of spoken language.
- Researchers used CRISPR gene editing to replace the NOVA1 protein found in mice with the type exclusively found in humans, and it changed the way the animals vocalized when they called out to each other.
- The author of the study, Dr. Robert Darnell, hopes the recent work could lead to new ways to treat speech-related problems.
Why did humans start speaking? Scientists suggest genetics played a big role – and they say the evolution of this singular ability was key to our survival.

A new study links a particular gene to the ancient origins of spoken language, proposing that a protein variant found only in humans may have helped us communicate in a novel way. Speech allowed us to share information, coordinate activities and pass down knowledge, giving us an edge over extinct cousins like Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The new study is “a good first step to start looking at the specific genes” that may affect speech and language development, said Liza Finestack at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved with the research.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER ANCIENT ‘CITY OF THE DEAD’ IN ITALY: ‘PERFECTLY PRESERVED’

What scientists learn may someday even help people with speech problems.

The genetic variant researchers were looking at was one of a variety of genes “that contributed to the emergence of Homo sapiens as the dominant species, which we are today,” said Dr. Robert Darnell, an author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Casts of skulls are seen inside an exhibit of early human species inside the Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins on July 20, 2023, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Darnell has been studying the protein – called NOVA1 and known to be crucial to brain development – since the early 1990s. For the latest research, scientists in his lab at New York’s Rockefeller University used CRISPR gene editing to replace the NOVA1 protein found in mice with the exclusively human type to test the real-life effects of the genetic variant. To their surprise, it changed the way the animals vocalized when they called out to each other.

Baby mice with the human variant squeaked differently than normal littermates when their mom came around. Adult male mice with the variant chirped differently than their normal counterparts when they saw a female in heat.

Both are settings where mice are motivated to speak, Darnell said, “and they spoke differently” with the human variant, illustrating its role in speech.

‘DRAGON MAN’ CLAIMED AS POTENTIAL NEW HUMAN SPECIES AFTER ANALYSIS OF CHINA SKULL

This isn’t the first time a gene has been linked to speech. In 2001, British scientists said they had discovered the first gene tied to a language and speech disorder.

Called FOXP2, it was referred to as the human language gene. But though FOXP2 is involved in human language, it turned out that the variant in modern humans wasn’t unique to us. Later research found it was shared with Neanderthals. The NOVA1 variant in modern humans, on the other hand, is found exclusively in our species, Darnell said.

The presence of a gene variant isn’t the only reason people can speak. The ability also depends on things like anatomical features in the human throat and areas of the brain that work together to allow people to speak and understand language.

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Darnell hopes the recent work not only helps people better understand their origins but also eventually leads to new ways to treat speech-related problems.

University of Minnesota’s Finestack said it’s more likely the genetic findings might someday allow scientists to detect, very early in life, who might need speech and language interventions.

“That’s certainly a possibility,” she said.
February 18, 2025
Scientists say X-rays from nuclear explosion may deflect asteroids from Earth

Scientists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, say potentially dangerous asteroids could possibly be deflected by exploding a nuclear warhead more than a mile from its surface and showering it with X-rays to send it in a different direction.

Previous methods, as seen in blockbuster movies like “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact,” involved blowing up a nuclear warhead on an asteroid or comet and shattering it into multiple pieces.

But scientists now say the method would change the space object from a lethal bullet headed toward Earth into a shotgun blast of multiple fragments.

Last year, the National Academy of Sciences released a report calling planetary defense a national priority, and according to an ongoing NASA sky survey, the threat is credible.

STADIUM-SIZED ASTEROID DEEMED ‘POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS’ BY NASA, IS EXPECTED TO MOVE ‘RELATIVELY CLOSE’ TO EARTH

An artist’s impression of a large asteroid impacting at Chicxulub on the Mexican coastline, which caused a mass extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago. (Mark Garlick/Reuters)

The sky survey found there are about 25,000 objects big enough to cause varying degrees of destruction to Earth, and only about a third of them have been detected and tracked, according to a press release from the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

Many of the objects move invisibly in the sun’s glare. In 2013, a relatively small object created chaos in Russia while a larger asteroid is credited with ending the age of dinosaurs.

“To most people, the danger from asteroids seems remote,” Nathan Moore, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories said. “But our planet is hit by BB-sized asteroids every day. We call them shooting stars. We don’t want to wait for a large asteroid to show up and then scramble for the right method to deflect it.”

Moore’s team conducted several experiments with Sandia’s Z machine, the most powerful pulsed-power machine on Earth, to monitor the deflection of synthetic asteroids hit by Z’s sudden shocks.

FLASHBACK: STUDY SAYS ASTEROID THAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS ALSO CAUSED A GLOBAL TSUNAMI

2024 ON will be 621,000 miles from Earth on Tuesday night, NASA says. (NASA)

While the machine is on Earth, all experiments are affected by gravity, though Moore’s team was able to beat the inevitable force temporarily to create a better simulation of asteroids floating freely in space.

Moore’s experiments used a technique called X-ray scissors, which removed the skewing effect of friction and gravity for a few microseconds.

The X-ray scissors allowed the model to create the effect of redirecting a free-floating asteroid when hit by a series of nuclear-intensity explosions.

Although the experiments were done in a much smaller environment than space, they could be scaled to predict the effects of nuclear explosions on an actual asteroid.

DINOSAUR-KILLING ASTEROID LIKELY CAME FROM BEYOND JUPITER, STUDY FINDS

An illustration of an asteroid. The asteroid roughly the size of Rome’s Colosseum — between 300 to 650 feet (100 to 200 meters) in length — was detected by an international team of European astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. (N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier, N. Risinger (skysurvey.org))

“I started working through the logic of how I could deflect a miniature asteroid in a laboratory just like in outer space,” Moore said. “A key fact was that asteroids in outer space aren’t attached to anything. But in a lab, everything is pulled down by Earth’s gravity, so everything is held in place by its gravitational attachment to something else. This wouldn’t let our mock asteroid move with the freedom of one in outer space. And mechanical attachments would create friction that would perturb the mock asteroid’s motion.”

And that’s where the X-ray scissors came in. The method allowed scientists to release a mock asteroid the size of a tenth of a gram and made of silica, into the free space vacuum.

The material was suspended by foil eight times thinner than human hair, which vaporized instantly when the Z machine fired.

The silica was then left free-floating as the X-ray burst hit it.

NASA COLLISION WITH ASTEROID DIMORPHOS CHANGED BOTH ITS TRAJECTORY AND SHAPE

The DART spacecraft, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, from Simi Valley, Calif. after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

“It was a novel idea,” Moore said. “A mock asteroid is suspended in space. For a one-nanometer fall, we can ignore Earth’s gravity for 20 millionths of a second as Z produces a burst of X-rays that sweeps over the mock-asteroid surface 12.5 millimeters across, about the width of a finger.

“The trick is to use just enough force to redirect the flying rock without splitting it into several equally deadly subsections advancing toward Earth,” Moore added, referring to a real intercept scenario like the recent NASA DART experiment.

The news comes just days after NASA monitored a “potentially hazardous” asteroid moving past Earth last Tuesday.

NASA told Fox News Digital that the rocky object, which has been named 2024 ON, is 350 meters long by 180 meters wide, which roughly equals 1,150 feet by 590 feet — larger than previous estimates.

NASA has deemed the asteroid “stadium-sized” and reported it was 621,000 miles away from Earth, which is considered relatively close. Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Fox News Digital that an asteroid of this size coming this close to Earth only happens every five to ten years.

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Although the asteroid was close enough to Earth to be deemed a “potentially hazardous object,” Farnocchia said there is no chance the asteroid would hit Earth. The asteroid would need to be within a couple of hundred miles to be a concern.

The asteroid was one of five that would pass by Earth last week, but the other rocky objects were not expected to come nearly as close as 2024 ON. The four asteroids were between 1.1 to 3.9 million miles away from Earth, and three of the asteroids measured roughly 51 feet in diameter, which is the size of a house.

Fox News Digital’s Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.

Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital.

Story tips and ideas can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter @GregWehner.

January 23, 2025
Spike in earthquakes at Washington volcano prompts more monitoring from scientists

Scientists are deploying monitors at the volcanic Mount Adams in Washington State, after a spike in seismic activity.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said Mount Adams typically experiences an earthquake every two to three years, but in September, there were six earthquakes alone, marking the most in a single month since monitoring began in 1982.

The earthquakes were monitored by the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) and Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) and ranged in magnitudes from 0.9 to 2.0. None of the earthquakes were felt at the surface, the USGS said.

With only one seismic station near the volcano, the USGS said monitoring capabilities are limited.

LAVA CONTINUES FLOWING FROM ICELAND VOLCANO AFTER ERUPTION

Washington, Mount Adams in the Cascade range is the second-highest mountain in the state of Washington. It is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range. (Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

CVO and PNSN plan to install temporary seismic stations near Mount Adams to help detect smaller earthquakes while acquiring better estimates of size, location and depth. The data will help scientists assess the significance of the increased seismic activity near the volcano.

With permission from the U.S. Forest Service, CVO will place the temporary stations south and southwest of Mount Adams. Once activated, the data will be transmitted to CVO and PNSN in real-time.

LATEST ICELAND VOLCANIC ERUPTION SUBSIDES, BUT EXPERTS WARY OF MORE SOON TO COME

On October 3, 2024, scientists from the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory and U.S. Forest Service installed new temporary seismic stations at Mount Adams volcano in south central Washington. (USGS)

Despite the spike in seismic activity, the USGS says there is no indication that there is cause for concern and the alert level and color code for Mount Adams remains at Green and Normal.

Mount Adams is located in south central Washington, nearly 50 miles west-southwest of Yakima, Washington.

INDONESIA’S RUANG VOLCANO SPITS MORE HOT ASH AFTER ERUPTION FORCES SCHOOLS AND AIRPORTS TO CLOSE

Scientist with the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory install a temporary seismic station at Mount Adams. (USGS)

In the north-south trending Mount Adams-King Mountain volcanic field of over 120 smaller volcanos, Mount Adams is the most prominent summit. It is also the second-tallest volcano in Washington and is the state’s largest active volcano in volume and area, according to the USGS.

The agency said over the past 12,000 years, there have been four lava flows that started on the apron of the volcano and two vents along the south ridge. The flows have typically only traveled a few miles from their vents.

7.1 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE STRIKES OFF JAPAN’S COAST, TSUNAMI ADVISORY ISSUED

On October 3, 2024, USGS and the USFS installed a new temporary seismic station Adams South Climbers Route (ASCR) at Mount Adams. (USGS)

The last time Mount Adams erupted was between 3,800 and 7,600 years ago, the USGS added.

But one of the biggest threats to people who live near the volcano are lahars, or muddy flows of rock, ash and ice that rush downstream like fast flowing concrete.

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The summit, which is covered in ice, also covers up large volumes of hydrothermally weakened rock, which, if weakened by future landslides, could generate lahars.

Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital.

Story tips and ideas can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter @GregWehner.

January 23, 2025