explanation

Babies Smell Sweet, but Teenagers Stink. Is Evolution the Explanation? Carboxylic acids make teens give off a pungent olfactory mix redolent of cheese, plum and even goatsBy Joanna Thompson Credit: HAndrii/Getty Images Teenagers have a reputation for smelling, well, just a tad bit funky. According to the latest research, that stereotype might be more than habitual adult bias against the teen cohort—it could actually be rooted in solid science.In a study published on March 21 in the journal Communications Chemistry,…

The EU has waded into the latest falling out between Epic Games and Apple, after Apple terminated Epic’s developer account for iOS, preventing the company from developing an Epic Games Store marketplace for iPhone. On Wednesday, Epic Games released a scathing press release revealing that Apple had terminated its developer account in what Epic called a “serious violation of the DMA.” Correspondence published by the company reveals Epic Games was denied a consultation with Apple over the Digital Markets Act changes added…

How to implement PSOPhoto by James Wainscoat on UnsplashBefore talking about swarms and particles, let’s briefly discuss optimization itself. Basically, optimization is the process of finding the minima or maxima of some function. For instance, when you need to get to your office ASAP and think about which way is the fastest, you’re optimizing your route (in this case it’s a function). In math, there are literally hundreds of ways of optimization, and among them a sub-group called nature-inspired exists.Nature-inspired…

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This weekly newsletter is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change. Keep up with the latest news on our Climate and Environment page.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday.This week: From fashion to burials: How fungi can help fight climate change 2024 has barely started and is already threatening to set temperature records World's globetrotting animals at risk due to habitat…

As It Happens6:24Great apes get a kick out of 'playfully teasing' each other, study findsWhat do you call it when a chimpanzee offers his buddy a delicious piece of fruit only to pull his hand away at the last second? Or when a bonobo repeatedly pokes, prods and pulls on the hair of an older relative not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to be annoying?It's not quite play, argues anthropologist Erica Cartmill, but it's not quite aggression either. It's "playful teasing." And, according to a new study, it's a very…

Staff at an aquarium in North Carolina were left confused after a stingray became pregnant despite there not being a male in her tank.Scientists have a few theories about how this might have happened — and one involves a male shark.The Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team Ecco in Hendersonville was initially concerned that the stingray had cancer when she began to swell. However, an ultrasound later revealed that the growths were eggs, the lab's executive director wrote in a blog post.The director, April Smith, said that one…

As one of the best action movies to have ever graced the big screen, Kurt Russell and John Carpenter’s Escape from New York remains an all-time classic. As a major influence on Hideo Kojima’s equally iconic PlayStation game Metal Gear Solid, the resemblance between that pixelated protagonist and his flesh and blood namesake has always been so uncanny. So much so that it’s been rumored Russell was offered the role of Solid Snake back in the day. Whether or not that’s totally true, the legendary actor’s reason for turning…

The Peregrine lander has less than a day to live, and the company behind the spacecraft may have figured out why its mission was doomed shortly after its launch. China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonAstrobotic is blaming a faulty valve for Peregrine’s critical fuel loss, which made its soft landing on the Moon unachievable, the Pittsburgh-based company shared in its most recent update on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. The 2,829-pound (1,283-kilogram) Peregrine lander launched on Monday on board United Launch…

Mysterious, ghostly circles in deep space that have been baffling astronomers since their discovery in 2019 might finally have an explanation.According to a new analysis, the faintly glowing, giant blobs are shockwaves carved by tremendous winds blowing out from galaxies at their centers.These aren't just ordinary galaxies, though. They are galaxies that have undergone or are going through starbursting – a period of intense star formation, a literal burst of massive stars that are born and die in rapid succession, ending…

Northwestern University researchers have developed simulations showing that long gamma-ray bursts, previously thought to be exclusive to massive star collapses, can also occur from neutron star mergers. This revelation provides deeper understanding of black hole physics and challenges existing astrophysical theories. Credit: SciTechDaily.comThe first large-scale numerical simulation of black hole-neutron star merger matches puzzling observations.In 2022, scientists from Northwestern University presented novel…