hypothesis

A nearly 20-year study on Darwin’s finches by McGill University has revealed that specific beak traits linked to different food types increase the birds’ lifespan, supporting the theory of adaptive radiation. The findings suggest that these finches are still evolving to better adapt to their environments.Employing data from four species of Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos Islands, a team headed by McGill University has validated a long-held theory that the diversity of species arises from adaptation to various…

Research on how microbes may prevent allergies shows mixed results. Studies comparing wild and laboratory mice found that exposure to diverse microbes doesn’t always reduce allergic reactions, challenging the notion that microbial exposure is universally beneficial in allergy prevention. Credit: SciTechDaily.comThe notion that some level of microbial exposure might reduce our risk of developing allergies has arisen over the last few decades and has been termed the hygiene hypothesis. Now, an article published in Science…

The first animals to fly on Earth could have very well evolved wings from their gills.A team of researchers from the Czech Republic and Germany have analyzed the prehistoric fossils of flying insects from roughly 300 million years ago and identified wing- and gill-like structures that look remarkably similar.The discovery suggests that some of the first winged insects were aquatic or semi-aquatic as larvae, and the results could help solve one of the greatest mysteries bugging evolutionary biologists today: Where did…

New research explores how amyloids, capable of forming under early Earth conditions and binding with RNA and DNA, may have played a key role in life’s emergence by increasing molecular stability and encouraging cooperation over competition.The question of how living organisms emerged from non-living matter remains one of the most profound mysteries in science. Despite numerous theories, a conclusive explanation remains elusive. This is hardly unexpected, considering these events occurred three to four billion years ago,…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Researchers from Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Colorado published a new Journal of Marketing study that proposes abandoning null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) as the default approach to statistical analysis and reporting. The study is titled "'Statistical Significance'…

The deadliest pandemic in recorded history may still continue to plague human oral health centuries later, potentially contributing to some modern cases of gum disease.That's still very much a hypothesis, but if the correlations can stand up to future research, it could reveal an unexpected, long-lasting consequence of contagious respiratory diseases.The microbiome that lives in the human mouth, nose, and pharynx is the second-largest microbial community in our bodies after the gut. Now, one of the first studies to track…

A new study proposes a hypothesis called “Cytoelectric Coupling,” arguing that the brain’s electrical fields, created by neural network activity, can influence the physical configuration of neurons’ sub-cellular components to optimize network stability and efficiency. The research, conducted by scientists from MIT, City University of London, and Johns Hopkins University, builds upon earlier studies that showed how rhythmic electrical activity or ‘brain waves’ in neural networks and the influence of electric fields at the…

There's an invisible and unrelenting force acting on your bowels right now, and it may be causing some people serious irritation.No one really knows how or why irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) develops, but gastroenterologist Brennan Spiegel from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles outlined a weighty new hypothesis in 2022.In his paper, published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, Spiegel argues IBS is triggered by the body's inability to manage gravity.Our bowels, Spiegel explains, are like a big sack of…

Earth's hot and churning insides are largely still a mystery to scientists. Even at shallower depths, the crusty exterior of our planet contains plenty of unknowns.Magma deep in Earth's mantle that rises to form continental crust is inherently different to the magma that seeps from mid-ocean ridges. Molten material that bursts from volcanoes on land contains less iron, making it significantly lighter. This is the key that allows land to float above Earth's mantle, while oceanic crust forms a lower basin.Yet experts can…

Gauging the Mechanics of the Sign and Wilcoxon Signed Rank TestsPhoto by Kiwihug on UnsplashIntroductionTool 1: One-Sample Sign TestTool 2: Two-Sample Sign TestLimitations of the Sign TestTool 3: One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank TestWilcoxon Signed Rank Test: Possible ComplicationsTool 4: Two-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank TestConclusionStatistics is the corpus of instruments of knowledge that allow us to infer from data through tools including, but not limited to, estimation of parameters, construction of confidence…