Source: BBC

With their awkward, lumbering gait, elephants moving at high speed are not the most graceful of animals – but are they walking or running?

Now scientists believe they have an answer: new research confirms that they do both – at the same time.

By observing elephants moving across a hi-tech track, the team found the hefty creatures run with their front legs but walk with their back legs.

Read the rest on BBC News

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Image of a single molecule

The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers.

The physical shape of single carbon nanotubes has been outlined before, using similar techniques – but the new method even shows up chemical bonds.

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Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation

Evidence for life on Earth stretches back billions of years, with simple single-celled organisms like bacteria dominating the record. When multi-celled animal life appeared on the planet after 3 billion years of single cell organisms, animals diversified rapidly.Conventional wisdom has it that animal evolution began in the ocean, with animal life adapting much later in Earth history to terrestrial environments.

Now a UC Riverside-led team of researchers studying ancient rock samples in South China has found that the first animal fossils in the paleontological record are preserved in ancient lake deposits, not marine sediments as commonly assumed.

…

“We know that life in the oceans is very different from life in lakes, and, at least in the modern world, the oceans are far more stable and consistent environments compared to lakes which tend to be short-lived features relative to, say, rates of evolution,” said Martin Kennedy, a professor of geology in the Department of Earth Sciences who participated in the research. “Thus it is surprising that the first evidence of animals we find is associated with lakes, a far more variable environment than the ocean.”

Read the rest on Science Daily

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Why is it that once you learn something incorrectly (say, 7 X 9 = 65), it seems you never can correct your recall?
—J. Kruger, Cherry Hill, N.J.

Cognitive psychologist Gordon H. Bower of Stanford University answers:

Identifying, correcting and averting our memory errors are part of a cognitive process called memory monitoring. Incorrect associations can be tough to change, but we can use techniques to retrain our brain.

When strong habits impede our ability to acquire a desired new habit or association, we experience a common phenomenon known as proactive interference. Wrong associations appear in common spelling errors such as “wierd” for “weird” and “neice” for “niece.” Persistent mistaken connections also can cause embarrassing errors, such as calling a man’s second wife by the name of his first. Interference is stronger the more previous wives you’ve had to deal with, and it is more difficult to overcome the stronger the habits are.

Read the rest on Scientific American

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