The genetics of human eye color is much more complex than previously thought, according to a new study published today.

An international team of researchers led by King's College London and Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam have identified 50 new genes for eye color in the largest genetic study of its kind to date. The study, published today in Science Advances, involved the genetic analysis of almost 195,000 people across Europe and Asia.

These findings will help to improve the understanding of eye diseases such as pigmentary glaucoma and ocular albinism, where eye pigment levels play a role.

In addition, the team found that eye color in Asians with different shades of brown is genetically similar to eye color in Europeans ranging from dark brown to light blue.

Astrophysicist at Göttingen University discovers new theoretical hyper-fast soliton solutions.
If travel to distant stars within an individual's lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein's theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of hypothetical particles and states of matter that have "exotic" physical properties such as negative energy density. This type of matter either cannot currently be found or cannot be manufactured in viable quantities. In contrast, new research carried out at the University of Göttingen gets around this problem by constructing a new class of hyper-fast 'solitons' using sources with only positive energies that can enable travel at any speed. This reignites debate about the possibility of faster-than-light travel based on conventional physics. The research is published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

The author of the paper, Dr Erik Lentz, analysed existing research and discovered gaps in previous 'warp drive' studies. Lentz noticed that there existed yet-to-be explored configurations of space-time curvature organized into 'solitons' that have the potential to solve the puzzle while being physically viable. A soliton - in this context also informally referred to as a 'warp bubble' - is a compact wave that maintains its shape and moves at constant velocity. Lentz derived the Einstein equations for unexplored soliton configurations (where the space-time metric's shift vector components obey a hyperbolic relation), finding that the altered space-time geometries could be formed in a way that worked even with conventional energy sources. In essence, the new method uses the very structure of space and time arranged in a soliton to provide a solution to faster-than-light travel, which - unlike other research - would only need sources with positive energy densities. No "exotic" negative energy densities needed.

The results form the basis of the highly-curated Gut Phage Database (GPD) which will be an invaluable resource for those studying bacteriophages and the role they play on regulating the health of both our gut bacteria and ourselves

Viruses are the most numerous biological entities on the planet. Now researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have identified over 140,000 viral species living in the human gut, more than half of which have never been seen before.

The paper, published today (18 February 2021) in Cell, contains an analysis of over 28,000 gut microbiome samples collected in different parts of the world. The number and diversity of the viruses the researchers found was surprisingly high, and the data opens up new research avenues for understanding how viruses living in the gut affect human health.

It's an age-old question in evolution: how did humans become the dominant primate, able to venture out from tropical rainforests to the savannah and then populate the entire world? In other words, what makes us unique?

Science offers many explanations, including our large brains, bipedal gait and ability to craft complex tools - but a new study suggests that we're also more efficient at conserving water.

For humans, water is life: our bodies are 60% water and we need to drink 2-3 litres per day to replenish what we lose through sweat, urination and even breathing. And yet, according to an international team of scientists, humans actually use about 30-50% less water per day than our closest primate cousins.

A piece of the space rock that lit up skies over England on Feb. 28 has been found.

The singed hunk of asteroid was discovered in the driveway of a house in Winchcombe, a small town in the county of Gloucestershire in southwestern England. The rock, which weighs nearly 10.6 ounces (300 grams), is the first meteorite found in the UK since 1991, experts said, and the first known carbonaceous chondrite ever discovered in the country.

Carbonaceous chondrites are especially pristine and primitive meteorites that generally contain lots of organic material, including complex molecules such as amino acids. Studying carbonaceous chondrites can shed light on the early solar system and how the building blocks of life found their way to Earth, researchers say.

Such study is already under way at the Natural History Museum in London, where the meteorite now resides.

"This is really exciting. There are about 65,000 known meteorites in the entire world, and of those only 51 of them are carbonaceous chondrites that have been seen to fall like this one," Sara Russell, a meteorite scientist at the museum, said in a statement.

"It is almost mind-blowingly amazing, because we are working on the asteroid sample-return space missions Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, and this material looks exactly like the material they are collecting," Russell said. "I am just speechless with excitement."

Documents obtained from Moderna reveal that the so-called vaccine being peddled by the company is actually an 'operating system'. This startling admission confirms what vaccine skeptics have claimed - that COVID is about control, not a virus.

It won't be lost on anyone who has done due diligence over this pandemic to see past the glib claims of paid-off politicians and compliant media that all is not as it seems.

To start, it is no coincidence that one of the key promoters of these new mRNA 'vaccines' is none other than Microsoft billionaire, Bill Gates. Bill gave a Ted Talk where he boasted vaccines can help cut global population by 15 percent.

Yes he said cut population. How does that work - by deactivating these vaccine-implanted operating systems in us?

Well, psychopathic Bill couldn't fix his Microsoft operating system to prevent endless computer viruses, so why should we trust him now that he is spearheading what is seen as a major step towards transhumanism. For those who care about what goes into their bodies, and those of their loved ones, see if you can detect something very sinister from what is being foisted upon a gullible public.

Scientists have discovered the ultimate case of regeneration: Some decapitated sea slugs can regrow hearts and whole new bodies.

This "wonder of nature," reported in a biology journal on Monday, could eventually help scientists better understand and tackle regeneration of human tissue.

Biology researcher Sayaka Mitoh said she loves studying Japanese sea slugs because they are small, cute and weird. They can even briefly photosynthesize like a plant drawing food from the sun.

A team of researchers from the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography and their collaborators have revealed that the abundant microbes living in ancient sediment below the seafloor are sustained primarily by chemicals created by the natural irradiation of water molecules.

The team discovered that the creation of these chemicals is amplified significantly by minerals in marine sediment. In contrast to the conventional view that life in sediment is fueled by products of photosynthesis, an ecosystem fueled by irradiation of water begins just meters below the seafloor in much of the open ocean. This radiation-fueled world is one of Earth's volumetrically largest ecosystems.

The research was published today in the journal Nature Communications.

New math shows how, contrary to conventional scientific wisdom, conscious beings and other macroscopic entities might have greater influence over the future than does the sum of their microscopic components.

In his 1890 opus, The Principles of Psychology, William James invoked Romeo and Juliet to illustrate what makes conscious beings so different from the particles that make them up.

"Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they," James wrote. "But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings. ... Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly."

Erik Hoel, a 29-year-old theoretical neuroscientist and writer, quoted the passage in a recent essay in which he laid out his new mathematical explanation of how consciousness and agency arise. The existence of agents — beings with intentions and goal-oriented behavior — has long seemed profoundly at odds with the reductionist assumption that all behavior arises from mechanistic interactions between particles. Agency doesn't exist among the atoms, and so reductionism suggests agents don't exist at all: that Romeo's desires and psychological states are not the real causes of his actions, but merely approximate the unknowably complicated causes and effects between the atoms in his brain and surroundings.

Amazon has opened a till-less grocery store in London - its first "just walk out" shop outside the US.

Visitors to Amazon Fresh scan a smartphone app when entering and are automatically billed as they leave.

The store stocks hundreds of own-brand items as well as third-party products, and also serves as a place to collect and return goods bought online.

Campaigners have raised privacy concerns but one retail expert said the opening marked a "watershed moment".