Smart people should thank their mothers because, according to researchers, their mothers are responsible for the transmission of the intelligence genes. Thus, gender stereotypes that survived over centuries are perhaps about to disappear. Single mothers who want an intelligent son don't need to look for a Nobel Prize at the nearest sperm bank and it is likely that men begin to re-evaluate the intelligence of women.

At the basis of this idea there are those known as "conditioned genes", that behave differently depending on their origin. Basically, these genes have a kind of biochemical tag which allows to trace the origin and reveals even if they are active or not within the progeny cells. Interestingly, some of these affected genes work only if they come from the mother. If that same gene is inherited from the father, it is deactivated. Obviously, other genes work the opposite, are activated only if they come from the father.

The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is nebulous by design.

Oh, a definition is easy. The ITU, the United Nations' information technology arm, has defined IoT as "a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing and evolving interoperable information and communication technologies."

It's when one tries to understand what the IoT would look like that things get complicated. The IoT is, well, anything that can be connected wirelessly. So its applications involve anything one could conceive of to do with a wirelessly connected device.

On the government side, the applications usually boil down to one thing: data. Having connected devices means that government can gather much more data on a much finer scale and often in real time. It also means government can better assess how effective its actions were, better understand what it needs to do and better model what impact its actions might have.

That's as true in traffic planning as it is in electric power or fleet management, or policing, or public transit.

Though many people frame discussion of the Internet of Things as a future hypothetical, it's technically already existed for quite some time. Cellphones are sensor-laden, connected, ubiquitous devices. Cars are becoming increasingly connected. Air quality districts already take frequent measurements of the atmosphere.

A potential forensic game-changer is emerging, as US government scientists have found a substitute for DNA testing for identification purposes. The new technique identifies genetic protein mutations in human hair, offering a striking level of precision.

Researchers with the US Department of Energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California tested samples of hair that belonged to six separate individuals that had lived in London in the 1750s. Though the test subjects' remains had long turned to bones, their hair was intact. The scientists then took 76 living individuals - 66 of European-American ancestry, as well as 5 Kenyans and 5 African-Americans - and performed the same tests on them.

The technique, dubbed "proteomics," worked like a charm on both sets of individuals.

"We are in a very similar place with protein-based identification to where DNA profiling was during the early days of its development," Brad Hart, director of the national laboratory's Forensic Science Centre and co-author of the study, said in a news release.

A Chinese firm has reportedly developed and tested a radar system that uses quantum entanglement to beat the stealth technology of modern military craft, state media said.

The first Chinese quantum radar was developed by the Intelligent Perception Technology Laboratory of the 14th Institute in CETC, according to Xinhua news agency. CETC stands for Electronics Technology Group Corporation, a defense and electronics firm.

The radar was tested in mid-August, Xinhua said in a Thursday report.

The system was able to detect a target at a range of 100 kilometers in a real-world environment, the report said. The device employs single photon detection technology.

New findings help rewrite the story of how the iconic and mysterious Eta Carinae star system came to be and present a critical piece of the puzzle of how very massive stars die.

In the mid-1800s, astronomers surveying the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere noticed something strange: Over the course of a few years, a previously inconspicuous star named Eta Carinae grew brighter and brighter, eventually outshining all other stars except Sirius, before fading again over the next decade, becoming too dim to be seen with the naked eye.

What had happened to cause this outburst? Did 19th-century astronomers witness some strange type of supernova, a star ending its life in a cataclysmic explosion?

A 'supernova impostor'

"Not quite," says Megan Kiminki, a doctoral student in the University of Arizona's department of astronomy and Steward Observatory. "Eta Carinae is what we call a supernova impostor. The star became very bright as it blew off a lot of material, but it was still there."

The asteroid 2016 RB1 was discovered (at ~ magnitude +19) on 2016, September 05 by Mt. Lemmon Survey (MPC code G96) with a 1.5-m reflector + 10K CCD.

Asteroid 2016 RB1 has an estimated size of 7.3 m - 16 m (based on the object's absolute magnitude H=27.8) and it will have a close approach with Earth at about 0.1 LD (Lunar Distances = ~384,000 kilometers) or 0.0003 AU (1 AU = ~150 million kilometers) on 2016, September 7 at 17:20UT and it will reach a peak magnitude of about +12.3. Radio astronomers will try to observe it as 2016 RB1 could be a really strong radar target during its close approach.

I performed some follow-up measurements of this object on 2016, September 07.6, remotely from the Q62 iTelescope network (Siding Spring, Australia) through a 0.4-m f/3.5 reflector + CCD. Below you can see our image taken with the asteroid at about magnitude +13 and moving at ~ 503 "/min. At the moment of its close approach on Sep 07, around 17UT, 2016 RB1 will move at ~ 2716 "/min (or about 45.2 deg/hour). The asteroid is trailed in the image due to its fast speed. Click on the image below to see a bigger version. (North is up, East is to the left).

In ecology, monodominance is identified as a condition in which at least 60 percent, or often even 90 percent of trees in a natural forest belong to the same tree species. We know of at least 22 species from eight families that create forest areas of this kind. How this is achieved is a mystery on which ecologists have speculated for decades.

Gilbertiodendron dewevrei is one of the monodominant tree species from the tropical forests of Western and Central Africa, and is amongst the best researched species, even if there is no English name for it as yet. Its heavy timber is traded under the name Limbali. The evergreen tree from the Caesalpinioideae family can grow up to 45 metres tall and is primarily striking because of its fruit, which can grow up to 30 cm long and contain up to six seeds. The seeds are eaten by of the most diverse of mammals including lowland gorillas, although they host poisonous compounds. For this reason, they are only roasted, cooked or made into porridge by the people of Central Africa during periods of food shortage.

Compared with the seeds of other tropical trees, which generally weigh less than one gram, the seeds of the G. dewevrei, are extremely heavy at 20 grams and are therefore not transported by wind, but usually remain within a radius of six metres from the mother tree. As a result, the species propagates extremely slowly - about 100 metres in 200 to 300 years. Gilbertiodendron dewevrei then accounts for up to 90 percent of the canopy, obstructing the growth of other species. In contrast, the seedlings themselves are highly tolerant to shade, and can survive under the old trees until they die out and make room for new ones. In this way, other tree species are also replaced until G. dewevrei dominates areas measuring up to 100 square kilometres.

Millions of human cells are constantly dividing to repair tissue damage and ensure continuity. This is one of the most complex cellular processes, and in order for it to be successful, cells must produce a copy of their genetic material (DNA). Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have discovered the critical role of the POLD3 protein in this DNA replication process; without POLD3, cells do not divide, and even the embryonic development process may be curtailed.

The study, published today in the printed version of the journal Molecular Cell, overthrows the hypothesis circulating in recent years that POLD3 might be important for tumour cells but not for healthy ones. On the basis of this hypothesis, a drug blocking POLD3 would be capable of eradicating the tumour with few or no side effects for patients.

Until today, experiments had only been conducted in vitro in the laboratory, without directly studying the effects of the protein on a live organism. However, through genetic engineering, the authors of this study produced POLD3 knockout mice, revealing the key role of this protein during cell replication.

Houston — Research by Rice University Earth scientists suggests that virtually all of Earth's life-giving carbon could have come from a collision about 4.4 billion years ago between Earth and an embryonic planet similar to Mercury.

In a new study this week in Nature Geoscience, Rice petrologist Rajdeep Dasgupta and colleagues offer a new answer to a long-debated geological question: How did carbon-based life develop on Earth, given that most of the planet's carbon should have either boiled away in the planet's earliest days or become locked in Earth's core?

"The challenge is to explain the origin of the volatile elements like carbon that remain outside the core in the mantle portion of our planet," said Dasgupta, who co-authored the study with lead author and Rice postdoctoral researcher Yuan Li, Rice research scientist Kyusei Tsuno and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute colleagues Brian Monteleone and Nobumichi Shimizu.

Dasgupta's lab specializes in recreating the high-pressure and high-temperature conditions that exist deep inside Earth and other rocky planets. His team squeezes rocks in hydraulic presses that can simulate conditions about 250 miles below Earth's surface or at the core-mantle boundary of smaller planets like Mercury.

"Even before this paper, we had published several studies that showed that even if carbon did not vaporize into space when the planet was largely molten, it would end up in the metallic core of our planet, because the iron-rich alloys there have a strong affinity for carbon," Dasgupta said.

Earth's core, which is mostly iron, makes up about one-third of the planet's mass. Earth's silicate mantle accounts for the other two-thirds and extends more than 1,500 miles below Earth's surface. Earth's crust and atmosphere are so thin that they account for less than 1 percent of the planet's mass. The mantle, atmosphere and crust constantly exchange elements, including the volatile elements needed for life.

If Earth's initial allotment of carbon boiled away into space or got stuck in the core, where did the carbon in the mantle and biosphere come from?

"One popular idea has been that volatile elements like carbon, sulfur, nitrogen and hydrogen were added after Earth's core finished forming," said Li, who is now a staff scientist at Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. "Any of those elements that fell to Earth in meteorites and comets more than about 100 million years after the solar system formed could have avoided the intense heat of the magma ocean that covered Earth up to that point.

Robotic weapons have become so advanced that top military experts in the US fear the plot of the sci-fi film 'Terminator' could come true.

Huge technological leaps forward in drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous weapon systems must be addressed before humanity is driven to extinction by mechanical overlords like in the 1984 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, according to Pentagon chiefs.

Air Force General Paul Selva, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the US Defense Department, said so-called thinking weapons could lead to: "Robotic systems to do lethal harm... a Terminator without a conscience."

When asked about robotic weapons able to make their own decisions, he said: "Our job is to defeat the enemy" but "it is governed by law and by convention."