Scientists of the United States made groundbreaking history in 2003 when the Human Genome Project was completed. They told the world exactly what the genetic makeup of the human body was for the first time in history.

But there are still unknown oddities to the inner workings of humans. And one of those is the unfortunate case of the autoimmune disease, a situation that develops when your immune system doesn’t recognize your body’s own healthy cells and decides to attack them.

One of the body’s main lines of defense against autoimmune diseases is a diverse world of microbes living on and inside the body, called the microbiome. Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and viruses are responsible for helping us complete tasks like digesting food and coagulating blood.

But possibly the most important role played by the microbiome is regulating the immune system. When this community of microbes is interrupted for any number of reasons, the system gets thrown off and people start to have problems with autoimmune diseases.

Two prevalent autoimmune diseases are Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. According to the CDC, the number of newly diagnosed diabetes cases jumped from 537,000 cases a year in 1991 to a roaring 1,437,000 cases in 2014. A study in The American Journal of Gastroenterology on celiac disease reported an increase of the disease from 5.2 per 100,000 individuals in 1990 to 19.1 per 100,000 individuals in 2011.

This climbing rate is much higher than it has been historically. Scientists know that autoimmune diseases appear to be passed in families, not only by DNA inheritance, but also by inheriting the family’s microbiome.

A Cell Press study done by the University of Helsinki found that a person’s microbiome starts in utero and it is strongly influenced by exposures at birth, which have long-term physiological effects. Breastfeeding also influences a child’s microbiome from the start, so if your mother has a diverse microbiome herself, you are more likely to be protected from the onset of autoimmune diseases. Early microbiome development is a key to determining susceptibility to or protection from diseases later in life. A child’s immune system is pretty much completely developed by the time they are 3 years old, so early introduction to a diverse set of microbes is especially important.

Another big player in this diversity is geography. This same study, comparing children in Finland to children in Russia, showed that Finnish children develop disease more frequently due to different microbes in the environment and what their body is expecting to fight off. One in 120 children in the country develop Type 1 diabetes before turning 15 years of age. Due to a nongenetic component of being affected by autoimmune diseases, only 3%-7% of those at risk of cell destruction actually develop Type 1 diabetes.

While not quite as significant as geography and breastfeeding, diet is also an important factor. Researchers have seen that diet has the ability to influence immune disorders by influencing the composition of commensal bacteria and altering intestinal microbiota. A study conducted by researchers at Yale and MIT has shown that fatty, salty, sugary, and fast foods are promoters of autoimmune diseases. In a world driven by convenience and quick options, these foods are exactly the ones that are becoming more popular every day.

Decreased microbial diversity is a hallmark of obesity, which is on the rise due to consumption of these foods. Another University of Florida study found that bacteria producing more fatty acids lead to a higher case of Type 1 diabetes. Failure to develop a critical level of diversity in the gut microbiota leads to an increased chance of immune disorders, such as Type 1 diabetes and other diseases.

One option that may help is eating lots of dietary fiber. Bacteria eat this, so if you keep them happy they will provide your body with nutrients that line your gut and help overall health. Fiber from some vegetables, like garlic, hurt the bad bacteria in the gut and leave the good ones, helping to shape an individual’s microbiome. However, some fiber from whole grains can cause inflammation, leading to more problems, so it’s important to know what’s good and what’s not.

The mysterious microbiome is just the latest in biological systems that scientists are learning to understand more. With an ever-changing culture and environment, it can be tough to get a good grasp on the necessary steps needed to fight off infection. Some may think that coddling their child away from the public and bacteria may be saving them, but it actually looks like the exact opposite is turning out to be true.

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Earth is enormous.

With 197 million square miles of surface area, our planet is a massive obstacle course of geographic barriers that force most species to stay put.

Yet these barriers have meant nothing to some animals. They've traversed Earth with aplomb — dangerous oceans, stormy weather, and moving continents be damned.

Here are seven of the most fearless globe-trotting creatures that have flung themselves across our world, some through unstoppable determination, others by pure chance.

First up: The globeskimmer dragonfly. Although this insect is the size of your pinkie, it can stay airborne for more than 4,400 miles.

Source: Tech Insider

But the dragonflies occasionally stop on islands to reproduce. Their progeny then join vast, multigenerational, island-hopping swarms that cross the Pacific.

Source: Tech Insider

Then there's the blue whale. Other than the Arctic, these 200-ton mammals can swim nearly anywhere in world's oceans, which cover 71% of the planet's surface.

Source: WWF, National Geographic

Biologist and neuroscientist Kenneth C. Catania conducted a study that shows electric eels leaping out of the water. But that's not the most interesting part! The power of the eels' electric discharge actually increases the higher the eels leapt out of water. Not only are his findings surprising, but they support an 1807 account of leaping eels that was widely considered to be a myth.

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An Ivy League professor explains chaos theory, the prisoner's dilemma, and why math isn't really boring

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It's common for student-athletes and parents alike to assume that focusing on one sport in high school will lead to greater chances of success on the college or professional scene. But this may not be the case.

A study done by the University of Wisconsin is one of the first of its nature, but it could be a warning for parents in the future. It was published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine just this month.

Eric Post, research assistant at the Wisconsin Injury Sports Lab and coauthor of the study, got involved in this research as he noticed an increased trend in youth sports towards early specialization. 

The study focused on 302 high school student-athletes. They were put into categories based on their specialization, or the number of sports they participated in. Of the 302, 105 (34.8%) ranked as low specialization, 87 (28.8%) were moderately specialized, and 110 (36.4%) were defined as being highly specialized.

The research team found that athletes from smaller schools were much more likely to fall into the low specialization category. Only 25% of athletes from smaller schools were recognized as being high specialization, while 48% of the students at large school fell into the same category.

It also revealed that athletes considered highly specialized were more than twice as likely than the other categories to report a history of overuse knee and hip injuries. Participating in a single sport for more than 8 months during the year was an important factor in high injury risk of highly specialized athletes. 

And there isn't any certain sport that will keep you healthier than others, according to Post and the research group.

"Injuries are not necessarily better or worse for children participating in different sports, just different. Acute type injuries such as concussions, fractures, or sprains are more common in contact sports while overuse injuries like tendinitis, bursitis, or stress fractures are more common in non-contact sports like running or swimming. There can be very mild or very serious injuries in both of these categories."

For this reason, it's important to stress healthy training in whatever sport you or your child is playing.

This news doesn't play well for a kid focusing all of their efforts on one sport in attempts of gaining playing time at the collegiate or professional level. Many prevalent voices from the athletic world (like Pete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks head coach) have spoken in favor of recruiting kids in multiple sports. They see it as higher competitive drive and adaptation of more muscle groups. 

Post has seen this in his experiences as an athletic trainer, as well. 

"From conversations that we’ve had with coaches, it does seem like in some sports, coaches are very concerned about the amount of wear and tear athletes they are recruiting have sustained as a result of year-round sport participation from an early age. Therefore, it does seem like some athletes may have an advantage in terms of being recruited because they either played multiple sports or didn’t sustain career-ending injuries due to specialization."

The research group hopes not to discourage kids from playing sports, but to help them be as successful and healthy as possible.

"Playing sports as a child is a great way to encourage physically active behavior as an adult and to develop important social and life skills. The United States is in the midst of an inactivity and obesity epidemic, and physical activity has been shown to be an effective treatment for a variety of diseases. We don’t want to discourage anyone from participating in sports, rather we just want parents and coaches to have as much information as possible to make sport participation as safe as possible." says Post. 

The group also recognizes that while parents take a lot of blame for the trend in early specialization, they are also very concerned about the youth sports atmosphere and feel little power to change the system. They feel that if they don't get their child into organized systems at an early age they will lose opportunities to play when they are older.

The next step for this particular lab group is to survey parents regarding attitudes towards specialization as well as to follow a cohort for an entire school year to further report on injury associated with specialization status. 

It's okay to take your sport seriously, but imperative to rest or cross-train in order to prevent overuse injuries before the call for the big league even happens. 

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It's increasingly possible that Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a con artist. 

There are ways to find out. In February, Business Insider's video team asked psychology and science writer Maria Konnikova, author of a book about con artists, "The Confidence Game: Why We Fall For It...Every Time," what the science says about whether or not Trump really is a con artist.

Both con artists and politicians tend to score highly on tests designed to identify the so-called "dark triad" of personality traits. Dark personalities are associated with: 

1. Machiavellianism, or being manipulative. This is something Trump has been accused of time and time again, for knowing exactly what will get him the most attention. 
2. Narcissism, or loving yourself too much. Trump is known for complimenting himself, calling himself successful, smart, among other glowing adjectives. 
3. Psychopathy, or lacking empathy. Trump showed that yesterday in his response to the Orlando massacre, taking congratulations for saying this kind of event would happen. 

But really, it all comes down to one factor that separates the con from the politician: intent.

"Con artists are intentionally deceiving you," Konnikova said. They manipulate people simply for their own benefit. "Many politicians don't do that. They use the same tactics, but they genuinely believe in what they're doing. They're trying to make the world a better place, they think they will make the world a better place."

The problem is, we don't know if he's saying what he's saying intentionally to deceive the public, or if he really does believe the things he says. Though it's becoming increasingly hard to believe that does.

Watch the full video with Maria Konnikova here:

Tanya Lewis contributed to an earlier version of this article. 

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It has long been thought that the amount of time spent in different stages of sleep was responsible for how well people were able to remember things.

But a new study done by researchers at the University of California and University of Padua shows that we may have been missing something.  

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) appears to be a key player in the brain’s ability to perform memory consolidation during sleep.

ANS is made of three parts. The sympathetic system is responsible for the body’s “fight or flight” reaction, the parasympathetic system controls the body during rest with functions like heart rate and temperature, and the enteric system controls how your gut works.

This new study, the first of its kind, suggests that the central nervous system and ANS communicate with each other. They also think that dynamics of REM (rapid eye movement sleep, when most dreams occur) combined with increased parasympathetic activity promote creative associative memory processing.

The researchers used heart rate variation during REM to predict memory performance and found that no enhancement of memory while awake meant that the specific effects of ANS were associated with sleep-related consolidation of memory.

ANS was found to be an important predictor of associative processing in the brain. It showed a dissociation between time spent in REM sleep and brain activity, leading researchers to believe that REM may be dose-dependent and that too much of it can disrupt memory performance.

Counterintuitively, they actually found that subjects with higher levels of REM sleep had a higher rate of forgetfulness.   

But REM sleep still proves to be an important factor in memory consolidation and creativity. REM facilitates schema disintegration, meaning that subjects were able to break up associations of words they previously thought of and come up with new combinations.

REM was found to allow individuals to make connections between disparate ideas, which is the definition of creativity. This, combined with vagal activity (from stimulation of a cranial nerve) may lead to optimal brain state and enhance plasticity (adaptability of the brain), which was measured by heart rate variation. They also found a constant dialogue between cardiac and central brain structures via vagal stimulation were responsible for cognitive and emotional processing. 

Increases in overall ANS activity and REM sleep proved to be the two main components of memory consolidation during sleep. As it's starting to turn out, like most functions of the body, memory is a lot more complicated than anyone originally expected. 

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On such a vast planet with so many places left unexplored, scientists are finding hundreds of new species each year.

In 2015 alone, scientists discovered never-before-seen shark and fish species, various types of bees and beetles, and even mysterious new viruses out in nature. 

But Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist and Honorary Scientist at The University of Manchester, found a new species while he was roaming the exhibits of Leicester’s New Walk Museum. The study detailing Lomax’s findings was published yesterday in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

The museum has had the fossil since 1951, but it took 65 years for it to be recognized for what it really is: a new type of ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile. It looked a little like today’s dolphins and it swam the oceans during the era of the dinosaur.

Other ichthyosaurs lived from the Triassic through the Cretaceous periods, but this new species is the only specimen of the group hailing from England's Nottinghamshire area during that time period. It was originally found in a quarry there and its bones were not found in the correct anatomical formation, suggesting that it swam right into the rock before dying and becoming fossilized. 

This finding is opening up scientist’s eyes to the possible diversity of ichthyosaurs. It also reveals more information about the possible geographic area that the species thrived in. 

Other scientists had worked with the specimen in the past, but Lomax is the first to identify it as a new species. He named it Wahlisaurus massarea in recognition of two of his paleontologist mentors, Judy Massare and Bill Wahl.

W. massarea is only the ninth ichthyosaur genus from the Lower Jurassic period, and only the fifth in its particular group worldwide. It is different from its counterparts due to the unique anatomic features of its skeleton providing attachments for its pectoral fins.

This finding recognizes the fact that even though humans have taken over huge chunks of the world, there is still a lot out there that has yet to be discovered. Keep your eyes open as the unknown may sometimes be right in front of you.

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NYU otologist Dr. Erich Voigt explains why it is important to be careful about how close you trim nose hairs.

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New research suggests that your cat might actually have a handle on some very basic physics, and can use it to help them hunt down hidden prey.

If the thought of your cat being better than you at physics - as well as being allowed to sleep all day - is getting you down, don't worry, because we're talking very simple cause-and-effect concepts here, and they only work when paired with cats' extraordinary hearing and eyesight.

The research, led by scientists from Kyoto University in Japan, was following on from an earlier study that showed cats could predict whether or not an opaque container would have an object inside, based on whether it rattled or not.

That's pretty smart, but the cats could have just been conditioned to expect objects when they heard a rattle, kind of like Pavlov's dog. So the team wanted to see whether the cats actually had a basic understanding of cause and effect.
To figure this out, they took 30 domestic cats and shook a container in front of them - sometimes the shaking was silent and sometimes it rattled.

They then turned the container over to show the cat if something was hidden inside. To keep them off guard, half the time their experiment followed the laws of physics, and half the time it didn't.

In other words, 50 percent of the time, the container rattled and contained an object, just like you'd expect. But the other 50 percent of the time the container was silent but contained an object, or vice versa.

That meant that the cats couldn't be trained to associate the rattle with the presence of an object, so if the kitties spent more time inspecting the rattling containers - a sign that they were expecting an object to be inside them - they must be figuring out by themselves that a rattle = contents. And that right there is an indication that they grasp of some very basic physical laws.

The study also showed that the cats spent more time checking out containers that rattled, which suggests that they had some kind of grasp on the idea of cause and effect.

"Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects,"said lead researcher Saho Takagi.

What does all that have to do with hunting? The researchers hypothesize that this ability, paired with super-sharp hearing and vision, allows cats to seek out hidden prey. 

Of course, this is a very preliminary study involving only a small sample size, so it's way too soon to say anything for sure about what cats can and can't comprehend.

But it's an interesting indication of what they might be capable of, and Takagi explains that further research is needed to figure out whether cats can also deduce information about the quantity and size of hidden objects based on what they sound like.

The research has been published in Animal Cognition.

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Scientists just found something in space that could explain how the molecules that gave rise to life on Earth first formed.

What they spotted is called a chiral molecule, and it's the first one ever found in space.

Chiral molecules are molecules that come in two different flavors that are chemically the same but structurally are mirror images of each other. Scientists refer to theses molecules as being left-handed or right-handed.

Often we find the chiral molecules on Earth have evolved to be mostly right-handed or left-handed. This is called homochirality, according to Science Magazine. For example, all the amino acids in living organisms on Earth are left-handed. Some scientists think this may have happened because left-handed amino acids were the first to incorporate themselves into the first life forms. So right-handed molecules became essentially useless. But the bottom line is we don't know how homochirality came to be on Earth. 

Why it matters that we found a chiral molecule in space: Astronomers found a molecule called propylene oxide inside a distant gas cloud 28,000 light-years away. On Earth, propylene oxide is an ingredient in a type of plastic.

We can't tell yet whether the propylene oxide in the cloud is left-handed or right-handed, but with future studies, we might be able to tell if there are more right-handed than left-handed molecules in the cloud. That could help scientists figure out why homochirality exists on Earth. We'll be able to determine whether molecules get skewed in one direction while they're first forming in space, or later on when life starts to arise.

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Humans have been evolving at an accelerating rate, defying the law of evolution and manipulating the evolution process of other species.

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Ed O'Neill voices Hank in "Finding Dory," a mimic octopus that lost a tentacle (technically making him a septopus). The mimic octopus is a real creature, and the real life version is even more awesome than its CGI counterpart.

Produced by Matt Stuart and Rebecca Harrington

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The tongue is a very important organ but we rarely every get a chance to see it in action. Here's what the human tongue looks like in an MRI machine. 

Produced by Grace Raver. Original reporting by Rebecca Harrington.

Footage courtesy of Biomedizinische NMR Forschungs GmbH.

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Something like 100 million sharks are pulled from the sea each year for their fins and meat, according to researchers' best estimates, putting more than a quarter of shark and ray species at risk of extinction.

This is not a good thing, contrary to what certain summer blockbusters might have you thinking.

Sharks are keystone species that are essential for healthy reefs and oceans. But there's still so much we don't know about how many of these creatures are out there and how exactly their populations affect the underwater ecosystem. 

The Global FinPrint project aims to change that.

FinPrint is a research effort run by an international team and largely funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen that's trying to take a global snapshot of shark and ray populations at reefs around the world.

"The first step is to figure out what’s out there, where it is, and to get a sense of how many sharks and rays should be in an area," says Mike Heithaus, a marine scientist and dean of the Florida International University College of Arts, Sciences & Education, who is one of the core researchers for Global FinPrint.

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Seeing shark populations at reefs will help researchers figure out just how crucial they are to these hotbeds of marine life.

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"We suspect they are critical," says Heithaus.

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In Western Australia, researchers have noticed that without sharks, seagrass that captures carbon and is home to many animals dies, destroying the ecosystem. Similar things may happen with reefs.

Dogs have long been man's best friend, living as our domesticated companions for as long as 32,000 years.

Today, they are one of the most popular pets in the US, found in over 54 million American homes, or about 44% of all households.

And every one of us thinks that our dog is uniquely special and smart. But how much do we actually know about our furry buddies and what's going on inside their heads?

To find out more about our four-legged friends, we spoke to Dr. Brian Hare, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Duke University, author of the book "The Genius of Dogs," and host of the new DogSmarts podcast.

"What really has happened in the last 10 years is that we've learned more about how dogs think than in the previous 100 years," Hare told Business Insider. "There have been a lot of big discoveries … Dogs are very distinctly different from us genetically, but psychologically, they are more like us than some of our more closely related, more genetically related primate relatives."

Here are a few of the recent discoveries that Hare and other scientists have made about dogs:

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1. Dogs feel empathy.

When you look at your dog and yawn, chances are your dog might yawn, too, because dogs can "catch" your yawn, according to a 2008 study published in Biology Letters. This is called "emotional contagion," and it's a basic form of empathy.

Previous research has shown that primates could "catch" yawning, but this was the first study to show that human yawns are possibly contagious to domestic dogs as well.

Dogs are believed to empathize with us in other ways as well. Research suggests that they are sensitive to their guardians' emotions and that their behavior is influenced by the expression of these emotions. Another study found that dogs respond in a similar way, physiologically and behaviorally, to humans when they hear a human baby crying— another example of emotional contagion.

2. Dogs make eye contact.

Dogs are the only nonprimate animal to look people in the eyes without misinterpreting what it means, Mic reports.

Wolves, meanwhile, interpret eye contact as a sign of hostility, according to Science Magazine.

3. With eye contact, they form a special bond with humans.

Eye contact has an important effect on both human and dog brains.

"Just by making eye contact with dogs," said Hare, "we have an increase in oxytocin." Oxytocin, sometimes referred to as the "love hormone," plays an important role in attachment-forming, bonding, and trust.

Usually, this kind of response — an increase in the hormone to facilitate bonding — occurs only between parents and their children, or maybe romantic partners, Hare said. This "is the first time that it has been shown that different species, dog and human, can interact and affect the oxytocin loop."

The Mediterranean is being invaded by a new species: the lionfish.

According to a new study, published in Marine Biodiversity Records, these beautiful but venomous fish have colonized the southeastern coastline of Cyprus in a single year, and their numbers are expected to grow.

The study authors believe the warming sea temperatures of the Mediterranean Sea and the 2015 expansion of the Suez Canal may be allowing the lionfish to expand their range. A wider and deeper canal makes it easier for lionfish larvae and swimming adults to gain access to the Mediterranean waters.

An infestation of lionfish could be a disaster for the local Mediterranean ecosystem.

Notorious invaders

Originally from the Pacific and Indian oceans, these creatures are notorious invaders, having already rapidly spread throughout the Caribbean and Western Atlantic. It is believed that the animals first appeared in the Atlantic near South Florida in the 1980s after being dumped from home aquariums, and they quickly grew into an established invasive species by the 2000s.

These non-native fish have very few predators, thanks to their long, poisonous spines. Even humans have to be careful around these fish because their sting is extremely painful and can cause paralysis, cardiac arrest, and even death by anaphylactic shock.

With no natural predators, lionfish reproduce at an alarmingly fast pace. They spawn every four days, year round. Each female can produce about 2 million eggs in a year.

These prolific invaders have also demonstrated that they are highly adaptable, able to thrive in a range of water temperatures, depths, and salinity levels.

Voracious predators

The invasion of these fish is particularly worrisome because they tend to eat their way through the food chain, devouring all kinds of local fish and crustaceans. As active top predators, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, lionfish consume over 50 species of fish, including some ecologically important species, such as reef fish, and economically important ones.

For example, lionfish feed on the young of snapper and grouper, which are both important commercial fish species. As a result, lionfish can have devastating consequences for the local fishing economy.

What can we do

Despite their poisonous spines, lionfish are slow-moving, making them easy to collect by divers and fishermen that take proper precautions and use the right equipment. They are also edible (once the spines are removed).

This is why scientists and fishermen have teamed up in the Western Atlantic to try to slow down the lionfish invasion. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has even created a number of initiatives and opportunities for divers, anglers, and commercial harvesters to remove and kill as many lionfish as possible in seasonal competitions and year-round events.

In the Mediterranean, the lionfish invasion is just getting started, but things can quickly escalate. Already, another invasive species, the puffer fish, has disrupted food chains and replaced native species, threatening local biodiversity in the Mediterranean. Without action, lionfish might be next.

"By publishing this information, we can help stakeholders plan mitigating action," Jason Hall Spencer, author of the study and professor at Plymouth University, told The Independent. He suggests implementing removal programs like those in Florida as well as restoring populations of dusky groupers, a potential predator.

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NOW WATCH: Here’s why the most popular map of the world is totally misleading

Spring has been coming early to UK cities.

Using citizen scientists to record budding trees over 13 years, researchers have discovered that the first leaves of spring burst forth earlier in light-polluted areas, as if plants are fooled by all the artificial light brightening the sky. Some tree species, particularly late bloomers, can even get their leaves over a week early.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, asked participants to record the date when young leaves from species of sycamore, beech, oak, and ash started to leave the bud casing. (They also noted the locations of the trees they were observing.) The researchers measured those recorded dates against satellite maps of light pollution.

Scientists are concerned that the early buds could affect other plants and animals whose lives depend on trees. Studies have already shown that light pollution messes with the sleeping patterns of humans and wildlife.

The effects may be even worse if the tree lives directly under artificial lighting.

"Our finding that the timing of bud burst of woodland tree species may be affected by light pollution suggests that smaller plants growing below the height of street lights are even more likely to be affected," said lead author Professor Richard ffrench-Constant in a press release.

The researchers were also able to determine that the urban heat island effect (where built-up areas trap more heat than open rural spaces) wasn't what was causing the early budding events: Even in less populated areas, brightness had more of an effect on the buds than temperature.

Ffrench-Constant suggested experimental research would be the next step in unraveling how light pollution changes ecosystems.

The study was relatively limited in scope: After all, the citizen scientists only looked at four species of trees, and only in the United Kingdom.

The study authors said they hope that their research will spur local governments to examine how and what kind of streetlights they use in their area.

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NOW WATCH: Scientists found something troubling in this map of Earth at night

From a product design standpoint, Dan Formosa thinks the human body leaves a lot to be desired.

Though we may possess the power of digestion and wound repair, Formosa – a veteran designer and consultant who created the first keyboard for IBM home computers as well as OXO's line of Good Grips kitchen tools – points out that our skin is barely stronger than wax paper and our orifices are constantly leaking.

If we're ever to compete against a robot insurrection, we'll need to make some upgrades.

Here's what Formosa suggests.

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Hair

The hair on the top of our head mostly serves to blot out UV rays from the sun and promote heating and cooling through insulation and sweat.

But maybe it could serve an additional function.

Formosa's upgrade: Super-tight curly hair that acts as a cushion when you bump your head, eliminating the need for a helmet when riding a bike.

Skull

Deeper into the anatomy is the skull itself, which is effective in most cases but still vulnerable to concussions and fractures.

If extra hair isn't enough, perhaps the human body could benefit from another layer of bone between the jelly-like brain and the dangerous outside world.

Formosa's upgrade: "Develop a second skull so that if you crack the first one, the inner one is still OK."

Brain

In the jungles where ancient humans killed their dinner, the brain needed a way to detect nearby threats. That's how we ended up with the fear centers of our limbic system.

Fortunately, we've evolved out of the food chain, but the downside is that we still get needlessly spooked by things that go bump in the night.

Formosa's upgrade: Rewire the body so that our brains can discern between credible threats and non-issues.

Yes, you read that right.

Virgin births are a thing, and they've been happening for millennia in some animals.

It's something called parthenogenesis, which basically just means reproduction without fertilization.

The mother provides both sets of the DNA necessary to create an embryo, which is typically female.

Here are the animals that are capable of having offspring that's genetically all theirs. (Spoiler alert: humans aren't there quite yet.)

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The most recent case of this is has been happening at an aquarium in Queensland, Australia. A female leopard shark has had three female babies all on her own.

Source: Reef HQ Great Barrier Reef Aquarium

At first, people thought that virgin births happened only in extreme environments, when animals felt pressure to perpetuate their species. That includes animals in captivity, like a python at a Louisville Zoo that had six babies in 2012 without ever coming in contact with a male python.

Source: BBC

But scientists have figured out that animals in the wild can also have virgin births. Back in 1966, scientists discovered that wild whiptail lizards were capable of making their own female offspring.

Source: Scientific American