News Desk

For more than a decade, evidence has been piling up that humans colonized the Americas thousands of years before the Clovis people. The Clovis, who are the early ancestors of today’s Native Americans, left abundant evidence of their lives behind in the form of tools and graves. But the mysterious pre-Clovis humans, who likely arrived 17,000 to 15,000 years ago, have left only a few dozen sources of evidence for their existence across the Americas, mostly at campsites where they processed animals during hunting trips.

An ancient city gate and shrine that King Hezekiah ordered to be destroyed during the eighth century B.C., according to the Hebrew Bible, are seeing the light of day following an excavation in Israel, archaeologists reported today.

Recent excavations at Petra have revealed a startlingly advanced irrigation system and water storage system that enabled the desert city’s people to survive – and to maintain a magnificent garden featuring fountains, ponds and a huge swimming pool. The engineering feats and other luxuries attest to the ancient Nabatean capital’s former splendor and wealth some 2,000 years ago.

Scientists are a step closer to using Australia’s iconic gum trees to develop low-carbon renewable jet and missile fuel.

Dr Carsten Kulheim from The Australian National University (ANU), a lead researcher in an international study published in Trends in Biotechnology, said renewable fuels that could power commercial aeroplanes were limited and expensive but a solution could be growing all around us.

All those cars on California’s famously gridlocked highways could be doing more than just using energy – they could be producing it.

The California Energy Commission is investing $2 million to study whether piezoelectric crystals can be used to produce electricity from the mechanical energy created by vehicles driving on roads.

Researchers led by NASA’s former chief technologist are hoping to launch a satellite carrying water as the source of its fuel. The team from Cornell University, guided by Mason Peck, want their device to become the first shoebox-sized “CubeSat” to orbit the moon, while demonstrating the potential of water as a source of spacecraft fuel. It’s a safe, stable substance that’s relatively common even in space, but could also find greater use here on Earth as we search for alternatives to fossil fuels.

Typhoons are generally associated with mass destruction, but a Japanese engineer has developed a wind turbine that can harness the tremendous power of these storms and turn it into useful energy. If he’s right, a single typhoon could power Japan for 50 years.

Atmospheric oxygen levels have declined over the past 1 million years, although not nearly enough to trigger any major problems for life on Earth, a new study finds.

The research behind this new finding could help shed light on what controls atmospheric oxygen levels over long spans of time, the researchers said.

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the U.S., which makes for a perky population — but it also creates a lot of used grounds. Scientists now report in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering an innovative way to reduce this waste and help address another environmental problem. They have incorporated spent coffee grounds in a foam filter that can remove harmful lead and mercury from water.

Kiribati, a tiny nation on a chain of 33 atolls and reef islands in the South Pacific, could be the first entire country eliminated by climate change. As seas rise, the islands are increasingly inundated by high tides, and islanders believe the sea will swallow their lands in less than a generation.

Researchers are still trying to unravel the complex interactions between wind, waves and currents. One of the most visible results of these interactions is Langmuir circulation, which produces a pattern on the water surface like parallel furrows in a field. These lines are known as wind streaks or windrows, and occur only in steady winds of more than 7mph.

Archaeologists in Glasgow, Scotland, briefly excavated and then reburied a 5,000-year-old slab of stone that contains incised swirling geometric decorations.

Ancient Celtic bards were famous for the sheer quantity of information they could memorise. This included thousands of songs, stories, chants and poems that could take hours to recite in full.

Dozens of ring-shaped geoglyphs have been been mapped for the first time near the ancient town of Quilcapampa, Peru. The mysterious lines, created on the surface of the ground by ancient inhabitants, are in close proximity to the pathways that were used in the past for trade.

The face of a powerful ruler of the ancient Moche civilization of Peru, known as El Señor de Sipán (The Lord of Sipán), has been revealed for the first time following an intensive project to digitally reconstruct his face with the help of forensic anthropology experts. The 2,000-year-old remains of the Lord of Sipán were discovered in 1987 in the tomb complex of Huaca Rajada, buried among dazzling treasures, unlike any seen before in the region.

Archaeologists were left baffled by the “strange” discovery of ancient Roman coins buried in the ruins of a castle in Japan.

The four copper coins were retrieved from soil beneath Katsuren Castle on Okinawa Island, and were originally thought to be a hoax before their true provenance was revealed.

A group of previously unknown burial mounds has been discovered near Czaplinek in north-western Poland. The most interesting feature found so far is a stone ring, which is shaped similar to the world-famous site of Stonehenge. The complex sheds a new light on the history of these lands.