Newsdesk Archive
You don't need a brain to learn and teach. New research finds that slime molds, goopy and rather uncharismatic organisms that lack a nervous system, can adapt to a repulsive stimulus and then pass on that adaptation by fusing with one another.
A group of scientists is attempting to re-wild 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of European lands, and one of the keys in the circle of life will be reintroducing the fierce, huge, wild aurochs, an ancestor of modern cattle that went extinct centuries ago.
The holiday spirit might not totally explain what makes Rudolph's nose glow so bright.
Thirty years after a nuclear power plant exploded at Chernobyl, the reindeer that walk the picturesque, snow-capped mountains of Scandinavia are still radioactive.
On December 4 locals came across stacks of dead mackerel and herring on Pentwean Beach and now more have been discovered by a dog walker on Marazion Beach which is 40 miles from the first location.
A new global map of roadless areas shows that the Earth's surface is shattered by roads into more than 600,000 fragments. More than half of them are smaller than 1 km2. Roads have made it possible for humans to access almost every region but this comes at a very high cost ecologically to the planet's natural world. Roads severely reduce the ability of ecosystems to function effectively and to provide us with vital services for our survival.
Related: Smart road planning could boost food production while protecting tropical forests
In perhaps the final major act of conservation of his administration, President Barack Obama on Wednesday designated 1.35 million acres in southeast Utah and 300,000 acres in Nevada as two new national monuments.
The 7,000-year-old ancient city of Mari (known today as Tell Hariri) is one of the oldest known cities in the world, located on the west bank of the Euphrates River in what was once northern Mesopotamia (now eastern Syria). Thousands of years of erosion nearly wiped Mari from the pages of history, but it was rediscovered by a local Bedouin in the 1930s and since then has emerged from the sands following extensive excavations.
Most of the important archaeological sites in Central America were “discovered” by archaeologists who, in fact, didn’t discover them at all but were led to the ruins by local people. I’ve known several Maya archaeologists who routinely started fieldwork in a new area by heading into a dive bar and hoisting beers with the locals while listening to various bullshitters spin tales about ruins they’d seen in the jungle; once in a while, a story would turn out to be true. But, because these sites were long known to local people, they had invariably been disturbed, if not badly looted.
Madrid is drawing up lans to plant gardens on the rooftop of the city's buses and bus stops.
The authorities in the Spanish capital have come up with the proposals as a novel way of tackling CO2 emissions, The Local reported. The gardens are also intended to soak up heat, noise and pollution.
For years cities have encouraged residents to install green roofs—gardens that turn barren tar and asphalt roofs into verdant oases. The added foliage helps to keep buildings cool in the summertime and warm in the winter; it can also ease sewers by absorbing rainfall. But not just the hardscape benefits from these lush areas—so do some urban dwellers: bats.
Bumblebees and butterflies have seen their numbers plummet after another year of unsettled weather, according to a National Trust study.
Ants may be smarter than we give them credit for. Tool use is seen as something brainy primates and birds do, but even the humble ant can choose the right tool for the job.
Though declines in bee populations have heightened awareness of the importance of pollinating insects to the world's food supply, numerous bee species remain undescribed or poorly understood.
Related: Australian manuka honey a medicinal powerhouse
Pandas were taken off the endangered species list in 2016 and their status downgraded to vulnerable.
The move follows decades of work to enforce poaching bans, expand forest reserves and in particular is due to the success of breeding programmes like that at the Chengdu Panda Research Centre.
China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017.
Conservation groups hailed the decision as "historic" and a "game-changer" for the future of elephants.
If you ever find yourself watching hedgehog go about its day, you’ll notice that they tend to fall out of trees — a lot. Wild hedgehogs climb trees as high as 30 feet, looking for insects and food to eat. Sometimes they fall by accident, other times they fall on purpose to evade a predator or because falling is a lot faster than climbing down.
Each year, around 88 million tons of food is discarded in the EU. This is something that researchers wants to do something about. They are now giving companies in the food supply chain specific tools that can reduce both food waste and the environmental impact of food transport.
Toasting in the New Year with a glass of beer could leave a bad taste in the mouth, according to a new study.
Scientists have discovered that certain sounds can alter the flavour of a pint, and the sound of midnight chimes is likely to increase sour notes.
Related: Organic wine really does taste better, study of 74,000 bottles shows
When people have low levels of iron in their blood, they may develop a condition called iron deficiency anemia, which is known to have wide-ranging effects throughout the body, and now, a new study suggests that this condition may be linked to hearing loss as well.
Being overweight can raise your blood pressure, cholesterol and risk for developing diabetes. It could be bad for your brain, too.
When it comes to your love life, the impact of your diet could go beyond having a few extra pounds around the waist—what you eat may also influence how pleasing your body smells to members of the opposite sex. Scientists have long observed such a link in animal research—female salamanders are attracted to males that eat nutrient-rich diets, for example—and something similar may be true in humans, some preliminary studies suggest.
A study that tracked almost 100,000 Americans for five years found that non-meat eaters were less likely to die – of any cause – during the study period than meat eaters.
Related: A handful of nuts a day cuts the risk of a wide range of diseases
Related: Saturated fat could be good for you
Related: Calcium supplements may damage the heart
Deep in the caves of Goyet in Belgium researchers have found the grisly evidence that the Neanderthals did not just feast on horses or reindeer, but also on each other.
Human bones from a newborn, a child and four adults or teenagers who lived around 40,000 years ago show clear signs of cutting and of fractures to extract the marrow within, they say.
The ancient auroch cattle species is closer to being brought back to life thanks to European-wide science initiatives that continue to back-breed cattle still carrying the giant animal's DNA.
Aurochs roamed Europe for thousands of years until the last of the species died out in the 1600s, now numerous projects across the continent are trying to revive the species that could play a central part in European ecology.
Conspiracy theorists claim that ancient artwork could hide signs that aliens have visited the human race.
Several centuries-old paintings, cave drawings and tapestries contain symbols and shapes that resemble UFOs and extraterrestrials.
The incident happened while Malcolm Williams was working in air traffic control at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, on a night shift, just before Christmas in either 1994 or 1995
Related: Musician 'captures fiery UFO that flew directly at him after he spotted it floating in the skies above Devon for three hours'
Related: UFO Sightings: Could Recent Surge In ‘Fireball’ Sightings Lead To A New Mystery?
A tall, thin sapling had been bent into an arch over the path, high above everyone’s heads. Its tip was wedged in the underbrush, holding it down. This, Meyer said, might be a sign. Bigfoots, he explained, often leave signals to each other using sticks or trees. Arches are common.
Related: Does the Yeti actually exist? Expedition heads to Bhutan to discover the REAL truth
Related: Lynx-like cat filmed prowling Warwickshire field
Related: Giant Salamanders in the World’s Waters?
Related: Bizarre Creature With Transparent Head Found Near Bali
Robots can be terrifying all on their own, but stick a human being inside and give them control of the mechanical muscles that provide superhuman strength and you've got a recipe for a horror movie. South Korean robotics firm Hankook Mirae Technology has done exactly that, and its Method-2 robot just took its first steps towards world domination this week.
Much has been said about the ways we expect our oncoming fleet of driverless cars to change the way we live—remaking us all into passengers, rewiring our economy, retooling our views of ownership, and reshaping our cities and roads.
They will also change the way we die. As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It’s a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation.
Amazon has been awarded a patent for a giant flying warehouse that acts as a launchpad for drones to deliver items within minutes.
The U.S. e-commerce giant described plans for an "airborne fulfillment center" (AFC) such as an airship or blimp that would float at an altitude of around 45,000. The airship will be stocked with lots of products.
Thierry Lepercq, head of research, technology and innovation at the French energy company Engie SA, said in an interview at Bloomberg that he sees a potential for the cost of solar electricity to fall below $10-megawatt hour (1¢/kWh) in the sunniest climates by 2025. Lepercq believes “solar, battery storage, electrical and hydrogen vehicles, and connected devices are in a ‘J’ curve (of upward growth potential).” One consequence of this new energy economy is that, “the price (of oil) could drop to $10 if markets anticipate a significant fall in demand.”
Sweden has generated more energy from wind power than it ever has before.
Nearly 5.7 million kWh of wind power was generated as the country harvested the effects of “Storm Urd” and intense weather across the south of the country. That smashed through the previous record, set almost exactly a year ago, beating it by more than half a million kWh.
Costa Rica completes 2016 without having to burn a single fossil fuel for more than 250 days. 98.2 percent of Costa Rica's electricity came from renewable sources in 2016.
From the common plastic water bottle to the shoes of tsunami victims, one recycling organization tries to find a home for all ocean refuse
Geoengineering is one of those things that sounds like maybe a good idea on paper but could also go horribly, apocalyptically wrong. But if the prospect of plunging Earth’s weather systems into chaos isn’t enough to convince scientists we need to tread very cautiously with the ultimate global warming tech-fix, perhaps this will: geoengineering could be a disaster for science.
Since 1992, astronomers have found and confirmed a total of 3,431 exoplanets, star-orbiting planets beyond Earth's solar system.
With several high-tech telescopes and observatories on the way in the next year, we have a better-than-ever chance of finding exoplanets with the potential to host extraterrestrial life.
Astronomers have recently discovered non-radial oscillations in a hot, helium-atmosphere white dwarf designated PG 0112+104. The newly detected 11 independent pulsation modes in this white dwarf could be essential for researchers testing the radial differential rotation and internal compositional stratification of highly evolved stellar remnants.
With a cloud of trailing debris, a rocky object known as 3200 Phaethon straddles the line between asteroid and comet. But the space rock's days, it seems, might be numbered.
“Late in the autumn of 1680 the good people of Manhattan were overcome with terror at a sight in the heavens such as has seldom greeted human eyes,” history tells us.
That terrible sight was a comet so bright that it could be seen in daytime. But, like Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková—which is currently relatively close to Earth and may put on its best show this New Year's Eve—the Great Comet of 1680 was not a portend of doom but a scientific blessing.
Science is finally catching up to oral traditions passed down through generations of First Nations cultures
Oral tradition has often been discounted as just stories — but science is proving that the facts behind those stories certainly shouldn't be discounted.
The ancient inhabitants of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, the zenith of Pueblo culture in the Southwest a thousand years ago, likely had to import corn to feed the multitudes residing there, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.
Interbreeding with Neanderthals appears to have reintroduced genetic sequences related to innate immunity that had been lost as humans migrated out of Africa.
The human genome is peppered with the DNA of extinct hominins—Neanderthals and Denisovans—as a result of interbreeding with early Homo sapiens.
Did Camelot really exist? There seems to be as many answers to that question as there are Knights of the Round Table … if they really existed. A leading expert in Arthurian literature now claims he knows where King Arthur’s home was
Related: Anglo-Saxon Saint or King with 'his knees twisted backwards' discovered near Louth
Two very well preserved, 8 thousand years old stone figurines depicting naked women were discovered by Polish archaeologists during this year's excavations in one of the oldest cities in the world - Çatalhöyük in Turkey.
Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham have found “compelling evidence” of new pharaonic tombs at Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan, Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities has revealed.
Archeologists working on a salvage excavation by the Dead Sea in Israel have uncovered new fragments they believe to be part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found in the Cave of the Skulls, the writing on the small pieces can’t be read without lab analysis, it’s even unclear if the writing is in Hebrew, Aramaic, or a different language.
No one knows what happened at Atlit-Yam. The ancient village appeared to be thriving until 7000BC. The locals kept cattle, caught fish and stored grain. They had wells for fresh water, stone houses with paved courtyards. Community life played out around an impressive monument: seven half-tonne stones that stood in a semicircular embrace around a spring where people came to drink. Then one day, life ended.
This harvest came 3,000 years too late.
Hundreds of blackened potatoes were pulled out of the ground at a prehistoric garden in British Columbia, Canada.
The second state of liquid water could be a result of its unusual molecular structure, which takes the shape of an arrow with an oxygen tip flanked by two hydrogen atoms.
Whatever the reason for liquid water's second state, its discovery shows that even something as ubiquitous as water is not without its mystery.
Related: Dr. Gerald H. Pollack | The Fourth Phase of Water
Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, is pocketed with cold, dark craters, several of which are layered in ice, raising the prospects that this frigid dwarf planet once had perhaps an ocean's worth of liquid water early in its history when the solar system was still forming.
Mysterious, thin, wispy clouds hide under the hazy upper atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
Searching for signs of life, or life's precursors, on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa could spoil the hunt before it begins — which is why many scientists advocate going underground.
After years of attempting to catch up with American and European space agencies, China could be the first to land a probe on the far side of the moon, perhaps as soon as 2018.
Around the time Earth formed, a slightly larger world coalesced by a much different star. Our sun was a steady, bright-yellow dot in its neighbor’s night sky, but the two stars — and likely their planets — evolved along much different paths.
The darkening of a mysterious star, which might be due to "alien megastructures," according to some researchers' theories, might instead be due to avalanche-like magnetic activity within the star, a new study finds.
In 2015, a star named KIC 8462852 made news when researchers noticed unusual fluctuations in the object's light.
Mars may appear red when viewed from Earth, but NASA's Curiosity rover has captured an up-close photo of the planet's mountainous landscape, with purple-colored rocks littered across the foreground.
At first glance, a new concept for a NASA habitat on Mars looks like a cross between Mark Watney’s inflatable potato farm from “The Martian” and the home of Luke’s Uncle Owen on Tatooine from “Star Wars.”
The key to the new design relies on something that may or may not be abundant on Mars: underground water or ice.
As far as we know right now, plans to go to Mars will proceed as expected under president-elect Donald Trump’s administration. That’s a good thing, especially considering that the missions lined up in the next few years are on aggressive timelines.
An international team of researchers reports the discovery of a series of concentric rings in the debris disk around a young nearby star known as HIP 73145. These unusual substructures could provide new details about the evolution of circumstellar disks around young stars.
Russian scientists have discovered that the proportion of unstable particles in the composition of dark matter in the days immediately following the Big Bang was no more than 2 percent to 5 percent.
Here's a timely reminder for all you would-be revelers out there: Be careful with your countdowns this New Year's Eve. There will be a little extra time to bask in the glow of a retreating 2016 — or curse its name, as the case may be.
Whatever your inclination may be, one thing is certain: Before the year is out, the world's foremost authority on time will be adding one more second to the clock.
When you engage in international travel, you may one day find yourself face-to-face with border security that is polite, bilingual and responsive—and robotic.
"this kiosk has a face on the screen that asks questions of travelers and can detect changes in physiology and behavior during the interview. The system can detect changes in the eyes, voice, gestures and posture to determine potential risk. It can even tell when you're curling your toes."
They already perform surgery, take blood and help people walk. But can robots replicate vital human interaction?
Robots don’t do my job as a GP yet, but computers are definitely the third person in the room in every consultation.
Engineers are testing a device that converts low-frequency motion into electricity to power electronics. The idea is to harvest wasted energy, like that from a finger tapping on a screen, to power a phone or tablet.
Cancer research is an area of medical science that, rightfully, gets considerable attention. There are nearly 14.5 million Americans with a history of cancer and with more than 13 million estimated new cancer cases each year. It’s no wonder even artificial intelligence (AI) has gotten into the field. Researchers from the University of Michigan are not getting left behind, with a groundbreaking method that has the potential to eliminate tumors.
Blood cancer treatments may one day include special dietary restrictions: researchers have found that an essential amino acid plays a crucial role in the creation of blood stem cells—a discovery the scientists say could lead to a potential alternative to chemotherapy and radiation.
Adopting a healthy lifestyle might not seem that hard on the outset. You ate a lot of cheeseburgers and drank a lot of soda, and now you’re going to stop doing that. But a new study in mice suggests that it takes a while for the gut’s bacterial zoo, or microbiome, to adapt to dietary changes. If the results hold in humans, it could mean developing a healthy gut is more than a quick diet fix.
Paintings can reveal whether an artist is suffering from Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, even before they have been diagnosed, scientists have shown.
Alt: Paintings reveal early signs of cognitive decline, claims study
Research shows that maintaining eye contact can make it harder to think
A number of emotional states can cause someone to avoid eye contact while trying to communicate, such as shyness, embarrassment, or guilt. And you may have noticed that thinking deeply can cause someone to drop their eyes.
A team of researchers with McGill University in Canada has found evidence that suggests that young women who engage in frequent sex experience memory improvements. In their paper published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, the researchers outline their study, which included asking young female volunteers to fill out surveys regarding their sex lives and taking memory tests.
After just four days, researchers observed an incredible 71.5 percent increase in the generation of neural cells.
Previous studies have suggested that ayahuasca helps reduce depression and anxiety in humans, so a team of researchers from decided to zero in on one of ayahuasca’s main substances: harmine.
Alt: Ayahuasca Increases Neurons, Shows Test
Alt: Harmine stimulates proliferation of human neural progenitors (Paper)
Dominique was hooked on cocaine and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day until she stumbled onto ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic concoction that she says has changed her life.
The French-American woman, who lives in Los Angeles and did not want her real name used, is among thousands of people across the United States who are increasingly turning to the powerful psychedelic brew from the Amazon to overcome addiction, depression or psychological trauma.
Related: Stunning New Photos of Isolated Tribe Yield Surprises
Legalization of medical marijuana is not linked with increased traffic fatalities, a new study finds. In some states, in fact, the number of people killed in traffic accidents dropped after medical marijuana laws were enacted.
“Instead of seeing an increase in fatalities, we saw a reduction, which was totally unexpected,”
There's evidence that tripping on magic mushrooms could actually free the mind. Several studies, including two promising recent clinical trials, suggest that psilocybin - shrooms' psychoactive ingredient - may hold the potential to help relieve severe anxiety and depression.
Still, because they're classified as Schedule 1 - meaning they have "no accepted medical use" and are illegal - it's been pretty tough for scientists to tease out exactly what they can and can't do.
It's unclear whether a mysterious 2,100-year-old stone bowl fragment recently unearthed in Jerusalem belonged to royalty or a commoner, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced late last week.
Every person’s DNA contains part of the human story: how our ancestors — lanky, tool-using apes — spread across the planet, colonizing environments as varied as the Himalayas, Arctic and Amazon Basin.
Millions of people have had at least part of their DNA studied, but because they’re mostly urban Westerners and East Asians, the samples repeat the same details of that story. From this data, we’ve known for three decades that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa some 200,000 years ago. To answer when and how humans migrated out of Africa, researchers needed DNA from a wider pool of people.
When humans first arrived in the Americas, roughly 18,000 to 20,000 years ago, they traveled by boat along the continents' shorelines. Many settled in coastal regions or along rivers that took them inland from the sea. Some made it all the way down to Chile quite quickly; there's evidence for a human settlement there from more than 14,000 years ago at a site called Monte Verde.
Researchers say they've found evidence that ancient human relatives used toothpicks.
Wood fibers were found on a tooth in a 1.2-million-year-old hominin jawbone discovered at an excavation in northern Spain. The fibers were found in a groove at the bottom of the tooth, suggesting they came from regular tooth picking.
A huge area of volcanic activity near heavily populated Naples, Italy, is reaching a critical point and scientists think it could erupt. The 12-kilometer (7.46 miles) caldera or volcanic cauldron hasn’t erupted for nearly 500 years, but scientists say the seismic monster is reawakening.
Alt: Neanderthal-Killing European Supervolcano Is Getting Restless
Old Faithful in Wyoming is one of Yellowstone National Park's most famous geysers, regularly spewing out huge jets of boiling water and steam every 74 minutes on average.
But this week, the geyser appears to be erupting snow, due to unseasonably cold weather in the region.
Fifteen years after the collapse of One World Trade Center in New York City, researchers are still learning how the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, impacted people’s health.
When the twin towers fell on 9/11, a cloud of hazardous materials enveloped the surrounding neighborhood and coated everything and everyone exposed to it for several days. According to a new study, those dust clouds likely contributed to negative birth outcomes for Lower Manhattan mothers.
Our future crops will face threats not only from climate change, but also from the massive expansion of cities, a new study warns. By 2030, it’s estimated that urban areas will triple in size, expanding into cropland and undermining the productivity of agricultural systems that are already stressed by rising populations and climate change.
A tiny plant is providing big clues about how human development is driving the evolution of living organisms. New research from the University of Toronto Mississauga reveals the first evidence that common white clover changes genetically to adapt to urban environments.
Nations worldwide have agreed to limit carbon dioxide emissions in hopes of preventing global warming from surpassing 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. But countries will not manage to meet their goals at the rate they’re going. To limit warming, nations will also likely need to physically remove carbon from the atmosphere. And to do that, they will have to deploy “negative emissions technology”—techniques that scrub CO2 out of the air.
Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve, in what scientists say is a record-breaking heatwave.
Scientists have witnessed the birth of atmospheric ice clouds, creating ice cloud crystals in the laboratory and then taking images of the process through a microscope, essentially documenting the very first steps of cloud formation.
The North Pole wasn’t always a winter wonderland. Rewind 90 million years, and scientists think it was probably as warm as parts of Florida.
Alt: A just-discovered, 90 million year-old bird could help us predict the future of the planet
Alt: New prehistoric bird species discovered
By the time they were 3 years old, ostrich-like dinosaurs called Limusaurus inextricabilis had lost all of their pointy teeth, and lived the rest of their lives as toothless beasts, a new study finds.
Like lifelong Floridians dropped into a Wisconsin winter, enzymes accustomed to warmth don’t always fare well in colder climes. But ancient heat-loving enzymes forced to adapt to a cooling Earth managed to swap out parts to keep chemical reactions going
Related: Early RNA may have used isolation strategy to defeat useless mutants
Scientists are making preparations to send a transmission to Proxima b - the closest Earth-like exoplanet to our Solar System.
Alt: Scientists plan to send greetings to other worlds
When NASA scientists think they’ve built something that breaks the laws of physics, do you take them at their word?
Folks have been buzzing about an “impossible” rocket thruster, one that looks like an air blaster you’d buy at Disney World and somehow generates thrust without propellant to push it forward, since forever. The so-called electromagnetic or EM drive makes headlines annually, but this year is different
According to research published Thursday in Science, physicists at Princeton University have designed a device that allows a single electron to pass its quantum information to a photon in what could be a big breakthrough for silicon-based quantum computers.
Ambar presses her hand to her forehead, nose crinkled in concentration as she considers the question on her screen: how many sevens in 91? The ten-year-old has been grappling with it for about a minute when she smiles: “13!”.
Thousands of Europeans may be asymptomatic carriers of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a fatal prion disease that is the human variant of Mad Cow disease.
A centuries-old herbal medicine, discovered by Chinese scientists and used to effectively treat malaria, has been found to potentially aid in the treatment of tuberculosis and may slow the evolution of drug resistance.
An international team of researchers has developed a unique device that can detect and distinguish between as many as 17 illnesses, ranging from multiple sclerosis to several types of cancer, on the basis of a breath sample.
Researchers have begun human clinical trials for a device, inspired by woodpeckers, that’s meant to keep the brain from moving around so much inside the skull when it gets hit.
Related: Dental implants with antibacterial activity and designed to facilitate integration into the bone
Could you imagine serving a 3-D printed turkey for Christmas lunch? Or munching on a 3-D printed pizza for an afternoon snack?
This is not as far fetched as it sounds. While 3-D printers have mainly been in the news for their ability to manufacture inedible goods, they are increasingly being used for culinary endeavours.
Bigger bubbles could make your champagne taste better this Christmas, research has found.
It was long thought that a steady stream of tiny bubbles in a glass of champagne was a sign of quality.
As the year winds to a close, gifts and giving are foremost in many people's minds. And now, two new neuroscience studies suggest that our brains prompt us to act more like Santa than Scrooge.