Newsdesk Archive
A bright galaxy in the early universe likely contains a mysterious kind of black hole that had previously existed only in theory, a new study suggests.
This probable "direct-collapse" black hole may help explain how supermassive black holes — the light-gobbling behemoths that lurk at the hearts of most, if not all, galaxies — got their start, researchers said.
Hundreds of scientists worked together to map out one-quarter of the sky – and they weren't just plotting landmarks for a road trip to Alpha Centauri.
Through painstaking, complex measurements that reached into the earliest chapters of the universe, they charted a 3-D model of 650 billion cubic light years of space that included 1.2 million galaxies. It was created with an important goal – to measure dark energy.
SABRE, if you haven't heard of it before, stands for Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. Despite the rather buzzwordy name, the engine is fundamentally a hybrid rocket-jet engine: at low altitudes it's a jet engine, at higher altitudes it's a rocket engine.
The secret sauce, according to Reaction Engines, is a pre-cooling heat exchanger, which can cool incoming air from 1,000C to -150C in one millisecond.
Alt: 'Space Plane' which could fly anywhere in the world in four hours secures €10m development contract
Scientists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have made an object disappear by using a composite material with nano-size particles that can enhance specific properties on the object's surface.
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is showcasing for the first time the earliest writing from ancient Egypt found on papyrus, detailing work on the Great Pyramid of Giza, antiquities officials said Thursday.
Alt: The diary of a pyramid builder: Oldest papyrus in existence details where Egyptian workers shifted stones and even how many sheep they ate - and could reveal the secrets of the Great Pyramid of Giza
An ancient village dubbed "Britain's Pompeii" was just a few months old when it burnt down, it has emerged.
Analysis of wood used to build the settlement suggests it was only lived in for a short time before it was destroyed.
Much is known about Maya kings, lords and priests. Gaps remain, but we have long had some idea of how they lived. But what about the majority—the rest of Maya society? This question has been harder to answer. To shed some light on the subject, doctoral student Ashley Sharpe at the University of Florida examined animal bones found in three Maya cities.
The carefully buried remains of five dogs were recently found in a 2,000-year-old doggy graveyard near the Arctic Circle in Siberia, according to archaeologists.
A promontory on the island of Naxos in the Greek Cyclades could hold some answers to questions about the passage of early humans and even earlier hominins through the Cyclades in the Mediterranean.
In secluded fields, on the walls of churches, and beneath construction sites, stones have been found with intricate markings that rise from the lower left up to the center and then down to the lower right. This is the ancient Celtic Tree Alphabet known as Ogham (pronounced owam). Archaeological linguists have managed to translate the symbols, yet no one knows for certain how or why this language came into existence. Efforts are being made to preserve the relics, however, the stones are weathering and crumbling at an alarming rate.
The smoggy cities of India are suddenly looking a lot greener, with just under 50 million trees having been planted in India in a record-breaking attempt to raise awareness of conservation.
Related: Crop roots enact austerity measures during drought to bank water
Outdoor learning can have a positive impact on children's development but it needs to be formally adopted, a report suggests.
Childhoods were dramatically changing, with fewer opportunities to spend time outdoors, researchers observed.
Eliane Lucassen works the night shift at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, beginning her day at 6 p.m. Yet her own research has shown that this schedule might cause her health problems. “It’s funny,” the medical resident says. “Here I am, spreading around that it’s actually unhealthy. But it needs to be done.”
“Where did the time go?” middle-aged and older adults often remark. Many of us feel that time passes more quickly as we age, a perception that can lead to regrets. According to psychologist and BBC columnist Claudia Hammond, “the sensation that time speeds up as you get older is one of the biggest mysteries of the experience of time.” Fortunately, our attempts to unravel this mystery have yielded some intriguing findings.
It's that time of year where we fire up the BBQ and pray it doesn't rain. But poor weather is not the only thing we should be wary of when it comes to the traditional summer pastime.
Experts say we should think twice about using aluminium foil as studies have linked high levels of the metal in the body to Alzheimer's.
Red meat intake was strongly associated with an increased risk of kidney failure among Chinese adults in Singapore who were followed for an average of 15.5 years, a new report suggests. No association was found with intakes of poultry, fish, eggs, or dairy products, while soy and legumes appeared to be slightly protective.
The meat industry is famously horrible. Conscious animals contribute to climate change and pollute water—increasingly with antibiotic-resistant bugs—and industrial slaughter could qualify as torture. Plus, there’s the fecal soup.
After Belgian researchers explained how the meat is made, most respondents said they might be willing to try some. Tack on education about the environmental benefits, and the number of people definitely willing to try it nearly doubled.
Analysis of DNA from some of the world's first farmers shows that they had surprisingly diverse origins.
Researchers sequenced genomes from ancient Neolithic skeletons uncovered in Iran.
Daily infusions with a chemical commonly associated with feelings of happiness were shown to increase calcium levels in the blood of Holstein cows and the milk of Jersey cows that had just given birth. The results, published in the Journal of Endocrinology, could lead to a better understanding of how to improve the health of dairy cows, and keep the milk flowing.
A conservation biologist has come up with a novel method for protecting cattle from being hunted by African lions: paint eyes on their butts. The lions will think their intended prey has seen them and will move on, since they’ve lost the element of surprise.
Humans might not be such standout thinkers after all. Ducklings just might be capable of abstract thought too.
A new study suggests that ducklings can learn, and imprint on, the relationship between objects, considering more than just the characteristics of the objects themselves. And that could disrupt what we think about thought.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… Well, it looks like gorillas don’t get fooled twice, at least not by a cheating plant.
If true, that makes them smarter than humans and almost 50 other primate species all of whom can be tricked by a West African plant that grows super-sweet but low-calorie berries.
Most of us harbor about 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, inherited when our ancestors bred with Neanderthals more than 50,000 years ago. This was revealed back in 2010, when geneticists salvaged enough fragments of ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones to piece together a full genome.
Related: Lighter weights just as effective as heavier weights to gain muscle, build strength
If you've ever seen a friend have good results from a diet but then not been able to match those results yourself, you may not be surprised by new findings in mice that show that diet response is highly individualized.
Related: Diabetes reversal after bypass surgery linked to changes in gut microorganisms
Back in 1961, residents of far-flung countries ate very different mixes of crops (blue, below). By 1985 the disparities worldwide had shrunk (orange), and daily fare became even more homogeneous by 2009 (magenta). In nearly 50 years the differences in foods eaten narrowed by 68 percent.
"You know what Louis Pasteur said?" Subramanian asks. "Luck favors the alert mind."
Pasteur, the French chemist and microbiologist, famously created a vaccine to chicken cholera by accident. Smith and Subramanian, as it turns out, stumbled upon an undiscovered pigment of blue — the first new blue in over 200 years.
Subramanian knew immediately it was a big deal.
Patients that have experienced damage to their spinal cords may see success with a treatment involving repeated muscle stimulation. A new study was conducted at Helsinki University Hospital and it looks very promising.
A team of the Lomonosov MSU researchers in collaboration with their German colleagues from the Institute of Polymer Research in Dresden (Leibniz Institute) managed to find a molecule that, to their opinion, could give the impetus to the development of organic electronics. The results of the work were published in Advanced Materials.
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report in the current issue of Small that they have genetically designed a new strain of bacteria that spins out extremely thin and highly conductive wires made up of solely of non-toxic, natural amino acids.
A new generation of indestructible bridges could be possible, thanks to research from the University of Warwick.
Emeritus Professor Wanda Lewis in the School of Engineering has taken a design process called 'form-finding', inspired by the natural world, to another level.
About 58 percent of land on earth has dropped below the biodiversity safe limit, due largely to human land use practices, says a new study published Thursday in Science.
Related: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests
2014 and 2015 each set the record for hottest calendar year since we began measuring surface temperatures over 150 years ago, and 2016 is almost certain to break the record once again. It will be without precedent: the first time that we’ve seen three consecutive record-breaking hot years.
A volcano outside Rome, long thought extinct, is rumbling to life. But don't panic: The volcano isn't likely to blow its top for at least another 1,000 years.
Related: Buildings in ancient Roman Dacia’s capital to be restored to how they were 2000 years ago
Related: New Project Uncovers Ancient Games And Gladiators Through The Graffiti Of The Fans
Related: Chennai’s ancient trade link with Rome unearthed
The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs might have done so by setting giant reserves of crude oil alight, shooting soot around the globe and turning vast regions of the Earth into deserts, according to a new analysis.
Fossil finds in China are challenging ideas about the evolution of modern humans and our closest relatives
On the outskirts of Beijing, a small limestone mountain named Dragon Bone Hill rises above the surrounding sprawl. Along the northern side, a path leads up to some fenced-off caves that draw 150,000 visitors each year, from schoolchildren to grey-haired pensioners.
The transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farming 10,000 years ago occurred in multiple neighbouring but genetically distinct populations according to research by an international team including UCL.
A Vincent Van Gogh scholar has found a document explaining exactly how much of his ear the artist cut off back in 1888.
Not only does the newly found diagram end a longstanding debate over the extent of van Gogh's ear mutilation, it also debunks the myth that he gave his ear to a woman named Rachel, a thought-to-be prostitute.
The most important spot in British history has just been moved - by seven yards.
Some 950 years after King Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings, the exact place where he fell has finally been located by English Heritage historians in the town of Battle, East Sussex.
Should art looted by the Nazis be returned to the families of its original owners? Of course. Should the Elgin Marbles be returned to the Greeks? Some say yes, but many say no. What about the Benin Bronzes? Europeans took – by force – thousands of these stunning bronze sculptures from what is now Nigeria.
Under intense summer rays sunscreen can help protect against a wicked burn, but some of the common active ingredients in these sprays and lotions can also seep through the skin and enter the bloodstream.
The way clouds cover the Earth may be changing because of global warming, according to a study published Monday that used satellite data to track cloud patterns across about two decades, starting in the 1980s.
Clouds in the mid-latitudes shifted toward the poles during that period, as the subtropical dry zones expanded and the highest cloud-tops got higher.
New research into birth order effects has found that the last-born children of non-entrepreneurial parents are more likely to go into business than first-borns.
Young children who suck their thumbs or bite their nails may be less likely to develop allergies later in childhood, according to a new study that spanned three decades.
Related: Most siblings of food allergic kids do not have food allergy
It is one of life’s great enigmas: why do we sleep? Now we have the best evidence yet of what sleep is for – allowing housekeeping processes to take place that stop our brains becoming overloaded with new memories.
Your risk of heart attack increases with the amount of traffic noise to which you are exposed. The increase in risk -- though slight -- is greatest with road and rail traffic noise, less with aircraft noise.
The human drive to resolve uncertainty is so strong that people will look for answers even when it’s obvious those answers will be painful
Why do people seek out information about an ex's new relationships, read negative Internet comments and do other things that will obviously be painful?
One of the benefits of living together is gaining new information from group members. Once a group member starts displaying a new behavior, it frequently spreads to the rest of the group. In a study on ravens, cognitive biologists have shown that being socially connected to others is critical in gaining new information.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has a plan to save the endangered black-footed ferret, and it involves candy. The agency has proposed delivering vaccines to a ferret colony in Montana using drones capable of shooting vaccine-laced M&M's.
Related: Crashed drone in Somalia shows how the military hides its eyes in the sky
The discovery of mysterious lifeforms has stunned scientists during a series of dives into the Marianna trench — Earth’s deepest abyss.
Related: Kissing corals and seafloor turf wars captured in detail by underwater microscope
A pristine beach in New Zealand bought through a crowdfunding campaign has been handed to its new owners - the public.
Nearly 40,000 people donated almost NZ$2.3m (£1.3m, $1.7m) to buy the Awaroa beach in the Abel Tasman National Park, on the South Island.
Conservation group WWF Australia has purchased a commercial shark fishing licence on the Great Barrier Reef, with the sole aim of removing it from circulation.
Related: Giant Clam Poaching Wipes Out Reefs in South China Sea
There has been a long debate about why dinosaurs were so successful. Say dinosaur, and most people think of the great flesh-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus rex, but the most successful dinosaurs were of course the plant-eaters.
A new dinosaur species, Gualicho shinyae, unearthed in Argentina’s Huincul formation bears a mosaic of features and looks a bit like an Allosaurus, a subgroup of two-legged, bird-like theropods. Its most striking feature, however, is its tiny arms that look like those of a T. rex — even though the two species lived on separate continents.
Many in the West are horrified by China’s Yulin Dog-Meat Eating Festival, an annual 10-day-long event where over 10,000 dogs are consumed. But China has recently taken steps toward improving its shaky animals rights record by passing a new law that bans the sale of food products made from endangered species.
The ancient Egyptians created a simple yet elaborate system of blocks and grooves within the Great Pyramid of Giza to protect the King's Chamber from tomb robbers.
In an upcoming episode of the Science Channel's "Unearthed," that system comes to life via computer animations.
AS far as Harappan sites go, it is the odd one out. The settlement had no fortification walls, no streets cutting at right angles, no citadel where the ruling elite lived, no middle town which housed the residences of traders and craftsmen and no warehouse—features that characterise Harappan settlements.
For nearly half a century, thousands trekked to Rose and Prospect streets to behold a slice of sidewalk that, by conventional standards, had no curb appeal.
Since at least the 1970s, scientists have painstakingly photographed the curb as the Hayward fault pushed it farther and farther out of alignment.
Related: Hidden Fault Could Trigger Cataclysmic Megaquake in Asia
A volcano outside Rome, long thought extinct, is rumbling to life. But don't panic: The volcano isn't likely to blow its top for at least another 1,000 years.
Colli Albani is a volcanic complex of hills located 19 miles (30 kilometers) from the center of Rome.
Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought.
Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700 Earth years, scientists said.
Dark streaks on the surface of Mars may indicate that liquid water flows there today. A new study has revealed more detail about the changes these briny trails are causing on the Martian surface.
The dark, narrow streaks, called recurring slope lineae (RSL), appear and disappear seasonally.
Scientists have uncovered a chemical trail that suggests prebiotic conditions may exist on Saturn's largest moon Titan. This moon features terrain with Earthlike attributes such as lakes, rivers and seas, although filled with liquid methane and ethane instead of water.
Not to worry, everything’s under control
Every once in awhile, the Sun develops a huge “hole” — a dark patch in its outer atmosphere, or corona, like the one visible above.
Alt: NASA spots giant hole enveloping sun
Related: Scientists find that sunspots rise to the surface much more slowly than predicted
Millions of years ago, a pair of exploding stars showered our planet with radioactive fallout. Had those supernovae popped off a bit closer to home, Earth’s biosphere would have been toast. But even at a distance of 300 light years, the stellar events might have had an impact on the evolution of life here.
Astronomers have discovered evidence for an unusual kind of black hole born extremely early in the universe. They showed that a recently discovered unusual source of intense radiation is likely powered by a "direct-collapse black hole," a type of object predicted by theorists more than a decade ago.
The question of why are we here perhaps means different things to different people, but in the field of particle physics it is a question that we may be close to finding an answer to.
Experimental results presented to the 27th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 2016) last week could explain the tiny differences in matter and anti-matter that allow the Universe to exist.
The universe could bounce through its own demise and emerge unscathed. A new “big bounce” model shows how the universe could shrink to a point and grow again, using just the cosmic ingredients we know about now.
Alt: No Big Bang --"Our Universe Was Formed From an Older Collapsing Universe"
Using a small quantum system consisting of three superconducting qubits, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Google have uncovered a link between aspects of classical and quantum physics thought to be unrelated: classical chaos and quantum entanglement. Their findings suggest that it would be possible to use controllable quantum systems to investigate certain fundamental aspects of nature.
Proponents of clean energy will soon have a new source to add: osmotic power. Or more specifically, energy generated by a natural phenomenon occurring when fresh water comes into contact with seawater through a membrane. Researchers have developed a system that generates electricity from osmosis with unparalleled efficiency. Their work uses seawater, fresh water, and a new type of membrane just 3 atoms thick.
If Pokémon Go players think catching 151 different pocket monsters on their smartphones is tough, imagine trying to collect more than 15,000.
That’s what botanists studying the trees of the Amazon rain forest have been attempting for more than 300 years. So far, intrepid explorers have found a total of 11,676 different tree species, a new study reports.
The immune system affects -- and even controls -- social behavior, a new study has found. Researchers discovered that blocking a single type of immune molecule made mouse brains go hyperactive and caused abnormal behavior; restoring it fixed both. The discovery could have enormous implications for neurological conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.
There’s no such thing as a nasty-sounding chord: it all depends on what you’re used to. That’s the suggestion from a study of more than 160 people from the US and Bolivia, which found that people may have no innate preference for particular chords or harmonies.
Cinnamon is a delicious addition to toast, coffee and breakfast rolls. Eating the tasty household spice also might improve learning ability, according to new study results published online in the July issue of the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology.
While measuring brain activity with magnetic resonance imaging during blood pressure trials, researchers found that men and women had opposite responses in the right front of the insular cortex, a part of the brain integral to the experience of emotions, blood pressure control and self-awareness.
As US diet soda sales fizzle, a mounting weight of evidence suggests that consumers may be onto something by turning away from artificial sweeteners. The latest: Researchers at the University of Sydney have identified a possible brain pathway that might push us to eat more sweet stuff after taking in calorie-free sugar substitutes.
Related: Obesity link to brain structure in explosive medical study
Experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider generate 15 million gigabytes of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the "cloud."
George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA.
VENTUS55Scientists have long known that the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) has a limited capacity to regenerate. But in a new study, researchers from Stanford University have shown that combining visual stimulation and chemical activation of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) led retinal ganglion cells in blind mice to regenerate, restoring partial vision.
Mitochondria are “the powerhouse of the cell” (or so every fifth grade biology book will tell you) because they use aerobic respiration to generate ATP, the molecular form of energy that enables cellular processes to occur.
Pomegranates slow down the ageing process by prompting cells to recycle and rebuild themselves, a study shows.
Related:
The inability to remember details, such as the location of objects, begins in early midlife (the 40s) and may be the result of a change in what information the brain focuses on during memory formation and retrieval, rather than a decline in brain function.
Not much is definitively proven about consciousness, the awareness of one’s existence and surroundings, other than that it’s somehow linked to the brain. But theories as to how, exactly, grey matter generates consciousness are challenged when a fully-conscious man is found to be missing most of his brain.
Related: A man who lives without 90% of his brain is challenging our concept of 'consciousness'
The constant battle between pathogens and their hosts has long been recognized as a key driver of evolution, but until now scientists have not had the tools to look at these patterns globally across species and genomes. In a new study, researchers apply big-data analysis to reveal the full extent of viruses' impact on the evolution of humans and other mammals.
Have we stopped evolving? Whether the human race is still adapting to our surroundings is heavily debated – and now fresh genetic analyses by Harvard University’s Jonathan Beauchamp suggest natural selection still has a part to play.
Fossil bones and stone tools can tell us a lot about human evolution, but certain dynamic behaviours of our fossil ancestors – things like how they moved and how individuals interacted with one another – are incredibly difficult to deduce from these traditional forms of paleoanthropological data.
Fossils of a sea worm that lived on the ocean floor about 500 million years ago are giving new insights into how early creatures evolved.
Tube-like structures once thought to be a type of seaweed were made by a worm that lived a solitary life on the sea bed, say scientists.
New research on the vocalizations of dinosaurs may make "Jurassic Park" seem a little less scary.
In a study published in the journal Evolution, scientists say that rather than roaring, some dinosaurs likely made cooing or mumbling sounds similar to those made by pigeons or ostriches.
A faraway supernova explosion may have contributed to a minor mass extinction here on Earth 2.59 million years ago, a new study suggests.
Fast-moving, charged particles called cosmic rays that were blasted out by asupernova may have played a role in the climatic changes that apparently led to a die-off at the end of the Pliocene epoch and the start of the Pleistocene, researchers said.
In early April, experts at a military lab outside Washington intensified their search for evidence that a dangerous new biological threat had penetrated the nation’s borders.
They didn’t have to hunt long before they found it.
The bacteria in your gut do more than break down your food. They also can predict susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis, suggests Veena Taneja, Ph.D., an immunologist at Mayo Clinic's Center for Individualized Medicine.
Change the organisms that live in soil and you can change the kinds of plants that grow in it.
A field trial in the Netherlands has found that adding a thin layer of soil from a healthy ecosystem to degraded land greatly speeds up restoration. What’s really surprising, though, is that this “inoculation” can determine in what direction the ecosystem develops.
University of California, Berkeley paleontologists have identified distinctive features of primate teeth that allow them to track the evolution of our ape and monkey ancestors, shedding light on a mysterious increase in monkey species that occurred during a period of climate change 8 million years ago.
A team of researchers with the University of Cambridge in the U.K. has found that Rhesus monkeys are able to weigh the risks between at least two alternatives and to decide when a risk is worth betting on. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers describe the experiments they carried out, their results and why they believe there is relevance for humans.
Was early human behavior influenced by their observations of monkeys using stone tools?
New archaeological evidence suggests that Brazilian capuchins have been using stone tools to crack open cashew nuts for at least 700 years. Researchers say, to date, they have found the earliest archaeological examples of monkey tool use outside of Africa.
Alt: Oldest Non-Human Stone Tools Outside Africa Created by Monkeys
Recent archaeological digs have uncovered more than 20 round buildings in what is believed to be Cyprus' earliest known village, dating as far back as the 9th century B.C., the east Mediterranean island's Department of Antiquities said Tuesday.
A joint Greek-American archaeological expedition has found 23 ancient wrecks around the small Fourni archipelago, confirming the Greek site is the ancient shipwreck capital of the world. Discovered last month, the 23 shipwrecks add to other 22 identified last September, bringing the total to 45 wrecks in the last nine months.
Two of the Boyne Valley’s most impressive passage mounds — Knowth and adjacent Newgrange — may have functioned together as part of an important initiation ritual, one that survived over three thousand years. And these sites may have their twins in the Andes, in the form of megalithic Saqsayhuaman, and its smaller and equally mysterious child, the carved butte called Q’uenqo. The clue lies in their respective astronomical alignments.
The solar phenomenon occurs only twice a year at opposite ends of the summer solstice
“Manhattanhenge” returned for its second appearance this year radiating light across New York City’s streets Monday evening.
A gaseous planet with three suns and a mass four times that of Jupiter has been spotted by astronomers.
Located 320 light years away in the constellation of Centaurus the planet, known as HD 131399Ab, goes one better than Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine in the film Star Wars, which famously boasted two sunrises.
In 2005, astronaut John Phillips took a break from his work on the International Space Station and looked out the window at Earth. He was about halfway through a mission that had begun in April and would end in October.
When he gazed down at the planet, the Earth was blurry. He couldn’t focus on it clearly. That was strange — his vision had always been 20/20. He wondered: Was his eyesight getting worse?
NASA has spotted a series of strange, dark dunes on Mars that look uncannily like the dots and dashes that make up Morse code.
To be clear, this message is naturally formed - just like the dunes here on Earth, the dots and dashes of the dunes were carved out by the direction of the wind. There's no spooky alien stuff at play here, promise.
Where did the two natural satellites of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, come from? For a long time, their shape suggested that they were asteroids captured by Mars. However, the shape and course of their orbits contradict this hypothesis.