Newsdesk Archive
Sixty-five million years ago, a massive asteroid slammed into Earth, causing tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, a global winter, and the end of the age of the dinosaurs.
But what if the asteroid had glided safely past our planet? Would dinosaurs still be here today?
Scientists have discovered signs of unusual muscles on the arms of a new species of dinosaur that once fished in the swamps and bayous of what is now southern Alberta.
The 13-million-year-old fossils of an extinct crocodylian, named 'the storyteller,' suggest that South American and Indian species evolved separately to acquire protruding, 'telescoped' eyes for river-dwelling, according to a study published April 20, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi from the University de Montpellier, France, and colleagues.
After many decades of folklore and research, the Loch Ness monster has finally been found by an underwater drone.
O.K., it was just a movie prop version of the fabled sea serpent that sank to the bottom of the Scottish lake in 1969 discovered by researchers hunting for Nessie’s lair. But still, that’s also pretty cool.
Related: Is Bigfoot Real? Emerging Scientific Evidence
A school in northern Malaysia has had to shut temporarily to handle what local media have called a case of "mass hysteria".
It started last week with several students and teachers of the school in the city of Kota Bharu claiming that they had seen spirits or had supernatural experiences.
Grim discoveries in Belize’s aptly named Midnight Terror Cave shed light on a long tradition of child sacrifices in ancient Maya society.
A large portion of 9,566 human bones, bone fragments and teeth found on the cave floor from 2008 to 2010 belonged to individuals no older than 14 years
Scientists think they can now tie the disruption that hit Mayan civilisation in the 6th Century to an eruption of the El Chichon volcano.
A Dutch team has investigated ash fall deposits, finding the age of the materials to be a good match for the so-called Mayan "hiatus".
Surgical instruments and burial chambers unearthed during excavations in the ancient city of Philadelphia in the Central Anatolian province of Karaman’s Gökçeseki village have boosted the idea that the ancient city was the health center of the Ta?eli region.
The main hypothesis suggests that 1000 years ago deforestation in Easter Island was due an overexploitation of the natural resources by humans, who caused the meltdown of its ancient peoples.
Treasure found in prehistoric graves in Bulgaria is the first evidence of social hierarchy, but no one knows what caused the civilization's decline
Ancient stone blocks depicting Queen Hatshepsut have been discovered on Egypt's Elephantine Island, providing insights into the early years of her reign, Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities announced this week. The blocks may have been part of a building that served as a way station for an ancient Egyptian deity.
Alt: The female Pharaoh Ancient Egyptians tried to erase from history: Carved blocks reveal how Queen Hatshepsut's looked before her image was changed to that of a man
A Belgium-based Egyptologist has discovered the oldest depictions of ancient Egyptian demons, showing that demonic entities populated the ancient Egyptians’ imaginations as far back as 4,000 years ago.
Presented recently at the International Conference on Ancient Egyptian Demonology at Swansea University, U.K., these demons gripped their victims and cut off their heads.
I have spent years documenting damage to Syria’s amazing cultural heritage. I have recorded sites ploughed away by farming, built over by housing, robbed for stone, dug by looters, shelled in fighting, demolished by extremists … the list goes on.
A monumental recreation of the destroyed Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, has been unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square.
The 1,800-year-old arch was destroyed by Islamic State militants last October and the 6-metre (20ft) model, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, is intended as an act of defiance: to show that restoration of the ancient site is possible if the will is there.
For custodians of the ancient heritage of the Middle East and North Africa, the recent rise of Islamist extremist groups has posed a dire challenge. Since its seizure of the historic Iraqi city of Mosul in early 2014, Islamic State has pillaged and demolished mosques, shrines, churches and other sacred sites across the region. The group continues to launch “cultural cleansing” operations from Tikrit to Tripoli.
The mystery of how a lung from ancient French royalty became mummified has been solved after decades of uncertainty, according to an international team of researchers.
In 1959, a preserved lung was uncovered by archaeologist Michel Fleury inside a stone sarcophagus in the Basilica of St Denis, Paris, the site where the kings of France have been buried for centuries. The lung was found with a skeleton, a strand of hair, jewelry and several fragments of textiles and leather.
New research suggests that humans became the large-brained, large-bodied animals we are today because of natural selection to increase brain size.
The work, published in the journal Current Anthropology, contradicts previous models that treat brain size and body size as independent traits responding to separate evolutionary pressures. Instead, the study shows that brain size and body size are genetically linked and that selection to increase brain size will “pull along” body size.
Memories formed in one part of the brain are replayed and transferred to a different area of the brain during rest, according to a new study in rats.The finding suggests that replay of previous experiences during rest is important for memory consolidation, a process whereby the brain stabilizes and preserves memories for quick recall in the future.
The renowned Slydini holds up an empty box for all to see. It is not really a box—just four connected cloth-covered cardboard walls, forming a floppy parallelogram with no bottom or top. Yet when the magician sets it down on a table, it looks like an ordinary container.
I’m a lucky man. Perhaps the most extreme example of my considerable good fortune occurred one chilly Ithaca morning in November 2007, while I was playing tennis with my longtime friend and collaborator, the Cornell psychologist Tom Gilovich. He later told me that early in the second set, I complained of feeling nauseated. The next thing he knew, I was lying motionless on the court.
Curiosity is a powerful motivator, leading us to make important discoveries and explore the unknown. But new research shows that our curiosity is sometimes so powerful that it leads us to choose potentially painful and unpleasant outcomes that have no apparent benefits, even when we have the ability to avoid these outcomes altogether.
Childhood adversity is thought by most experts to be bad for cognitive development: for instance, people who grow up in stressful environments tend to score lower on tests of memory and IQ. They also perform worse on tests of impulse inhibition, which in turn predicts success and competence in later life.
Alex Reben came up with 2.5 million ideas in just three days. Nearly all of them are terrible – but he doesn’t mind. He thinks he has found a way to thwart patent trolls by putting their speculative ideas in the public domain before they can make a claim.
By showing that a phenomenon dubbed the 'inverse spin Hall effect' works in several organic semiconductors -- including carbon-60 buckyballs -- physicists changed magnetic 'spin current' into electric current. The efficiency of this new power conversion method isn't yet known, but it might find use in future electronic devices including batteries, solar cells and computers.
EPFL scientists have built a single-atom magnet that is the most stable to-date. The breakthrough paves the way for the scalable production of miniature magnetic storage devices.
Magnetic storage devices such as computer hard drives or memory cards are widespread today. But as computer technology grows smaller, there is a need to also miniaturize data storage.
A new study -- the first trial to publish five-year results from SBRT treatment for prostate cancer -- found a 98.6 percent cure rate with SBRT, a noninvasive form of radiation treatment that involves high-dose radiation beams entering the body through various angles and intersecting at the desired target.
Related: Skin cancer: Pair of drugs 'eliminate 20% of tumours'
Your responses to certain stimuli—foods, celebrities, words—might seem trivial, but they say a lot about you. In fact (with the proper clearance), these responses could gain you access into restricted areas of the Pentagon.
Dutch politicians have voted through a motion calling on the country to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars starting in 2025.
The motion has only passed through the lower house of the Netherlands’ parliament, and would need to pass through the Dutch senate to become legally binding. But its success in a majority vote puts the earliest date yet on just when a major country might begin phasing out polluting transportation.
Nature has begun to fight back against the vast piles of filth dumped into its soils, rivers and oceans by evolving a plastic-eating bacteria – the first known to science.
In a report published in the journal Science, a team of Japanese researchers described a species of bacteria that can break the molecular bonds of one of the world’s most-used plastics - polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or polyester.
For the first time in three years, First Solar Inc. is making panels for less than China’s biggest producer, justifying more than $3 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. government.
After investing $775 million in technology, First Solar is producing panels for as little as 40 cents a watt, or about 15 percent less than China’s Trina Solar Ltd. In 2019, First Solar’s module cost could be as low as 25 cents a watt, according to analysts’ models.
A three-day-week gets the best performance from workers aged over 40, a study has found.
Researchers found the cognitive performance of middle-aged people improved as the working week increased up to 25 hours a week.
Psilocybin, the mind-altering chemical that gives some mushrooms magical properties, can do more than induce trippy states. A new study finds that it reduces the sting of social rejection.
Related: Theresa May 'tried to alter drug report because she didn’t like its conclusions'
Related: Decriminalizing Cannabis Would Hurt Islamic State, Mafia- Italy Prosecutor
Related: Colombia will resume using weed killer to destroy illegal coca crops less than a year after suspending its use due to cancer concerns
Nearly nine of 10 Americans have relied upon healing prayer at some point in their lives, praying for others even more than for themselves, according to a study by a Baylor University epidemiologist.
You may not win friends, but a new study finds that you can influence people simply by lowering the pitch of your voice in the first moments of a conversation.
Bottlenose dolphins have been observed chattering while cooperating to solve a tricky puzzle – a feat that suggests they have a type of vocalisation dedicated to cooperating on problem solving.
Holli Eskelinen of Dolphins Plus research institute in Florida and her colleagues at the University of Southern Mississippi presented a group of six captive dolphins with a locked canister filled with food. The canister could only be opened by simultaneously pulling on a rope at either end.
When feathers meet air in just the right way, birds can create distinctive sounds
Related: Visualizing a Really Big Bird - Infographic depicts extinct avian giant that once dominated South Carolina skies
Insects are conscious, egocentric beings, according to a new paper that also helps to explain why and likely when consciousness first evolved.
Recent neuroimaging suggests insects are fully hardwired for both consciousness and egocentric behavior, providing strong evidence that organisms from flies to fleas exhibit both.
Life in the scorching hot Sahara Desert is no problem for an ant that has evolved an effective and stylish heat-repellent system, new research finds.
Saharan silver ants (Cataglyphis bombycina) grow flashy body hairs that cause total internal reflection of light like a prism, a technique also used in manmade fibre optics.
Bed bugs might be developing thicker "skins" to help them survive exposure to common insecticides.
Human population growth and international travel have helped the bug become a source of irritation in hotel rooms around the world.
Next month, as temperatures warm, billions of cicadas will begin to emerge from the ground as their internal clocks hit the 17-year mark. Soon, their numbers will swell in locations in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia and West Virginia, making a racket as the males call for the females.
The uncanny mechanisms that monarch butterflies use to navigate thousands of miles each year, back and forth from their wintering grounds in Mexico has long baffled scientists. A new study suggests how they may process information to determine which way to go.
Could swallowing the eggs of a parasitic worm help treat a disease?
It might just work in some cases, according to the work of P'ng Loke and Ken Cadwell, two researchers at New York University who study parasites and the immune system.
An unexplained carpet of foamy bubbles filled streets in the centre of the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka in the early hours of Saturday morning – shortly after tremors from a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.3 shook the town.
Green sea turtles of Florida and the Pacific coast of Mexico are no longer considered “endangered,” US officials said Tuesday, hailing decades of conservation work for saving the long-imperiled creatures.
Across history, various mythologies have incorporated the idea of a being or spirit that guides the deceased to the afterlife—names like Charon, Anubis, the Valkyries, or the Grim Reaper might immediately jump to mind.
But have you ever considered being carried to heaven by a turtle?
Famous for facilitating an incredible exchange of culture and goods between the East and the West, the ancient Silk Road is thought to have meandered across long horizontal distances in mountain foothills and the lowlands of the Gobi Desert. But new archaeological evidence hidden in a lofty tomb reveals that it also ventured into the high altitudes of Tibet—a previously unknown arm of the trade route.
Scientists say they have developed ultra-thin electronic "skin" that can measure oxygen levels when stuck to the body.
The goal is to develop such "skin" to monitor oxygen levels in organs during surgery, say researchers in Japan.
A microscope, invented by a professor at the University of California, uses artificial intelligence in order to locate cancer cells more efficiently than ever before. The device uses photonic time stretch and deep learning to analyze 36 million images every second without damaging the blood samples. This new technique for identifying problematic cells is faster and more accurate than standard methods currently in practice.
You can name almost any organ or body part within you, and chances are, some type of relevant research has been made with 3D printing technology. From 3D printed kidneys to bioficial blood vessels, and even 3D printed skin tissue, researchers across the world have been working to properly integrate 3D printing technology with the improvement of our healthcare and bodies. Now, researchers from the Illinois-based Northwestern University have just announced their breakthrough of 3D printing, and successfully implanting, a functional bioprosthetic ovary
A robot invented by researchers in the University of Georgia College of Engineering could change the way power lines are inspected—providing a safer and most cost-effective alternative.
Currently, line crews have to suit up in protective clothing, employ elaborate safety procedures and sometimes completely shut off the power before inspecting a power line. It can be difficult, time-consuming and often dangerous work.
Phobos and Deimos may be a chip off the old Martian block. The Red Planet’s tiny, misshapen moons are often thought to be captured asteroids, but an alternative theory suggests they are shrapnel left over from an ancient impact on Mars. Now we have a model showing how this could have happened.
Sometimes you’ve just got to follow your heart, even if it means moving heaven and Pluto. The dwarf planet’s iconic heart, informally known as Tombaugh Regio, was one of the biggest surprises in the first images beamed back by NASA’s New Horizons probe last July. Now a more detailed look at the spacecraft’s data suggests the heart is so heavy it may actually have tipped Pluto on to its side.
All the worlds may be ours except Europa but that only makes the ice-covered moon of Jupiter all the more intriguing. Beneath Europa’s thin crust of ice lies a tantalizing global ocean of liquid water somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 kilometers deep—which adds up to more liquid water than is on the entire surface of the Earth. Liquid water plus a heat source(s) to keep it liquid plus the organic compounds necessary for life and…well, you know where the thought process naturally goes from there.
For the last four years, physicists studying the mathematical underpinnings of black holes have been wrestling with a strange idea: that black holes contain a region known as a "firewall," which utterly annihilates matter that dares to cross its boundaries. However, a new paper titled Naked Black Hole Firewalls, co-authored by University of Alberta physics professor Don N. Page, aims to attack the fundamental tenets that give rise to this strange idea—with something much stranger.
Junked? Maybe not. Hitomi, a Japanese astronomy satellite, was thought to be lost after it failed to come online. Now the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency says the satellite has phoned home – but a full recovery will take months.
Hitomi launched on 17 February and was due to come online on 26 March, but failed to communicate with Earth. A tweet by the US Joint Space Operations Center reported five pieces of debris around the satellite shortly afterwards.
Late this year or early next, NASA will build an addition to the International Space Station, increasing the orbital laboratory’s size from eight rooms to nine. The new room is like no other on the station, and will be very easy to construct: Just connect to a docking port, fill with compressed air, and voilà! Instant space habitat.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected the faint but distinct signature of dust coming from beyond our solar system. The research, led by a team of Cassini scientists primarily from Europe, is published this week in the journal Science.
Approximately two million years ago a star exploded in a supernova close to our solar system: Its traces can still be found today in the form of an iron isotope found on the ocean floor. Now scientists have found increased concentrations of this supernova-iron in lunar samples as well. They believe both discoveries to originate from the same stellar explosion.
It sounds like science fiction. From the people who brought you the project Breakthrough Listen to search for extraterrestrial life, comes a new research program that's looking at sending a tiny spacecraft to the nearest stars.
The US$100 million plan is to push these probes out at speeds up to a fifth of the speed of light. To do this would require huge technological innovation, but it's certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Way back in 1977 something amazing happened (apart from the release of Star Wars obviously). Astronomer Jerry Ehman was using the Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope to sweep the sky for possible signals from extraterrestrial civilisations. He found something.
At least one super-Earth — a planet that is larger than Earth, but smaller than Neptune — could have formed close to the Sun, suggests a new study.
Over time, this hypothetical super-Earth would have swept up all the debris in the area before succumbing to the Sun's gravity and being destroyed.
The psychedelic drug LSD replaces one illusion with another in the brains of those who take it, finds a new study that helps explain why people high on LSD can lose their sense of self.
The research, published in the journal Current Biology, represents the first detailed investigation on how LSD — the crystalline compound lysergic acid diethylamide — changes brain function.
Related: How LSD Makes Your Brain One With The Universe
Related: LSD has improved my life, so why should the state decide whether I can take it or not?
Related: Study Shows How LSD Mimics Infant's Mind as Ego Dissolves
Former Presidents of Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Nigeria, Cape Verde, Switzerland & Poland; Former Prime Ministers of Greece, Hungary & The Netherlands Join With Distinguished Scholars, Celebrities, Clergy, Business Leaders, Elected Officials, and Others in Calling for Alternatives to Prohibitionist Drug Control Policies
Related: A New Era in Medical Marijuana Research?
The question of how exactly we experience the world through our perception of consciousness is one that's long intrigued scientists and philosophers. And at its core are two divergent hypotheses.
You walk into a room and suddenly your brain goes fuzzy with an overwhelming wave of familiarity--although this is a totally new experience. Like something out of a sci-fi plot, it almost seems as if you've walked into the future. A new study shines a spotlight on this situation, known as déjà vu.
Safe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new study by Georgetown researchers.
Georgetown psychology professor Adam Green and Dr. Peter Turkeltaub of Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network, and a team of colleagues published the study yesterday online in Cerebral Cortex.
Feel like you haven’t slept in ages? If you’re one of the 5 per cent of the population who has severe insomnia – trouble sleeping for more than a month – then your brain’s white matter might be to blame.
In a new study, environmental pollutants found in fish were shown to obstruct the human body's natural defense system to expel harmful toxins. The research team suggests that this information should be used to better assess the human health risks from eating contaminated seafood.
A team led by experts at Cardiff University has provided new evidence to explain why deep sea creatures were able to survive the catastrophic asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago.
Iceland’s “woman in blue,” the partial skeleton of a young woman found in 1938 in a grave with Viking-era objects, was a child of some of the island’s earliest settlers, researchers reported April 14 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Tooth development and wear suggest she was between 17 and 25 years old when she died.
Most items found in ancient shipwrecks show signs of the ravages of water, time and ocean critters. Wood and metal objects may hold up a little better, but fabrics are fragile and are usually consumed by the watery elements. One remarkable dress survived the odds. The archaeological miracle dates back to the 1600s and represents a fascinating tale of endurance.
Archaeologists have discovered two mass graves near the Greek capital containing the skeletons of 80 men who may have been followers of ancient would-be tyrant Cylon of Athens.
Regional archaeological services director Stella Chryssoulaki laid out the theory Thursday as she unveiled the findings at the Central Archaeological Council, the custodians of Greece’s ancient heritage.
Isaac Newton is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern science. Not only did he help develop the theory of gravity, but he invented calculus and discovered the three laws of motion that physics students still learn today. But while Newton was one of the most influential scientists of the 17th century, he was also a practicing alchemist who longed to find a method for turning lead into gold. Now, historians have rediscovered a manuscript handwritten by Newton that details a recipe for making one of the critical elements thought necessary to create the Holy Grail of alchemy: the Philosopher’s Stone.
Around 2,600 years ago, in a military fortress in Southern Judah, a man called Eliashib sent and received messages written in ink on fragments of pottery. The contents were mundane, mainly concerning food supplies, but they provide evidence of literacy that could inform the debate about when major Biblical texts were written.
Militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) have reportedly destroyed another archaeological icon in the Iraqi city of Mosul, using military equipment, local sources reported on Tuesday.
Local activists confirmed that ISIS demolished the Gate of God [Eia] which dates back to the 7th century BC, the time of the Assyrian king Sennacherib.
One of the great, largely untold adventure stories of late antiquity is the journey to the East, from Egypt’s Red Sea ports, across the open ocean for 40 days and 40 nights, to the legendary entrepôt of Musiris, on India’s southwestern or Malabar coast, in what is now modern state of Kerala. This was a great feat of navigation, a technological leap forward comparable to the discovery of the Americas or Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe.
Archaeologists have announced the discovery of an ancient building believed to be a barque station from the time of Queen Hatshepsut.
The station, comprising of a number of stone blocks was unearthed by the German Archaeological Institute during excavations on Elephantine Island.
Isis has destroyed a 2,000-year-old ancient structure near the Iraqi city of Mosul.
The Mashqi Gate, also known as the Gate of God, was one of a number of grand gates which guarded the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh.
Neanderthals, the closest known extinct relatives to humans, probably had to pick annoying bits of food out of their teeth from time to time. And now, scientists have evidence that these extinct cousins of modern humans may have done so with the help of prehistoric toothpicks.
Bosnia’s “Indiana Jones” of archaeology claims to have found a massive, mysterious sphere embedded in the ground in a forest in Bosnia.
The controversial archaeologist, Semir Osmanagich, wrote in a blog that the sphere dates back more than 1,500 years and is “the most massive stone ball in Europe.” He estimates the sphere weighs some 30 tons or more.
Two mass graves containing 80 ancient bodies have been discovered in the Faliron Delta region of southern Athens.
The 7th Century bodies, belonging to young men, were placed side by side with their arms shackled above their heads.
In ancient cultures, the poor lived on the razor's edge — literally.
A new study shows that in societies where social hierarchies were taking shape, ritual human sacrifices targeted poor people, helping the powerful control the lower classes and keep them in their place.
Taxes may be as certain as death, but they've changed a lot. Over the centuries, governments have levied taxes on everything from facial hair to the right to cover up—and officials accepted payments of beers, beds, and even broomsticks.
Water scarcity is not a 21st-century phenomenon. Though there have been many water-related problems linked to global warming, many places in the world have suffered without water even centuries ago. The Mayan civilization was one of them.
Why do ice ages occur? Surprisingly, even after many decades of paleoclimatic research we simply do not know for sure. Most scientists will agree that ice age cycles have something to do with precession: the slow wobble of the axis of the Earth.
The worldwide reliance on burning fossil fuels to create energy could be phased out in a decade, according to an article published by a major energy think tank.
The sun provided British homes and businesses with more power than coal-fired power stations for 24 hours last weekend.
While solar power has previously beaten coal for electricity generation over a few hours in the UK, Saturday was the first time this happened for a full day.
Related: Anger as coal mine that could damage Great Barrier Reef approved
To take advantage of the sun’s energy to satisfy our ever-increasing need for electricity, Americans will have to take a fresh look at their roofs. A report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows that if all suitable roof areas in the United States were plastered with solar panels, they would generate about 1,118 gigawatts of solar power. That is 40% of the power that Americans consume every year.
Forest trees use carbon not only for themselves; they also trade large quantities of it with their neighbors, botanists report. The extensive carbon trade among trees -- even among different species -- is conducted via symbiotic fungi in the soil.
Do plants operate according to economic criteria? They do, when they are mutualized with fungal partners that demonstrate differing degrees of cooperation. "Carbs for phosphates", that's the deal between plants and mycorrhizal fungi, which can only feed themselves together with a partner: The plant supplies the fungus with carbohydrates and is 'paid back' in phosphates. Additional phosphates are extremely attractive for the plant, as they allow it to grow better.
Very few cases of natural DNA transfers between animals and plants are documented, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist, but recently his team did just that.
The research team found a group of DNA sequences in pine trees, spruces and other conifers had been transferred to an ancestor of those trees from insects about 340 million years ago, said Dr. Claudio Casola, an AgriLife Research forest genomics assistant professor in the Texas A&M University ecosystem science and management department in College Station.
Medical research identified individuals who have mutations for eight severe childhood conditions but showed no symptoms
A massive study of more than half a million people who might carry genetic mutations for 584 devastating childhood diseases has identified 13 who have mutations for severe conditions – but none of the symptoms of the disease.
Physicists report that temperature gradients within pores in rock could have separated primitive biopolymers on the basis of their sequences -- a vital precondition for the formation of self-replicating systems in the primordial ocean.
A research team led by archaeologists at the University of York used traditional techniques to create replicas of ritual headdresses made by hunter-gatherers 11,000 years ago in North Western Europe.
Flint blades, hammerstones and burning were among the tools and techniques they employed to fashion reproductions of shamanic headdresses discovered during excavations at the Early Mesolithic site at Star Carr in North Yorkshire.
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH—Fire, a tool broadly used for cooking, constructing, hunting and even communicating, was arguably one of the earliest discoveries in human history. But when, how and why it came to be used is hotly debated among scientists.
The question of whether warfare is encoded in our genes, or appeared as a result of civilisation, has long fascinated anyone trying to get to grips with human society. Might a willingness to fight neighbouring groups have provided our ancestors with an evolutionary advantage? With conflicts raging across the globe, these questions have implications for understanding our past, and perhaps our future as well.
Yupno speakers in Papua New Guinea are the first known to imagine slopes to orient themselves inside flat homes.
The door of Sivek’s house looks out on a rising slope. But when he walks away from the door toward the rear of the building, he is walking “uphill”—even though the floor is flat. That’s because in Sivek’s tongue, indoor space is defined by imaginary slopes that are totally distinct from the world outside.
Lip-readers’ minds seem to “hear” the words their eyes see being formed. And the better a person is at lipreading, the more neural activity there is in the brain’s auditory cortex, scientists reported April 4 at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.
Scientists have known for decades that modern-day dolphins are some of the most intelligent and social animals on earth. Demonstrating complex behaviour and communication dolphins remind us of ourselves while living in a radically different environment.
It was an audacious nighttime escape.
After busting through an enclosure, the nimble contortionist appears to have quietly crossed the floor, slithered through a narrow drain hole about six inches in diameter and jumped into the sea. Then he disappeared.