Newsdesk Archive

The faint blue-green glow of this millipede redefines how we look at the evolution of bioluminescence across the tree of life.Not seen for nearly 50 years, the small, blind millipede Xystocheir bistipita, was recently rediscovered in the foothills of San Luis Obispo, California by entomologist Dr Paul Merek of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Male wolf spiders use "purring" vibrations to serenade their sweethearts, but this wooing only works if the females can feel these vibrations, new research finds.For the females to feel these vibrations, the courting couple must be standing on a suitable surface that can vibrate, like dry leaves, the researchers said in the new study.

Do cockroaches and rats make you flinch? That doesn't necessarily make you a wimp - it could mean you're less likely to become ill.The reason we flinch is down to a mechanism called the behavioural immune system. It is stimulated by sensing unwelcome objects via sight, sound, touch and smell, and makes us react to threats so we avoid them before they come into contact with our bodies.

A new study by anthropologists from The University of Texas at Austin shows for the first time that epigenetic marks on DNA can be detected in a large number of ancient human remains, which may lead to further understanding about the effects of famine and disease in the ancient world.

Dinosaurs were warm-blooded animals that had many traits in common with mammals, finds controversial new research.The study, published in the journal Science, counters other popular theories, which say that dinosaurs were either cold-blooded and reptile-like, or occupied a unique intermediate category of animals that were neither fully cold nor warm-blooded.

The major gateway for modern humans out of Africa may have been Egypt, a new genetic analysis suggests.This finding may help scientists reconstruct how humans evolved as they wandered across the globe, the researchers added.Alt: The Egyptian in all of us: First modern humans spread out of Africa into Europe and Asia from the Sinai peninsula

When Islamic State (Isis) took over Palmyra last week, the jihadists assured the world they were not going to destroy the ancient city's treasure trove of ruins and artefacts.According to the Palmyra Media Centre, "IS militants promised the citizens during a talk that they won't offend the ancient city [sic]". This claim has been repeated in interviews with several media outlets.

Patients with aggressive skin cancer have been treated successfully using a drug based on the herpes virus, in a trial that could pave the way for a new generation of cancer treatments.Related: Scorpion venom has toxic effects against cancer cells

By unlocking the secrets of a bizarre virus that survives in nearly boiling acid, scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have found a blueprint for battling human disease using DNA clad in near-indestructible armor.

Bacteria that make us sick are bad enough, but many of them also continually evolve in ways that help them develop resistance to common antibiotic drugs, making our medications less effective or even moot. Doctors try to reduce the evolution by cycling through various drugs over time, hoping that as resistance develops to one, the increased use of a new drug or the widespread reuse of an old drug will catch some of the bugs off guard.

Some were just curious or puzzled, while others terrified at the blazing object, which experts said was not a meteorite.The unusual trail left many speculating that it might have been a UFO of an extra-terrestrial origin.Related: VIDEO: Bizarre hovering 'UFO' lights are the 'REAL DEAL', claim alien chasers

Got a couple of pencils? Then you, too, can try to summon a Mexican demon, freak out your friends and post your own #CharlieCharlieChallenge on social media.But if you're the superstitious type, or just easily spooked, the Charlie Charlie Challenge might not be for you.Related: The Weird Case of Demons on Trial

Psychedelic drugs including LSD and magic mushrooms are much less harmful than has been claimed, and should be reclassified to make it easier for scientists to research their potential benefits, a leading psychiatrist has said.Promising medical research into psychedelics ground to a halt as long ago as 1967, when they were made illegal amid widespread concern about their psychological and social harms.

A study of fruit flies has hinted that inherited "gay genes" could be linked to fitness traits which help survival.Research into flies exhibiting male-to-male courtship behaviour has hinted that these genes might exist in the male Y chromosome.

Lethal wounds identified on a human skull in the Sima de los Huesos, Spain, may indicate one of the first cases of murder in human history, some 430,000 years ago, according to a study published May 27 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Nohemi Sala from Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, Spain, and colleagues.The archeological site, Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain, is located deep within an underground cave system and contains the skeletal remains of at least 28 individuals that date to around 430,000 years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene.

A unique seal impression found half a century ago in the western Galilee bears the oldest-known depiction of music ever found in Israel, according to a new interpretation of the find.Archaeologists now believe the scene shows the musical part of a ritual dating back 5,000 years, of the "sacred marriage" between the Mesopotamian king and a goddess, whose role would have been played by a priestess.

Researchers have discovered the 425-million-year-old remains of a new species of parasite - still clamped to the host animal it invaded.The international team found the fossil at a site in Herefordshire.Prof David Siveter, from the University of Leicester, said it had been "frozen in time" by a volcano that killed and preserved marine creatures at the site.

Cutting-edge archaeological work that included use of a drone and prescribed fire has unearthed previously unknown information about a one-of-a-kind Native American archaeological site in northeastern Montana dating back thousands of years.Among the new findings at the prehistoric site are rock alignments that probably had religious meaning to Native Americans, said Josh Chase, a Bureau of Land Management archaeologist.

British archaeologists excavating a church site in Oxford have brought to light the darker side of medieval convent life, revealing skeletons of nuns who died in disgrace after being accused of immoral behavior.Discovered ahead of the construction of a new hotel, the burial ground stretches around what used to be Littlemore Priory, a nunnery founded in 1110 and dissolved in 1525.

The ancient Egyptians famously mummified the dead to preserve their loved ones in perpetuity, and now, scientists have mummified fresh tissue from a human corpse to gain insight into these ancient preservation techniques.The team adhered to ancient Egyptian techniques to mummify part of the human body, which had been donated to science. They placed the tissue in a salt solution, and measured the progress of preservation using state-of-the-art microscopy and imaging techniques.

Canadian scientists have discovered how to turn a simple blood sample from a man or woman into a variety of nerve cells, including those that are responsible for pain, numbness and other sensations.The technology will allow researchers to test potential drugs for treating pain using the nerve cells in a lab, all based on an individual patient's own genetic signature, said Mick Bhatia, who led the team of researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Two pennies can be considered the same -- both are pennies, just as two elephants can be considered the same, as both are elephants. Despite the vast difference between pennies and elephants, we easily notice the common relation of sameness that holds for both pairs. Analogical ability -- the ability to see common relations between objects, events or ideas -- is a key skill that underlies human intelligence and differentiates humans from other apes.Related: Development of face perception earlier in Japanese children than Western children

Mindfulness -- an ancient Buddhist approach to meditation -- is attracting increasing attention in the 21st century as a non-invasive treatment for stress and depression. But can it improve mental well-being in young people?

A New York court will resume hearing a case this week about the possible illegal detention of two chimps at a university lab.Lawyers acting for the chimps, Leo and Hercules, want them to be moved to an animal sanctuary.Related: Many Americans Support Equal Rights for Animals

By revealing that fish cooperate, cheat and punish, Redouan Bshary has challenged ideas about brain evolution.Redouan Bshary well remembers the moment he realized that fish were smarter than they are given credit for. It was 1998, and Bshary was a young behavioural ecologist with a dream project: snorkelling in Egypt's Red Sea to observe the behaviour of coral-reef fish. That day, he was watching a grumpy-looking grouper fish as it approached a giant moray eel.

Scientists have for the first time made a conclusive link between the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and an unprecedented dolphin die-off along the Gulf's northern coast.Bottlenose dolphins in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama experienced an "unusual mortality event" beginning in February 2010 and continuing into 2014, according to the study, written by a team of 22 researchers.

Two billion cups of coffee are drunk around the world every day and 25 million families rely on growing coffee for a living. Over the past 15 years, consumption of the drink has risen by 43% - but researchers are warning that the world's most popular coffee, Arabica, is under threat.Although there are 124 known species of coffee, most of the coffee that's grown comes from just two - Arabica and Robusta.

The Antarctic ozone hole would have been 40% bigger by now if ozone-depleting chemicals had not been banned in the 1980s, according to research.Models also show that at certain times, a large hole would have opened up at the other end of the globe.

Is Europa habitable? That's the big question that NASA hopes to answer in a future mission to the icy moon, slated to launch sometime in the 2020s. New details emerged on Tuesday when NASA revealed the nine scientific instruments chosen to chip away at Europa's mysteries.Europa is thought to be the best candidate for hosting extraterrestrial life in the solar system, thanks to its suspected ocean beneath a crust of ice that could be up to several kilometres thick.

Neanderthal hunters may themselves have been prey for big cats and other carnivores. According to a recent study, some punctures on Neanderthal fossils are likely bite marks from large carnivore attacks.Scientists know what the average Neanderthal ate, how they hunted, who they mated with, how they divvied up chores and to some degree where they crossed paths with large carnivores.

Tens of centuries ago, animals were increasingly seen as sacred representation of gods in ancient Egypt. Pilgrims would often pay for the mummification of an animal, in return for divine favor or revelation. And so a lucrative industry began (made up of animal keepers, embalmers, priests, and laborers building the cemeteries and catacombs) and, over time, up to 70 million animals were carefully preserved -- or so Ancient Egyptians thought.

In a melding of modern-day technology and 3,000-year-old artifacts, a team supported by National Geographic is getting some of the first glimpses into ancient pyramids, temples, and burial sites sprawled across the Sudanese desert.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7tAuPi_azU

ITER, the international fusion reactor being built in France, will stand 10 stories tall, weigh three times as much as the Eiffel Tower, and cost its seven international partners $18 billion or more. The result of decades of planning, ITER will not produce fusion energy until 2027 at the earliest. And it will be decades before an ITER-like plant pumps electricity into the grid. Surely there is a quicker and cheaper route to fusion energy.

The world's largest atom smasher is really cranking now: Protons zipped around the giant underground ring at near light-speed and collided head on, releasing record-breaking energies.The beauty of the fallout from these powerful particle smash-ups can be seen in images released yesterday (May 21) by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which oversees the 17-mile-long (27 kilometers) Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Northrop Grumman has a new idea for exploring Venus. Announced earlier this month, the Venus Atmospheric Maneuverability Platform (or VAMP) would let NASA skim Venus's upper atmosphere with an inflatable aircraft, deployed from space.Since the craft is self-inflated, it would be light enough to stay aloft with little to no energy, but still be maneuverable enough to navigate Venus's significant atmospheric winds and durable enough to withstand the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.

The latest views of Ceres' enigmatic white spots are sharper and clearer, but it's obvious that Dawn will have to descend much lower before we'll see crucial details hidden in this overexposed splatter of white dots. Still, there are hints of interesting things going on here.The latest photo is part of a sequence of images shot for navigation purposes on May 16, when the spacecraft orbited 4,500 miles (7,200 km) over the dwarf planet. Of special interest are a series of troughs or cracks in Ceres crust that appear on either side of the crater housing the spots.

Is the Red Planet giving off methane?The question has taunted scientists for nearly 50 years, ever since the Mariner 7 spacecraft detected a whiff of the gas near the south pole of Mars. Researchers retracted the finding a month later after realizing that the signal was in fact coming from carbon dioxide ice.

With bee populations declining to worrying levels, there has been a call for citizens to play their part by building bee hotels, man-made contraptions that act as a resting place for solitary pollinator bees, who may not produce honey, but still play a vital role in the growth of fruits and vegetables, plants and flowers. Many people have set up these artificial nesting sites in their gardens and backyards. Hotels put them on their rooftops. So are the bees multiplying as hoped?

TV food commercials disproportionately stimulate the brains of overweight teenagers, including the regions that control pleasure, taste and -- most surprisingly -- the mouth, suggesting they mentally simulate unhealthy eating habits that make it difficult to lose weight later in life.Related: Vegan Diet Eases Nerve Pain of Diabetes

Certain blind individuals have the ability to use echoes from tongue or finger clicks to recognize objects in the distance, and use echolocation as a replacement for vision. Research shows echolocation in blind individuals is a full form of sensory substitution, and that blind echolocation experts recruit regions of the brain normally associated with visual perception when making echo-based assessments of objects.

Researchers are planning the first pilot study of MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of social anxiety in autistic adults.In a recent review in press in the journal, Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, a team of researchers led by Alicia Danforth, laid out their proposed methods and study rationale for what will be the first assessment of the therapeutic effects of MDMA, the active component of the street drug Ecstasy, for social anxiety in autistic adults.

Are aliens checking out the exhibits at the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Museum to get a feel for when humans might be capable of visiting their planet? Is the facility haunted by the ghost of a guy in a balloon-powered lawn chair wanting to be recognized? Those are just some of the questions being asked by employees at the Florida museum after security camera footage twice showed a mysterious orb in the building recently.

New Zealand astronomers have helped re-create the skies above Rome for simulations showing how ancient emperors built structures to align with the movements of the sun.Waikato University researchers calculated the alignment of the sun and stars from thousands of years ago for the project, for the History Channel.

When the conversation turns to the weather and the climate, most people's thoughts naturally drift upward toward the clouds, but Jessica Oster's sink down into the subterranean world of stalactites and stalagmites.That is because the assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University is a member of a small group of earth scientists who are pioneering in the use of mineral cave deposits, collectively known as speleothems, as proxies for the prehistoric climate.

Extreme heat waves like the one that killed more than 70,000 Europeans in 2003 may be the most visible examples of deadly weather, but cold days actually cause more deaths than hot ones, a new study says.After examining more than 74 million deaths that occurred in 13 countries from 1985 to 2012, researchers calculated that 7.3% of them could be attributed to cold weather and 0.4% to hot weather.

Living in a city with a high level of vehicle traffic or close to a steel works means living with two intense sources of environmental pollution. However, a study indicates that the harmful pollution particle matter and nitrogen dioxide disappears in breastfed babies during the first four months of life. According to the results of the research, breastfeeding plays a protective role in the presence of these two atmospheric pollutants.

British study suggests surgeons, boxers and tennis players might benefit from watching films in stereoscope before taking on challenging tasksA minority of filmgoers complain of dizziness and headaches, and previous studies have found that viewing in stereoscope offers no measurable improvement in enjoyment. But a new British study suggests that you may just improve your brain power by watching movies in 3D.

A certain type of soil bacteria can use their social behavior of outer membrane exchange to repair damaged cells and improve the fitness of the bacteria population as a whole, new research demonstrates. This is the first evidence that a bacterium can use cell-content sharing to repair damaged siblings, the authors say.

Low-ranking "new girl" chimpanzees seek out other gal pals with similar status, finds a new study of social relationships in the wild apes.The study is available online and is scheduled to appear in the July 2015 issue of the journal Animal Behaviour.Unlike most primates, female chimps are loners compared to males. "They spend about half their time alone or with dependent kids," said Duke University research scientist Steffen Foerster, who co-authored the study.

Many animals feed on seeds, acorns or nuts. The common feature of these are that they have shells and there is no direct way to know what's inside. How do the animals know how much and what quality of food is hidden inside? A simple solution would be to break the shells, which often takes time and effort -- it would be a big disappointment to know that it's rotten or bad after the hard effort of opening the nuts!

A unique adaptation in the foot of birds is the presence of a thumb-like opposable toe, which allows them to grasp and perch. However, in their dinosaur ancestors, this toe was small and non- opposable, and did not even touch the ground, resembling the dewclaws of dogs and cats. Remarkably, the embryonic development of birds provides a parallel of this evolutionary history: The toe starts out like their dinosaur ancestors, but then its base (the metatarsal) becomes twisted, making it opposable.

A living yeast that is part human and part fungus has been engineered by scientists in a feat that shows how, despite a billion years of evolution separating humans from yeast, the two species share hundreds of genes in common.Those genes remain, in part, from the last common ancestor of humans and yeast.Alt: Partly human yeast show a common ancestor's lasting legacy

Not all plastics are created equal. Malleable thermoplastics can be easily melted and reused in products such as food containers. Other plastics, called thermosets, are essentially stuck in their final form because of cross-linking chemical bonds that give them their strength for applications such as golf balls and car tires.

The day Erik Sorto reached out to grab himself an ice cold beer was a major step forward for brain science.Sorto is quadriplegic and has been unable to move his own limbs since a bullet wound severed his spinal cord 12 years ago.

Gamers could soon be dropping their joysticks and pushing their mouse to one side as eye-control becomes the latest way to play games.Using the movement of the head and eyes, gamers using the Fove virtual reality device will be able to control games with the blink of an eye.By making eye contact with virtual characters possible, gamers will also be able to use expressions and emotions to communicate and even influence actions.

A company have developed an electronic pill that convinces the stomach it is full.When swallowed, the pill, designed by MelCap Systems, activates an external magnet to position it in a specific spot in the stomach, either near the lower esophagus or vagus nerve - one of two nerves that extend from the brain to the abdomen.Alt: Electronic pill that helps you slim by tricking your tummy

It is a mystery that has baffled scientists for decades - how the 'sailing' stones of Death Valley in California apparently move by themselves.The phenomenon has even been spotted in other countries, most notably in the Manchego lagoon Altillo Chica in Spain.Now researchers say they have finally solved the puzzle - and say slippery bacteria in the key.

The remains of another English king could be lurking underneath a 21st-century car park, archaeologists and historians have said. After the well-publicised exhumation in 2012 of Richard III from beneath a council lot in Leicester, attention has shifted to the possibility that Henry I, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, could be lying in similar circumstances in Reading.

You may have heard tales of the highwaymen who, long ago, roved the old British highways in search of gold and silver coins to steal. But, it turns out, that there was also another treasure they sought: wigs.

An iconic Bronze Age girl who was buried in Denmark about 3,400 years ago came from a foreign land, a new analysis of her hair and teeth suggests.The Egtved girl was named after the village where she was found. All of her bones were missing from her remains, but her clothing, hair, nails and some teeth were still in pristine condition.

The smoked mummy of a village chief in Papua New Guinea has gotten a makeover, helping members of his clan connect with his spirit in the "ghost world."The mummy, also a former shaman and warrior named Moimango, was lashed by the elements over the past several decades, causing his body to deteriorate. But scientists were able to restore Moimango's body using materials from the jungle.

A mysterious noise from the sky is continuing to baffle people all over the world - as well as giving those who hear it sleepless nights.Sounding like a trumpet or a collective from a brass section of an orchestra, a selection of videos shot from the Canada to Ukraine, via the U.S., Germany and Belarus show strange goings on above us.

Talk about brilliant! NASA says it has discovered the brightest galaxy ever seen--a super-distant collection of stars that shines with the intensity of more than 300 trillion suns.The record-setting galaxy lies some 12.5 billion light-years from Earth and is an example of a new class of celestial objects known as extremely luminous infrared galaxies (ELIRGs).

Thermonuclear supernovae can be caused by two different processes, confirm scientists.The findings, published in separate papers in this week's Nature, resolve a long-standing debate about the origins of these stellar explosions, and how they are used to measure cosmic distances across the universe.

Researchers have pinpointed the driest location on Earth in the Atacama Desert, a region in Chile already recognised as the most arid in the world. They have also found evidence of life at the site, a discovery that could have far-reaching implications for the search for life on Mars.For more than a decade, the Yungay region has been established as the driest area of the hyper-arid Atacama desert, with conditions close to the so-called "dry limit" for life on Earth.

In its early years, planet Mars comprised large volumes of groundwater, which regularly flowed to the surface. This is the conclusion reached by Utrecht University's PhD candidate Wouter Marra following observations and scale experiments. Regardless of the climate, the water in the ground was liquid and was, for a long time, the main source of water on Mars. Marra will defend his PhD thesis from the User Support Programme Space Research on 22 May.

A machine that would allow scientists to peer deeper than ever before into the atomic nucleus is a big step closer to being built. A high-level panel of nuclear physicists is expected to endorse the proposed Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) in a report scheduled for publication by October. It is unclear how long construction would take.The panel is the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, which produces regular ten-year plans for the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation.

Scientists in America will collaborate to draw up a set of ethical guidelines around the rights and wrongs of editing the human genome.The move comes after the shock discovery in April that researchers in China had successfully edited genes within human embryos.

Surprisingly, the answer is yes.They might seem like the strong, tall and silent type, but trees actually communicate with each other.Forest ecologist Dr Suzanne Simard, from the University of British Colombia, studies a type of fungi that forms underground communication networks between trees in North American forests.

Organic farms act as a refuge for wild plants, offsetting the loss of biodiversity on conventional farms, a study suggests.Fields around organic farms have more types of wild plants, providing benefits for wildlife, say scientists.

A home cooked meal is better for your blood pressure than takeout, according to a recent study.Researchers from the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore found that eating out have been shown to be associated with higher caloric intake, higher saturated fat intake and higher salt intake. These eating patterns are thought to cause high blood pressure.

The effects of alcohol and the "love hormone" oxytocin aren't all that different, according to a study review done by researchers at the University of Birmingham in the UK. More specifically, both can lead to great euphoria -- and some negative, even destructive behavior as well.

New research shows that infections can impair your cognitive ability measured on an IQ scale. The study is the largest of its kind to date, and it shows a clear correlation between infection levels and impaired cognition.Anyone can suffer from an infection, for example in their stomach, urinary tract or skin. However, a new Danish study shows that a patient's distress does not necessarily end once the infection has been treated. In fact, ensuing infections can affect your cognitive ability measured by an IQ test.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews have discovered that crows, like humans, store their tools when they don't need them. The study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B is the first to examine how non-human animals avoid accidental tool loss.New Caledonian crows are famous for using stick tools to extract insects from tree holes and other hiding places.

Dogs' special relationship to humans may go back 27,000 to 40,000 years, according to genomic analysis of an ancient Taimyr wolf bone reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 21. Earlier genome-based estimates have suggested that the ancestors of modern-day dogs diverged from wolves no more than 16,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age.Alt: DNA hints at earlier dog evolution

The most famous cannibal in modern cinema delivered a line that became iconic precisely because it evokes in the audience both hunger and disgust. Humans eat food to sate a biological need; we eat to cement social relationships; we eat for emotional, ritual, and celebratory reasons. But often, humans eat other humans for the same reasons.At the Mesoamerican site of Tlatelcomila not far from Mexico City, human bones dating to the Late Preclassic Period, 700-500 BC, show evidence of cannibalism.

Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that most European men descend from just a handful of Bronze Age forefathers, due to a 'population explosion' several thousand years ago.The project, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, was led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics and the study is published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.Alt: Most European men descended from just three ancestors

Hercules and Leo don't know it, but a decision about their future has made history. In granting an order to show cause on whether Hercules and Leo (who just happen to be chimpanzees) are illegally imprisoned, a Supreme Court judge in Manhattan has kept open the possibility that some nonhuman animals will be granted legal rights under common law.

How do you locate small, incredibly rare, shy and speedy possums that like to hang out at the very tops of the tallest trees? You talk to them, of course.Leadbeater or "fairy" possums (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) are critically endangered and only a few thousand of them live in a tiny 70 by 80 kilometre stretch of swampy forest north-east of Melbourne, Australia.

"As clever as a guppy" is not a huge compliment. But intelligence does matter to these tropical fish: big-brained guppies are more likely to outwit predators and live longer than their dim-witted peers.Alexander Kotrschal at Stockholm University, Sweden, and his colleagues bred guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to have brains that were bigger or smaller than average. His team previously showed that bigger brains meant smarter fish.

Male Java sparrows may coordinate their bill-clicking sounds with the notes of their song, according to a study published May 20, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Masayo Soma and Chihiro Mori from Hokkaido University, Japan.Birds may communicate using both vocalizations and movement, as for instance occurs during courtship displays, but scientists' understanding of how they coordinate their movements with the sounds they produce is limited. To further investigate birds' communicative and musical abilities, the authors of this study looked into the vocalizations and bill sounds associated with singing in the Java sparrow, a song bird.

Millions of tiny spiders recently fell from the sky in Australia, alarming residents whose properties were suddenly covered with not only the creepy critters, but also mounds of their silky threads. But that's not where the frightful news ends: Experts say that such arachnid rains aren't as uncommon as you might think.This month's spider downpour in the country's Southern Tablelands region is just the most recent example of a phenomenon commonly known as "spider rain" or, in some circles, "angel hair,".

Neanderthals were tough enough to survive for almost 200,000 years and thrived during the freezing conditions of most of the last Ice Age.But it seems these thick-boned, heavily built ancient human cousins were not strong enough to escape becoming meals for large predators that lived alongside them.While Neanderthals are known to have been formidable hunters themselves, forensic analysis of injuries on their remains has suggested they fell victim to carnivores such as bears or big cats.

Ancient mourners may have left flowers on the grave of an Ice-Age woman known as the Red Lady of El Mirón, new research suggests.The woman, called the Red Lady because her body and bones had been smeared with a brilliant, sparkling pigment made from red ocher, lived about 18,700 years ago and was buried in a cave in what is now Spain. A large clump of pollen that was unearthed in the burial suggests people at the time placed flowers into the woman's grave, researchers said in a new study.

IT WAS one small fall for a tetrapod, but it signals one giant leap for tetrapod kind. A broken leg bone pushes back the emergence of our four-legged ancestors from water on to land by at least 2 million years.A gap in the tetrapod fossil record means we know little about what happened between the time when limbs evolved from fish fins some 360 million years ago and the first land-adapted tetrapods appeared 330 million years ago.

Scientists in South Korea have developed a new way to store energy that also offers a solution to a growing environmental problem.Reporting their findings in the IOP Publishing journal Nanotechnology, the research team successfully converted used cigarette butts into a high performing material that could be integrated into computers, handheld devices, electric vehicles and wind turbines to store energy.Related: Fossil fuels subsidised by a 'shocking' $10m a minute, say IMF experts

Scientists have identified a drug that simultaneously makes ageing muscle and brain tissue in mice act young again. The research is in its very early stages, but this could represent the first step towards a treatment that restores youth to multiple parts of the body at once.As we get older, part of the reason our bodies start failing is because adult stem cells stop replacing our damaged cells. But scientists have found that a drug known as Alk5 kinase inhibitor can perk up old stem cells in various tissue types around the body, restoring their ability to keep it young.

Why do vampires from Dracula to Angel seem to crave the blood of the young and beautiful? The undead may be onto something. Young blood, it seems, has special healing properties that have been lost in older blood.A recent finding by scientists from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, and Duke University challenges long-held ideas about why our bones have a harder time healing as we age. Their research discovered that old mouse bones mend like youthful bones do when they're exposed to young blood after a fracture.

Talk of a "chickenosaurus" lit up the science world last week when researchers announced they had modified the beak of a chicken embryo to resemble the snout of its dinosaur ancestors. But although some experts have lauded the feat, a beak is just one of many modifications needed to revert a chicken into a dinosaur.Given these obstacles, how close are scientists to creating a dino-chicken?

US researchers say that they can distinguish individual whales based on the sound of the animals' voices.Using a large set of recordings of North Atlantic right whales, they found that detailed analysis of one particular type of call allowed them to single out individual whales.

Playing natural sounds such as flowing water in offices could boosts worker moods and improve cognitive abilities in addition to providing speech privacy, according to a new study.An increasing number of modern open-plan offices employ sound masking systems that raise the background sound of a room so that speech is rendered unintelligible beyond a certain distance and distractions are less annoying.

He is a handsome, laurel-wreathed man in a toga with a fine beard and hipster moustache holding an ear of corn in one hand and a fritillary in the other. But could he be the true face William Shakespeare?The botanist and historian Mark Griffiths on Tuesday claimed that he had discovered what he firmly believes is the only demonstrably authentic portrait of Shakespeare made in his lifetime.

As a land made famous for its strange temples, monuments, carvings, and cultures, Guatemala is home to more unsolved mysteries than almost anywhere in the world. With a tumultuous past, and a people ravaged by war, conquest, disease, and economic disaster, it is a place known for holding tightly to its secrets, demanding outsiders respect the history they seek to decipher.

My goodness newspapers are so screwed up! I gave a short interview to the London Sunday Times last week (see story attached below) concerning the upcoming release of my new book "Magicians of the Gods" which will be published in the UK on 10 September and a few months later in the US. Magicians of the Gods is the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods and to be clear Magicians is a COMPLETELY NEW BOOK, not repeat NOT an "update" of Fingerprints but a wholly new work packed from front to back with new evidence of a lost civilisation destroyed in a global cataclysm 12,800 years ago. If you want to read a brief description of what Magicians of the Gods is REALLY all about, and if you would like to pre-order a copy of the UK edition which will be released on 10 September, you can find it through these links to the book's page on Amazon UK.UK Hardback: http://amzn.to/1AaeFhAUK Kindle: http://amzn.to/1JsMHQ0Amazon do not charge your credit card until they send you the book on 10 September.The newspaper reports have managed to muddle everything up -- for a start the Sunday Times (see image attached) says that back in 1995 in Fingerprints I talked about a comet impact. This is not the case. The cataclysmic mechanism I explored in Fingerprints was Charles Hapgood's theory of Earth Crust Displacement. In 1995 there was no science concerning a comet impact. There are interesting interlinkages between the Earth Crust Displacement theory and comet impact -- with the impact perhaps a precipitating factor in the former -- but the new science I focus on in Magicians is the compelling evidence put forward since 2007, and particularly strongly since 2013, for a massive series of impacts from large fragments of a disintegrating giant comet 12,800 years ago. These impacts caused a global cataclysm that geologists call the Younger Dryas that lasted from 12,800 years ago to 11,600 years ago and changed the face of the earth. Everything we have been taught about the origins of civilisation up to now begins AFTER 11,600 years ago. Prior to that date our ancestors are supposed to have been simple hunter gatherers and nothing more. I demonstrate in Magicians that what we have been taught about the origins of civilisation is badly wrong and that there has been a major forgotten episode in human history and that this episode was brought to an end, turning us into a species with amnesia, by the comet impacts, and the resulting global cataclysm, 12,800 years ago. There were survivors of the lost civilisation -- the "Magicians of the Gods" after whom the book is titled -- and it is they who planted the seeds that eventually grew to fruition in the historical civilisations that we have all been taught about in school.So far the Sunday Times article, which itself contains several errors, has been picked up and recycled by at least two other newspapers -- the Daily Mirror (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/comet-wiped-out-highly-advanced-5711279) which introduces further distortions into what I actually said to the Sunday Times journalist, and the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/18/graham-hancock-comet-advanced-civilisation_n_7304044.html) which introduces even more distortions. For example the Huffington Post story claims I say the comet impact was on Antarctica. This is absolutely NOT the case. The epicentre of the comet impacts was on the North American ice cap (12,800 years ago we were still in the Ice Age and the northern half of North America was covered by ice 2 miles deep). Further fragments of the comet went on to hit the northern European ice cap and there was fall-out as far away as the Middle East. But there were NO impacts on Antarctica. I have no idea where the Huffington Post got that from, but it certainly wasn't from me!! If you are interested in seeing how the press can get things wrong do read these stories and then compare with what the book is actually about which is set out in the Amazon UK description: http://amzn.to/1AaeFhAThank you for your interest in my work. Without the support of my readers I could get nothing done! Onwards and upwards.

HYDERABAD: Iron Age may have come into existence in Telangana much before the rest of the world. At least that's the conclusion reached by archaeologists excavating the University of Hyderabad campus who found iron artefacts dating back to roughly 2,200 BC.

A Malaysian indigenous group has revived its alphabet from the brink of extinction, thanks to specially designed computer fonts.The Iban is the largest indigenous group in Malaysia with a population of more than one million, most of whom live in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia. The Iban language is fairly common. It is the only indigenous language that is officially taught in Sarawak schools and is spoken not only among the Iban but also between the Iban and other ethnic groups. However, it was not a written language until Dunging anak Gunggu invented the first Iban alphabet in 1947.

The degree to which we are a product of our genes or the environment has been calculated by an analysis of 50 years of twin studies.In a study published today, an international team including Australian researchers shows an almost 50-50 split in the influence of genes or the environment on the development of various human traits.

The latest AI devices can't just gauge your mood from what you say and how you say it, they can work out the best way to respond to cheer you up"BRIAN? How are you, Brian?" The voice is coming from a screen dominated by a vast blue cartoon eyeball, its pupil dilating in a way that makes it look both friendly and quizzical. Think HAL reimagined by Pixar.

ROOMBAS were just the start. An office cleaning robot is being put through its paces by Dussmann, one of Germany's largest cleaning companies, at its Berlin HQ. The goal is getting it to work alongside human cleaners in large offices, emptying bins and vacuuming floors.

We know pets calm us down and cheer us up, but now researchers have found they can be good for us in ways we could never have imagined.Not only do pets help develop friendships between people, but they can increase the amount of physical and emotional support that people give each other, says Associate Professor Lisa Wood from the University of Western Australia's School of Population Health.