Newsdesk Archive
Seeing is smelling for a camera system developed by scientists in Japan that images ethanol vapour escaping from a wine glass. And, perhaps most importantly, no wine is wasted in the process.Kohji Mitsubayashi, at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University, and colleagues impregnated a mesh with the enzyme alcohol oxidase, which converts low molecular weight alcohols and oxygen into aldehydes and hydrogen peroxide.
Young adults who eat meals in restaurants rather than at home have a greater risk of high blood pressure, a new study suggests.High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the leading risk factor for death associated with cardiovascular disease. Studies have shown that young adults with pre-hypertension, or slightly elevated blood pressure, are at very high risk of hypertension.
People focus less on bad feelings and experiences from the past (i.e. rumination) after four weeks of probiotics administration. Psychologists Laura Steenbergen and Lorenza Colzato from the Leiden Institute of Brain and Cognition published their findings in Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
Television is one of the most commonly-viewed forms of media throughout the world. The ever-increasing popularity of television has made it a common feature in nearly every home. Recently, researchers have begun to look at how television may be beneficial or detrimental.Considering that childhood is a time of rapid learning and development, children may be especially impacted by watching television.
It is said that happiness is contagious and now scientists believe they may know why.For the first time researchers have found that humans can pick up whether a person is feeling joyful through their smell.
Dark matter may not be so dark after all, after scientists witnessed the mysterious cosmic entity interacting with the universe around it an entirely new way.Despite accounting for an estimated 85 per cent of matter in the Universe, dark matter has never been seen directly by any scientific instruments.Alt: Wait a Minute, Dark Matter May Not be Dark After All
Physicists have managed to make homogenous cylindrical objects completely invisible in the microwave range. Contrary to the now prevailing notion of invisibility that relies on metamaterial coatings, the scientists achieved the result using a homogenous object without any additional coating layers. The method is based on a new understanding of electromagnetic wave scattering.
A London-based company has launched a prototype "robo-chef" for the home.Moley Robotics is demonstrating its concept at this year's Hannover Messe - a big trade fair for industrial technology held annually in Germany.The cooking machine learns by capturing the movements of a human in the action of preparing a meal.
In what is being called the world's first virtual political demonstration, Spanish activists have used holograms to protest a controversial new law limiting the rights and freedoms of protestors."Our protest with holograms is ironic," noted Holograms For Freedom spokesperson Carlos Escano in El Mundo. "With the restrictions we're suffering on our freedoms of association and peaceful assembly, the last options that will be left to use in the end will be to protest through our holograms.".
From smartphone apps like Siri to features like facial recognition of photos, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a part of everyday life. But humanity should take more care in developing AI than with other technologies, experts say.Science and tech heavyweights Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking have warned that intelligent machines could be one of humanity's biggest existential threats.Related: Will robots get away with war crimes? Human Rights Watch warns that no one will be accountable if AI commits atrocities
The image above looks like an uninspired digital reworking of a beautiful painting, but it's something more. The technique, called wavelet decomposition, shows us the different brushstrokes that make up a painting, and let us see a painter's style in a new way (or an imposter's).Analysis of style is very complicated, which is why so many art critics occasionally fail to spot a forgery.
A painting hanging on the wall in an art gallery tells one story. What lies beneath its surface may tell quite another.Often in a Rembrandt, a Vermeer, a Leonardo, a Van Eyck, or any other great masterpiece of western art, the layers of paint are covered with varnish, sometimes several coats applied at different times over their history. The varnish was originally applied to protect the paint underneath and make the colors appear more vivid, but over the centuries it can degrade.
Last month saw the mortal remains of King Richard III reinterred at Leicester Cathedral, more than two years after University of Leicester archaeologists discovered his skeleton in a car park in August 2012.The body of a mediaeval monarch was always under scrutiny, and Richard III's was no exception. In death, however, his body became subject to new forms of examination and interpretation: stripped naked after the Battle of Bosworth, his corpse was carried to Leicester and exhibited before being buried.
Archaeologists excavating an ancient temple site in Cairo have discovered part of a chapel used by a pharaoh about 2,300 years ago, Egypt's antiquities ministry said on Tuesday.The discovery was made at a site in the ancient Pharaonic capital of Heliopolis, today a sprawl of working and middle class districts in Cairo.
It marks the moment when the civilised world entered the Dark Ages and some of the most spectacular societies in the world disappeared.Now one historian claims he has unraveled what may have lead to the downfall of Ancient Egypt and other Bronze Age civilisations collapse.He claims they were hit by a 'perfect storm' of disasters 3,200 years ago that left the Ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, Minoans and Mycenians unable to cope.
A warming climate may have enabled the earliest humans to venture into Western Europe 1.4 million years ago, a new study suggests.Researchers believe that the spread of our distant human ancestors, the hominins, had been halted by colder and drier temperatures.But as conditions warmed, they were able to branch out from Africa into Spain, and ultimately spread across Europe.Related: Joe Rogan Experience #501 - Randall Carlson
Chimpanzees are capable of some degree of planning for the future, in a manner similar to human children, while some species of monkeys struggle with this task, according to researchers at Georgia State University, Wofford College and Agnes Scott College.Their findings were published on March 23 in the Journal of Comparative Psychology.
Humans aren't the only ones who hunt with weapons -- a troop of chimps in the wild have been observed crafting sharp spears to stab their prey.The technique, described in the latest issue of the journal Royal Society Open Science, could have originated with the common ancestor of humans and chimps, suggesting that the earliest humans hunted in a similar manner.The chimps spent time making the deadliest, most effective spears.
Neanderthals from the French region of Poitou-Charentes cut, beat and fractured the bones of their recently deceased companions, as revealed by the fossil remains of two adults and a child found at the Marillac site. These manipulations have been observed at other Neanderthal sites, but scientists still do not know whether they did this for food or ceremony. Scientists have discovered a large quantity of bone remains of these hominids.
Why are modern humans the only species to have chins? Researchers say it's not due to mechanical forces, such as chewing, but may lie in our evolution: As our faces became smaller, it exposed the bony prominence at the lowest part of our heads.
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is among the most Earthlike places in the solar system. As the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft examines Titan, its discoveries bring new mysteries. One of these is that the seemingly wind-created sand dunes spotted near the moon's equator point one direction, but the near-surface winds point another direction. Astronomers may have solved this mystery.
Measurements made by Rosetta and Philae during the probe's multiple landings on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko show that the comet's nucleus is not magnetised.Studying the properties of a comet can provide clues to the role that magnetic fields played in the formation of Solar System bodies almost 4.6 billion years ago. The infant Solar System was once nothing more than a swirling disc of gas and dust but, within a few million years, the Sun burst into life in the centre of this turbulent disc, with the leftover material going into forming the asteroids, comets, moons and planets.
Mars may have regular deposits of liquid water on its surface according to new data from NASA's Curiosity rover.The findings reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, indicate water vapour in the Martian atmosphere could form overnight frosts on the ground, which are turned liquid by salts in the Martian soil.
Imagine an instrument that can measure motions a billion times smaller than an atom that last a millionth of a second. Fermilab's Holometer is currently the only machine with the ability to take these very precise measurements of space and time, and recently collected data has improved the limits on theories about exotic objects from the early universe.
Nuclear physicists announced the first scientific results from the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) experiment. CUORE is designed to confirm the existence of the Majorana neutrino, which scientists believe could hold the key to why there is an abundance of matter over antimatter.
HOLES in the universe could help explain why it's ripping apart. The number and size of cosmic voids could shed light on the mysterious dark energy that is causing the universe to grow at an ever-increasing pace.In the late 1990s, astronomers realised that the expansion of the universe was accelerating and attributed this to the inherent "dark energy" of space-time.
As the midsummer Sun beats down on the southern mountains of Mars, bringing daytime temperatures soaring up to a balmy 25ºC (77ºF), some of their slopes become darkened with long, rusty stains that may be the result of water seeping out from just below the surface.These dark lines, called recurring slope lineae (RSL) by planetary scientists, are some of the best visual evidence we have of liquid water existing on Mars today.
Now you can explore the ocean floor without leaving your desk.The U.S. Geological Survey this week posted thousands of photos and videos of the U.S. coastline and adjacent seafloor, allowing users to explore sections of the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts in an interactive map. Most of the areas covered in the new imagery have never been seen before.
Leading coral reef scientists say Australia could restore the Great Barrier Reef to its former glory through better policies that focus on science, protection and conservation.In a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the authors argue that all the stressors on the Reef need to be reduced for it to recover.
New research suggests that the synthetic steroids delivered by the female contraceptive pill can shrink certain regions of the female brain and could also be altering their function.Neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles in the US took brain scans of 90 women who were either currently using the pill or not, and found that two key brain regions were thinner in pill users - the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.
Right after birth, trillions of microbes rush into a baby's gut and start to grow. Most of these critters come from the mom's skin, birth canal and gut.But exactly which types of bacteria take up residence in an infant's gut can depend on the mother's DNA, scientists reported Thursday.
People who are self-admitted procrastinators are also more likely to have heart disease, according to a study published online this week in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine. Fuschia M. Sirois of Bishop's University in Quebec, who led the research, gave a group of people with hypertension and cardiovascular disease and a group of healthy people a variety of questionnaires, including one designed to measure their proclivity toward putting things off.
Most people are in the pursuit of happiness. There are economists who think happiness is the best indicator of the health of a society. We know that money can make you happier, though after your basic needs are met, it doesn't make you that much happier. But one of the biggest questions is how to allocate our money, which is (for most of us) a limited resource.Related: Sexy men make others take bigger risks with money
What do you do when you cannot figure out how to finish a tricky task at work? Or you are lost on back roads? Or you are trying a new do-it-yourself project in your house and just cannot seem to make it look like the photograph that inspired you on Pinterest? In life when you are stuck, there are many solutions. For example, you could invest more time and effort by brainstorming alternative approaches, using trial and error or looking up tricks of the trade online.But one thing most people know to avoid for sure: asking for advice.
This is taken from the introduction of The Divine Spark: A Graham Hancock Reader: Psychedelics, Consciousness, and the Birth of Civilization. See more at The Divine Spark Library PageI've been very lucky; I feel I've been blessed; I've lived a blessed life. I'm grateful to the universe for giving me the chance to live this life.But why am I here? Why are you here? Why are we all here on planet earth? Why are we conscious? What are our lives for?
Lucy, arguably the world's most famous early human fossil, is not quite all she seems. A careful look at the ancient hominin's skeleton suggests one bone may actually belong to a baboon.In November 1974, palaeoanthropologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray made the discovery of a lifetime near the village of Hadar in Ethiopia: dozens of fossil fragments belonging to a single hominin skeleton dating back 3.2 million years.
New research shows how inkjet-printing technology can be used to mass-produce electronic circuits made of liquid-metal alloys for "soft robots" and flexible electronics.Elastic technologies could make possible a new class of pliable robots and stretchable garments that people might wear to interact with computers or for therapeutic purposes. However, new manufacturing techniques must be developed before soft machines become commercially feasible, said Rebecca Kramer, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University.
Sleeping in a cramped, upright airline seat is a unique form of torture, but Boeing has an idea that could one day fix that. A recent patent from the company reveals a "sleep support system" that unfolds into a pseudo massage table with a "a face relief aperture." The device is built into "backpack" that can be stowed under an airline seat. After you take out the backpack, you open it up and unfold the head rest.
Two hundred years ago a volcanic eruption cooled the Earth. Could it help us tackle global warming today?The island of Sumbawa in what is now Indonesia began to crack apart 200 years ago this week. On 10 April 1815, an explosion that could be heard a thousand miles away announced the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.
A University of Arizona-led team of astronomers found that the type of supernovae commonly used to measure distances in the universe fall into distinct populations not recognized before; the findings have implications for our understanding of how fast the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang.Certain types of supernovae, or exploding stars, are more diverse than previously thought, a University of Arizona-led team of astronomers has discovered.
A new piece of evidence is reigniting controversy over the potential bones of Jesus of Nazareth.A bone box inscribed with the phrase "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is potentially linked to a tomb in Talpiot, Israel, where the bones of people with the names of Jesus' family members are buried, according to a new chemical analysis.Related: The Mystery of the Lost Ark in Japan
In this article Robert Klein revisits a chapter of his unpublished manuscript Paradigms Shift in which he discusses the development of infrastructure in ancient societies and explains his theory on the mathematics and engineering of the Great Pyramid.I wrote this material over ten years ago and since then much has been added and discovered regarding prehistory and the Global Atlantean Age that I have shown to date conveniently between 2500 BC and 1159 BC. I presently suspect that the Atlantean Age ended directly with the outright subsidence of the Atlantic Ridge and the Cuban Arch.
It has been said that the period between 760 BCE to 656 BCE in Egypt was the 'age of the black pharaohs'. It was during this time that ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty or succession of kings from Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush, a rival African kingdom just to its south in what is today northern Sudan. Beginning with king Kashta's successful invasion of Upper Egypt, what became known as the 25th Dynasty achieved the reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and also Kush (Nubia), the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They introduced new Kushite cultural elements into Egypt, yet they also reaffirmed and promoted the traditional ancient Egyptian religion, temples, and artistic forms.
The calcite-encrusted skeleton of an ancient human, still embedded in rock deep inside a cave in Italy, has yielded the oldest Neanderthal DNA ever found.These molecules, which could be up to 170,000 years old, could one day help yield the most complete picture yet of Neanderthal life, researchers say.
A study in Royal Society Open Science says that so called 'Neanderthal bone flutes' are no more than the damaged bones of cave bear cubs left by scavengers during the Ice Age.The paper suggests that the 'flutes', which are often attributed as being the oldest musical instruments in the world, were misidentified when they were first discovered in the 1920s. The author of the paper, Cajus G. Diedrich, says the bones are the damaged remains of bear cubs left by the teeth of Ice Age spotted hyenas.
A tiny flower pressed between layers of sandstone for more than 160 million years could be the oldest flower fossil ever found, a new study reports.However, not everyone agrees that the fossil represents an actual flower or that it is as old as the study claims.
Dozens of tombs filled with up to 40 mummies each have been discovered around a 1,200-year-old ceremonial site in Peru's Cotahuasi Valley.So far, the archaeologists have excavated seven tombs containing at least 171 mummies from the site, now called Tenahaha.
The leader of a nonprofit archaeology organization says he's baffled by an act of vandalism that was recently discovered in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon."It's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen," said Spangler, who has more than two decades of experience in the field.
A new study has thrown light on how people can become killers in certain situations, showing how brain activity varies according to whether or not killing is seen as justified.The study, led by Monash researcher Dr Pascal Molenberghs, School of Psychological Sciences, is published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Shooting or trapping feral cats may increase their numbers, a new study has found.The accidental finding, made during research into the ecological impact of feral cats, emphasises the need to monitor the effects of culling programs, say wildlife biologist Billie Lazenby of the Tasmanian department of primary industries.
Researchers have produced the first whole-genome sequences of endangered mountain gorillas in the Virunga volcanic mountain range in central Africa. Findings from sequence analysis suggest the gorillas have lived in small groups for thousands of years, coping well with inbreeding that scientists feared would lead to health problems. Based on these results, scientist say the gorillas, if properly protected from habitat destruction and hunting, should continue to flourish for thousands of years to come.
A tracking study has shown that young sea turtles make a concerted effort to swim in particular directions, instead of drifting with ocean currents.Baby turtles disappear at sea for up to a decade and it was once assumed that they spent these "lost years" drifting.
The taming of the auroch probably began with rounding up those animals that would tolerate humans. Eventually, people could have selected mild-mannered aurochs for breeding. By contrast, now-tame predators such as dogs and cats may have kick-started their own domestication, with friendlier animals thriving on food they found in camps and settlements.These are just a few of the evolutionary origin stories that science journalist Richard Francis shares in Domesticated.
Amazon has won approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to begin testing delivery drones in the United States.Last month, Amazon was granted a similar certificate from the FAA, but because that request spent six months in regulatory limbo, the prototype drone approved by federal regulators had become obsolete.
Researchers sketching out a 'wiring diagram' for rat brains have discovered its structure is organized like the Internet.They say the animal's cerebral cortex is 'like a mini-Internet'.The first comprehensive picture of how neurons connect to one another found local networks of neurons layered like the shells in a Russian nesting doll.
TRANSLUCENT comb jellies are some of the most primitive animals on Earth, yet they have remarkable nervous systems. Controversial data discussed at a meeting in London last month proposes that their neurons are unlike any others on Earth. This could be evidence that neurons evolved more than once in the history of animal life.The suggestion that neurons evolved in parallel multiple times has divided biologists for over a century.
An odd asteroid rotated so fast that it blew itself apart, a new study suggests.Researchers using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii spotted four fragments of the asteroid, known as P/2012 F5, and also determined that it completes one rotation every 3.24 hours. The space rock is thus spinning fast enough to spontaneously break apart, study team members said.
For the first time, physicists have achieved interference between two separate atoms: when sent towards the opposite sides of a semi-transparent mirror, the two atoms always emerge together. This type of experiment, which was carried out with photons around thirty years ago, had so far been impossible to perform with matter, due to the extreme difficulty of creating and manipulating pairs of indistinguishable atoms.
HOLD that thought. When it comes to consciousness, the brain may be doing just that. It now seems that conscious perception requires brain activity to hold steady for hundreds of milliseconds. This signature in the pattern of brainwaves can be used to distinguish between levels of impaired consciousness in people with brain injury.
A few days ago on reddit, user bobitis explained that an 11-year-old walked into his daughter's college lecture and drew this map on the whiteboard...entirely from memory. The incredibly detailed diagram doesn't just show the overall shape of the continents in mind-blowing detail, it also shows the political divides of modern countries and includes those little frozen islands up in the Arctic Circle.
Yesterday, 30-year-old Russian man Valery Spiridonov volunteered to become the first person in the world to undergo a complete head transplant. Literally his entire head. On a different body.The operation will be carried out by Italian surgeon Dr Sergio Canavero, in what he expects to be a 36-hour procedure involving 150 doctors and nurses.
A boy in Canada mysteriously became allergic to fish and nuts after he received a blood transfusion, according to a new case report.The 8-year-old boy had no history of being allergic to any foods, and was undergoing treatment for medulloblastoma, a type of brain cancer. A few weeks after receiving a blood transfusion, he experienced a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis within 10 minutes of eating salmon, according to the report, published online today (April 7) in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
When children are unmotivated at school, new research suggests their genes may be part of the equation. A study of more than 13,000 twins from six countries found that 40 to 50 percent of the differences in children's motivation to learn could be explained by their genetic inheritance from their parents.
A psychedelic drink used for centuries in healing ceremonies is now attracting the attention of biomedical scientists as a possible treatment for depression. Researchers from Brazil last month published results from the first clinical test of a potential therapeutic benefit for ayahuasca, a South American plant-based brew. Although the study included just six volunteers and no placebo group, the scientists say that the drink began to reduce depression in patients within hours, and the effect was still present after three weeks. They are now conducting larger studies that they hope will shore up their findings.
The Fountain of Youth has been discovered and it's not in Florida as Ponce de Leon claimed. Instead, it was found in the mammary glands of genetically modified mice. A research team has found that when two factors that control tissue development are removed, you can avoid the impact of aging.
Frustrated by hair loss? New research suggests a peculiar, and slightly painful, solution to the ancient condition of baldness: Yank out whatever hair you have left.In a paper published Thursday in the journal Cell, researchers say they provoked fur regeneration in mice by plucking hairs in a precise pattern and concentration.
A revival of pre-Inca water technology in the mountains of the Andes is set to keep taps flowing in the drought-affected Peruvian capital, Lima. Grouting ancient canals, it turns out, is a far cheaper solution to the city's water crisis than building a new desalination plant.Lima is one of the world's largest desert cities and relies for water on rivers that flow out of the Andes.
A 90%-complete "terror bird" skeleton found on an Argentinean beach suggests these big-beaked predators had good low-frequency hearing and deep voices.It is the most complete skeleton ever discovered for one of these menacing beasts, and represents a new species.
Remains of a mutilated dinosaur victim provide strong evidence for what has long been suspected - Tyrannosaurus rex and his kin were violent animals that also practiced cannibalism.The remains, described in the latest issue of the journal PeerJ, are of the large carnivorous tyrannosaur Daspletosaurus, which suffered numerous injuries during its lifetime and was partially eaten after it died.
Wander deep into the cloud forests of South America, and you might just encounter a dragon. Also known as woodlizards, dwarf dragons are diverse reptiles that come in shocking shades of neon green and bloody red. Some look strikingly like miniature versions of their mythological namesake, with flaming scarlet eyes and armor-like spikes seemingly straight out of a painting of Saint George battling his nemesis.
A species of crab spider is able to slowly change its color to match its background when hunting, a rare ability in the animal kingdom, says a Ball State University professor.Gary Dodson, a Ball State biology professor, and Alissa Anderson, who graduated with a master's degree in 2012 from Ball State, were the first to measure the rate of color change in the whitebanded crab spider, an arachnid with the scientific name of Misumenoides formosipes. Anderson is now pursuing her doctorate at the University of Nebraska. Their study was recently published in the journal Ecological Entomology.
Patterns appearing on both the very large and very small scale are extremely rare, but researchers have found a similar pattern in two apparently unrelated systems -- skin cells and fairy circles in the Namibian desert.
An ancient human skull and a jawbone found a few meters away in a cave in northern Laos add to the evidence that early modern humans were physically quite diverse, researchers report in PLOS ONE.The skull, found in 2009 in a cave known as Tam Pa Ling in the Annamite Mountains of present-day Laos, and reported in 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the oldest modern human fossil found in Southeast Asia.
Samples from mummies in a Hungarian crypt have revealed that multiple tuberculosis strains derived from a single Roman ancestor that circulated in 18th-century Europe, scientists said Tuesday.Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, drew on a remarkable, if gruesome, source.
In the middle of the 13th century the Vikings who had settled in Greenland encountered no less than ten years of harsh and cold winters and summers. The Norsemen, who were living as farmers, bid farewell to many of their cattle during that period.The Greenland Vikings were also prevented from setting sail to fetch supplies from their homelands in Europe because they didn't have enough timber to build trading ships. So when Scandinavian traders didn't happen to pass by they were left entirely on their own.
Scientists working to help safeguard the Earth from potential asteroid strikes are moving forward with a novel Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, to provide advance warning of potentially dangerous space rocks.The ATLAS project is an asteroid impact early-warning system being developed by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA. The project is dedicated to providing a one-day warning in the event of a potential 30-kiloton "town killer" asteroid strike; a week's warning for a 5-megaton "city killer"; and three weeks' notice for a potential 100-megaton "county killer" impact.
Humanity is on the verge of discovering alien life, high-ranking NASA scientists say."I think we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years," NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said Tuesday (April 7) during a panel discussion that focused on the space agency's efforts to search for habitable worlds and alien life.Alt: The solar system and beyond is awash in water
For the first time, astronomers have discovered complex organic molecules, the basic building blocks for life, in a disk of gas and dust surrounding an alien star.To the researchers' surprise, the organics found around a young star called MWC 480 are not only surviving but thriving in quantities slightly higher than those thought to have existed in the early solar system.Alt: Complex Organic Molecules Discovered in Infant Star System
The Sun undergoes a type of seasonal variability with its activity waxing and waning over the course of nearly two years, according to a new study by a team of researchers led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). This behavior affects the peaks and valleys in the approximately 11-year solar cycle, sometimes amplifying and sometimes weakening the solar storms that can buffet Earth's atmosphere.The quasi-annual variations appear to be driven by changes in the bands of strong magnetic fields in each solar hemisphere.
Though the tombs of two ancient Egyptian priests excavated recently had been vandalized and their bones scattered across the burial chamber many centuries ago, beautiful paintings on the walls and some objects are intact.The paintings and some artifacts show the priests were involved in the sacred rite of mummification.The remains of the deceased were in the tombs but had been strewn about. Experts believe the Sixth Dynasty tombs from about 4,200 years ago were vandalized in the Seventh or Eighth dynasties during the 21st century BC.
Researchers are saying that the mound-building Fort Ancient culture of eastern North America experienced a rapid increase in maize production, then went through a slow decline over the ensuing years.Based on a recent δ13C and 87Sr/86Sr isotope analysis study of human tooth enamel sampled from burials at sites associated with the 1000 - 1750 CE Native American Fort Ancient culture.
We are expected to spend $45 billion on perfumes by 2018, but why are humans so obsessed with smelling fragrant?A new book suggests that our fascination with scent started with our ancient ancestors and stretches back millions of years.It could even be the reason why we are able to live in dense societies while living a mainly monogamous lifestyle.
The Dutch have grown in average height by 20 centimeters in the last 200 years. What's behind the growth spurt?One team of researchers hypothesizes in the April 8 Proceedings of the Royal Society B that it's reproductive advantage.Alt: Scientists try to answer why Dutch people are so tall
It has been at the root of division and persecution for centuries, but it seems that the white skin of most modern Europeans did not evolve in Europe at all.Now genetic research has revealed that ancient European populations were dark skinned for far longer than had originally been thought.Rather than lightening as early humans migrated north from Africa around 40,000 years ago due to lower levels of sunlight, these first Homo sapiens retained their dark skin colour.
The self-organization properties of DNA-like molecular fragments four billion years ago may have guided their own growth into repeating chemical chains long enough to act as a basis for primitive life, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of University of Milan.
The secret communication of gibbons has been interpreted for the first time, researchers report. The research reveals the likely meaning of a number of distinct gibbon whispers, or 'hoo' calls, responding to particular events and types of predator, and could provide clues on the evolution of human speech.Alt: Gibbons WHISPER secrets to each other: Apes found to communicate with soft 'hoos' about predators and their neighbours
History was made Monday when the first wild bison was born in Illinois in about two centuries."This was quite the surprise," said Cody Considine, restoration ecologist at the 3,500-acre Nachusa Grasslands, a prairie restoration project near Franklin Grove, about 95 miles west of Chicago.
California-based tech firm FindTheBest has compiled a map showing UFO sightings per capita across the United States. Operating on the assumption that absolutely none of these are, in fact, aliens, what does this map actually tell us?Related: 'Aliens and UFOs at world's deepest lake'
A new model could explain how giant gas planets like Jupiter can exist.Planets such as Jupiter are thought to be very common in the Universe. But computational models of planetary system evolution to date have struggled to explain how these gas giants survive beyond the embryonic stage.
A team of Virginia Tech researchers has discovered a way to create hydrogen fuel using a biological method that greatly reduces the time and money it takes to produce the zero-emissions fuel. This method uses abundantly available corn stover - the stalks, cobs, and husks - to produce the hydrogen.The team's new findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help speed the widespread arrival of the hydrogen-powered vehicles in a way that is inexpensive and has extremely low carbon emissions.
Mounting evidence that the co-pilot crashed a Germanwings plane into a French mountain has prompted a global debate about how to better screen crewmembers for mental illness and how to ensure that no one is left alone in the cockpit.But among many aviation experts, the discussion has taken a different turn. How many human pilots, some wonder, are really necessary aboard commercial planes?One? None?
Researchers are always searching for improved technologies, but the most efficient computer possible already exists. It can learn and adapt without needing to be programmed or updated. It has nearly limitless memory, is difficult to crash, and works at extremely fast speeds. It's not a Mac or a PC; it's the human brain. And scientists around the world want to mimic its abilities.Both academic and industrial laboratories are working to develop computers that operate more like the human brain.
The social media site, Facebook, can be an effective tool for connecting with new and old friends. However, some users may find themselves spending quite a bit of time viewing Facebook and may inevitably begin comparing what's happening in their lives to the activities and accomplishments of their friends.
Ghostly faces and lines of verse previously invisible to the naked eye have been uncovered in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript written entirely in Welsh."The Black Book of Carmarthen," dating to 1250, contains texts from the ninth through 12th centuries, including some of the earliest references to Arthur and Merlin.
More than 200km from the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the remains of an ancient city rise from the arid and inhospitable terrain like a science-fiction film set. Nestled between sand dunes, the secluded pyramids seem to have been forgotten by the modern world, with no nearby restaurants or hotels to cater to tourists.The Nubian Meroe pyramids, much smaller but just as impressive as the more famous Egyptian ones, are found on the east bank of the Nile river, near a group of villages called Bagrawiyah. The pyramids get their name from the ancient city of Meroe, the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, an ancient African kingdom situated in what is now the Republic of Sudan.
New research maps the personality of 380 places in Great Britain. Where do you fit in?From the pushy Londoner to the dour Scot, stereotypes about different personalities across Britain have been a feature of national life and the butt of countless jokes for centuries.So is there anything to learn from the largest study ever conducted into the psychological landscape of the country? Are any of the old cliches remotely true?.
It's hard for consumers to save money because they are often impatient when shopping and do not think about the long-term consequences of spending money."We've known that being aware of the benefits of not spending and being patient contribute to savings, but our research finds that one or the other is not enough. For consumers to be motivated to save money, they need to both consider the future financial consequences and care enough about their financial future when spending money," write authors Daniel M. Bartels and Oleg Urminsky.
A British couple have just won £1m in the EuroMillions lottery for a remarkable second time. In doing so, they have beaten odds of more than 283 billion-to-one. So are they exceptionally lucky, and is there anything we can all do to increase the chances of experiencing such good fortune?A few years ago I conducted a large-scale investigation into luck.
A splash of bleach can kill germs on a kitchen counter, but it may also cause health problems in children, a new study finds.Children in the study who lived in homes or went to schools where bleach was used for cleaning had higher rates of influenza, tonsillitis and other infections, compared with kids who weren't exposed to bleach, the researchers found.
Children exposed to tobacco smoke at home are up to three times more likely to have attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) as unexposed kids, according to a new study from Spain.The association was stronger for kids with one or more hours of secondhand smoke exposure every day, the authors found. And the results held when researchers accounted for parents' mental health and other factors.