Newsdesk Archive
Arachnophobia could be a product of human evolution, according to new research.Spiders presented such a great danger to humans during the early evolutionary stages that a fear of the species became part of our DNA.In Africa, early in human evolution, those with a keen ability to spot the creatures outlived their less wary counterparts.
In many materials, macroscopic magnetic properties emerge when microscopically small magnets align in a fixed pattern throughout the whole solid. In a publication in Nature Communications, Johan Mentink, Karsten Balzer and Martin Eckstein from the University of Hamburg at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) and the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) have predicted that the interactions causing this alignment can be changed almost instantaneously and reversibly under the influence of a laser pulse.
Remember back in 2013 when that lab-grown burger was rolled out for a taste test? One big problem with the patty was that it cost roughly $385,000 to make. The scientist behind that lab burger says he can get the price down substantially.Related: Mad Cow Disease Still Menaces U.K. Blood Supply
Deep underground in the central Anatolian province of Nevşehir, the contours of an ancient city are taking shape, two years after it was discovered by accident.The tip of the vast labyrinthine network was first discovered by Turkish builders in 2012. Now, experts say it is likely to be the largest and most complex underground city in the world.
Hundreds of explorers, theorists and fantasists have spent their lives searching for the infamous 'big-foot'.But a leading geneticist believes he has found evidence to prove that it - or rather she - could have been more than a myth.Professor Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford claims a towering woman named Zana who lived in 19th Century Russia - and appeared to be 'half human, half ape' - could have been the fabled yeti.Alt: Russian 'apewoman' could have been a yeti, according to DNA tests
Jane Goodall is so nice and so good, it's intimidating. She seems an almost mythic figure. She made groundbreaking discoveries about the behavior of chimpanzees when she was only in her 20s, and without any formal training or degree, and she continues to be an authority in the world of primatology.Related: No Need to Replace Himalayan Yeti with Unknown Species of Bear, Says New StudyRelated: Huge Human Skeleton Found at Ancient Bulgarian Fortress
A 2-year-old Rottweiler who lost his paws when he was left out in the freezing cold as a puppy is learning to walk on prosthetics for all four legs.Brutus received the prosthetics through the donations of hundreds of people. New owner Laura Aquilina of Loveland says the ultimate goal is to give Brutus the gift of being a dog.
Closing wounds and surgical incisions with a laser is a step closer to reality, Israeli scientists say.The futuristic technique is better than current methods which damage tissue and can cause scarring, researchers from Tel Aviv University believe.
Brazil has waged a successful war on tropical deforestation, and other countries are trying to follow its lead. But victory remains fragile.Oziel Alves da Silva reins his horse to a stop near the edge of a pasture, and adjusts a baseball cap that has done little to protect his leathery skin from the tropical sun. Keeping an eye out for his herd, he surveys his 274-hectare ranch located in the eastern Amazonian state of Pará. Where he once dreamed of a vast open field covered with grasses and cattle, he sees nothing but palm trees that he cannot cut down.
You've probably wondered how often you need to wash that (sometimes greasy, sometimes not) hair of yours. The question is a vexing one. It's so common, in fact, that it's the third suggestion that pops up when typing "how often" into Google (following queries about showering and pooping).Outside the shower, our scalps gradually get shinier, darker, and more oily. So why does it happen, and how often should you wash to keep the grease at bay?
A novel delivery system for perfume would ensure that a person smelled better the more they sweated, scientists have said.Researchers from Queen's University Belfast isolated molecules that allow a fragrance to be released in response to moisture.Related: Why do our armpits smell? Researchers 'discover molecule that causes body odour'
According to a recent study conducted by Jaime Swift of the Australian National University and colleagues from several other institutions in Australia and Chile, a significant part of a pre-Columbian population in northern Chile suffered from slow poisoning due to the intake of arsenic from water sources.The researchers performed plasma mass spectrometry trace element analysis of human bone and tooth samples from 21 burials excavated at the site of Caleta Vitor on the Pacific coast of northern Chile, a part of the ultra-dry Atacama Desert region.
The woolly mammoth became extinct as a result of crippling bone disease that left them unable to fend off predators, according to startling new evidence from Russia.It was previously thought that the hairy beast simply died out from post-Ice Age climate change and being hunted to extinction by early man.But now a new theory is set to re-write the history books after the examination of more than 23,500 mammoth bones found them riddled with osteoporosis and lacking in calcium.
Modern humans have been blamed for killing off the Neanderthals by out competing them, breeding with them and even outright murdering them.But new research suggests it may actually have been infectious diseases carried by our modern ancestors as they migrated out of Africa that finished them off.Scientists studying the latest genetic, fossil and archaeological evidence claim that Neanderthals suffered from a wide range of diseases that still plague us today.
A team of researchers working in Italy has confirmed that Altamura Man was a Neanderthal and dating of pieces of calcite which were on the remains has revealed that the bones are 128,000 to 187,000 years old. In their paper published in the Journal of Human Evolution, the team describes how they extracted a small bone sample and examined it and what they found by doing so.Altamura Man was discovered in a cave in southern Italy in 1993 by cave explorers. The finding was reported to researchers at the University of Bari.
Earth-like worlds with two suns in their skies, like Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" films, may be widespread throughout the Milky Way galaxy.Although a number of gaseous exoplanets have already been spotted in two-star systems, many astronomers had thought that rocky, potentially habitable worlds could not take shape in an environment with such complex and chaotic orbital dynamics.
On Tuesday afternoon, just about lunch time, a "flying saucer" was undergoing a spin test in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.The saucer is technically a 15-foot wide, 7,000-pound aerodynamic test vehicle. It is designed to help engineers try out new technologies for landing spacecraft, and someday people, on Mars.Related: Planetary Society: We Can Afford to Orbit Humans at Mars by 2033
In 1178, a group of monks at Canterbury saw the moon suddenly explode into sparks, "writhe," and "take on a blackish appearance." What the hell did they see?Throughout history people were always mistaking astronomical events for supernatural signs. Sometimes the signs were interpreted as good omens. More often, strange lights in the sky were considered portents of evil.
Jesus Christ was not a real person and is probably the result of a combination of stories about several different individuals, according to a writer and leading atheist activist.David Fitzgerald, a San Francisco based author, believes he has compiled compelling evidence that proves Jesus did not exist.Related: GHMB Community Interview with Peter Gandy on the mystery and history of JesusRelated: GHMB Interview with Tim Freke on a historical Jesus, and the Mystery Experience
As Christians around the world celebrate Holy Week in preparation for Easter, new research has taken a second look at what Jesus and his disciples might have eaten at the Last Supper, finding that it might not be exactly what you would expect.Generoso Urciuoli, an archaeologist at the Petrie center in Italy and author of the Archeoricette blog on ancient food, told Discovery News on Thursday that the menu likely consisted of a bean stew, lamb, olives, bitter herbs, a fish sauce, unleavened bread, dates and aromatized wine.
For the first time, a research team has isolated energy-burning 'beige' fat from adult humans, which is known to be able to convert unhealthy white fat into healthy brown fat. The scientists also found new genetic markers of this beige fat.
It's not out of a zombie film but it's close: used drywall can help bring dead soils back to life, according to a new University of Alberta study.M. Anne Naeth, a researcher with the Department of Renewable Resources, and her team wondered whether drywall, with its decomposable materials chock-full of nutrients, would be a good compost additive for use on reclaimed land sites.
Millions of miles of tunnels criss-cross the ground under old mining communities across the United States. Abandoned, falling apart and choked with water, the tunnels are often viewed as a dangerous legacy. But the water in these mines could actually be a major geothermal resource.Student researchers at Michigan Technological University have put together the first comprehensive guidebook communities can use to explore the feasibility of using mine water for geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings.
In one of the first studies to examine the potential for using municipal wastewater as a feedstock for algae-based biofuels, Rice University scientists found they could easily grow high-value strains of oil-rich algae while simultaneously removing more than 90 percent of nitrates and more than 50 percent of phosphorous from wastewater.The findings, which are based on a five-month study at a wastewater treatment facility in Houston, are available online in the journal Algae.
Almost half of global investment in new electricity generation last year was in renewables, thanks to a hike in investment by developing countries, says a UN report.Global investment in green energy rose 17 per cent, but developing countries saw a surge of 36 per cent. The big spending was on solar power in Asia, as well as on wind turbines in the North Sea.
Imagine a device that can pull fresh water from the air to help alleviate global water shortages? Researchers are a step closer to making this a reality.For clues, researchers in Japan are looking to plants growing in arid, mountainous and humid regions that rely on their leaves to pull moisture out of the air. They believe their findings could help develop a water-storage device that mimics these plants and can provide a solution for global water shortages.Related: Taste testing Thar desert's new solar pumped water
The ability to learn associations between events is critical for survival, but it has not been clear how different pieces of information stored in memory may be linked together by populations of neurons. In a new study synchronous activation of distinct neuronal ensembles caused mice to artificially associate the memory of a foot shock with the unrelated memory of exploring a safe environment.
By attaching a microstimulator and geomagnetic compass to the brains of blind rats, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 2 found that the animals can spontaneously learn to use new information about their location to navigate through a maze nearly as well as normally sighted rats. Researchers say the findings suggest that a similar kind of neuroprosthesis might also help blind people walk freely through the world.
A team of Clarkson University researchers is studying the possible links between reported hauntings and indoor air quality.Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering Shane Rogers said human experiences reported in many hauntings are similar to mental or neurological symptoms reported by some individuals exposed to toxic molds. It is known that some fungi, such as rye ergot fungus, may cause severe psychosis in humans.Alt: Seen a ghost? Then you may have inhaled toxic mould: Poor air quality in old buildings may lead to haunting hallucinations
For the earliest Egyptologists, a trip to the Egyptian Museum in Turin was considered indispensable. The museum's new director is seeking to return the almost 200-year-old museum to its one-time prominence, boosted by an overhaul of the collection and exhibit space of near-pharaonic proportions.Related: Among the Many Items Joining King Tut In the Afterlife ... Four Socks?
In an underground cave in Israel, archaeologists have unearthed 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts that had been spared by tomb robbers.Inspectors with the Israel Antiquities Authority's (IAA) Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery say they found pickaxes and other signs of looting in a cave near Kibbutz Lahav in southern Israel.
An ancient Egyptian masterpiece, hailed by some scholars as the "Mona Lisa" of Egyptian painting, is in fact a fake created in the 19th century, a researcher says. But the painting may conceal an authentic Pyramid Age piece underneath.The "Meidum Geese," as modern-day Egyptologists and art historians call it, was supposedly found in 1871 in a tomb located near the Meidum Pyramid, which was built by the pharaoh Snefru (reign 2610-2590 B.C).
Most people are not malicious, but that doesn't stop anybody from getting upset. And to try to restore the balance, you might just complain. And how long has this been going on?! A long time. The oldest known complaint letter, and let me emphasise a written complaint letter, goes back 3750 years.It's not a coincidence that each of the oldest written languages were invented by civilisations that lived along rivers.
Robots came to Europe before the dawn of the mechanical age. To a medieval world, they were indistinguishable from magicIn 807 the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, sent Charlemagne a gift the like of which had never been seen in the Christian empire: a brass water clock. It chimed the hours by dropping small metal balls into a bowl. Instead of a numbered dial, the clock displayed the time with 12 mechanical horsemen that popped out of small windows, rather like an Advent calendar.
The market is undoubtedly there. Country strolls. Visits to museums. Weekend shopping trips. How much easier they would be wearing an unpowered, lower-leg, carbon fibre exoskeleton.Though cumbersome to say, the device itself is sleek and simple, using only a spring, wire and clutch mounted on a carbon fibre frame to take some of the slog out of bipedal locomotion.
A year ago, researchers at Bielefeld University showed that their software endowed the walking robot Hector with a simple form of consciousness. Their new research goes one step forward: they have now developed a software architecture that could enable Hector to see himself as others see him. "With this, he would have reflexive consciousness," explains Dr. Holk Cruse, professor at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University. The architecture is based on artificial neural networks.
Score one for gamers. An experiment at Brown University has found a correlation between people who frequently play video games and their ability to retain learning about two quickly learned visual activities. The results suggest that video game playing not only improves player performance but also builds up the capacity to improve performance.
Many of us, particularly those who prefer to eat our cake and look like we have not done so, have a love-hate relationship with artificial sweeteners. These seemingly magical molecules deliver a dulcet taste without its customary caloric punch. We guzzle enormous quantities of these chemicals, mostly in the form of aspartame, sucralose and saccharin, which are used to enliven the flavor of everything from Diet Coke to toothpaste. Yet there are worries. Many suspect that all this sweetness comes at some hidden cost to our health, although science has only pointed at vague links to problems.
Characteristics passed between generations are not decided solely by DNA, but can be brought about by other material in cells, new research shows.Scientists studied proteins found in cells, known as histones, which are not part of the genetic code, but act as spools around which DNA is wound. Histones are known to control whether or not genes are switched on.
Astronomers have witnessed a key stage in the birth of a very heavy star, using two radio telescope views of the process taken 18 years apart.The young star is 4,200 light-years from Earth and appears to be surrounded by a doughnut-shaped cloud of dust.
Scientists searching for signs of intelligent extraterrestial life in the unvierse have a new telescope tool to aid them in their hunt for portential alien civilizations.Called NIROSETI, short for Near-Infrared Optical Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, the instrument saw its "first light" this month at the University of California's Lick Observatory atop Mt. Hamilton east of San Jose. It is built to record levels of light over time so that patterns can be analyzed for potential signals of alien life.
NASA's Curiosity rover is using a new experiment to better understand the history of the Martian atmosphere by analyzing xenon.While NASA's Curiosity rover concluded its detailed examination of the rock layers of the "Pahrump Hills" in Gale Crater on Mars this winter, some members of the rover team were busy analyzing the Martian atmosphere for xenon, a heavy noble gas.
Surfing may have been a more epic undertaking on ancient Mars than it is on modern-day Earth because of the possible existence of giant, slow-moving waves on the Red Planet, researchers say.These big waves might have carved shorelines into Marslong ago. If so, studying these shorelines could shed light on the ancient Martian climate, such as whether or not it had seas long enough for life to potentially develop on the Red Planet, scientists added.
China's land reclamation is creating a "great wall of sand" in the South China Sea, a top US official says, leading to "serious questions" on its intentions.US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Harry Harris made the comments in a speech in Australia on Tuesday night.
The remains of a woolly mammoth that died 10,000 years ago have been unearthed in Siberia by oil workers.Two tusks, teeth and rib bones of the extinct giant mammal were discovered buried three metres down in the frozen soil around 31 miles (50km) from Nyagan in Khanty-Mansi, Russia.Oil workers had been digging at a site owned by Rosneft close to the town when they noticed a tusk sticking out of the excavator bucket.
The skeleton of a camel that lived in the 17th century during the second Ottoman-Habsburg war has been discovered in a refuse pit in Austria.The animal would have been somewhat of an "alien" along the Danube River in Tulln, Austria, the researchers said, calling it a "sunken ship in the desert."
A dinosaur couple that appears to have died together after wooing each other has been identified in remains unearthed at the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.The dino couple, named Romeo and Juliet since they are reminiscent of Shakespeare's famous doomed lovers, were entombed together for over 75 million years, according to a new study in the journal Scientific Reports.
Ancient seashells in museum collection tend to look drab white, but high tech equipment reveals many ancient shells displayed distinctive patterns and colors.Given the uniqueness of their appearance, some of the shells were determined to belong to newly documented species of cone snails, which are predatory mollusks. They are described in the current issue of the journal PLOS ONE.
Changes in the biochemical balance of the ocean were a crucial factor in the end-Triassic mass extinction, during which half of all plant, animal and marine life on Earth perished, according to new research involving the University of Southampton.The study, published in the upcoming edition of Geology, reveals that a condition called 'marine photic zone euxinia' took place in the Panathalassic Ocean- the larger of the two oceans surrounding the supercontinent of Pangaea.
Planets with four suns in their sky may be more common than previously thought, a new study suggests.Astronomers have spotted a fourth star in a planetary system called 30 Ari, bringing the number of known planet-harboring quadruple-sun systems to two. Numerous two- and three-star exoplanets have been identified.
Blink and you might miss it. Nearly half the globe will have the ability to observe a total lunar eclipse this weekend, but skywatchers will have to be quick about it, because it will be the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century.According to NASA, the total eclipse will last just five minutes. The first part of the eclipse will can be seen from Eastern North American and western South America before sunrise.
An international research team, led by a Virginia Tech geoscientist, has revealed information about how continents were generated on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago -- and how those processes have continued within the last 70 million years to profoundly affect the planet's life and climate.Published online today in Nature Geoscience, the study details how relatively recent geologic events -- volcanic activity 10 million years ago in what is now Panama and Costa Rica -- hold the secrets of the extreme continent-building that took place billions of years earlier.
For more than 50 years, scientists had tantalizing clues suggesting that a tiny, boreal forest songbird known as the blackpoll warbler departs each fall from New England and eastern Canada to migrate nonstop in a direct line over the Atlantic Ocean toward South America, but proof was hard to come by.Now, for the first time an international team of biologists report "irrefutable evidence" that the birds complete a nonstop flight ranging from about 1,410 to 1,721 miles (2,270 to 2,770 km) in just two to three days, making landfall somewhere in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the islands known as the Greater Antilles, from there going on to northern Venezuela and Columbia.
The German government says it wants to end the mass killing of male chicks within two years, becoming the first country to do so.Each year some 45 million male chicks in Germany are shredded shortly after hatching because they don't lay eggs.
Generous welfare benefit levels make people who are not in employment more likely to want to work rather than less, new research suggests. "Many scholars and commentators fear that generous social benefits threaten the sustainability of the welfare state due to work norm erosion, disincentives to work and dependency cultures," the researchers say.
Children who try a sip of alcohol before sixth grade may be more likely to start drinking by the time they enter high school, a new study suggests.Researchers found that kids who had tastes of an alcoholic beverage before they started middle school were five times more likely to have a full drink by ninth grade, compared with their classmates who had not tasted alcohol.
Many decades of research have shown that people cannot learn new information during sleep and then retrieve it once awake. Yet a growing body of work finds that unconscious associations made during sleep can affect waking behaviors. One new study found that pairing the smell of cigarettes with unpleasant odors made people smoke less during the following week.Related: Revealed, what smoking does to an unborn baby: Remarkable images of foetus holding its face show how babies exposed to cigarettes may have delayed development
Something as easy as adding more spinach, kale, collards and mustard greens to your diet could help slow cognitive decline, according to new research. The study also examined the nutrients responsible for the effect, linking vitamin K consumption to slower cognitive decline for the first time.
The beneficial effects of exercise are more important for our health than the negative effects of air pollution, in relation to the risk of premature mortality, new research shows. In other words, benefits of exercise outweigh the harmful effects of air pollution.
Analysis of 20 years of satellite data has revealed the total amount of vegetation globally has increased by almost 4 billion tonnes of carbon since 2003. This is despite ongoing large-scale deforestation in the tropics.An Australian-led international team of scientists published the findings in Nature Climate Change, finding a range of causes for the increase.
According to research* published today in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery by veterinary clinicians at the University of Lisbon and a clinic in the nearby town of Barreiro in Portugal, music is likewise beneficial for cats in the surgical environment. But not all music is equal in this respect - cats, it seems, benefit most from classical music.
A new topical medicine suspended in nanoparticles could dramatically quicken the time it takes wounds to heal, researchers say.The medicine could be used to speed the healing of all sorts of wounds, according to the researchers who are developing it. Applications could include everyday cuts and burns, surgical incisions, and chronic skin ulcers, which are a particular concern for the elderly and people with diabetes.
A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections could hold the key to killing antibiotic-resistant superbugs, experts have said.Scientists recreated a 9th Century Anglo-Saxon remedy using onion, garlic and part of a cow's stomach.
Scientists have coaxed stem cells to grow the first three-dimensional mini lungs.Previous research has focused on deriving lung tissue from flat cell systems or growing cells onto scaffolds made from donated organs.In a study published in the online journal eLife the multi-institution team defined the system for generating the self-organizing human lung organoids, 3D structures that mimic the structure and complexity of human lungs.
Mercury's dark surface was produced by a steady dusting of carbon from passing comets, a new study says.Mercury reflects very little light but its surface is low in iron, which rules out the presence of iron nanoparticles, the most likely "darkening agent".
Scientists investigated the Equatorial Layered Deposits (ELDs) of Arabia Terra in Firsoff crater area, Mars, to understand their formation and potential habitability. On the plateau, ELDs consist of rare mounds, flat-lying deposits, and cross-bedded dune fields. They interpret the mounds as smaller spring deposits, the flat-lying deposits as playa, and the cross-bedded dune fields as aeolian.
There could be two Earth-like planets within cosmic spitting distance of our own. Both are likely too close to their star to host life, but the discovery opens the possibility of other planets in the system with more temperate climates.Alpha Centauri is a binary star system just 4.3 light years away from our own. In 2012 astronomers announced that the system had a planet, which they dubbed Alpha Centauri Bb as it was apparently orbiting the smaller of the stars, Alpha Centauri B.
In a bid to save the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise, the Chinese government is capturing a small group of the animals and relocating them to a secure conservation area.The species is the world's only freshwater porpoise, and it's found nowhere but China.
A tortoise has been given a 3D printed prosthetic shell to protect her own, as she suffers from a painful disease which has caused it to wear away.Cleopatra, a leopard tortoise who was taken in by Canyon Critters Reptile Rescue in Colorado, suffers from a metabolic bone disease known as pyramiding, or peaking.Alt: Cleopatra the tortoise gets a 3D printed shell
A previously undiscovered species of crocodile-like amphibian that lived during the rise of dinosaurs was among Earth's top predators more than 200 million years ago, a study shows. Palaeontologists identified the prehistoric species -- which looked like giant salamanders -- after excavating bones buried on the site of an ancient lake in southern Portugal.
Technically Incorrect: In Russia, scientists say they've found enough bones to now identify something we might want to call the Sibirosaurus. And it's a doozy.It's a little like fracking. The more we dig, the scarier our findings. And now, it seems, something terribly scary has been dug up, according to Russian scientists in the heart of Siberia.Alt: Scientists discover 'new species' of dinosaur
Fragments of pottery used by Egyptians to make beer and dating back 5,000 years have been discovered on a building site in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said Sunday.Excavation director Diego Barkan said 17 pits were found that had been used to store produce in the Early Bronze Age, from 3500 to 3000 BC.Related: Israel using bogus archaeological digs as cover to take Palestinian land, British government says
The government of Bolivia announced it will start exploratory excavations this year at the ancient fortress of Tiahuanaco after a buried pyramid was detected.Ludwing Cayo, director of the Tiahuanaco Archeological Research Center, told Efe that the formation is located in the area of Kantatallita, east of the Akapana pyramid.
It didn't take long for the scientific community to react. Two weeks after the sacking of the 300 year-old Mosul Museum by a group of ISIS extremists went viral on Youtube, researchers from the ITN-DCH, IAPP and 4D-CH-WORLD projects launched Project MOSUL to virtually restore damaged artefacts and make them accessible from virtual museums.
New research has found that children who are adopted have slightly higher IQs than siblings who remained with their biological parents. The study, published in PNAS, was designed to tease apart genetic and environmental influences on intelligence. The results suggest that the education level of the parents who raise the child can have an impact on IQ, but there is still a strong relationship between the intelligence of the child and his or her biological parents.
Although music perception and practice are well preserved in human evolution, the biological determinants of music practice are largely unknown. According to a latest study, music performance by professional musicians enhanced the activity of genes involved in dopaminergic neurotransmission, motor behavior, learning and memory. Interestingly, several of those up-regulated genes were also known to be responsible for song production in songbirds, which suggests a potential evolutionary conservation in sound perception and production across species.
Facebook's ambitious plan to bring internet to the entire world with a fleet of broadband-beaming unmanned aerial vehicles has taken a step closer to fruition. The company's vice president of engineering, Jay Parikh, told The Wall Street Journal that Facebook is planning "a real test flight" of its solar-powered internet drone this summer.Related: Leave Facebook if you don't want to be spied on, warns EU
We've been making a mess on Mars, but the Red Planet is kind enough to tidy up after us. A study of the scorch marks left by the Curiosity rover and Phoenix lander as they touched down on the surface of Mars has revealed that they fade over time and should take an average of around 2.6 years to disappear.
Using a single particle of light, scientists have for the first time linked together thousands of atoms in a bizarre state known as quantum entanglement, where the behavior of the atoms would stay connected even if they were at opposite ends of the universe.This finding, the largest number of particles that have ever been mutually entangled in an experiment, could lead to more precise atomic clocks, potentially helping to improve GPS, researchers say.
Foraging bats obey their own set of 'traffic rules', chasing, turning and avoiding collisions at high speed, new research from the University of Bristol, UK has found.Dr Marc Holderied of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences studied pairs of Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentonii) foraging low over water for stranded insects at a site near the village of Barrow Gurney in Somerset, UK.
Everyone needs friends. Even giant pandas. It turns out that they are more sociable than we thought, hanging out together for weeks at a time.We know very little about wild pandas because they are so rare and live in almost impenetrable forest. But in 2010 and 2011, Vanessa Hull of Michigan State University and her colleagues were given permission to attach GPS tracking collars to five pandas in the Wolong National Nature Reserve in China.
Deep below the ice, far from the playful penguins and other animals that bring tourists to Antarctica, is a cold and barren world that by all indications should be completely void of life.But recently, scientists researching melting ice watched a half-foot-long (15-centimeter) fish swim by. Not long after that, they saw shrimp-like creatures.
Imagine you are Sherlock Holmes bent on solving a mystery but the evidence is starting to crumble and eventually you will be left with worthless dust.This is the worry which haunts ice scientists delving into Earth's threatened glaciers.Deep inside them, the slumbering ice slabs hold information about Earth's climate past, and pointers for the future.
A million properties across England could in future be heated by water from rivers, canals and the sea, the government says.The Department for Energy calculates this is the potential of a technology known as the water source heat pump.
Straw-powered cars could be a thing of the future thanks to new research. A new study pinpoints five strains of yeast capable of turning agricultural by-products, such as straw, sawdust and corncobs, into bioethanol -- a well-known alcohol-based biofuel.
The Mediterranean diet, a menu traditionally eaten in Spain, leaves less of a carbon footprint than that of the U.S. or the United Kingdom, according to a recent study.The consequences of climate change range from species extinction to sea-level increases and the spread of diseases. For this reason, researchers have been struggling for years to alleviate its effects, even limiting the pollution caused by food consumption.Related: Fit middle-aged men 'at lower risk for some cancers'
Dozens of common plants are toxic. Archaeologists have long suspected that our Palaeolithic ancestors used plant poisons to make their hunting weapons more lethal.Now Dr Valentina Borgia has teamed up with a forensic chemist to develop a technique for detecting residues of deadly substances on archaeological objects.
Studying the varying genetic diversity of different population groups is one method for piecing together the migration history of our species. Many analyses find a bottleneck in non-African populations dating back to around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. This coincides neatly with the current estimate of the first wave of anatomically modern humans out of Africa. When humans first migrated out of Africa, they created a genetic bottleneck. Because a minority of people migrated, they took a minority of total human genetic diversity with them to the new colonies in Europe and Oceania.
Scientists have found fixed forms of nitrogen in Mars. This suggests that there may have been a nitrogen cycle sometime in Mars' past. The detection has been verified through analyses of samples taken at three different points on Mars. Analyses are made by the instrument SAM (Sample Analysis on Mars) on board the unmanned rover Curiosity located on Mars.
The precise measurement of Saturn's rotation has presented a great challenge to scientists, as different parts of this sweltering ball of hydrogen and helium rotate at different speeds whereas its rotation axis and magnetic pole are aligned. A new method leads to a new determination of Saturn's rotation period and offers insight into the internal structure of the planet, its weather patterns, and the way it formed.
Deep beneath the surface of the moon lies an iron heart that scientists are probing in a new study: By using X-rays to scan the kind of iron probably found in the moon's core, scientists may gain better estimates of the core's size and composition.Studying this unique kind of iron, and subjecting to incredible temperatures and pressures similar to those in the heart of a moon or planet, these findings could also help model the interior of small rocky planets such as Mars and Mercury, researchers added.
Nasa will use a robotic arm to grab a boulder and send it into orbit around the moon, giving it its own moon, allowing astronauts to study the rock as it flies around the Earth.The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) will also allow Nasa to demonstrate many of the technologies that will carry humans to Mars.Alt: Nasa plans mission to land on asteroid and explore deep space
A new study of colliding galaxy clusters has found that dark matter doesn't even interact with itself.The findings reported in the journal Science, mean some existing dark matter models - which give the mysterious substance properties similar to normal matter - will need to be revised."We have concluded that dark matter is most probably not interacting, so it exists in its ghostly state without interacting," says the study's lead author Dr David Harvey of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.
In "people becoming superhuman" news, a small independent research group has figured out how to give humans night vision, allowing them to see over 50 meters in the dark for a short time.Science for the Masses, a group of biohackers based a couple hours north of Los Angeles in Tehachapi, California, theorized they could enhance healthy eyesight enough that it would induce night vision. To do this, the group used a kind of chlorophyll analog called Chlorin e6 (or Ce6), which is found in some deep-sea fish and is used as an occasional method to treat night blindness.
As the new wave of virtual reality headsets barrel ever closer to consumer reality, the effects of "simulator sickness" on a significant portion of the population remain a concern. A group of researchers at Purdue University say they've found an easy way to mitigate this effect by adding one bit of reality that most VR simulations leave out: a virtual nose sitting persistently at the corners of your vision.
Experienced readers recognise whole words in much the same way we recognise a face, according to scientists who have observed the changes in brain scans that occur as a new word is added to our 'visual dictionary'.The work might lead to better ways to teach reading to people with hearing difficulties or dyslexia, say the authors, from Georgetown University Medical Centre, Washington, D.C, USA, writing in the Journal of Neuroscience.
When Jay Olson was a 5-year-old living in Vancouver, British Columbia, a magician pulled a coin from his ear and sparked a lifelong fascination with magic.Now a 28-year-old professional magician and a psychiatry graduate student at McGill University, Olson has recently conducted experiments using magic tricks to show how people's perceptions and choices can be manipulated.
Richard III, the last English king to die in battle 530 years ago, was finally laid to rest on Thursday in a solemn ceremony in Leicester Cathedral, a few steps from the car park where his twisted skeleton was found in 2012."Today we recognize a king who lived through turbulent times and whose Christian faith sustained him in life and death," Queen Elizabeth II said in a message written for the service.Related: Richard III Reburial: Is England Honoring a Murderer?
The offspring of fish exposed to Bisphenol A (BPA) have decreased fertility and increased embryo mortality three generations later. A new study suggests that exposed humans and their children could be affected in the same way.BPA is a chemical that is used in a variety of consumer products, including water bottles, dental composites, and resins used to line metal food and beverage containers. Aquatic environments such as rivers and streams often become reservoirs for these endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Snakebite victims may one day have the humble opossum and its curious immunity to snake venom to thank for an antidote that can be made cheaply and administered in as large a dose as needed, without side effects.During an annual meeting and exposition being held this week by the American Chemical Society in Denver, a research team out of San Jose State University announced it had synthesized part of a serum protein from opossums that protected laboratory mice from the venom of both U.S. diamondback rattlesnakes and Russell's vipers from Pakistan.