Newsdesk Archive
Science is drowning in studies, and it took a study to expose it.In a paper entitled 'Attention decay in science', professors from universities in Finland and California conclude that "the exponential growth in the number of scientific papers makes it increasingly difficult for researchers to keep track of all the publications relevant to their work.
Prehistoric cave drawings have been discovered in the northern region of Cantabria, dating back about 20,000 years, making the area "the European capital of rock art".The discovery is the first time that Paleolithic art had been found in the immediate area, the government of Cantabria said in a statement on Thursday.
A team of researchers with members from China, the U.S. and France has identified an ancient sponge found in a geologic formation in southern China and have dated it to 600 million years ago. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team claims the sponge is the oldest ever found and likely represents a group of descendants that is an ancestor of all sponges.
The remains of a baby woolly rhino that roamed the Earth at least 10,000 years ago have been discovered in a frozen riverbank in Siberia, researchers said.The rhino calf, nicknamed "Sasha" after the hunter and businessman who found it, is the only complete young specimen of the extinct species ever found, according to scientists at the Yakutian Academy of Sciences in Russia, to whom the creature was donated for study.
A famous hot spring in Yellowstone Park has slowly turned from a deep blue to surreal green and yellow as a result of many years of visitors throwing coins in it.The Morning Glory hot spring pool in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park has changed dramatically since the 1950s, thanks to an accumulation of coins, rubbish and natural debris.
In May 2010, a whale showed up on the wrong side of the world.A team of marine biologists was conducting a survey off the coast of Israel when they spotted it. At first they thought it was a sperm whale. But each time the animal surfaced, the more clearly they could see that it had the wrong anatomy. When they got back on land, they looked closely at the photographs they had taken and realized, to their shock, that it was a gray whale. This species is a common sight off the coast of California, but biologists had never seen one outside of the Pacific before.
The first photographic evidence of a male swordfish courting a possible mate has been published, ending a decade-old mysteryClaims that swordfish court their mates date back to the 19th century, but science had never confirmed the phenomenon. Now, Spanish scientists have documented this reproductive behavior, including the first photographs showing a male circling a female as she prepares to lay millions of eggs for fertilization.
When you leave the house, do you ever turn on some music to keep your cat company?What kind do you choose? Tom Jones crooning "What's New Pussycat?" A ballad by Cat Stevens? Perhaps Al Stewart's "The Year of the Cat"?Nonsense. Cats don't to want to hear humans singing about them, says composer and University of Maryland music professor David Teie.
Although listening to music is common in all societies, the biological determinants of listening to music are largely unknown. According to a latest study, listening to classical music enhanced the activity of genes involved in dopamine secretion and transport, synaptic neurotransmission, learning and memory, and down-regulated the genes mediating neurodegeneration. Several of the up-regulated genes were known to be responsible for song learning and singing in songbirds, suggesting a common evolutionary background of sound perception across species.
An Earth-size waterworld tilted on its side may still be able to support life, if the oceans aren't too shallow, a new study suggests.As long as the entire world is covered in oceans at least 165 feet (50 meters) deep, temperatures would be moderate enough at the poles to support life. Even at the equator, which would be the chilliest part of that world since it only would receive a bit of sunlight in spring and fall, life could still exist.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA launched four identical spacecraft Thursday on a billion-dollar mission to study the explosive give-and-take of the Earth and sun's magnetic fields.The unmanned Atlas rocket - and NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft - soared into a clear late-night sky, right on time. Within two hours, all four observatories were flying free.
Researchers from General Atomics and the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have made a major breakthrough in understanding how potentially damaging heat bursts inside a fusion reactor can be controlled. Scientists performed the experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a tokamak operated by General Atomics in San Diego. The findings represent a key step in predicting how to control heat bursts in future fusion facilities including ITER, an international experiment under construction in France to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion energy.
Japanese scientists have succeeded in transmitting energy wirelessly, in a key step that could one day make solar power generation in space a possibility, an official said Thursday.Researchers used microwaves to deliver 1.8 kilowatts of power -- enough to run an electric kettle -- through the air with pinpoint accuracy to a receiver 55 metres (170 feet) away.
Four Utah police officers said they heard a voice distinctly call out for help when they found a vehicle submerged upside-down in a river.But when they flipped the vehicle over, they discovered there was nobody in the car who was able to speak, reported Deseret News.
Scientists are planning to sequence the genes of 100,000 south Asian people in London, in an ambitious project to track down rare beneficial genes that protect against conditions from heart disease to cancer.The Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in London have among the highest rates of poor health in Britain, with twice the average number of deaths from heart disease and five times the rate of type 2 diabetes. But within this population, scientists predict, there will be people who are unexpectedly healthy, whose genes could be conferring extreme resilience to disease.
The origin of life is still a mystery with many unsolved puzzles. How were molecules created? How did they assemble into large structures? Among the conundrums, the "homochirality" phenomenon upon which amino acids and sugars form is particularly fascinating.University of Akron A. Schulman Professor of Polymer Science Tianbo Liu has discovered that Mother Nature's clear bias toward certain amino acids and sugars and against others isn't accidental.Related: 'Quantum jitters' could form basis of evolution, cancer
The ancient mound of Silbury Hill was built as lighthouse and harbour to help Neolithic traders navigate waterways, an expert has claimed.Archaeologists have long speculated that the enormous manmade structure in Wiltshire was an ornate grave or a ceremonial altar used in rituals.But a cartographer and local historian claims he has found evidence of a stone avenue between the mound and the nearby stone circle of Avebury.
In 2011, a tooth from the Peking Man was found in a box at the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University. In the latest issue of Acta Anthropologica Sinica, researchers at Uppsala University and a Chinese research institute have now published their analysis of the tooth. The discovery gives us new knowledge about one of the most mythical ancestors of the modern man.
A massive and rather cunning bison kill carried out some 2,500 years ago among the sand dunes of southern Alberta left behind a wealth of artifacts that are offering new insights into a poorly-understood culture of the ancient Northern Plains.In addition to the scattered remains of at least 65 bison, archaeologists have found more than a hundred stone points, most of them fashioned from a type of rock found only in North Dakota, a thousand kilometers away.
How do you reconstruct a civilization's history when it has been literally trampled underfoot? Some of Rome's roads through the Balkans are largely forgotten, others still in use, and others we only know about because of documents from travelers explaining a route that matches ruined Roman distance markers. Hoping to get a better grasp of how these road networks worked in the Balkans between the 1st century BC and 4th century AD, researchers turned to an unlikely research assistant: slime mold.
It's March. It's freezing. And there's half a foot of snow on the ground. When is this winter going to end?Many scientists think that climate change might be one cause of this year's "snowpocalypse" in Boston and bitter cold snaps in New York and Washington.Related: Did climate change help spark the Syrian war?
A new island has been formed in the South Pacific after the eruption of an underwater volcano in Tonga.Images have emerged of the island's surface, 45km (28 miles) north-west of Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa.
The Anthropocene - a new geological time period that marks the "Age of man" - began in 1610, a study suggests.Scientists believe that the arrival of Europeans in the Americas had an unprecedented impact on the planet, marking the dawn of this new epoch.
A small moon that circles Saturn harbours a warm water ocean beneath its thick icy crust, according to research that makes the distant body a prime target in the search for life elsewhere.The discovery means Enceladus, a 300 mile-wide moon of the ringed planet, is the only place beyond Earth that is known to be hydrothermally active, providing a natural heating system for the subsurface ocean.
Sonic waves, first used by submarines in World War II, might one day help those with Alzheimer's disease preserve or regain their ability to remember and navigate, a new study on mice suggests.It's far from ready for use on humans, but the new research offers new possibilities for Alzheimer's therapy that involve neither drugs nor surgery. The study's authors said the same technique might help in treating other diseases that involve the abnormal buildup of proteins in the brain.
Neuroscientists find that different parts of the brain work best at different ages.Scientists have long known that our ability to think quickly and recall information, also known as fluid intelligence, peaks around age 20 and then begins a slow decline. However, more recent findings, including a new study from neuroscientists at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), suggest that the real picture is much more complex.
Nobody likes a show-off. So someone with a singular skill will often hide that fact to fit in with a group. A recent study reported for the first time that this behavior begins as early as two years old.In the study, led by a team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and published in Psychological Science, two-year-old children, chimpanzees and orangutans dropped a ball into a box divided into three sections, one of which consistently resulted in a reward (chocolate for the children; a peanut for the apes).
Recently released research on human evolution has revealed that species of early human ancestors had significant differences in facial features. Now, a University of Missouri researcher and her international team of colleagues have found that these early human species also differed throughout other parts of their skeletons and had distinct body forms. The research team found 1.9 million-year-old pelvis and femur fossils of an early human ancestor in Kenya, revealing greater diversity in the human family tree than scientists previously thought.Alt: Strange bodies of our ancestors revealed: 1.9 million-year-old pelvis suggests early humans had tiny hips and spindly legs
Researchers have analyzed the DNA of ancient teeth to identify the regional origin of three African slaves buried more than 300 years ago on a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean.The development could open the door to broadening the understanding of African American ancestry linked to the European trade in slaves, which often is limited by scant historical record keeping and incomplete genome and population data, according to the study, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Archaeologists have uncovered a colorful and ancient tomb in Egypt, the second such discovery within one month, according to a statement released today (March 10) by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. A joint effort between the ministry and the American Research Center in Egypt led to the discovery of both tombs.
Fashion-minded Neanderthals?By perception they had the basics of survival down, but supposedly not much else, until we high-functioning humans came along and developed sophisticated technologies to improve quality of life.Alt: Neanderthals wore eagle talons as jewellery
An Antarctic octopus that lives in ice-cold water uses an unique strategy to transport oxygen in its blood, according to research published in Frontiers in Zoology. The study suggests that the octopus's specialized blood pigments could help to make it more resilient to climate change than Antarctic fish and other species of octopus.The Antarctic Ocean hosts rich and diverse fauna despite inhospitable temperatures close to freezing. While it can be hard to deliver oxygen to tissues in the cold due to lower oxygen diffusion and increased blood viscosity, ice-cold waters already contain large amounts of dissolved oxygen.
Researchers from the Université Libre de Bruxelles found that the much-maligned cockroach has its own personality and even displays different character traits. The discovery could explain why cockroaches are considered such great survivors and able to adapt to inhospitable surroundings.Scientists studied the behavior of Periplaneta americana, or the American cockroach, when exposed to light.
How great would it be to own a car that cleaned itself? Or clothing that resisted even tough stains like coffee and wine? You may soon find out.A new paint developed by researchers overseas can be applied to clothes, paper, glass, and steel and--when combined with adhesives--retains its remarkable self-cleaning properties even after it's been scuffed and scratched.
Caltech scientists, inspired by a chemical process found in leaves, have developed an electrically conductive film that could help pave the way for devices capable of harnessing sunlight to split water into hydrogen fuel.When applied to semiconducting materials such as silicon, the nickel oxide film prevents rust buildup and facilitates an important chemical process in the solar-driven production of fuels such as methane or hydrogen.
People's brain waves may reveal which movies they like, and even predict which movies will do well at the box office, a new study suggests.In the study, researchers had 32 college students watch 18 movie trailers each; the students had electrodes placed on their scalps to measure their brain waves, a test known as electroencephalography, or EEG.
There are billions of planets in the universe that straddle the habitable zones of their stars, but the search for potential life might actually narrow down to their moons.Many of the planets that inhabit that zone, the distance that gives planets just the right amount of heat to sustain liquid water, are actually probably gas giants like Jupiter. But they still might have rocky moons that could harbor life.
A small, newly discovered galaxy orbiting the Milky Way is emitting a surprising amount of electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma rays, astronomers reported Tuesday. The finding may be the latest in a long string of cosmic false alarms, they said, or it might be that the mysterious dark matter that permeates the universe is finally showing a bit of leg.If confirmed, the results could mean that most of the matter of the universe is in the form of as-yet-unidentified elementary particles, 20 to 100 times as heavy as a proton, that have been drifting and clumping like fog in space ever since the Big Bang.
The brain's "pain sensor" has been found, researchers say. When you step on a thumbtack or hit your funny bone, this is the part of your brain that lights up.Researchers conducted imaging scans of the brains of people who were experiencing pain waxing and waning over several hours. They identified a region of the brain called the dorsal posterior insula, which became active in response to how much pain a person felt.
Parents who believe their kids are better, more special, and deserve more than other kids can pass that point of view on to their children, creating young narcissists who feel superior to others, and entitled to privileges, according to a new study."Loving your child is healthy and good, but thinking your child is better than other children can lead to narcissism, and there is nothing healthy about narcissism," said Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.
The quick fix mindset behind geoengineering must be transformed to one that seeks a humble partnership with nature if we are to address climate change.Geoengineering has been back in the news recently after the US National Research Council endorsed a proposal to envelop the planet in a layer of sulphate aerosols to reduce solar radiation and cool the atmosphere.
The famous Chinchorro mummies, which have remained preserved in Chile for more than 7,000 years, are now under threat from increased levels of moisture.Humid air is allowing bacteria to grow, causing the mummies' skin "to go black and become gelatinous," said Ralph Mitchell, a professor emeritus of applied biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who examined the rotting mummies.Alt: Saving Chilean mummies from climate change
A mysterious corncob-shaped artifact, dating to somewhere between 900 B.C. and 400 B.C., has been discovered underwater at the site of Arroyo Pesquero in Veracruz, Mexico.Made of jadeite, a material that is harder than steel, the artifact has designs on it that are difficult to put into words. It contains rectangular shapes, engraved lines and a cone that looks like it is emerging from the top. It looks like a corncob in an abstract way archaeologists say.
Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that millions of modern Asian men are descended from 11 powerful dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years ago - including Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan.The study, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust and published in the journal European Journal of Human Genetics, examined the male-specific Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son, in more than 5,000 Asian men belonging to 127 populations.
What are the essential ingredients for life? You might be tempted to list things like liquid water, oxygen, and nucleotides. But are these chemicals truly essential, or are you just thinking like a typical Earthling?In a study published last week in the journal Science Advances, a team of chemical engineers at Cornell University decided to leave behind all preconceptions of the essentials of life, producing a model that is nothing like life as we know it.
A UA-led collaboration of physicists and chemists has discovered that temperature behaves in strange and unexpected ways in graphene, a material that has scientists sizzling with excitement about its potential for new technological devices ranging from computing to medicine.Imagine setting a frying pan on the stove and cranking up the heat, only to discover that in a few spots the butter isn't melting because part of the pan remains at room temperature.
A record-breaking attempt to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane has got under way from Abu Dhabi.The aircraft - called Solar Impulse-2 - took off from the Emirate, heading east to Muscat in Oman.
A fleet of shared self-driving cars in Stockholm could reduce rush hour traffic volumes by 14 cars for every shared vehicle, according to researchers at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology.Meanwhile, the remaining automobile commuters would need only 20 percent of the metropolitan area's existing parking spaces, their study says.Related: Insurers worry self-driving cars could put a dent in their business
Deutsche Bank has produced a 175 page report that will have the Koch bros and their bought and paid for minions as well as every oil, coal and natural gas company weeping in their Chevas Regal or Glenfiddich.The report suggests that solar generated energy will be the dominant source of energy worldwide within the next 15 years. Not only that, but the solar industry will generate $5 trillion in revenue in that time while displacing fossil fuels. Ohhh...I LOVE it!!
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) -- A geologist who took part in the excavation of the ancient burial mound in Amphipolis in northern Greece says the ancient tomb found together with a series of vaulted rooms wasn't built at the same time, but somewhat later than the rooms themselves.
A bottle of wine recovered intact four years ago from the 1864 wreck of a Civil War blockade runner that sank off the coast of Bermuda has been uncorked and sipped by a panel of experts on Friday during a food festival in Charleston, South Carolina.The verdict: A heady sulphur bouquet with distinct notes of saltwater and gasoline.
Saudi and German archaeologists have discovered two ancient shipwrecks along the Jeddah coast, in a joint project between the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) and the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany.This was revealed recently at a lecture organized by the German Consulate in Jeddah. Michaela Reinfeld, a German archaeologist who spoke at the event, had been part of the dive team that made the find.
One of Thomas Edison's little-known ambitions was to build a device to hear the voices of the dead, according to a nearly lost chapter of the inventor's memoirs which is being republished in France this week.The American, who developed the phonograph and is often cited, inaccurately, as being the first to come up with the light bulb, wanted to create a sort of "spirit phone" that recorded the utterances of departed souls.Related: Disneyland Surveillance Catches Ghost Hanging Around After Hours... Because Who Wouldn't?
A trained scent dog accurately identified whether patients' urine samples had thyroid cancer or were benign (noncancerous) 88.2 percent of the time, according to a new study, to- be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego."Current diagnostic procedures for thyroid cancer often yield uncertain results, leading to recurrent medical procedures and a large number of thyroid surgeries performed unnecessarily,"Related: Sorry, But Your Dog Can't Remember That Fun Game Of Fetch
Genetic influences on autism are estimated to be between 74-98%, a Medical Research Council study of 258 twins suggests.The King's College London team said 181 of the teenagers had autism, but the risk was far higher in identical twins where one twin had autism, as they share the same DNA.Related: Brain structure varies depending on how trusting people are of others, study shows
Did you take a lunch break yesterday? Are you planning to take one today? Chances are the answer is no. Fewer American workers are taking time for lunch. Research shows that only 1 in 5 five people steps away for a midday meal. Most workers are simply eating at their desks.But studies have also found that the longer you stay at work, the more important it is to get outside of the office, even if it's just for a few minutes, because creativity can take a hit when you don't change environments.
A recent study has presented yet another explanation for why many men prefer women with curvy backsides. The study found that evolution has preferred women with a spine curvature of 45 degrees because it allowed them to remain mobile throughout pregnancy without risk of injuring themselves. Researchers believe this finding may partially explain why modern man remains so infatuated with this feature in potential female partners.
People who are trying to impress a date with their good looks might want to limit themselves to one drink, a new study finds.People in the study were rated as more attractive after one glass of wine, but not after two glasses of wine, compared with when they were sober, according to the study published Feb. 25 in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.
Vincent Van Gogh, most known for "Starry Night" and losing his left ear, may have left one final secret up his sleeve. His iconic painting "Cafe Terrace at Night" depicts a group of anonymous patrons enjoying an evening in Arles, France. Yet new research suggests that the individuals lurking in the group of 12 -- with a central, long-haired figure, another departing in the shadows and golden lookers-on -- may not be so nameless after all. Yes, it's possible that one of van Gogh's most famous artworks contains an allusion to an even more famous painting: Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper."
Aerial images, using the latest laser detection technology have been released by Belgian archaeologists that reveal hidden features from the battlefield site.The high definition images taken from the air using LIDAR, a technology used to make computer terrain models and high definition maps shows just how much the landscape has changed since the battle was fought two hundred years ago.
A previously lost treasure trove of fairytales has, after 150 years, been uncovered. Here, take an exclusive first look at one of the collection's stories, involving an enchantment, a series of clever tricks, and a crow who is not quite what he seems.In 1850, around the time when the Grimm brothers were working on their own collection of fairytales, a Bavarian lawyer Franz Xaver Von Schönwerth was traveling the countryside to collect and write down the region's popular stories and folklore.
On February 26, ISIS released a video of its militants smashing ancient Assyrian artifacts in the central museum in Mosul, Iraq. In a matter of minutes, they jackhammered the face of a famous 1,400-year-old Assyrian winged bull and broke apart four 2,000-year-old statues of the kings of Hatra. That same week, insurgents from the so-called Islamic State burned thousands of rare books and manuscripts from Mosul's library.Related: Nimrud: Outcry as IS bulldozers attack ancient Iraq siteRelated: IS destroying another ancient archaeological site in Iraq
The CNRS/Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities has just completed the excavation of a favissa, a pit discovered in early December 2014 near the temple of the god Ptah.The dig has unearthed 38 statues, statuettes and precious objects, making this an exceptional find, both for the quantity and quality of the religious artifacts brought to light. Furthermore, a completely new recording method was used during the dig that makes it possible to virtually reconstruct each step of the discovery with millimeter accuracy.
A medieval monument in England underwent a dramatic cleaning when a high pressure tanker sucked up about 25 tons of pigeon poo from the historic structure.Measuring almost three feet deep, the bird droppings built up over decades inside the towers of the roofless 14th-century Landgate Arch in Rye, East Sussex.Since there is no public access to the towers, the massive, mushy mess went unnoticed until last month, when members of the Rother District Council, which owns the ancient monument, made the stomach-turning finding.
Archaeologists have uncovered a stone tool in Oregon that suggests humans occupied the western US earlier than thought.The agate tool was uncovered under a thick layer of volcanic ash dating back to the eruption of Mount St Helens 15,800 years ago.Scientists believe the primitive knife, discovered 12ft (3.6 metres) below ground, was used for cutting animal hides, butchering meat, and carving wood by pre-Clovis people.
For only the second time, an exoplanet living with an expansive family of four stars has been revealed.The exoplanet, which is a huge gaseous world 10 times the mass of Jupiter, was previously known to occupy a 3-star system, but a fourth star (a red dwarf) has now been found, revealing quadruple star systems possessing planets are more common than we thought.
A star-forming cosmic powerhouse represents the best evidence of how galaxies in the early universe evolve.A dynamic galaxy more than 12.5 billion light-years away is producing stars nearly 1,000 times faster than the Milky Way. The powerful starburst galaxy, known as AzTEC-3, along with the three more relaxed galaxies around it, may represent the best evidence to date that large galaxies in the early universe grow from smaller ones, in an evolution known as hierarchical merging. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile made the active galaxy observations.
Astronomers have watched a pulsar some 25,000 light-years from Earth slip from view, swallowed by a warp in the fabric of spacetime. This wacky effect is one more proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity, 100 years after publication.When a massive star runs out of fuel, it detonates, spitting gas and other debris with unimaginable violence. The supernova explosion is so powerful, that for days, or even weeks, it can outshine its host galaxy, beaming across the local universe.
Dawn has arrived. The signal was received at 5:36 a.m. PST Friday: NASA's Dawn spacecraft had successfully entered into orbit around Ceres, becoming the first NASA mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to go to two distinct bodies in the solar system.Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the final stop on Dawn's journey in the solar system. The 4.5-foot-long spacecraft blasted off from Earth in 2007 and spent 14 months exploring the mega-asteroid Vesta in 2011 and 2012.
Over 10 days in December 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope took 342 images of the same tiny patch of sky in the constellation Ursa Major. The resulting data set, the Hubble Deep Field, revolutionized the study of the early universe by revealing the profusion of galaxies in that faint and distant era when the first galaxies were forming.Related: Giant robot eyes scan stars for dust
Even though mimiviruses are some of the largest viruses we know of, they measure only one tenth the width of a human hair at their largest. Understanding the structure of something so small is not an easy task, so researchers have been working to find different ways to look inside it. In a paper published today in Physical Review Letters, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden used a new technique to make a 3D reconstruction of the large virus out of almost 200 x-ray snapshots.
A little girl lines up plastic letters fitted with QR codes in front of a little humanoid robot. The robot struggles to reproduce them on a tablet -- especially the loop of the letter p. The girl kindly steps in to help, writing out the word to show the robot how to do it. She puts in effort to teach the robot... without realizing that in reality she is the one who is improving her writing skills. Yesterday, EPFL researchers presented their new teaching tool, called CoWriter, at the "Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)," an important event in the field of interactive robotics, held in Portland, USA.
Three engineering physics students at the University of British Columbia have developed a desktop plastic recycler and extruder that turns plastic waste into the material needed for 3D printing.Called ProtoCycler, the machine can grind plastic, such as pop bottles and Lego, and melt it into a filament that can be fed into 3D printers.
A toilet, conveniently situated near the Student Union Bar at the University of the West of England, is proving that urine can generate electricity.Related: German city of Hamburg introduces water-repellent paint to fight public urination
No significant change in home habits of smokers have been observed in the aftermath of a ban on smoking in public spaces, researchers report. Greater inspiration to kick the habit likely comes from having friends or family who set an example by giving up cigarettes themselves, the authors write.Related: Secondhand smoke exposure in womb linked to eczema in childhood
Paul Andrews of McMaster University in Ontario surveyed 50 years' worth of research supporting the serotonin theory of depression, which suggests that the disease is caused by low levels of the "happiness" neurotransmitter, serotonin.But Andrews argues that depression may actually be caused by elevated levels of serotonin.Related: New study brings medicine closer to non-addictive painkillersRelated: Overuse of Antibiotics Caused Infections by Bug That Killed 29,000 in 1 Year
It has qualities so remarkable, it could come from the land of Oz (and could become the television doctor's next big thing, too): a compound derived from a tree growing in South and Central America prompted obese mice to lose 20% to 30% of their weight. It also allowed normal, healthy mice to chow down on fatty foods -- as much as they wanted -- and never become obese, accumulate excess fat or develop diabetes.Oh, and it only worked in females.
Having a high sense of purpose in life may lower your risk of heart disease and stroke, according to a new study led by researchers at Mount Sinai St. Luke's and Mount Sinai Roosevelt and presented on March 6 at the American Heart Association's EPI/Lifestyle 2015 Scientific Sessions in Baltimore.
Watch what you say, or rather, how you say it. People judge how confident you are in just 0.2 seconds.Xiaoming Jiang and Marc Pell of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, made this discovery by attaching 64 electrodes to the heads of volunteers and taking electroencephalograms (EEGs) while they listened to recorded statements.
More than 200 bodies were recently unearthed in several mass burials beneath a Paris supermarket.The bodies, which were lined up head to feet, were found at the site of an ancient cemetery attached to the Trinity Hospital, which was founded in the 13th century.
Some breweries have taken to resurrecting the flavors of ages past. Adventurous beer makers are extrapolating recipes from clues that archeologists have uncovered from old and even ancient brews found at historical sites. Now scientists have analyzed some of the oldest preserved beer samples from an 1840s' shipwreck to try to provide insight into how they were made.Related: 170-Year-Old Shipwreck Beer Smells Gross
As one of only a handful of animals on the planet to live many years after menopause, killer whales have just provided new insight into the benefits of this seemingly strange reproductive strategy. Females that are past their child-bearing years go on to become group leaders with valuable survival skills, scientists report today in the journal Current Biology.
A bird thought to have gone the way of the dodo decades ago has been rediscovered in Myanmar (Burma), scientists reported Thursday.A team led by the Wildlife Conservation Society stumbled upon the bird, a Myanmar Jerdon's babbler, last May while studying other birds in a small grassland area near an abandoned agricultural research station.Related: New monkey species discovered in the Amazon rainforest
After 145 years of featuring elephants in its circus acts, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey announced Thursday that it will retire its elephant herd by 2018."This decision was not easy, but it is in the best interest of our company, our elephants and our customers," said Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's parent company, Feld Entertainment, in a press release.
Resistance is futile for this remotely controlled cockroach. It has had a battery-powered microcontroller plugged into its nervous system, and its will is no longer its own.The "backpack" sends electrical signals that can control the roach's direction of movement and gait. A wireless receiver means the creepy-crawly can be governed from afar.
Martian colonists could use an innovative new technique to harvest energy from carbon dioxide thanks to research pioneered at Northumbria University, Newcastle.The technique, which has been proven for the first time by researchers at Northumbria, has been published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.
If you're trying to dig up a fort from the Middle Ages, and you want a little help narrowing your search for buildings underground, who you gonna call? Why not a mole?Archaeologists with Denmark's Viborg Museum have done just that, using moles at a dig site south of Viborg. The little burrowers leave their telltale hills behind, and the scientists then sift through them to see if their furry helpers brought up any pottery, bricks or other artifacts.
As the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) gears up for its revamped second run, hurling particles together with more energy than ever before, physicists there are impatient. They want this next round of collisions to shake their discipline to its core."I can't wait for the switch-on. We've been waiting since January 2013 to have our proton beams back," says Tara Shears, a particle physics professor from the University of Liverpool.
Our young sun may have routinely blasted Earth with gobs of energy more powerful than any similar bombardments recorded in human history.Huge bursts of these particle and radiation "showers" ignited by these so-called "superflares" could have penetrated Earth's protective magnetic fields and bathed our planet's atmosphere, a new study has shown. Superflares, therefore, likely had profound impacts on the development of life on our planet.
Digging a hole on another world may settle a nagging question about Earth's climate.From about 1300 to 1870, much of the Earth is thought to have endured a long cold snap dubbed the Little Ice Age. If such a freeze occurred, it is usually blamed on a dip in solar activity, but there are other suspects such as volcanoes.
Lightning bolts that flash and clash high above erupting volcanoes can forge flying ash into glass, new research finds. The mechanism could explain the origins of odd microscopic glass beads found embedded in ash deposits, the researchers report online February 27 in Geology.Related: Why Do Geysers Erupt? It Boils Down to Plumbing
A trio of researchers with the Indian Institute of Science has found, via computer simulation, that deforestation in one part of the world can impact rainfall patterns in another. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Abhishek Devaraju, Govindasamy Bala and Angshuman Modak describe the experiments they conducted with their models and what their findings may mean for real world deforestation.
A trio of researchers has found that one species of flower is able to pick and choose when it comes to accepting pollen from a variety of pollinators. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Matthew Betts and Adam Hadley with Oregon State University and John Kress with the Smithsonian Institution, describe their study of Heliconia tortuosa, a flowering plant native to Costa Rica, and what they discovered about its pollinating abilities.
Data from population surveys in the United States challenge public fears that psychedelic drugs such as LSD can lead to psychosis and other mental-health conditions and to increased risk of suicide, two studies have foundIn the first study, clinical psychologists Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Suzanne Krebs, both at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, scoured data from the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual random sample of the general population, and analysed answers from more than 135,000 people who took part in surveys from 2008 to 2011.
Scientists have unearthed the jawbone of what they claim is one of the very first humans.The 2.8 million-year-old specimen is 400,000 years older than researchers thought that our kind first emerged.Alt: Early human ancestor shaped by climate change, study says
Researchers at Princeton University and their colleagues recently reported in the journal Science that termite mounds may serve as oases in the desert, allowing the plants that surround them to persist on a fraction of the annual rainfall otherwise required and to bounce back after a withering drought. The mounds could thus prove potential bulwarks against climate change, preventing fragile dryland from slipping into lifeless wasteland.
Three-dimensional printing has been used to make everything from pizza to prostheses, and now researchers are working on using the emerging technology to fabricate hearts, kidneys, and other vital human organs.That would be very big news, as the number of people who desperately need an organ transplant far outstrips the number of donor organs available. On average, about 21 Americans die every day because a needed organ was unavailable.
Thick armour and jaws packed full of teeth aren't the only defences that alligators and crocodiles have. They also have formidable immune systems and some of the protective molecules that enable this have now been identified. Their discovery in the blood of the American alligator might even pave the way for a new generation of antibiotics.
Half the lineages of the main type of human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-1, originated in gorillas in Cameroon before infecting people, probably via bushmeat hunting, a new study has found.HIV-1, which causes AIDS, is composed of four groups, each coming from a separate cross-species transmission of a simian version of the virus from apes to humans.
European beavers mate for life, and remain faithful to their partners. North American beavers? Not so much. What's the reason behind this discrepancy ... and which of the two beaver species has the greater advantage?A new genetic study headed up by Pavel Munclinger, a professor in the Department of Zoology at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, looked at a number of European beaver colonies living around Kirov, Russia.