Newsdesk Archive

The first in-depth look at ant bathroom habits has found that some of the insects maintain "toilets" in their intricate underground colonies.Scientists studying black garden ants discovered that the bugs pile their waste in dedicated corners of their nests. This makes sense: With thousands of ants confined to such a small space, organization is key.Related: Tropical fire ants traveled the world on 16th century ships

A Canadian student has developed a new method of tattoo removal that could save people a good deal of pain and expense, allowing them to get rid of regrettable tats by simply rubbing cream into them."When comparing it to laser-based tattoo removal, in which you see the burns, the scarring, the blisters, in this case, we've designed a drug that doesn't really have much off-target effect," 27-year-old PhD student and inventor Alec Falkenham told CBC.

Men with short index fingers and long ring fingers are on average nicer towards women. This phenomenon stems from their fetal life, and the hormones these men have been exposed to in their mother's womb. The findings might help explain why these men have more children.

Suicide may be linked to air pollution, according to new research that finds spikes in completed suicides in the days following peak pollution levels.The research took place in Utah, part of the United States' western "suicide belt." Suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States; in Utah, it is the eighth. Though the notion that suicide and air quality could be linked may not seem intuitive, similar studies in South Korea, Taiwan and Canada have also linked the two.

Colombia on Monday proposed creating an "environmental corridor" across northern South America to protect a vast, biologically rich swath of mountains and jungle from the impact of climate change.Related: World's largest offshore wind farm approved for UK coast

If you are craving serenity, researchers from the National Park Service have found the top two quietest places in the contiguous United States: the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.Related: Noise pollution is making us oblivious to the sound of nature, says researcher

Part of what makes treating cancer so tricky is that cancer cells are just normal cells that have gone haywire. It is sometimes hard for the body to recognize these aberrant cells to dispose of them via the immune system, and it is also hard to design drugs that can effectively kill the cells, while leaving healthy cells alone. A new paper published in Nature Biotechnology from senior author David Mooney of Harvard University describes a new vaccine that is able to self-assemble into a 3D structure and manipulate immune cells, teaching them to attack cancer as well as infectious disease.

In a remarkable new advance against the virus that causes AIDS, scientists have announced the creation of a novel drug candidate that is so potent and universally effective, it might work as part of an unconventional vaccine.Related: HIV and syphilis biomarkers: Smartphone, finger prick, 15 minute diagnosis

Immunologists have shown that our immune cells can learn on the job.Even better, some cells remember what they have learnt, and can apply it in response to future challenges.The research, published as the cover story of the first 2015 edition of the journal Immunity, focused on T-helper cells, a type of T cell that helps other immune cells by releasing messenger substances or cytokines.

Research by New York University Biology Professor Michael Rampino concludes that Earth's infrequent but predictable path around and through our Galaxy's disc may have a direct and significant effect on geological and biological phenomena occurring on Earth. In a new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, he concludes that movement through dark matter may perturb the orbits of comets and lead to additional heating in the Earth's core, both of which could be connected with mass extinction events.

A large amount of lithium, one of the key elements in the chemical evolution of the cosmos, is produced by stellar explosions called novae.The findings, reported in the journal Nature, provide the first direct evidence that lithium, which is used for lithium-ion batteries in computers, smart phones and eco-cars, is produced by stellar objects.

Some radical raindrops are flouting the rules: The wet-weather drips seem to be breaking a physical speed limit, sometimes falling 10 times faster than they should, scientists have found.Like all objects in free fall, raindrops move according to the laws of physics. One of those laws puts a barrier on how fast a free-falling object can travel. This terminal velocity is reached when the downward tug of gravity equals the opposing force of air resistance.

The animals in the ocean have been getting bigger, on average, since the Cambrian period - and not by chance.That is the finding of a huge new survey of marine life past and present, published in the journal Science.

Step aside, Spider-Man: The world's strongest stuff isn't your silk; it's sea snail teeth.The teeth of the common limpet species (Patella vulgata) are tougher than Kevlar and stronger than spider silk, researchers report in the Feb. 18 issue of the Royal Society journal Interface.

Environmental stress is a major factor in driving DNA damage in adult hematopoietic stem cells, researchers have found, concluding that a good night's sleep keeps your stem cells "young."Related: Support for sleeping in? Half of parents favor later school start times for teensRelated: Common biomarkers of sleep debt found in humans, rats

Motivation and habit change are hard, and no heart-monitoring bracelet is going to magically solve that problem.But there are wearables that can. Thync, a brain-shocking wearable, has been heralded as the first mood-altering device on the market. Through gentle shocks, you can use Thync to give yourself energy or calm yourself down, and the team is working on expanding those capabilities.

For centuries, biologists have wondered what made humans human. Once the human and chimp genomes were deciphered about a decade ago, they realized they could now begin to pinpoint the molecular underpinnings of our big brain, bipedalism, varied diet, and other traits that have made our species so successful. By 2008, almost two dozen computerized comparisons of human and ape genomes had come up with hundreds of pieces of DNA that might be important. But rarely have researchers taken the next steps to try to prove that a piece of DNA really made a difference in human evolution.

Three shrines, dating back about 3,300 years, have been discovered within a hilltop fortress at Gegharot, in Armenia.Local rulers at the time likely used the shrines for divination, a practice aimed at predicting the future, the archaeologists involved in the discovery say.

In 2010, scientists made a startling discovery about our past: About 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of living Europeans and Asians.Now two teams of researchers have come to another intriguing conclusion: Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of Asians at a second point in history, giving them an extra infusion of Neanderthal DNA.

Until fairly recently, the use of ayahuasca has been the purview of native people living in villages in recondite spots throughout the Amazon rainforest. But over the past decade especially, non-native people have sought the ayahuasca experience, and now this accounts for a full-on tourist boom in some places, most notably Iquitos, Peru, where one can find at least fifty or more ayahuasca-based lodges.Related: The UK needs common sense about ketamine, by David Nutt

Women's bodies may have evolved to make them better at looking after children because men did not put enough effort in, a new study has suggested.Research from the University of Bristol suggests that small initial differences which predisposed one sex to care more than the other are exaggerated once the ability to care evolves.

Neanderthal communities divided some of their tasks according to their sex. This study, which analyzed 99 incisors and canine teeth of 19 individuals from three different sites, reveals that the dental grooves present in the female fossils follow the same pattern, which is different to that found in male individuals.Alt: Women were expected to do household chores 100,000 years ago: Neanderthal females fixed clothing while men made tools

Seventy thousand years ago, when modern humans were on the verge of migrating from Africa and before Neanderthals died out, an alien star flew through the outer reaches of the solar system.Passing less than a light-year from Earth, the flyby was the closest stellar near-miss identified so far, scientists reported Tuesday in Astrophysical Journal Letters.Alt: Alien star system buzzed the Sun

On Oct. 8, 2013, an explosion on the sun's surface sent a supersonic blast wave of solar wind out into space. This shockwave tore past Mercury and Venus, blitzing by the moon before streaming toward Earth. The shockwave struck a massive blow to the Earth's magnetic field, setting off a magnetized sound pulse around the planet.Related: Giant Filament Seen on the Sun

Astronomers are trying to crack a strange new case: the mystery of the missing dwarf star.Using one of the biggest telescopes in the world, the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers were on the hunt for what they had confidently predicted to be a brown dwarf, only to discover that the object was nowhere to be found.

Exorcism is on the rise worldwide, backed by no less a figure than Pope Francis. In Australia, Peter Munro meets some of our foremost demon wranglers, and people who say they've had their souls saved.Related: In Thailand, the Ghost Business Thrives

It's not a normal task to be set when arriving in the newsroom. Go and find out what you can about fairies and Fairy Thorns - of course it's Friday 13th.So where does an incredibly sceptic journalist go to be convinced about fairies? Well my granny Evelyn of course - as I remember her telling about fairies at Matties Rock in Bushmills when we were growing up.

Scientists looking for deep sea organisms on a research cruise last month got a surprise when, instead of deep sea life, they pulled up metal balls the size of softballs. The German researchers stumbled inadvertently onto the discovery of the largest deposit of manganese nodules known to exist in the Atlantic ocean.Alt: What are the mystery 'alien' balls found on the ocean floor? Scientists are baffled by manganese rocks discovered in the Atlantic

Tilapia is best served with a side of French fries and cabbage, but scientists from Shanghai believe they have discovered an even better use: Collagen extracted from tilapia can be applied as a wound dressing that helps accelerate healing.Collagen, a protein found in connective tissue which is produced by cells called fibroblasts, facilitates wound healing.

Small, cold stars known as red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the Universe, and the sheer number of planets that may exist around them potentially make them valuable places to hunt for signs of extraterrestrial life.However, previous research into planets around red dwarfs suggested that while they may be warm enough to host life, they might also completely dry out, with any water they possess locked away permanently as ice. New research published on the topic finds that these planets may stay wet enough for life after all.

One of the most common kinds of planets detected by NASA's Kepler telescope appears to be a type that doesn't exist in our own solar system, a leading astronomer on the Kepler team said Friday.This type of planet has a size in the range between two and four times Earth's diameter, but it shouldn't be called a "super-Earth" or a "mini-Neptune," said Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy, one of the world's most experienced planet-hunters. For now, he's calling them "sub-Neptunes.".

As scientists seek to make crops resilient against disease and the effects of climate change, they are turning to what may seem like an unlikely champion: fungi.Specifically, they are studying endophytes, a type of fungus (or bacteria) that lives inside plant tissue and has no apparent negative effects on its hosts. Endophytes do, however, provide important protections to plants, which is why researchers are focusing on how the organisms could be used commercially to improve food security.

Technology could mean that our lives are lost to history, according to experts.As the way that we store information about ourselves develops, memories stored in files that use older technology are becoming harder to access, Dr Vinton "Vint" Cerf, vice president of Google, has warned.

She won the heart of King Henry VIII, divided the church and lost her head. But nearly 500 years after Anne Boleyn met her death, only one uncontested portrait of her remains.But another portrait from the late 16th century has emerged as a likely painting of the queen. Researchers in California used state-of-the-art face recognition to compare the face on the Moost Happi medal with a number of paintings and found a close match with the privately owned Nidd Hall portrait, held at the Bradford Art Galleries and Museums.

German authorities on Friday returned 500 historical books including original works by Renaissance scientists Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus, stolen from Italian libraries three years ago, to Naples prosecutors.Related: Rare bibles and Shakespeare folios in $300m 'wow factor' Princeton bequestRelated: Indigenous leaders fight for return of relics featuring in major new exhibition

A rich burgundy or crisp chardonnay may be your tipple of choice. But a handful of 1,500-year-old charred grape seeds could help scientists recreate one of the finest ancient wines.It is the first time that seeds have been found, offering hope that the taste of 'Gaza wine' could finally be revealed.Related: Divers in Caesarea find largest treasure of gold coins ever discovered in Israel

A "mystery manuscript" which has been held in Trafford Archives for more than 120 years has finally been identified.Related: Ancient animal bone suggests Himiko adopted Chinese fortunetelling method

We might think of state supported health care as an innovation of the 20th century, but it's a much older tradition than that. In fact, texts from a village dating back to Egypt's New Kingdom period, about 3,100-3,600 years ago, suggest that in ancient Egypt there was a state-supported health care network designed to ensure that workers making the king's tomb were productive.The village of Deir el-Medina was built for the workmen who made the royal tombs during the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BCE).

A spark from a lightning bolt, interstellar dust, or a subsea volcano could have triggered the very first life on Earth. But what happened next? Life can exist without oxygen, but without plentiful nitrogen to build genes - essential to viruses, bacteria and all other organisms - life on the early Earth would have been scarce.The ability to use atmospheric nitrogen to support more widespread life was thought to have appeared roughly 2 billion years ago. Now research from the University of Washington looking at some of the planet's oldest rocks finds evidence that 3.2 billion years ago, life was already pulling nitrogen out of the air and converting it into a form that could support larger communities.

Archeologist Jonathan Driver was part of the team that uncovered, more than 30 years ago, what was at that time one of the rarest archeological finds in Canadian history: A treasure trove of evidence of human occupation in Northern B.C. that dates back to the end of the last ice age.

Recent archaeological digs at Barrow Island and the Montebello Islands off the Pilbara coast have revealed a number of artefacts which have helped build a unique record of coastal habitation by early humans.UWA archaeologist Peter Veth says edge-ground stone axes were made there earlier than had been thought, but that inhabitants were yet to fit points to spears.

In this article, John McCauley uses his experience as an Architect and Construction Manager to critically analyse the construction scheme for building the Khufu pyramid and the popular theory of the use of an internal ramp.Related: Inside Tutankhamun's Tomb: Photos from the day archaeologists opened the burial chamber

Archaeologists and a team of other researchers are hoping that an Italian graveyard will provide clues about the evolution of the bacterium that causes cholera.Located near the ruins of the abandoned Badia Pozzeveri church in Italy's Tuscany region, the graveyard contains bodies of cholera victims of the world cholera epidemic of the 1850's.

People with back pain who have low expectations of acupuncture before they start a course of treatment will get less relief than those people who believe it will work, a new study shows.Conversely, people who have a positive view of back pain and who feel in control of their condition experience less back-related disability over the course of acupuncture treatment.

A potent psychedelic drug, DOI, was recently shown to be effective in treating asthma in a mouse model.The psychedelic drug DOI (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine) was invented by chemist Alexander Shulgin in the 1980s. Shulgin's story itself is worth looking into. Over the course of his lifetime, in addition to working out an easier method for synthesizing MDMA (ecstasy), Shulgin invented hundreds of new psychedelic drugs, based on the structure of drugs like LSD and mescaline.

While debate about recreational marijuana use continues, researchers are investigating the effectiveness of cannabis for treating pain, spasticity, and a host of other medical problems. Experts share their perspectives on the therapeutic potential of medical cannabis and explore the emerging science behind it.Related: Skunk's psychosis link is only half the cannabis story

Penguins can't appreciate the delicate flavours of the seafood they catch thanks to a lack of taste.New research published today in Current Biology reveals that penguins don't have the genes that encode three of the five basic tastes - sweet, bitter, and umami (a savoury flavour), although they are genetically capable of detecting salty and sour tastes.

Scientists have discovered that administering a peptide and hormone to a specific area of the brain may reduce the desire for food.The study, which appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, could one day lead to medications that treat obesity and binge eating disorders.

Our best shot at finding extraterrestrial life inside the solar system isn't on Mars. It's on Europa: a moon of Jupiter that likely has a vast water ocean under its ultra-cold, icy surface. And if all goes as planned, NASA will begin planning an uncrewed exploration mission to Europa next year."We think Europa has the ingredients for life," says Robert Pappalardo, the mission's project scientist. "Not just liquid water, but probably the right elements and chemical energy that might permit life too.".

A mysterious haze high above Mars has left scientists scratching their heads.The vast plume was initially spotted by amateur astronomers in 2012, and appeared twice before vanishing.

PUSH! It's a familiar instruction to women giving birth, and an important one for those on body-numbing drugs. Epidurals and spinal injections can make it a struggle for women to push their baby out. But a new device that signals the baby's progress can help women to learn when and how to push, speeding up labour and reducing the risk of problems.

Scientists are to scan the Amazon forest in Brazil to look for evidence of occupation by ancient civilisations.A drone will be sent up with a laser instrument to peer through the canopy for earthworks that were constructed thousands of years ago.Alt: Drones and satellites spot lost civilizations in unlikely places

Scientists who study ideas to engineer the climate to mitigate global warming say we should be ready to deploy an armada of instrumentation when Earth has its next major volcanic eruption.Data gathered in the high atmosphere would be invaluable in determining whether so-called "geoengineering" solutions had any merit at all.Related: Smoke from fires linked to tornado intensity

At first glance, Lauren Singer seems like a typical 23-year-old post-graduate living in New York City. Clad in slouchy black slacks, black crop top and leather moto vest, Singer's style is congruent with her stylish one-bedroom apartment in a South Williamsburg development.But a closer look beyond the shabby-chic decor and fresh flora revealed something unexpected. A small mason jar filled with a few colorful wrappers and bits of plastic sat behind her atop the pristine, white kitchen counter.

Love growing potatoes and tomatoes? This spring, gardeners in the U.S. (and Europe) will be able to get both tuber and fruit from a single plant.It even has a catchy name: Ketchup 'n' Fries.This isn't a genetically modified organism but a plant of two different nightshades: the top of a cherry tomato grafted onto a white potato.Related: Monarch butterfly endangered, Monsanto product zaps 900 million

For chimpanzees, just like humans, teasing, taunting and bullying are familiar parts of playground politics. An analysis of 12 years of observations of playground fights between young chimpanzees in East Africa finds that chimps with higher-ranked moms are more likely to win.The results come from an analysis of daily field notes recorded from 2000 to 2011 at Gombe National Park in western Tanzania. Stored in the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University and also at The George Washington University.

True adulthood does not begin in the western world until 25 because young people are putting off settling down for longer, a psychiatrist has claimed.Although the transition from child to adult is traditionally marked at 18, in fact, crucial neurological changes are now still happening into the mid-20s.Related: Revealed: the science behind teenage laziness

Some alien worlds might look like they're capable of hosting life as we know it on Earth, but in reality, these "mirage planets" might have burned away those chances for life, scientists think.Thus, these mirage planets may make it more difficult for scientists to find genuine signs of extraterrestrial life if it exists elsewhere in the universe, new research shows.

Astronomers have have gotten their first good look at the beginnings of a quadruple-star system.The discovery could lead to a better understanding of why some stars, such as our sun, are loners, while many others are born into systems with two, three, or more stars.

In a few billion years, the sun will become a red giant so large that it will engulf our planet. But the Earth will become uninhabitable much sooner than that. After about a billion years the sun will become hot enough to boil our oceans.The sun is currently classified as a "main sequence" star. This means that it is in the most stable part of its life, converting the hydrogen present in its core into helium.

The idea of building a lunar outpost has long captured people's imaginations. But what would it really be like to live on the moon?Space exploration has long focused on the moon, with Earth's satellite the setting for a number of significant missions. A 1959 Soviet spacecraft photographed the moon's far side for the first time, and in 1969, NASA landed people on the lunar surface for the first time.

Even though scientists have managed to quantify how much dark matter lurks in distant galaxies, astronomers have been hard-pressed to figure out how much of the mysterious stuff lies within our own.But in a paper published in the journal Nature Physics, a team of researchers has managed to measure the amount of dark matter in the inner Milky Way, which could shed light on the structure and evolution of our galaxy, and perhaps of others as well.Related: Camera seeks dark energy clues

New research from UCL and the Universities of Gdansk, Singapore, and Delft has uncovered additional second laws of thermodynamics which complement the ordinary second law of thermodynamics, one of the most fundamental laws of nature. These new second laws are generally not noticeable except on very small scales, at which point, they become increasingly important.

A new approach for concentrating photovoltaic systems gets rid of mechanical sun trackers, making this design a contender for sunny rooftops across the world, a recent report shows.Current strategies for turning sunlight into electricity make trade-offs between performance, price and versatility. However, researchers will have to advance in all three areas to meet the Department of Energy's "SunShot" goal: cost parity with fossil fuels by 2020.Related: Why Tesla's battery for your home should terrify utilities

A contact lens that magnifies objects at the wink of an eye has been created by scientists to help people with impaired vision.The lens contains an extremely thin telescope that is switched on when the wearer winks their right eye and returns to normal when they wink their left eye.

An international team of scientists is to try to develop a wholly artificial vaccine to combat polio.The disease is very close to being eradicated, with only a few hundred cases now reported worldwide each year.

Japanese researchers announced recently that they turned human embryonic stem cells into a three-dimensional structure similar to the cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for motor movements and receiving information from our senses.Even though the structure didn't last very long, it's another small step in building an "artificial brain," a challenge that has teams of scientists across the globe working to construct living tissue, silicon circuits and computer algorithms together into something that can perform the same tasks as our own living gray matter.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 10, 2015 -- Incredibly tough, slightly stretchy spider silk is a lightweight, biodegradable wonder material with numerous potential biomedical applications. But although humans have been colonizing relatively placid silkworms for thousands of years, harvesting silk from territorial and sometimes cannibalistic spiders has proven impractical. Instead, labs hoping to harness spider silk's mechanical properties are using its molecular structure as a template for their own biomimetic silks.

Patterns created by the brain's grid cells, which are believed to guide navigation, are modified by the shape of the environment, according to UCL researchers. This means grid patterns aren't a universal metric for the brain's GPS system to measure distance, as previously thought.Related: Reality is distorted in brain's maps

Alexandria, located on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt, has seen many changes in its 2,300 year history. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., at its height it rivalled Rome in its wealth and size, and was the seat for the Ptolemaic dynasty. However, through history not all agreed on the how to regard the Hellenistic city with a royal Egyptian past. An underwater temple discovered by marine divers off the eastern coast shed light on the pharaonic nature of ancient Alexandria.

A 6,000-year-old romance has been uncovered in a Greek cave as archaeologists unearthed the skeletons of an undisturbed Neolithic couple locked in an embrace.Found in the Alepotrypa, or foxhole, one of the Diros caves in southern Greece, the prehistoric remains were positioned curled into the fetal position, as if spooning each other. The grave also contained broken arrowheads.

New film footage revealing for the first time details of the potential killer blow that claimed the life of King Richard III has been released by the University of Leicester.Alt: Richard III Killed by Sword Thrust Upwards Into Neck

Land around Hadrian's Wall, a Roman ruin and one of Britain's top tourist attractions, is being damaged by illegal treasure hunters known as "night hawkers", officials said Thursday.Alt: Illegal 'nighthawkers' damage Hadrian's Wall

Reef islands can grow and change shape as sediments shift, studies show."If you were faced with the threat of the disappearance of your nation, what would you do?"That's the question Enele Sopoaga, the prime minister of the tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, asked fellow world leaders at the United Nations climate summit in Lima, Peru, in December.

About eight million tonnes of plastic waste find their way into the world's oceans each year, say scientists.The new study is said to be the best effort yet to quantify just how much of this debris is being dumped, blown or simply washed out to sea.Alt: Ocean plastic is likely disappearing into the food chain, new study indicates

Here at Goats and Soda, we can't resist a good story about goats. The same goes for soda. So we were intrigued to learn that soda plays a part in a new book called How the Body Knows Its Mind by Sian Beilock, a psychologist at the University of Chicago.Her book is about the ways in which our bodies affect our brains. To show how, Beilock did a study that sought to answer the question: When you decide whether or not you like an object, might you be making that decision based on how easy it is to pick the object up?

Diagnoses as different as depression, addictions and schizophrenia are all linked to a similar pattern of gray-matter loss in the brain, a new study finds.The results hint at an underlying biological cause for these mental illnesses.

Scientists in the U.K. have examined a tiny metal circular object, and are suggesting it might be a micro-organism deliberately sent by extraterrestrials to create life on Earth.The University of Buckingham reports that the minuscule metal globe was discovered by astrobiologist Milton Wainwright and a team of researchers who examined dust and minute matter gathered by a high-flying balloon in Earth's stratosphere.Alt: Is this picture a 'seed' sent to Earth by aliens? Scientists discover mysterious organism

Randall Carlson is a master builder and architectural designer, teacher, geometrician, geomythologist, geological explorer and renegade scholar. Here he joins Joe Rogan to discuss ancient climate change, and the mysteries of our past.See also Graham's appearances on the Joe Rogan podcast

At first glance, the ancient Babylonian tablets on exhibit for the first time at a Jerusalem museum look like nothing more than pockmarked lumps of clay.But the 2,500-year-old treasures from present-day Iraq have become part of a thorny archaeological debate over how to handle historically significant relics thought to have been dug up in the fog of war by Mideast antiquities robbers.

The oldest known fur seal has been discovered by a Geology PhD student at New Zealand's University of Otago, providing a missing link that helps to resolve a more than 5-million-year gap in fur seal and sea lion evolutionary history.Otago's Robert Boessenecker and colleague Morgan Churchill from the University of Wyoming have named this new genus and species of fur seal Eotaria crypta. The genus name Eotaria means 'dawn sea lion'.

Termites might not top the list of humanity's favorite insects, but new research suggests that their large dirt mounds are crucial to stopping the spread of deserts into semi-arid ecosystems and agricultural lands. The results not only suggest that termite mounds could make these areas more resilient to climate change than previously thought, but could also inspire a change in how scientists determine the possible effects of climate change on ecosystems.

By 2050, global meat-eating is expected to rise 73 percent over current levels. Appetites for seafood are booming, too. To help meet this demand, new research is looking down the food chain.A recent report examines the commercial viability of using housefly larva meal as a sustainable, less-expensive protein alternative to feeding livestock and farm-raised fish.

Monkeys are notoriously curious, and new research has quantified just how eager they are to gain new information, even if there are not immediate benefits. The findings offer insights into how a certain part of the brain shared by monkeys and humans plays a role in decision making, and perhaps even in some disorders and addictions in humans.

Linguists at The University of Manchester have examined the tracks of artists including multiple Grammy award-winner Eminem and Public Enemy, finding that the rhymes that make them superstars are so intuitive they are not within their conscious control.Louise Middleton, who is a third year linguistics student, examined the rhyming structures in rap music looking at rhyming patterns, vocabulary size, rhyme rate and the position of the rhyme in or across lines.

As Alexander the Great lay on his deathbed in 323 B.C., his generals reportedly asked to whom he left his empire. "To the strongest," Alexander said, according to historians."And, of course, they all started fighting about who the strongest was".Related: For Italians, a Lingering Superiority Complex About Roman Empire

Turns out we may have more in common with crocodiles than we'd ever dream. According to research by a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, crocodiles think surfing waves, playing ball and going on piggyback rides are fun, too.Vladimir Dinets, a research assistant professor in psychology, has studied crocodiles for a decade. While doing so, he has observed the animals engaging in play-like behavior.

Britain's urban areas are home to more types of wild bee than farmland, a study has found.Flowers planted in gardens and allotments provide a valuable food source for bees across the year, according to research.Related: The monarch massacre: Nearly a billion butterflies have vanished

Scientists in France have worked out the critical temperature at which popcorn bursts.They found that when the popcorn reached a threshold of 180C, the outer shell burst open regardless of the size and shape of the grain.Alt: Researchers Finally Solve The Mystery Of Exactly How Popcorn Pops

The results of a coin toss are random--or so we thought. But a provocative new video from YouTube's Numberphile series turns that conventional wisdom on its head.The video maintains that the ratio of getting heads vs. getting tails isn't 50/50. It's more like 51/49--with the coin more likely to come up the same way it started.

In Silicon Valley, there is a premium on creativity, and tools thought to induce or enhance it are avidly sought. Some view psychedelics as a weapon in the arsenal, a way to approach problems differently.Related: Facebook will soon be able to ID you in any photo

A massive outpouring of carbon dioxide from the deep ocean may have helped end the last ice age, scientists report today.There is strong evidence that changes in Earth's orbit set the pace of the planet's ice ages, by altering how much sunlight reaches the Northern Hemisphere. Yet, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere also wobble with the advance and retreat of massive ice sheets, according to observations of ice cores and old ocean sediments. Carbon dioxide levels are lower during an ice age and higher when an ice age ends.

Remember a few weeks ago when the weather on Mars was making the news? At the time, parts of the Red Planet was experiencing temperatures that were actually warmer than parts of the US. Naturally, there were quite a few skeptics. How could a planet with barely any atmosphere which is farther from the Sun actually be warmer than Earth?

A treasure trove of prized mementos from the first Moon landing have been found in Neil Armstrong's closet by his wife while she was doing a clearout.Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, died in August 2012.His wife Carol found the objects from the 1969 lunar expedition languishing at their home in Cincinnati, Ohio.

On Valentine's Day, people who have been unlucky in love will be said to suffer from a "broken heart."Broken heart also refers to an actual medical condition that feels like a heart attack. Broken heart syndrome occurs during highly stressful or emotional times, such as divorce, the death of a spouse, a serious medical diagnosis or significant financial problems.

A short nap can help relieve stress and bolster the immune systems of men who slept only two hours the previous nightNearly three in 10 adults reported they slept an average of six hours or less a night, according to the National Health Interview Survey."Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep".

Cheaper, better robots will replace human workers in the world's factories at a faster pace over the next decade, pushing labor costs down 16 percent, a report Tuesday said.The Boston Consulting Group predicts that investment in industrial robots will grow 10 percent a year in the world's 25-biggest export nations through 2025.Related: Hotel robots in Japan will perform a range of tasks

Two cryogenically cooled optical lattice clocks that can be synchronized to a tremendous one part in 2.0 x 10-18--meaning that they would only go out of synch by a second in 16 billion years. This is nearly 1,000 times more precise than the current international timekeeping standard cesium atomic clock.

Ever since its discovery was announced earlier this year, the 3 km-wide ring structure discovered on the of Antarctica has been a source of significant interest and speculation. Initially, the discovery was seen as little more than a happy accident that occurred during a survey of East Antarctica by a WEGAS (West-East Gondwana Amalgamation and its Separation) team from the Alfred Wegener Institute.

Claims that bones found in an Indonesian cave are not the remains of a new species of extinct hominin but more likely modern humans suffering from a chromosomal disorder have been disputed by a new look at the evidence.It's now more than ten years since a joint Indonesian-Australian team led by the late Prof Michael Morwood announced the discovery of the famous Hobbit fossils from the site of Liang Bua on the island of Flores, Indonesia.