Newsdesk Archive
Training older people in the use of social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and well-being, according to a landmark study carried out in the UK.Those who received training became more positive about computers over time, with the participants particularly enjoying connecting with friends and relatives via Skype and email.
Microsoft announced Monday a new step toward real-time translation, launching a Spanish-English test program using its Skype messaging service."Today, we are excited to announce the first phase of the Skype Translator preview program," said Microsoft's Gurdeep Pall.The program had its first trial with school children in Mexico City and their counterparts at a school in Tacoma, Washington.
China is developing a huge rocket that will be used for its first manned mission to the moon, state media said Monday, underscoring Beijing's increasingly ambitious space programme.The first launch of the Long March-9 will take place around 2028, said the China Daily, which also cited experts saying the rocket's development is at the research stage.
MAVEN, which arrived at Mars in September, has returned data highlighting two key processes that may have played a role in Mars's missing water, which scientists believe was lost to space.Related: Picture perfect proof that Mars once had wet seasons
The most dense store of carbon in Amazonia is not above ground in trees but below ground in peatlands, a study has calculated.An international team of researchers said their work, which uses satellite data and field measurements, provides the "most accurate estimates to date".
Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered the remains of an ancient farm house near the city of Rosh Ha-Ayin in central Israel.The farm house had 23 rooms and was built in the 8th century BC, the time of the Assyrian conquest.
A University of Otago, New Zealand, PhD student analysing dental calculus (hardened plaque) from ancient teeth is helping resolve the question of what plant foods Easter Islanders relied on before European contact.Known to its Polynesian inhabitants as Rapa Nui, Easter Island is thought to have been colonized around the 13th Century and is famed for its mysterious large stone statues or moai.
Speed, smarts, and the heart of a champion: using genomic analysis, scientists have identified DNA changes that helped turn ancient horses such as those in prehistoric cave art into today's Black Caviars and Secretariats.Understanding the genetic changes involved in equine domestication, which earlier research traced to the wind-swept steppes of Eurasia 5,500 years ago, has long been high on the wish list of evolutionary geneticists because of the important role that taming wild horses played in the development of civilisation.
The British Library has just added several Greek manuscripts to its online collection, including a lavishly illustrated, 16th century compilation of treatises on warfare, which detail the science and tactics of siegecraft.Such ancient works on military machines were a source of fascination during this era, not only because of their historic interest, but also as a source for modern inventions to be used in contemporary warfare.
Two new species of so-called pseudoscorpions have been discovered in a cave on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon.The elusive creatures, which have adapted to their lightless environment by losing their eyes, were discovered in Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, which abuts the better-known Grand Canyon National Park.Unlike true scorpions, these scorpion imposters lack a tail with a venomous stinger. Instead, the arachnids use venom-packed stingers in their pincers to immobilize their prey.
The team from The University of Nottingham and Queen Mary University of London, spent ten months studying to the ways cows communicate with their young, carefully examining acoustic indicators of identity and age.They identified two distinct maternal 'calls'.Related: How Can You Tell If Your Goat Is Happy? Now We Know!
We seem to live in a world of bizarre culinary trends, quickly-evolving health research and a barrage of eat-this-not-that PSAs. Deciding what to put on the dinner table has never been more of a battle, as experts decry America's obsession with meat and factory farming, significant contributors to climate change and the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.But what if there were a sustainable source of food you could eat, and actually help out the planet? And what if it were (mostly) free?
Being stuck behind a ghost car on Gran Turismo traditionally means you're off lap record pace. If Jaguar Land Rover's tech boffins get their way, it will - in the real world - instead be a sign you're obeying orders quite nicely.Alt: 'Ghost cars': the sat-nav of the future from Jaguar
What if you could, for a moment, have the body of someone of a different race, age, or sex? Would that change the way you feel about yourself or the way that you stereotype different social groups? In a paper publishing online December 15 in the Cell Press journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, researchers explain how they have used the brain's ability to bring together information from different senses to make white people feel that they were inhabiting black bodies and adults feel like they had children's bodies..
Danish scientists have solved the quantum mechanics problem that has been teasing them since the 1930s: how to calculate real life behaviour of atoms.The formula helps them work out how to optimise the transport of information from one atom to another. This will be necessary if we are to one day construct quantum computers.
A study finds that confessions are four times more likely when interrogators adopt a respectful stance toward detainees and build rapport, instead of torturing.The Senate Intelligence Committee report released this week found that the CIA tortured terror suspects by, among other things, putting hummus in a man's anus, forcing suspects to stand on broken feet, and blasting detainees with songs such as "Rawhide" at loud volumes on repeat.
Sometimes it may seem like your dog doesn't want to listen, but a new study finds dog brains process human speech a lot like ours do. Your pooch may understand more than he lets on.Human speech is complex, communicating not only words but also tone, as well as information about the speaker such as their gender and identity. To what extent can a dog pick up on these different cues?.
The urge to nibble cute creatures might be a case of getting one's wires crossed. In a recent study, researchers performed functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on women who unwittingly sniffed newborn infants. The odors activated reward-related areas of the brain, the same regions that trigger a pleasurable rush of dopamine when we get our hands on a desirable bit of food. A similar neural effect was reported in an earlier study where women viewed images of babies.
Teens stay up late at night and sleep late into the morning, a result of a natural shift in their circadian rhythms. That biological schedule puts them at odds with the adult world, as well as early start times for high school. But does the mismatch cut down on how much they actually sleep, and does that affect how stressed they feel? Data from Sleep Cycle reveals some intriguing insightsRelated: Many U.S. workers are sacrificing sleep for work hours, long commutes
With the party season ahead, many of us will indulge in the odd tipple at the office Christmas party or enjoy a drink or two with friends and family. But why do some of us wake up feeling horrendous the next morning, while others are seemingly unaffected by overindulgence? New research suggests that whether we suffer a debilitating hangover the next day could be influenced by our genes.
In a landmark moment for cannabis law reform, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a measure late Thursday night to de-fund the federal war on medical marijuana. The provision passed the Senate Saturday and is expected to be signed by President Obama, bringing a halt to the three-year-long medi-pot crackdown in California and other states.Related: U.S. won't stop Native Americans from growing, selling pot on their lands
Australian solar power researchers have achieved world-beating levels of efficiency, potentially making large solar plants more competitive with other energy sources such as coal.A team from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (PV) at the University of NSW has achieved 40.4 per cent "conversion efficiency" by using commercially available solar cells combined with a mirror and filters that reduce wasted energy.Related: Native Americans challenge construction of Mojave Desert solar plant
Lakes and tributaries across Anatolia have been hit by climate change and a lack of rain over the last year, but what is a natural disaster for the environment has provided historians with an opportunity to check their facts in eastern Turkey.The worst drought experienced by Lake Van in 15 years has exposed ancient cities and a number of historic artefacts that had until now long been submerged under water.
A chance discovery by a group of repairmen in Boston has led to the unearthing of a centuries-old time capsule, believed to have been buried there in the 1790s by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams.The antique time capsule, which had been placed in a cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House, was discovered this week when workers who had been repairing a water leak at the building stumbled upon it.
You've misplaced your cell phone. You start by scanning where you remember leaving it: on your bureau. You check and double-check the bureau before expanding your search around and below the bureau. Eventually, you switch from this local area to a more global one, widening your search to the rest of your room and beyond.When it comes to animals and food, a similar strategy is used to search for food.Related: How the hummingbird achieves its aerobatic feats
When it comes to weathering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, male macaques get by with a little help from their fellow dudes, according to new research. After getting the stink-eye stare from a dominant male or freezing their tail fur off in a cold cedar forest, male Barbary macaques who bonded with long-time male associates appear to suffer less stress than their loner counterparts.Related: Horse trots into hospital: It's therapy, no joke
It's enough to start a new battle of the sexes, but when it comes to needless and untimely deaths, men win hands down.A 20 year study of the Darwin Awards, an annual review of the most foolish way people have died, found almost 90 per cent were 'won' by males.Alt: Study supports the theory that 'men are idiots'
Researchers have taken what they are describing as 'the first step toward a pill that can replace the treadmill' for the control of obesity -- though it, of course, would not provide all the additional benefits of exercise. The researchers have already identified two compounds that can accomplish that in human cells.
Scientists have created a chemical that can be added to food to make people feel full. Initial tests showed it helped people to eat less and slow weight gain.It harnessed the power of a proprionate, which naturally makes us feel full when it is produced by breaking down fibre in the gut.
People who regularly drink from cans and plastic bottles may want to reconsider: A new study shows that a common chemical in the containers can seep into beverages and raise blood pressure within a few hours.Related: That Takeout Coffee Cup May Be Messing With Your Hormones
Lightning struck 5,000 times across the Western Isles and northern Scotland during Wednesday and Thursday, according to an energy provider.Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution (SHEPD) said the strikes were the cause of the most damage to electricity supplies during the storm.
An ancient meteorite and high-energy X-rays have helped scientists conclude a half century of effort to find, identify and characterize a mineral that makes up 38 percent of the Earth.And in doing so, a team of scientists led by Oliver Tschauner, a mineralogist at the University of Las Vegas, clarified the definition of the Earth's most abundant mineral -- a high-density form of magnesium iron silicate, now called Bridgmanite -- and defined estimated constraint ranges for its formation.
Astronomers may finally have detected a signal of dark matter, the mysterious and elusive stuff thought to make up most of the material universe.Alt: Researchers detect possible signal from dark matter
The moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-sized object smashed into the early Earth about 20 to 100 million years after the solar system coalesced. The heat from this impact should have left the moon drier than a bone, so Alberto Saal at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and his colleagues were surprised when they found 50 parts per million of water trapped inside tiny spheres of lunar volcanic glass in 2008.
Since the early 2000s scientists have been sounding the alarm that pollinating bees are being stricken with disease or mysteriously vanishing from their hives.However, analysis of species diversity in Great Britain shows a decline in pollinating bees and wasps that began far earlier than scientists had suspected.Alt: Bee losses followed World Wars
Vikings have a reputation for their ruthless marauding ways, but new evidence from an ongoing archaeological dig shows that the Vikings who settled in Iceland spent more time brewing beer and basting beef than pillaging and plundering. These meals of beef and booze were served during elaborate feasts that were likely held as a strategy to gain some political footing in their new home, research suggests.
Archaeologists have found further evidence of a Viking presence in Arctic Canada.Norse artefacts have been uncovered in mainland Canada and the Arctic islands over the past several decades.
The earth was hit by a comet around 12,800 years ago with globally cataclysmic effects that brought on an epoch of devastating, cold, darkness and floods known by geologists as the Younger Dryas. For the past seven years academics have been involved in such an intense dispute about whether or not the comet impact actually occurred that the implications of what it might have meant for the story of civilisation have not yet been considered at all.
The answers to the human past are out there, hidden in the DNA of bones in ancient burial mounds and unmarked graves.Increasingly, those answers are coming to light as geneticists at Harvard and elsewhere employ sophisticated methods to extract that DNA and make it readable despite the ravages of time.
Genetic material from the bones and teeth of wild horses, some of which died more than 20,000 years ago, has answered a longstanding debate about some Paleolithic cave artists: Were these ancient painters realists, depicting the natural world they saw around them, or did they portray more imaginative representations?
A tiny horned skull discovered 17 years ago has now been named Aquilops americanus, and marks the earliest arrival of horned dinosaurs in North America.The fossil skull is the oldest definitive evidence of a ceratopsian, the group of horned dinosaurs that includes Triceratops, on the continent. Paleontologists describe the dinosaur Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.
From hallucinogenic mushrooms and cacti to alcohol-infused enemas and psychoactive dried toad skins, the array of consciousness-altering substances that people in the early Americas used was wider than thought, a new report suggests.People living in Mesoamerica before the arrival of Europeans used such psychotropic drugs primarily in medicine and religious rituals, said study author Francisco Javier Carod-Artal of Hospital Virgen de la Luz in Cuenca, Spain. (Mesoamerica is a region defined more by shared cultures than by geographical boundaries, but it can roughly be considered as the southernmost region of North America.
Have you seen those birds that climb around the rhinos, picking away parasites, and thought, "Ah, nature can provide inspirational stories of peaceful cooperation"? Get ready to have your illusions shattered. Those birds are on their way to being vampires.The creation of a vampire starts innocuously. A bird notices a tasty-looking bug on a large animal, and down it goes to eat the bug. Over time, the animal adjusts to the bird's diet, and ignores the bird's light pecks and tweaks at its body.
Global efforts have halved the number of people dying from malaria - a tremendous achievement, the World Health Organization says.It says between 2001 and 2013, 4.3 million deaths were averted, 3.9 million of which were children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa.Related: Promising compound rapidly eliminates malaria parasite
Researchers from North Carolina State University and Qatar University have developed a new "high-entropy" metal alloy that has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than any other existing metal material.High-entropy alloys are materials that consist of five or more metals in approximately equal amounts. These alloys are currently the focus of significant attention in materials science and engineering because they can have desirable properties.
The brightest object in a nearby star cluster, thought for decades to be a single star, is actually two massive stars in the process of merging. The pair lies about 13,000 light-years from Earth in the minor Northern Hemisphere constellation of the Giraffe. Astronomers have long known the object as MY Camelopardalis.
The mystery of where Earth's water came from got murkier Wednesday when some astronomers essentially eliminated one of the chief suspects: comets.Over the past few months, the European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe closely examined the type of comet that some scientists theorized could have brought water to our planet 4 billion years ago. It found water, but the wrong kind.Alt: Rosetta discovers water on comet 67p like nothing on Earth
Peru says it will sue activists from the environmental pressure group Greenpeace after they placed a banner next to the Nazca Lines heritage site.The activists entered a restricted area next to the ancient ground markings depicting a hummingbird and laid down letters advocating renewable energy.
Natural weather patterns, not man-made global warming, are causing the historic drought parching California, says a study out Monday from federal scientists."It's important to note that California's drought, while extreme, is not an uncommon occurrence for the state," said Richard Seager, the report's lead author and professor with Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. The report was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report did not appear in a peer-reviewed journal but was reviewed by other NOAA scientists.
Many animal species have created their own pharmacies from ingredients that commonly occur in nature.Birds, bees, lizards, elephants, and chimpanzees all share a survival trait: They self-medicate. These animals eat things that make them feel better, or prevent disease, or kill parasites like flatworms, bacteria, and viruses, or just to aid in digestion. Even creatures with brains the size of pinheads somehow know to ingest certain plants or use them in unusual ways when they need them.
The dentist's office might be the last place you'd look to find a quick cure for an implacable bout of depression. But new research suggests that laughing gas -- the mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen that eases the pain and anxiety of having dental work -- may help banish treatment-resistant depression in about the time it takes to fill a cavity.
A Viking feasting hall measuring almost 50 metres in length has been identified near Vadstena in Sweden. Archaeologists from Stockholm University and Umeå University used ground-penetrating radar, a non-invasive geophysical method, to locate and map the house foundation.
An international collaboration between Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, and Institut de Recherche sur les Archéomatériaux (IRAMAT) at Orléans, France, has resulted in a sensational discovery about the trade routes between Denmark and the ancient civilisations in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the Bronze Age 3,400 years ago. The discovery also gives us new knowledge about the sun cult in the Nordic Bronze Age.
Archaeologists in China have unearthed a husband-and-wife tomb dating to the Ming Dynasty that contains extraordinarily well-preserved clothing decorated with elaborate designs.The 500-year-old tomb contained a wooden coffin for the husband and another for his wife. The two coffins lay side by side within an outer coffin, which in turn was covered by a layer of slurry (a mix of lime and sticky rice soup). Although archaeologists found only a few bones in the coffins, the clothing was finely preserved.
A rare 520 million year old fossil shaped like a 'squashed bird's nest' that will help to shed new light on life within Earth's ancient seas has been discovered in China by an international research team - and will honour the memory of a University of Leicester scientist who passed away earlier this year.The research team behind the discovery was led by Professor Xianguang Hou from the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology at Yunnan University in China with collaboration from the Universities of Leicester and Oxford.
A gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion known in the universe, may have triggered a mass extinction on Earth within the past billion years, researchers say.These deadly outbursts could help explain the so-called Fermi paradox, the seeming contradiction between the high chance of alien life and the lack of evidence for it, scientists added.
Researchers have recreated a split-second impact of a meteor with primoridal Earth, and shown how the 3.5-megaton collision might have reorganized common molecules into some of the early building blocks that led to all life.The feigned cataclysm took place in a lab in Prague, Czech Republic, using a 492-foot laser system to create a high-density plasma, with temperatures soaring to about 7,640 degrees Fahrenheit, and see its effects on a pool of formamide.
Scientists in a lab used a powerful laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth.The researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life.Related: How did life become complex, and could it happen beyond Earth?
A new distance record has been set in the strange world of quantum teleportation.In a recent experiment, the quantum state (the direction it was spinning) of a light particle instantly traveled 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) across an optical fiber, becoming the farthest successful quantum teleportation feat yet. Advances in quantum teleportation could lead to better Internet and communication security, and get scientists closer to developing quantum computers.
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is a peculiar place. Unlike any other moon, it has a dense atmosphere. It has rivers and lakes made up of components of natural gas, such as ethane and methane. It also has windswept dunes that are hundreds of yards high, more than a mile wide and hundreds of miles long -- despite data suggesting the body to have only light breezes. Winds on Titan must blow faster than previously thought to move sand. The discovery may explain how the dunes were formed.
The surface of ancient Mars may have been dotted by vast lakes that lasted long enough to give microbial life a chance to emerge on the Red Planet, NASA scientists said Monday.Alt: Mars Rover Finds Stronger Potential for Life, nytimes.comAlt: NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape, nasa.gov
The success of the Orion spacecraft test flight has paved the way for America to carry humans to Mars and beyond. Yet many scientists say that manned missions are expensive and unnecessary and that robot probes are the future.Related: Next giant leap for mankind should be to moon, not Mars, says Chris Hadfield
Among the billions and billions of stars in the sky, where should astronomers look for infant Earths where life might develop? New research from Cornell University's Institute for Pale Blue Dots shows where - and when - infant Earths are most likely to be found."The search for new, habitable worlds is one of the most exciting things human beings are doing today and finding infant Earths will add another fascinating piece to the puzzle of how 'Pale Blue Dots' work".
A Canadian company wants to land a couple of robots on Mars in late 2018, but to do so, it might need your help.For the mission, called Northern Light, Thoth Technology plans to deliver a lander and a mini rover called "Beaver" to the Red Planet in the next four years, and the company is asking space fans to help crowdfund the huge undertaking.Related: Here Are Photos Taken on Mars Just This Afternoon
Today's atmosphere likely bears little trace of its primordial self: Geochemical evidence suggests that Earth's atmosphere may have been completely obliterated at least twice since its formation more than 4 billion years ago. However, it's unclear what interplanetary forces could have driven such a dramatic loss.Now researchers at MIT, Hebrew University, and Caltech have landed on a likely scenario: A relentless blitz of small space rocks, or planetesimals, may have bombarded Earth around the time the moon was formed.
Exorcists and paranormal investigators are urging people not to buy the occult board game Ouija as gifts unless they want to invite demonic forces into their homes this Christmas.The warning comes as Google predicted that the modern version of the Victorian-era 'spirit boards' will be a sell-out this Christmas.Alt: Ouija boards are the must-have gift this Christmas, fuelled by a schlock horror film
Adam Bird, the co-founder of the British Bigfoot Research organization, followed a hot tip that a small wooded area in the Lincolnshire town of Friskney might have some cryptids living in it and sure enough, he came back with photographs and a video of what may be the British Bigfoot.Related: The Bigfoot of Japan
Once the lid was off the wood coffin holding the 2,500-year-old mummified remains of a 14-year-old Egyptian boy, scientist J.P. Brown could relax.The conservator at Chicago's Field Museum and three other scientists had just used clamps and pieces of metal to create a cradle to lift the fragile lid. Wearing blue surgical gloves, they slowly lifted the contraption containing the coffin lid and carefully walked it to a table in a humidity-controlled lab at the museum.
People came to the New World thousands of years earlier and by different means of locomotion than expected, says the Sherlock Holmes of old bones.In the summer of 1996, while wading in the shallows of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, two students stumbled onto a skeleton. Dated to 7000 to 6900 B.C., it would turn out to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made in North America.
Millions of documents stored in archives could provide scientists with the key to tracing agricultural development across the centuries, according to new research completed at Trinity College Dublin and the University of York.Amazingly, thanks to increasingly progressive genetic sequencing techniques, the all-important historical tales these documents tell are no longer confined to their texts; now, vital information also comes from the DNA of the parchment on which they are written.
Vikings may have been family men who traveled with their wives to new lands, according to a new study of ancient Viking DNA.Maternal DNA from ancient Norsemen closely matches that of modern-day people in the North Atlantic isles, particularly from the Orkney and Shetland Islands.
Researchers have discovered an intact 'ghost ship' in 2,000 feet of water nearly 20 miles off the coast of Oahu. Sitting upright, its solitary mast still standing and the ship's wheel still in place, the hulk of the former cable ship Dickenson, later the USS Kailua, was found on the seabed last year on a maritime heritage submersible mission.
The remains of a 6th Century church on a Cornish beach have been successfully excavated.The remains of St Piran's Oratory - buried at Penhale Sands, near Perranporth - are believed to be among the oldest places of Christian worship in Britain.
His corn and bean fields ravaged by drought, Nicaraguan farmer Leonel Sanchez Hernandez grudgingly found a new harvest: tarantulas.He gets a little over a dollar for each of the hairy critters, which breeders sell overseas as pets.His take may not be much, but in Nicaragua, a dollar buys a kilo of rice or a liter (quart) of milk. And in just two weeks, Sanchez Hernandez, his aunt Sonia and cousin Juan caught more than 400 of the spiders.
These days, with the abundance of artificial light, TV, tablets and smartphones, adults and children alike are burning the midnight oil. What they are not burning is calories: with later bedtimes comes the tendency to eat. A new study cautions against an extended period of snacking, suggesting instead that confining caloric consumption to an 8- to 12-hour period-as people did just a century ago-might stave off high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity.
Floating in a cloud and noshing sweets while wrapped in a cozy bubble sounds like a pleasant dream. For some lucky bacteria, it may be a reality.Researchers have discovered that a cloud-dwelling microbe, in this case a species of Bacillus bacteria, can eat up the sugars floating around in the atmosphere.
A robot that can scale the faces of steep cliffs might one day help explore Mars and find signs of life.The latest experiments with this "Cliffbot" showed it could help examine places otherwise difficult or impossible for astronauts to safely reach, although further improvements are needed for it to overcome obstacles, according to findings detailed in the journal Astrobiology.
A weird circular landform recently spotted on the surface of Mars might look like a deformed waffle--or maybe the surface of a human brain. But as to what the strange feature really is--and how it got there--scientists at this point have only opinions.The 1.2-mile-wide mound, which was observed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Spacecraft, is located in the planet's Athabasca region--an area known for lava flows.
Using an experiment carried into space on a NASA suborbital rocket, astronomers at Caltech and their colleagues have detected a diffuse cosmic glow that appears to represent more light than that produced by known galaxies in the universe. Initially some researchers proposed that this light came from the very first galaxies to form and ignite stars after the Big Bang. CalTech researchers say that the best explanation is that the cosmic light originates from stars that were stripped away from their parent galaxies and flung out into space as those galaxies collided and merged with other galaxies.
An American probe that will explore Pluto woke up from its slumber Saturday, after a nine-year journey to take a close look at the distant body for the first time."New Horizons is healthy and cruising quietly through deep space, nearly three billion miles from home, but its rest is nearly over," said Alice Bowman, the craft's operations manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Washington.Related: NASA launches new Orion spacecraft and new era
Police in Berlin are considering deploying software that predicts crimes -- and have even dubbed the project "Precobs" in a nod to a term used in "Minority Report," the sci-film based on a similar premise.Developed by a German firm, the software program predicts when and where a crime is most likely to occur, based on different data. It is being tested by police in the southern state of Bavaria.
Stonehenge may have been built by Stone Age man as a prehistoric centre for rock music, a new study has claimed.According to experts from London's Royal College of Art, some of the stones sound like bells, drums, and gongs when they are 'played' - or hit with hammers.Archaeologists, who have pondered why stone age man transported Bluestones 200 miles from Mynydd Y Preseli in Pembrokshire, South West Wales to Stonehenge, believe this discovery could hold the key.
AHMEDABAD: A 5,000-year-old stepwell has been found in one of the largest Harappan cities, Dholavira, in Kutch, which is three times bigger than the Great Bath at Mohenjo Daro.Located in the eastern reservoir of Dholavira by experts from the Archaeological Survey of India working with IIT-Gandhinagar, the site represents the largest, grandest, and the best furnished ancient reservoir discovered so far in the country.
A team of archaeologists led by the University of Bradford has unveiled the first scientific evidence of frankincense being used in Roman burial rites in Britain.Related: Giant Ancient Roman Water Basin UncoveredRelated: Shackled individuals found in Gallo-Roman cemetery in southwest France
Borrowing from the same technology that allows modern bipedal robots to walk, researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas have developed powered prosthetics that allow amputees to walk on a moving treadmill almost as fast as an able-bodied person.Bipedal humanoid robots are capable of walking, running, jumping, and climbing stairs autonomously. But the same can't really be said about modern prosthetics, which limit similar actions in humans.
An efficient method to harvest low-grade waste heat as electricity may be possible using reversible ammonia batteries, according to Penn State engineers.Related: Buckyballs enhance carbon capture: Environmentally friendly material targets flue gases, wells
This year is in the running to be the hottest globally and for the UK since records began, early estimates show.In the first 10 months of 2014, global average air temperature was about 0.57 Celsius above the long-term average.Related: Eating less meat essential to curb climate change, says report
Insecticides aimed at controlling early-season crop pests, such as soil-dwelling grubs and maggots, can increase slug populations, thus reducing crop yields, according to researchers. "Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides in the world," said one expert. "Seed applications of neonicotinoids are often viewed as cheap insurance against pest problems, but our results suggest that they can sometimes worsen pest problems and should be used with care."
A jolt from an electric eel does more than stun its prey, scientists say.A study, reported in the journal Science, has now shown that eels can use their electric organs to remotely control the fish they hunt.
Crows are more clever than you might think. They use tools to get food, can plan ahead and even can remember human faces.Zoologists are always fascinated with complex behaviors shaped by evolution, such as nest building. But occasionally, they are stumped by what University of Oxford zoologist Alex Kacelnik calls "spooky" behaviors for which there is no ready explanation.
A group of scientists in India have developed a way to recycle discarded lithium-ion laptop batteries into easily charged sources of light and power. Researchers in Bangalore developed prototype devices that can be used to provide hours of light to people who don't have access to the electrical grid.The prototypes are called UrJar, a play on the Hindi words for energy (urja) and box (jar).
Stuff just keeps on getting older....Check out the 4 links below for full details:http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/worlds-oldest-engravings-discovered-500000-year-old-shellshttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13962.htmlhttp://www.news.com.au/technology/science/shell-fossil-in-java-shows-earliest-known-human-pattern-creation/story-fnjwl1aw-1227144411681http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/society-culture/76936-trinil-shell-art-archaeology-homo-erectus
A Japanese spacecraft has launched on an ambitious mission to blast a hole in an asteroid and return samples of the space rock back to Earth.The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 asteroid mission blasted off Tuesday (Dec. 2) at 11:22 p.m. EST (0422 GMT Dec. 3) from the country's Tanegashima Space Center, where the local time at liftoff was 1:22 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 3. If all goes well, the spacecraft should return samples of the asteroid 1999 JU3 to Earth in late 2020, JAXA officials said.Related: Orion: highly anticipated Nasa launch postponed after multiple attempts
A high school diploma and 10 years of row crop farming experience in the central Texas area could land you a job with SpaceX.That's right, Elon Musk's cutting-edge spaceflight company, which intends to "pave the way to Mars," is looking to hire a farmer.
Volcanic eruptions on Mars could have warmed that world, potentially helping solve the mystery of how water could have flowed across the surface of the Red Planet long ago, researchers say.Although the surface of Mars is now cold and dry, there is ample evidence suggesting that rivers and lakes covered the Red Planet billions of years ago. However, the latest generation of climate models for early Mars suggests its atmosphere was too thin to keep the planet warm enough for water to flow. Moreover, the sun was much dimmer billions of years ago than it is now, suggesting Mars would have had less sunlight to heat it.
Asteroids could wipe out humanity unless more effort is made to track and destroy them, a leading body of scientists and astronauts has warned.Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, Brian Cox, and Richard Dawkins are among more than 100 experts calling for the creation of a huge asteroid detection system to prevent a doomsday scenario.
Billions of years ago the Moon had a magnetic field much stronger than the Earth does now, according to a new review of scientific data.Today, the Moon has no global magnetic field."We know the Moon had a powerful magnetic field between 4.25 and 3.56 billion years ago, which was much stronger than the Earth's magnetic field today," says Weiss.
By recording from the brains of bats as they flew and landed, scientists have found that the animals have a "neural compass" - allowing them to keep track of exactly where and even which way up they are.Related: 'Non-echolocating' fruit bats actually do echolocate, with wing clicks
In research published in the medical journal Brain, Saint Louis University researcher Daniela Salvemini, Ph.D. and colleagues within SLU, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other academic institutions have discovered a way to block a pain pathway in animal models of chronic neuropathic pain including pain caused by chemotherapeutic agents and bone cancer pain suggesting a promising new approach to pain relief.
A group of researchers, including a Saskatchewan scientist, have found what may be the oldest case of human cancer in the world.Bones of a man exhumed in Siberia that date back 4,500 years to the Early Bronze Age show he had lung or prostate cancer, which eventually spread through his body from his hip to his head. He died between 35 and 45 years old.