Newsdesk Archive
New genetic research reveals that a small group of hunter-gatherers now living in Southern Africa once was so large that it comprised the majority of living humans during most of the past 150,000 years. Only during the last 22,000 years have the other African ethnicities, including the ones giving rise to Europeans and Asians, become vastly most numerous. Now the Khoisan (who sometimes call themselves Bushmen) number about 100,000 individuals, while the rest of humanity numbers 7 billion. Their lives and ways have remained unaltered for hundreds of generations, with only recent events endangering their hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
A £2billion deal to create a "super highway" connecting London and the Devon area is to be announced by the Government today.The Government is set to reveal details of its plan to transform the A303 in a bid to end road misery for its long-suffering users.Alt: Tunnel to be built past Stonehenge
The graphic shows the vast swathe of our planet that geologists call the Younger Dryas Boundary Field. Across this huge "fingerprint" spanning North America, Central America, parts of South America, most of Europe and parts of the Middle East as well, the tell-tale traces of multiple impacts by the fragments of a giant comet have been found. Some of these fragments, were TWO KILOMETRES or more in diameter and they hit the earth like a blast from a cosmic scatter-gun around 12,800 years ago.
Rich families stay rich and poor families stay poor, according to a new study that finds that English people whose ancestors were elite in the 1100s are still likely part of the upper crust today.The study echoes work in other countries that has found that social status budges little over generations, even in the face of massive social changes, said study researcher Gregory Clark, an economist at the University of California, Davis.
About 100 pickled brains have gone missing from an American university, leaving professors scratching their heads.Officials at the University of Texas, in Austin, believe students may have stolen the organs, which are preserved in jars of formaldehyde, for Halloween pranks or to use as bizarre ornaments.
Just as lingerie turns on human males, tiny jackets do the same for male rats, a new study finds.In an unusual study, researchers allowed virgin male rats to have sex with females wearing special rodent "jackets." Later, when scientists gave the males a chance to mate again, the animals preferred to mate with jacket-wearing female rats rather than with unclad ones.
Humans and their primate cousins are well known for their intelligence and social abilities. You hear them called bird-brained, but birds have demonstrated a great deal of intelligence in many tasks.However, little is known about their social skills. A new study shows that ravens are socially savvier than we give them credit for. They are able to work out the social dynamics of other raven groups, something which only humans had shown the ability to do.
Did Mars ever have life? Does it still? A meteorite from Mars has reignited the old debate. An international team that includes scientists from EPFL has published a paper in the scientific journal Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences, showing that martian life is more probable than previously thought.Alt: Meteorite May Contain Proof of Life on Mars, Researchers Say
A way to prevent noise-induced hearing loss has been found in a mouse using a simple chemical compound that is a precursor to vitamin B3. This discovery has important implications not only for preventing hearing loss, but also potentially for treating some aging-related conditions that are linked to the same protein.
The amount of time people spend sleeping is linked with two regions of their DNA, a new study suggests.In the study, researchers examined data from more than 47,000 people of European ancestry who were participating in ongoing studies in Europe, the United States and Australia, and nearly 5,000 African-Americans. The researchers compared people's genetic information with how long they reported sleeping on an average night.
A study funded by the National Institutes of Health is unraveling the mystery of how blue light from residential and commercial lighting, electronic devices and outdoor lights can throw off-kilter the natural body clock of humans, plants and animals, leading to disease.Exposure to blue light is on the increase, says chemist Brian D. Zoltowski, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who leads the study, "Protein : Protein interaction networks in the circadian clock."
A planet may be forming in a star system with more than one sun, making it sort of like an early Tatooine, the fictional home world of Luke Skywalker in "Star Wars," new research shows.The finding could help explain how planets orbiting multiple stars are born and, in turn, one day reveal many new potential locations of alien worlds, scientists say.Related: Binary Earth-Size Planets Possible Around Distant Stars
GPS satellites are crucial for navigation, but now researchers think this technology could be used for an unexpected purpose: finding traces of enigmatic dark matter that is thought to lurk throughout the universe.Physicists estimate there is nearly six times as much dark matter in the universe as there is visible matter. But despite a decades-long search, scientists have yet to find direct evidence of invisible dark matter, and its existence is inferred based on its gravitational pull on galaxies and other celestial bodies. Without the extra force of gravity from dark matter, researchers say, galaxies wouldn't be able to hold themselves together.
It wasn't easy to find a specific book on library shelves in the Middle Ages. The spine title had not yet been invented, and the books weren't published in standard sizes. But readers didn't have to spend hours searching, thanks to an ingenious system that made use of concepts similar to modern GPS.A book was tagged with a unique identifier (a shelfmark) that was entered into a searchable database (a library catalogue), which could subsequently be consulted with a handheld device (a portable version of the catalogue).
Some of the most elaborately decorated instruments in history were produced in 18th century Naples. The materials for varnishes and decorations used by individual mandolin masters, honed for wealthy clients in the ancient city's labyrinthine artisan quarter, have been kept secret for over 200 years. Details are disclosed for the first time by Tommaso Rovetta from the Università degli Studi di Pavia and colleagues at the Laboratorio Arvedi Research Group in Springer's journal Applied Physics A - Materials Science & Processing.
Replenishing the supply of a molecule that normally activates cannabinoid receptors in the brain could relieve mood and anxiety disorders and enable some people to quit using marijuana, a Vanderbilt University study suggests.Cannabinoid receptors are normally activated by compounds in the brain called endocannabinoids, the most abundant of which is 2-AG. They also are "turned on" by the active ingredient in marijuana.
HIV is evolving to become less deadly and less infectious, according to a major scientific study.The team at the University of Oxford shows the virus is being "watered down" as it adapts to our immune systems.
Enzymes that don't exist in nature have been made from genetic material that doesn't exist in nature either, called XNA, or xeno nucleic acid.It's the first time this has been done and the results reinforce the possibility that life could evolve without DNA or RNA, the two self-replicating molecules considered indispensible for life on Earth.Alt: Scientists make enzymes from scratch
New research suggests skincare tailored to individuals' DNA may be the best way to combat the appearance of ageingThose who believe that beauty is only skin deep may need to think again.A most advanced anti-ageing serum ever created is going far deeper in the pursuit of the ultimate skincare regime, right into our DNA.
During a thunderstorm, we all know that it is common to hear thunder after we see the lightning. That's because sound travels much slower (768 miles per hour) than light (670,000,000 miles per hour).Now, University of Minnesota engineering researchers have developed a chip on which both sound wave and light wave are generated and confined together so that the sound can very efficiently control the light. The novel device platform could improve wireless communications systems using optical fibers and ultimately be used for computation using quantum physics.
Stephen Hawking: "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded"Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.
The brain is protected by formidable defenses. In addition to the skull, the cells that make up the blood-brain barrier keep pathogens and toxic substances from reaching the central nervous system. The protection is a boon, except when we need to deliver drugs to treat illnesses. Now researchers are testing a way to penetrate these bastions: sound waves.Related: Tongue Shocks Hasten Healing
The holidays are packed with opportunities to raise a glass of our favorite boozy beverages and toast family, friends and good fortunes. But our ability to digest rum-spiked eggnog may be due to a massive climate shift that occurred millions of years ago.Using the tools of paleogenetics, scientists have recently traced the evolutionary history of an enzyme that helps us metabolize ethanol, the principal type of alcohol found in adult beverages.Alt: Ability to consume alcohol may have shaped primate evolution
An international team of archaeologists has unearthed three 2,200-year-old, well-preserved glass mosaics at the site of the ancient city of Zeugma in Turkey.The ancient city of Zeugma, also known as Seleukia-on-the-Euphrates, is located in modern Gaziantep province, where the Euphrates river rounds its furthest bend to the west and begins to flow south into the Syrian desert.
In the early 1800s, two folk tales circulated around Japan. Both involved a very strange woman emerging from a very strange ship. Her dress and appearance seemed out of this world. What happened?There are two versions of this story. One was written in 1825 and one in 1844. In both versions, some Japanese sailors happened to notice, floating in the ocean, a very strange vessel. It was circular, which was not so unusual. What caught there attention was that it seemed to have a lid that covered the top of the ship, and glass windows.
A series of mysterious, apparently inexplicable explosions heard around the UK were eerily reminiscent of a futuristic 'pulse detonation jet' an expert has said.The strange bangs were reported around the UK (and as far away as New York) on 29 November, with residents from Aberdeen to Croydon noting the blasts on Twitter.Alt: Were mysterious bangs heard all over Britain and in New York caused by U.S. stealth jet? Expert claims noises mimicked 'pulse detonation engine' - which could power rumoured Aurora project
A year ago, Amazon.com workers like 34-year-old Rejinaldo Rosales hiked miles of aisles each shift to "pick" each item a customer ordered and prepare it for shipping.Now the e-commerce giant boasts that it has boosted efficiency - and given workers' legs a break - by deploying more than 15,000 wheeled robots to crisscross the floors of its biggest warehouses and deliver stacks of toys, books and other products to employees.Related: Coffee with Pepper? Robot sells espresso machines in Japan
What would Stewart Little make of it? Mice have been created whose brains are half human. As a result, the animals are smarter than their siblings.The idea is not to mimic fiction, but to advance our understanding of human brain diseases by studying them in whole mouse brains rather than in dishes.Alt: Mice with half-human brains four times smarter than their peers: scientists
Often we view Chinese culture through an East versus West lens. But joint research from the U.S. and China indicates that northern Chinese may have a mind-set closer to individualistic Americans than their southern compatriots. And the reason is rice.The Yangtze River splits China into north and south and serves as an agricultural and cultural divide, explains University of Virginia doctoral candidate Thomas Talhelm, first author of the study, which appears in Science. Farmers north of the Yangtze predominantly grow wheat, and those to the south grow rice.
Was Leonardo da Vinci's mother a Chinese slave? That astounding theory is being put forward by a Hong Kong-based historian and novelist who has spent the last two years piecing documents together to connect the dots.Alt: Was the Mona Lisa actually a portrait of Da Vinci's CHINESE mother? Author says she was slave
Lightpaper looks like a tear in reality, or a handheld computer glitch. Rohinni, a technology company with roots in both Idaho and Austin, Texas, created a paper-thin light-emitting square. When a charge is sent through it, it glows like a gleaming portal.Rohinni makes Lightpaper by printing a mixture of ink and LEDs together onto a surface that conducts electricity.
The "wonder material" graphene could be used to make bulletproof armour.US researchers carried out miniature ballistic tests by firing tiny silica spheres at sheets of graphene.
Visitors from around the world are drawn to New York City's High Line, an elevated park built on defunct railroad tracks transformed into an urban sanctuary of flowers, grasses and trees.Private planners inspired by the High Line's success are now looking deep under Manhattan at a proposal to create the Lowline, billed as the world's first underground park.Related: How To Make Extra-Efficient Solar Panels Using Old Blu-Ray Discs
Plastic populates our world through everything from electronics to packaging and vehicles. Once discarded, it resides almost permanently in landfills and oceans. A discovery by researchers at North Dakota State University, Fargo, holds scientific promise that could lead to a new type of plastic that can be broken down when exposed to a specific type of light and is reduced back to molecules, which could then be used to create new plastic.
Scientists have captured what is believed to be the first photographic evidence of brown bears within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ).Camera traps, used by a project assessing radioactive exposure impacts on wildlife, recorded the images.Related: Should Grizzlies Be Restored to the North Cascades?
I was snorkelling far offshore when the bull shark appeared. Movement in the corner of my eye, then a silhouette 30 metres away, slipping through the turquoise haze on that late afternoon. He was fat, with a bright white belly and distinctive snub nose. He studied the two-legged intruder and began to circle, slowly closing the gap: 20 metres, 15, 12...I stuck it out for as long as I dared, then, trying to avoid panicked splashing, I kicked for the boat, not taking my eyes off him. You don't want to mess around with a bull.
Doctors in Canada will become the first medics in North America to prescribe heroin to addicts next week.Related: 9 out of 10 problem drinkers in the U.S. aren't alcoholics, study saysRelated: CDC: Fewer than 18% of American adults smoke cigarettes, a new low
Large-scale seizures of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines by police do not reduce the number of overdoses or arrests for possession and use of the drugs, according to the largest Australian study ever conducted into the area.The study by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) also found that the frequency and quantity of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines being seized by authorities had no effect on theft, robbery and assault figures.
Geologists may be close to cracking one of the biggest seismological mysteries in the Pacific Northwest: the origin of a powerful earthquake that rattled seven states and provinces when Ulysses S. Grant was president.Preliminary evidence points to a newly discovered fault near the town of Entiat in Chelan County, Wash. The find adds to a growing body of evidence that Central and Eastern Washington are more quake-prone than previously thought, and will help refine seismic risks in an area that's home to 1.5 million people, more than a dozen hydropower dams and the Hanford nuclear reservation.
I made a research trip to Lebanon in July 2014 and reported here on the recent discovery of a third gigantic megalith in the quarries at Baalbek (in the Beqaa Valley), about a kilometre from the famous Roman temple of Jupiter. Now we have more information from the German Archaeological Institute that has been studying and measuring the newly discovered megalith which is described as 19.60 metres long, 6 metres wide and at least 5.5 metres high.Alt: Archaeologists Discover The World's Largest Ancient Stone Block
According to paper published online November 20 in the Journal of Human Evolution, the age of the Lantian Homo erectus cranium from Gongwangling, Lantian County, Shaanxi Province, China, is likely half a million years older than previously thought. Earlier estimates dated this important fossil, which was found in 1964, to 1.15 million years ago. A research team of Chinese and British scientists, have provided compelling evidence that the fossil should be dated to 1.63 million years ago, making it the oldest fossil hominin cranium known in northeast Asia, and the second oldest site with cranial remains outside Africa.
Archaeologists in Denmark have uncovered an incredibly rare find: a stone age axe held within its wooden handle.The 5,500-year-old Neolithic axe was found during archaeological surveys ahead of a multi-billion euro tunnel project.
One person's trash turned out to be a national treasure. Back in 2002, a farmer leaving near East Rudham, Norfolk, in the United Kingdom, dug up a large bronze object that looked like a bent sword.Not thinking much of it, the unnamed farmer used it as a doorstop for 12 years before deciding to throw it away, according to Dr. Tim Pestell, senior curator of archaeology at Norwich Castle.
THERE is only one real rule to conversing with a baby: talking is better than not talking. But that one rule can make a lifetime of difference.That's the message that the US state of Georgia hopes to send with Talk With Me Baby, a public health programme devoted to the art of baby talk. Starting in January, nurses will be trained in the best way to speak to babies to help them learn language, based on what the latest neuroscience says. Then they, along with teachers and nutritionists, will model this good behaviour for the parents they meet.
Proposals for the first trials to cool the planet include cloud brightening and spraying aerosols into the ozone layer. They might start in just two years.Related: Geoengineering our climate is not a 'quick fix'
The plot thickens, or should it be the ice? The most detailed and comprehensive 3D map so far of Antarctica's winter sea ice shows that big parts of it are much thicker and more smashed-up than we thought, in fact, three times as thick. Data from this map will help us fill in some of the biggest gaps in our global climate models.Related: Underwater robot produces first precise map of Antarctic sea ice depth
Tarantulas and black widows may cause human Miss Muffets to get off their tuffets, but several studies show that many spiders themselves run for their lives if they encounter Myrmarachne melanotarsa, a gregarious jumping spider that pretends to be an ant.Related: Bumba lennoni: New Species of Tarantula Discovered in Brazil, Named after John LennonRelated: Mysterious 'Glow Worm' Found in Peruvian Rainforest
A pair of researches with Kyoto University has found how the queen of one species of termite, Reticulitermes speratus, ensures her genetic lineage continues by creating duplicate copies of herself.Related: Hermaphrodite snail named after marriage equality
A "time cloak" that conceals events rather than objects can hide secret messages through a trick of light, making information invisible to all but the intended recipient.Like an invisibility cloak that makes something disappear in plain sight, a time cloak makes an event disappear in time. It works by manipulating light traveling along an optical fibre.
Homosexual behaviour may have evolved to promote social bonding in humans, according to new research.The results of a preliminary study provide the first evidence that our need to bond with others increases our openness to engaging in homosexual behaviour.
In Australia, around a billion cups of coffee a year are consumed in cafés, restaurants and other outlets. Even Britain, a nation famous for its fondness for tea, has in recent years seen a dramatic rise in its coffee consumption, with an estimated 70 million cups drunk each day.Alt: Is your coffee too bitter? Change the colour of your cup! Blue and transparent mugs make drinks taste sweeter
Instead of eating three square meals a day, an eating schedule that involves "intermittent fasting" could help fight not just obesity but many related diseases of modern life, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's, researchers say.Related: Fat to Blame for Half a Million Cancers a Year
Almost a century after the discovery that sleep helps us remember things, scientists are beginning to understand why.During sleep, the brain produces chemicals that are important to memory and relives events we want to remember, scientists reported this week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington D.C.Related: Late-Night Meals May Interfere with Memory, Research Suggests
Right before dying, many people experience vivid and meaningful dreams and visions, according to accounts across cultures and throughout history. Yet little scientific research has investigated the phenomenon. A new study in the American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care, the first study to focus primarily on the patient's perspective, found that most of these dreams are a source of personal comfort. They bring about a sense of peace, a change in perspective or an acceptance of death, suggesting that medical professionals should recognize dreams and visions as a positive part of the dying process.
Computers at Google now have a machine-learning system that can analyze images like the one above and generate captions for them. The phrase used to caption this image? "A person riding a motorcycle on a dirt road." It might not seem like much, but it's actually one hell of an accomplishment.
One of the most mysterious forms of life may turn out to be a rich and untapped source of antibacterial drugs.The mysterious life form is Archaea, a family of single-celled organisms that thrive in environments like boiling hydrothermal pools and smoking deep sea vents which are too extreme for most other species to survive.
A riddle for the ages may be a small step closer to a solution: Who made the famed Antikythera Mechanism, the astronomical calculator that was raised from an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901?The complex clocklike assembly of bronze gears and display dials predates other known examples of similar technology by more than 1,000 years. It accurately predicted lunar and solar eclipses, as well as solar, lunar and planetary positions.Alt: The Mysterious Antikythera Mechanism Is More Ancient Than We Thought
A mysterious explosion heard across parts of Manchester and Salford remains unexplained.Hundreds of people took to social media to describe hearing a "loud bang" at about 22:30 GMT on Monday.
On hot vents deep underneath the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, there lives something unusual: a gene that fights bacteria. The gene belongs to a microscopic organism, scientifically named Aciduliprofundum boonei, that lives in the extreme environments atop undersea thermal vents all over the world.Related: Strange Sounds of the Deep Dark Sea
Being in a position of power can fundamentally change the way you speak, altering basic acoustic properties of the voice, and other people are able to pick up on these vocal cues to know who is really in charge, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.We tend to focus on our words when we want to come across as powerful to others, but these findings suggest that basic acoustic cues also play an important role.
France has given the world fragrant perfume and very stinky cheeses, but the country's latest and greatest olfactory contribution may be a pill that makes farts smell like chocolate.The sweet-smelling product is the creation of Christian Poincheval, a 65-year-old inventor who hails from the village of Gesvres and looks like Santa Claus' younger hippie brother.
A mirror that sends heat into the frigid expanse of space has been designed by scientists to replace air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth.Researchers believe the mirror could slash the amount of energy used to control air temperatures in business premises and shopping centres by doing away with power-hungry cooling systems.
A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered an invisible shield some 7,200 miles above Earth that blocks so-called "killer electrons," which whip around the planet at near-light speed and have been known to threaten astronauts, fry satellites and degrade space systems during intense solar storms.The barrier to the particle motion was discovered in the Van Allen radiation belts, two doughnut-shaped rings above Earth that are filled with high-energy electrons and protons.
DNA hitching a ride on the outside of a rocket has survived the launch, space travel and atmospheric re-entry to remain usable upon return to Earth, according to a new study.The findings reported in the journal PLOS ONE adds to a growing body of evidence showing how some life can survive the extreme radiation, vacuum, and temperatures of space, and still be viable once it finds a safe environment to flourish.
"All these worlds are yours except Europa, attempt no landing there."As much as I love Arthur C. Clarke and his books, I've got to disagree with his judgement on which moons we should be avoiding. Europa is awesome. It's probably got a vast liquid ocean underneath its icy surface. There might even be life swimming down there, ready to be discovered. Giant freaky Europa whales or some kind of alien sharknado. Oh man, I just had the BEST idea for a movie.
In a discovery that experts say could revolutionise fuel cell technology, scientists have found that graphene, the world's thinnest, strongest and most impermeable material, can allow protons to pass through it.The new discovery reported in the journal Nature raises the possibility that graphene membranes could one day be used to "sieve" hydrogen gas directly from the atmosphere to generate electricity.
A palaeontologist from our University studying fossils that were kept in a museum in Canada for over 75 years has discovered a new species of dinosaur.Dr Nick Longrich from our University studied the fossilised bones of two horned dinosaurs from the ceratopsian family and found that they were in fact two previously unknown species.Related: Italian natural history museums on the verge of collapse?
The mystery behind several "vampire" burials in Poland has been solved.People who were buried with sickles (curved, sharp farming knives) around their necks, or rocks at their jaws, to prevent their corpses from reanimating were natives to the area in which they were buried, according to a new study.
A rare and valuable Shakespeare First Folio, regarded as the most important book in English literature, has been discovered in a small French town.Related: Was Shakespeare gay? Row breaks out between experts on playwright over whether lines from the sonnets reveal his sexuality
You might wonder why 48 million Americans get food poisoning every year, yet there are some animals that seem to be immune from even the nastiest germs.We're talking here about vultures, which feast on rotting flesh that is chockablock with bacteria that would be deadly to human beings. In fact, vultures have a strong preference for that kind of food.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is today labelled as a problem in society, with diagnoses surging by as much as tenfold in some countries.But it may not have always been considered as something that needs treating. In fact, one scientist claims ADHD may have helped the human species survive.Related: New Gene Studies Suggest There Are Hundreds of Kinds of Autism
Older people who are active Internet users and who regularly indulge in a spot of culture may be better able to retain their health literacy, and therefore maintain good health, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
Usually blind sages revealing the secrets of the universe are Asian. Scotland doesn't get enough respect that way but a centipede is defying the stereotype.Arthropods are one of Earth's real success stories, with more species than any other animal phylum.Alt: Genome of lowly centipede sequenced, adding a piece to puzzle of how life started on Earth
Humans in Africa already exploited domestic cereals 7,000 years ago and thus several centuries earlier than previously known.A research team from Barcelona, Treviso, London and Kiel was successful in verifying ancient barley and wheat residues in grave goods and on teeth from two Neolithic cemeteries in Central Sudan and Nubia.
Humans in Africa already exploited domestic cereals 7,000 years ago and thus several centuries earlier than previously known.A research team from Barcelona, Treviso, London and Kiel was successful in verifying ancient barley and wheat residues in grave goods and on teeth from two Neolithic cemeteries in Central Sudan and Nubia.Related: Look How Much Bigger Thanksgiving Turkeys Are Today Than in the 1930s
A sculpture of a mysterious, never-before-seen Roman deity has been unearthed in an ancient temple in Turkey.The 1st century B.C. relief, of an enigmatic bearded god rising up out of a flower or plant, was discovered at the site of a Roman temple near the Syrian border. The ancient relief was discovered in a supporting wall of a medieval Christian monastery.Related: Archaeologists find fertility genius, godheads and oil lamps in Roman Cumbria
Who would've known human waste could be used to propel spacecraft from the moon back to Earth? Researchers responded to the call from NASA and came up with a process to convert waste to methane and propel spacecraft to Earth.
Over 1600 years ago, this deep blue glass dish made its way from a Mediterranean workshop, across Central Asia, to its final resting place in a 5th century Japanese grave. The journey may have taken over a century, and gives us a glimpse of what trade was like in the early days of the Silk Road.Alt: Scientists: Glass dish unearthed in Nara came from Roman Empire
A riddle for the ages may be a small step closer to a solution: Who made the famed Antikythera Mechanism, the astronomical calculator that was raised from an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901?The complex clocklike assembly of bronze gears and display dials predates other known examples of similar technology by more than 1,000 years. It accurately predicted lunar and solar eclipses, as well as solar, lunar and planetary positions.
The idea that an infinite number of parallel worlds could exist alongside our own is hard to wrap the mind around, but a version of this so-called Many Worlds theory could provide an answer to the controversial idea of quantum mechanics and its many different interpretations.Bill Poirier, a professor of physics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, proposed a theory that not only assumes parallel worlds exist, but also says their interaction can explain all the quantum mechanics "weirdness" in the observable universe.
In about 4 billion years, our sun will become a red giant star, engulfing the inner planets and basking the outer planets in its ebbing heat. When the happens, according to a NASA scientist, Saturn's moon Titan, which resembles a frozen version of Earth billions of years ago, could evolve its own indigenous life.
A British-led consortium has outlined its plans to land a robotic probe on the Moon in 10 years' time.Alt: Crowdfunded Moon Mission Is Serious about Science [Video]Related: Is it OK to leave objects on the Moon?
The universe may be a lonelier place than previously thought. Of the estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, only one in 10 can support complex life like that on Earth, a pair of astrophysicists argues. Everywhere else, stellar explosions known as gamma ray bursts would regularly wipe out any life forms more elaborate than microbes. The detonations also kept the universe lifeless for billions of years after the big bang, the researchers say.
Doing an environmentally good deed gives you a warm feeling - quite literally.Psychologists found that when volunteers thought they were helping the environment their perception of temperature changed.It was as if they were enveloped in a ''warm glow'', said the scientists.
Researchers performed memory tests with 5-month-old babies, and found that the babies better remembered shapes that were introduced with happy voices and faces. Past studies have shown that babies are very tuned to emotions, including the emotions of animals.Related: Lost languages leave traces on the brain
When it comes to raising their young, chimpanzee mothers are more socially outgoing and gregarious if they are caring for a boy, as opposed to a girl, according to a new study.In a paper published Monday in the journal PNAS, researchers concluded that chimpanzee mothers in Gombe National Park in Tanzania were far more likely to spend time with larger groups of chimps if their offspring were male, especially during their offspring's first six months.
Biogeologists have shown how Gravettian people shared their food 30,000 years ago. Around 30,000 years ago Predmosti was inhabited by people of the pan-European Gravettian culture, who used the bones of more than 1000 mammoths to build their settlement and to ivory sculptures. Did prehistoric people collect this precious raw material from carcasses -- easy to spot on the big cold steppe -- or were they the direct result of hunting for food?
The way geckos climb has inspired a device that allowed a 70kg man to scale a glass wall like Spider-Man.Much research has gone into trying to unlock the clever way that little geckos climb.
A Dutch bitcoin entrepreneur has had two microchips containing the virtual currency injected into his hands to help him make contactless payments.The chips, enclosed in a 2mm by 12mm capsule of "biocompatible" glass, were injected by a professional using a special syringe. They emit a tiny radio signal using Near Field Communication (NFC) and can store up to 888 bits of information each.
After deciding to scrap nuclear power, Germany is pondering saying goodbye to coal, its biggest energy source but also its top polluter and main threat to ambitious climate goals.Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is split on the issue, which pits a vocal environmental movement against energy giants and coal mining regions, with only weeks until her cabinet is set to present its next climate action plan.Related: Electric vehicles could stabilize large disturbances in power grid
Two new subatomic particles whose existence was predicted by Canadian particle physicists have been detected at the world's largest particle collider.The discovery of the particles, known as Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-, were announced by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research today and published online on the physics preprint server Arxiv.They have been submitted to the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
Dark energy appears to be devouring dark matter and slowing the expansion of the cosmos, a new study suggests.Dark matter makes up the backbone of the universe, and there is five times as much of it in the universe as regular matter that makes up the visible objects in the universe like planets and stars. Physicists have yet to directly detect dark matter and no one knows what it's made of. Scientists can only tell that it exists from its gravitational pull on regular matter. Now, the new research suggests that dark matter might be slowly disappearing before physicists have even caught a glimpse of it.
The strength of an alien world's magnetic field may have been deduced for the first time, by analyzing extraordinarily fast winds slamming against it from the planet's star, researchers say.This research could help gauge the strength of other exoplanets' magnetic fields as well, scientists say.
The Hubble Space Telescope's recent images of giant balls of stars in a nearby galaxy, reported on Thursday, have astronomers puzzled as to the star balls' origins.Multitudes of such "globular" star clusters, each filled with hundreds of thousands of the oldest stars in the universe, lie scattered around our own Milky Way and other galaxies. But how and why they're born has long been a mystery.
The orbital maneuvers of a mysterious object Russia launched earlier this year have raised concerns that the satellite may be a space weapon of some sort.The speculation centers on "Object 2014-28E," which Russia lofted along with three military communications satellites in May. The object was originally thought to be space junk, but satellite trackers have watched it perform a number of interesting maneuvers over the past few weeks.
Scientists have argued for half a century about the existence of a form of diamond called lonsdaleite, which is associated with impacts by meteorites and asteroids. A group of scientists based mostly at Arizona State University now show that what has been called lonsdaleite is in fact a structurally disordered form of ordinary diamond.The lonsdaleite story began almost 50 years ago. Scientists reported that a large meteorite, called Canyon Diablo after the crater it formed on impact in northern Arizona, contained a new form of diamond with a hexagonal structure.
Mammoth cloning is closer to becoming a reality following the discovery of blood in the best-preserved specimen ever found.An autopsy on a 40,000-year-old mammoth has yielded blood that could contain enough intact DNA to make cloning possible, galvanising scientists who have been working for years to bring back the extinct elephant relative.
A cemetery dating back roughly 1,700 years has been discovered along part of the Silk Road, a series of ancient trade routes that once connected China to the Roman Empire.The cemetery was found in the city of Kucha, which is located in present-day northwest China. Ten tombs were excavated, seven of which turned out to be large brick structures.
A medieval sword found buried under a birch tree in Siberia may have belonged to Ivan the Terrible, archaeologists have claimed.The rare 12th century blade, discovered in 1975 and nicknamed Siberia's Excalibur, was found three kilometres from where the lieutenant of a Cossack leader favoured by the tsar is thought to have died.Alt: Could rare sword have belonged to Ivan the Terrible?
It looks like it just walked out of a fairy tale, but this deer with a single, unicorn-like antler is the real thing.Shot by a hunter in Celje, Slovenia, in August, the roe deer has an extremely rare type of antler deformity, likely caused by an injury early in the antlers' development. Such injuries are common in deer and often lead to antler abnormalities, including bizarrely shaped racks.