Newsdesk Archive
Ancient human remains of what has been dubbed the 'oldest Parisian' have been uncovered in silts close to the River Seine in France.Archaeologists unearthed 200,000-year-old left arm bones at Tourville-la-Rivière which are believed to belong to a young Neanderthal.An unusual raised ridge on the upper-arm bone suggests that the Neanderthal suffered should muscle damage from repeatedly throwing a spear.
On Wednesday, three men and three women will step inside a thousand-square-foot dome on the north side of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. For the next eight months, they will be cut off from the outside world. The team will simulate life at a space station on Mars as part of a project called HI-SEAS, sponsored by NASA and led by the University of Hawaii at Manoa.The eight-month project is the second of three missions sponsored by NASA studying human performance on long-duration isolation missions. It's NASA's longest Mars simulation to date.
The first detailed view of a poorly understood region of the Sun reveals plasma 'bombs', powerful tornadoes, and supersonic jets that may be the start of the solar wind.These observations, reported in five papers in the journal Science, will help scientists determine how massive amounts of energy generated by the Sun are transported from its surface to its outer atmosphere.
This month three men shared the Nobel prize in physics for their invention of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In its citation, the Nobel committee declared: "Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps."Related: 'Holy grail' of lighting invented using LEDs that consume 85% less energy than traditional bulbs but are just as bright
A strange slab of rock discovered in Russia more than 20 years ago appears to be a combination sundial and moondial from the Bronze Age, a new study finds.The slab is marked with round divots arranged in a circle, and an astronomical analysis suggests that these markings coincide with heavenly events, including sunrises and moonrises.
More than 100 years since they were first discovered, some of the world's most bizarre fossils have been identified as distant relatives of humans, thanks to the work of University of Adelaide researchers.The fossils belong to 500-million-year-old blind water creatures, known to scientists as "vetulicolians" (pronounced: ve-TOO-lee-coal-ee-ans).
The presence of carnivores helps plants without thorny defences thrive, a study of life on the savannah reveals.Researchers found that species without thorns thrived in areas favoured by carnivores because plant-eating animals deemed it too risky to graze at these sites.
Gigantic kangaroos that used to inhabit Australia resembled enormous rabbits and walked on two legs similar to humans rather than hopping, a new study says.Scientists have theorised that the bone structure and sheer size of the now-extinct sthenurine kangaroos, which grew to more than two metres, makes it likely the animals were unable to hop, instead walking in a bipedal motion on two hind legs.Alt: Extinct giant kangaroos didn't hop, they walked
Star formation in the early universe was far less efficient than it is now, confirms new research.Based on observations of the star-producing power of two nearby galaxies, the study offers astronomers a fresh insight into the early Universe."We believe this is the first observational evidence to confirm theoretical predictions that star formation was not as efficient in early galaxies compared to spiral galaxies such as our Milky Way,".
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has sent home several spectacular images that show a large pyramid-shaped boulder studding the surface of its target comet.Rosetta mission team members have named the 82-foot-tall (25 meters) boulder on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko "Cheops," after the largest pyramid in Egypt's famous Giza complex. The rock is much smaller than its namesake, however, which rises 456 feet (139 m) into the Egyptian sky.
The first-ever photos of water ice near Mercury's north pole have come down to Earth, and they have quite a story to tell.The images, taken by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft (short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging), suggest that the ice lurking within Mercury's polar craters was delivered recently, and may even be topped up by processes that continue today, researchers said.
The decision to try to land a robot on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November has been confirmed.Last month, planners on Europe's Rosetta mission announced a preference for a touch-down location on the head of the icy, rubber-duck-shaped object.
Italy will become the first country in Europe to legally require "advanced biofuels" in cars and trucks, the BBC has learned.Made from waste, the new fuels are said to reduce the amount of land taken out of food production.
West African chimpanzees will search far and wide to find Alchornea hirtella, a spindly shrub whose straight shoots provide the ideal tools to hunt aggressive army ants in an ingenious fashion, new research shows.The plant provides the animals with two different types of tool, a thicker shoot for 'digging' and a more slender tool for 'dipping'.
Scientists have shown for the first time that when insect larvae follow a leader to forage for food, both leaders and followers benefit, growing much faster than if they are in a group of only leaders or only followers. The work gives new insight into why such social relationships evolve in insects, and why they are maintained.The study looked at larvae of the iconic Australian steel-blue sawfly Perga affinis often known as 'spitfires'.
It may look innocuous now, but this little stone may have killed someone 700 years ago.The rough, kidney-shaped object was found in a medieval cemetery in Poland, and a new analysis has revealed it is actually a rather large bladder stone.The stone was discovered in Gdańsk, a city on the Baltic coast of northern Poland, where archaeological excavations in 2001 uncovered a medieval burial ground that contained a thousand graves.
A haul of Viking treasure has been unearthed from a field in south west Scotland by an amateur using a metal detector.Derek McLennan, a retired businessman from Ayrshire, made the find in Dumfriesshire in September.In total, more than 100 items were recovered, including armbands, a cross and brooches.
The first ever reconstruction of how dinosaurs breathed finds that these long-extinct animals used each heavy, mucous-moistened breath to smell their surroundings and to cool their brains.The study, published in the Anatomical Record, helps to explain why most non-avian dinosaurs had such long snouts. It also adds another dimension of life to these prehistoric animals, the last of which took its final breath around 65 million years ago.
The house fly might be a worldwide pest, but its genome will provide information that could improve our lives. From insights into pathogen immunity, to pest control and decomposing waste, the 691 Mb genome has been sequenced and analyzed by a global consortium of scientists, and is published in the open access journal Genome Biology.The genome highlights detoxification and immune system genes that are unique to the insect, and could be subjects of further study to help humans deal with toxic and disease causing environments.
A fly's sense of smell could be used in new technology to detect drugs and bombs, new University of Sussex research has found.Brain scientist Professor Thomas Nowotny was surprised to find that the 'nose' of fruit flies can identify odours from illicit drugs and explosive substances almost as accurately as wine odour, which the insects are naturally attracted to because it smells like their favourite food, fermenting fruit.
Lions may be the kings of the animal world, but at least elephants could make for spunky meteorologists. New research is revealing that elephants have a radar-like spidey sense, capable of detecting an approaching rainstorm up to 150 miles off.While this may seem like an impractical talent, researchers say elephants' weather-predicting could help human conservationists save the animals from poachers.
The 1934 drought was by far the most intense and far-reaching drought of the last 1,000 years in North America, and was caused in part by an atmospheric phenomenon that may have also led to the current drought in California, according to a new study.New research finds that the extent of the 1934 drought was approximately seven times larger than droughts of comparable intensity that struck North America between 1000 A.D. and 2005, and nearly 30 percent worse than the next most severe drought that struck the continent in 1580.
A team of researchers in the U.S. claims that climate models used to predict the rise in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are approximately 17 percent too high because they incorrectly approximate how much CO2 plants pull from the atmosphere. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how they studied the ability of plants to absorb increased amounts of CO2 and discovered that they are capable of pulling more out of the atmosphere than has been previously thought and the difference is approximately equal to the error difference reported by simulation models.
Scientists are reporting the first strong evidence that human embryonic stem cells may be helping patients.The cells appear to have improved the vision in more than half of the 18 patients who had become legally blind because of two progressive, currently incurable eye diseases.Alt: Stem cells improve vision enough for horse riding
Last year, newly published letters written by Nobel prize winner Heinrich Böll appeared to confirm that Nazi troops took crystal methamphetamines in order to stay awake and motivated, despite the desperate conditions they faced on the front line.Now, new research has revealed that Adolf Hitler was himself a regular user of the drug, now a Class A, prized among addicts for its feeling of euphoria but feared for its mental destructiveness.
A chemical called sulforaphane derived from broccoli sprouts may help improve symptoms in some people with autism, a small new study suggests.The study looked at 40 boys and men with autism, who were between ages 13 and 27. For 18 weeks, 26 of the participants received between 9 and 27 milligrams of sulforaphane daily (depending on their weight), while the remaining 14 participants received a placebo.
Telling youths who are juggling multiple electronic devices to 'focus on the task at hand' may not always be good advice, according to research. Contrary to popular belief that multitasking leads to poor performance, researchers found the opposite is true for adolescents who spend a lot of time switching between media devices and tasks. "Maybe practice really does make perfect," one investigator said.
Recent studies have found that crocodiles and their relatives are highly intelligent animals capable of sophisticated behavior such as advanced parental care, complex communication and use of tools for hunting.New University of Tennessee, Knoxville, research published in the journal Ethology Ecology and Evolution shows just how sophisticated their hunting techniques can be.
Our ancestors started making tools at around the same time they learned to speak, and some scientists believe that the two skills share the same neurological pathways. To test this hypothesis, a team of researchers is going to monitor the brains of modern people as they learn how to make Stone Age-style hand axes.
Over the telephone, in jail and online, a new digital bounty is being harvested: the human voice.Businesses and governments around the world increasingly are turning to voice biometrics, or voiceprints, to pay pensions, collect taxes, track criminals and replace passwords."We sometimes call it the invisible biometric,".
A newly discovered subatomic particle will provide opportunities to learn about how the most powerful of nature's forces operates.It takes a big team to investigate the very small. In the case of the new meson Ds3*(2860),- that meant 800 authors on the papers in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D announcing its discovery.
A massive cult complex, dating back about 3,300 years, has been discovered at the site of Tel Burna in Israel.While archaeologists have not fully excavated the cult complex, they can tell it was quite large, as the courtyard alone was 52 by 52 feet (16 by 16 meters). Inside the complex, researchers discovered three connected cups, fragments of facemasks, massive jars that are almost as big as a person and burnt animal bones that may indicate sacrificial rituals.
Mars One may have taken us by surprise when the non-profit organization boldly announced that it would put colonists on Mars in the 2020s. We were even more amazed when legions of amateur astronauts signed up for a one-way ticket to the red rock. However, MIT students believe the effort, in its current form, is doomed to fail.
Get all of your New Jersey jokes out of the way now. Finished? This one is no joke. Workers at a New Jersey waste water treatment plant (OK, you can do one more joke on that being redundant) report a square piece of metal fell from space and no one, official or unofficial, seems to know where it came from.
From joint replacements to cardiac implants and dialysis machines, medical devices enhance or save lives on a daily basis. However, any device implanted in the body or in contact with flowing blood faces two critical challenges that can threaten the life of the patient the device is meant to help: blood clotting and bacterial infection.A team of Harvard scientists and engineers may have a solution.
Archeologists have unearthed a village believed to be about 1,300 years old and containing more than 50 sandstone-walled homes at a U.S. national park in northeastern Arizona, one of the researchers said on Friday.The discovery was made by a team that surveyed part of the Petrified Forest National Park during the summer and broadly dated the homes and other artifacts found at the site to between 200 AD and 700 AD.
Monday marks Columbus Day for people in the United States, but did you know there was a lunar twist to the famous explorer's journey?On Oct. 12, 1492, Columbus came ashore on an island northeast of Cuba, which he later named San Salvador (Holy Savior). Over the next 10 years Columbus would make three more voyages to the "New World." On his fourth and final voyage, while exploring the coast of Central America, Columbus found himself in dire straits.
Using a first-of-its-kind, high-resolution numerical model to describe ocean circulation during the last ice age about 21,000 year ago, oceanographer Alan Condron of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has shown that icebergs and meltwater from the North American ice sheet would have regularly reached South Carolina and even southern Florida. The models are supported by the discovery of iceberg scour marks on the sea floor along the entire continental shelf.
Not all cichlids react aggressively to their reflections, casting doubt on the use of mirrors in behavioural studiesMirrors are often used to elicit aggression in animal behavioural studies, with the assumption being that creatures unable to recognize themselves will react as if encountering a rival. But research suggests that such work may simply reflect what scientists expect to see, and not actual aggression.
Just look into the light: not quite, but researchers at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience and Department of Psychology have used light to erase specific memories in mice, and proved a basic theory of how different parts of the brain work together to retrieve episodic memories.Optogenetics, pioneered by Karl Diesseroth at Stanford University, is a new technique for manipulating and studying nerve cells using light.
Same phenomenon of discharge of gas hydrates 'led to crater formation in Russia and disappearance of ships in Atlantic'.The craters - two in Yamal and one on the Taymyr peninsula - were revealed during the summer, leading to urgent analysis by scientists as well as a wave of speculation suggesting the cause was aliens from outer space, meteorites, or stray missiles.Now respected Science in Siberia journal has come up with a coherent explanation for the northern craters.
A little more than 6 miles off the coast of Point Dume in Malibu, California, an unusual-looking structure sits on the sea bed floor. Based on images obtained on Google Earth, the oval-shaped object has a huge flat top and what appear to be pillars or columns that seem to reveal the entrance to a darker, inner place.The anomaly -- for the moment, we'll call it that -- is approximately 2,000 feet below the surface of the water, measuring nearly 3 miles wide. What exactly is this thing?
Beneath Cayuga Lake's churning waves, a boat's planks and woodwork are shrouded in a green-hue of sunlight reflected through 70 feet of water.The boat is a mostly intact, mid-1800s canal boat discovered in 2013. The hull and deck are identifiable, albeit covered in algae and mussels. Ports leading to the vessel's cargo holds are still defined, a huge rudder remains attached and the bow is uncompromised.
Record drought on the U.S. West Coast has exposed the ruins of an Oregon hamlet once submerged under the waters of a man-made reservoir, allowing a rare opportunity for an archaeological excavation, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation official said on Thursday.The tiny community of Klamath Junction was once home to two gas stations and a cluster of homes and other buildings that date back to the 1920s, but its residents were relocated and the structures inundated as part of a 1960 irrigation project that extended a reservoir known as Emigrant Lake.
A team of Greek researchers has confirmed that bones found in a two-chambered royal tomb at Vergina, a town some 100 miles away from Amphipolis's mysterious burial mound, indeed belong to the Macedonian King Philip II, Alexander the Great's father.The anthropological investigation examined 350 bones and fragments found in two larnakes, or caskets, of the tomb. It uncovered pathologies, activity markers and trauma that helped identify the tomb's occupants.
The discovery of a new particle will "transform our understanding" of the fundamental force of nature that binds the nuclei of atoms, researchers argue. The discovery of the new particle will help provide greater understanding of the strong interaction, the fundamental force of nature found within the protons of an atom's nucleus.
A new measurement of dark matter in the Milky Way has revealed there is half as much of the mysterious substance as previously thought.Australian astronomers used a method developed almost 100 years ago to discover that the weight of dark matter in our own galaxy is 800 000 000 000 (or 8 x 1011) times the mass of the Sun.
WHAT'S that gassy smell? The hypersensitive methane detector on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is being repurposed to ferret out gas leaks on Earth. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company in San Francisco, and global energy giant Chevron, are testing a handheld, earthbound version that is 1000 times as sensitive as existing methane sniffers.
After digging up the past of Joan of Arc, Richard the Lionheart and Napoleon Bonaparte, a top forensic sleuth on Friday unveiled a medical secret of Rene Descartes, a founder of modern philosophy.A hi-tech scan of Descartes' skull revealed he had a massive bony growth in his right sinus, lodged near the bridge of his nose, French medical anthropologist Philippe Charlier reported in The Lancet.
Injecting trees with a concentrated form of garlic might help save trees in the UK from deadly diseases.Operating under an experimental government licence, a prototype piece of technology to administer the solution is being trialled on a woodland estate in Northamptonshire.
In 1922, a scientist named F.W. Edwards published a paper describing a remarkable thing: a flying, biting midge collected from the Malay Peninsula in southeast Asia that he named Culicoides anophelis. What made the midge was remarkable was the thing it bit: mosquitoes.Yet in the years since, relatively little work has been done on these potentially important blood-sucking midges.
Large numbers of fish will disappear from the tropics by 2050, finds a new study that examined the impact of climate change on fish stocks. The study identified ocean hotspots for local fish extinction but also found that changing temperatures will drive more fish into the Arctic and Antarctic waters.
Researchers are starting work on a Smart Cities and Communities initiative. This project will transform designated urban districts into smart quarters in three forerunner cities and then transfer the concepts to three further cities.
A protein made by gut bacteria may trigger a chain of interactions in the body that contribute to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.When the protein is produced, the body makes antibodies to bind to it, but the antibodies also attach to a hormone that controls fullness.
In what's being called one of the most important advances to date in the field, researchers at Harvard have used stem cells to create insulin-producing beta cells in large quantities. Human transplantation trials could only be a few years away.By using human embryonic stem cells, a research team led by Doug Melton created human insulin-producing beta cells that are virtually equivalent to normally functional beta cells in the kind of large quantities required for cell transplantation and pharmaceutical purposes.
Alphabet Energy has an inexpensive thermoelectric generator, the E1, for waste heat recovery. The generator captures exhaust heat and converts it into electricity. The E1 uses Alphabet's thermoelectric materials to convert the waste heat.Matthew Scullin, CEO, in introducing the E1 Thermal Electric Generator in a promotional video, said, "With the E1, waste heat is now valuable." He said the waste heat recovery product meets the oil and gas and mining industry criteria for a strong but simple solution.
Scientists have unearthed rare, ancient human remains in silts close to the River Seine in France.The left arm bones are dated to about 200,000 years ago, and look to be Neanderthal - although the researchers say that with no other fossils it is impossible to make a full description.
Conventional estimates for the collapse of the Aegean civilization may be incorrect by up to a century, according to new radiocarbon analyses.While historical chronologies traditionally place the end of the Greek Bronze Age at around 1025 BCE, this latest research suggests a date 70 to 100 years earlier.
Ancient tableware, lead anchors and a giant bronze spear have been recovered during an expedition to the 2,000-year-old Antikythera shipwreck in Greece.The treasure-filled sunken ship was first discovered more than a century ago. Now, undersea excavators who are revisiting the wreck say it actually covers a much bigger area than expected.
The discovery of new bones from a large land mammal that lived about 48 million years ago has led scientists to identify a new branch of mammals closely related to modern horses, rhinos, and tapirs, according to a study published October 8, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lisa Noelle Cooper from Northeast Ohio Medical University and colleagues.This family of large mammals, Anthracobunidae, is only known from India and Pakistan and was commonly considered to be ancestors of modern elephants and sea cows. Geographically, this was a puzzling idea, because elephants and their relatives were groups that were known from Africa, not Asia.
Orangutans are endangered. Now, they're also at the epicenter of a quiet revolution, a transformation taking place on our grocery store shelves, as one company after another promises to switch to palm oil from "deforestation-free" sources.During the past 11 months, more than a dozen major producers, traders, and consumers of palm oil have pledged to produce, buy, or sell only deforestation-free palm oil.
On October 2, the Boundary Dam power plant in Saskatchewan became the first full-sized coal-fired boiler to capture the copious carbon dioxide that had previously billowed from its smokestack, preventing the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. On the resulting invisible stream of hot smoke ride the hopes of combating climate change while still burning fossil fuels.
Meet the sidewinder rattlesnake robot! This mechanical serpent can actually move across sandy surfaces, both flat and inclined -- a feat that has escaped engineers until now.In a project described in the journal Science, a team led by Georgia Tech researchers ran snakes, both robotic and real, across a challenging sandy slope. The results offer a fresh take on how sidewinder snakes move, as well as new insight into making better search and rescue robots.
Could taking LSD help people make peace with their neuroses? Psychiatrists in the 1960s certainly thought so. They carried out many studies looking at the effect of LSD and other psychedelics on people undergoing psychotherapy for schizophrenia, OCD and alcoholism.The idea was that the drug would mimic the effect of hypnotherapy, making people more suggestible and open to changing their thought patterns.
During the ice ages of the last one million years, sea levels dropped as much as 400 ft., increasing the land area of Europe by 40%. That terrain, once home to early humans, is again underwater, and archaeologists have identified artifacts at 2,500 sites. But all of it is threatened by erosion and offshore projects.
Many people would believe that a map is predominantly to determine a location or to assist with directions. But would you look at a map and notice how the colour, layout and decoration can, in some cases, be chosen, to 'subvert and propagate alternative world-views'?Peter Vujakovic, Professor of Geography in the School of Human and Life Sciences at Canterbury Christ Church University, has recently been commissioned to write a new section of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World that analyses the hidden messages in a variety of maps that have been published throughout history.
HE DIED later than Socrates and Aristotle, but a man who fished along the coast of southern Africa is the closest genetic match for our common female ancestor yet found.If you trace back the DNA in the maternally inherited mitochondria within our cells, all humans have a theoretical common ancestor. This woman, known as "mitochondrial Eve", lived between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago in southern Africa. She was not the first human, but every other female lineage eventually had no female offspring, failing to pass on their mitochondrial DNA. As a result, all humans today can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to her.
Man and machine have been fused together in a long-term stable state, with mind controlled prosthetic arms now a "clinical reality".Alt: Scientists Create Mind-Controlled Prosthetics That Move, Feel Sensations
Effective treatment of HIV-virus is a race against time: Many of the drugs that have been potent killers of HIV-virus, have today lost their power, because the virus has become resistant to them. As a result science must constantly develop new drugs that can attack the virus in new ways.Now researchers from the University of Southern Denmark present a method to speed up the important development work up with an order of several hundred percent.
We can identify a surprising amount of information about each other from the briefest of glimpses - a process that psychologists call thin-slicing. In the latest study in this area, a group led by Nathaniel Lambert have explored whether we can watch a romantic couple interact and tell within minutes whether one of them is a cheat.Fifty-one student participants (35 women) in a relationship answered survey questions about their own infidelities toward their current partner.
A team made up of several researchers from Australia and one from the U.S. has found that bent toed geckos living on the Australasia side of The Wallace Line are evolving to grow up to twice the size of those in Asia. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the team notes that geckos living on the island of New Guinea have grown particularly large.
A New York appeals court will consider this week whether chimpanzees are entitled to "legal personhood" in what experts say is the first case of its kind.For Steven Wise, the lawyer behind the case involving a chimp named Tommy, it is the culmination of three decades of seeking to extend rights historically reserved for humans to other intelligent animals.
Astronomers have discovered a black hole that is consuming gas from a nearby star 10 times faster than previously thought possible. The black hole -- known as P13 -- lies on the outskirts of the galaxy NGC7793 about 12 million light years from Earth and is ingesting a weight equivalent to 100 billion billion hot dogs every minute.
Ancient human feces preserved more than 14 millenia may provide clues about the first inhabitants of the Americas. Coprolites in Paisley Caves prove that people migrated to the Americas earlier than previously thought. Carbon dating of the feces and other artifacts places them at approximately 12,300 BCE. At that time, Oregon was a grassy plain surrounding a lake. Bison, horse, camel and waterfowl were plentiful in the area and their bones found in the caves. People were collecting a variety of plants and roots which demonstrates a knowledge of the local flora.
Experts examining a wreck off the coast of Haiti say it is not that of a ship which took explorer Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492."There is now indisputable proof that the wreck is that of a ship from a much later period," experts from the UN's cultural body Unesco announced.
The fortunes of the ancient city of Babylon have waxed and waned with the rise and fall of empires. Today, the biggest threat to this powerful symbol of diversity are the Islamic State jihadis who swept out of Syria to capture large swathes of Iraq, looting archaeological treasure and blowing up shrines and sites they consider blasphemous along the way.
Some huge sauropods ate ferns while others ate trees, researchers conclude from examining skulls.Alt: How dinosaurs divided their meals at the Jurassic dinner table
On June 30, 1908 a bolide streaked across the sky in the region near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. When it exploded, the airburst leveled more than 2,000 square kilometers of trees. It is now known as the Tunguska event. This particular region of Russia is extremely remote so the damage was limited to trees and other local flora and fauna. But the impact is estimated to have been on the order of 10 -15 megatons. If it had occurred over a major city, the bolide would have destroyed it as surely as dropping a modern nuclear weapon.
Any globetrotting tourist will tell you that all cities are unique. The challenge is to figure out what they have in common. Fortunately, there's at least one thing that is nakedly apparent for every single city: the contours of its streets as seen from outer space. A team of researchers has now taken those street maps and analyzed them as mathematical networks. It turns out that all cities can be boiled down to just four different types based on the "fingerprint" of their street networks.
The one on the left is a breed from 1957. The middle one is a 1978 breed. And the one on the right is a commercial 2005 breed called the Ross 308 broiler. They're all the same age. And the modern breed is much, much, much larger.In just 50 years or so, chickens have been bred to be much bigger. The image above comes from a study done by researchers at the University of Alberta, Canada, who raised three breeds of chickens from different eras in the exact same way and measured how much they ate and how they grew.
Almost all of the moon's water comes from the action of particles in the solar wind and not from the shattered remnants of water-rich comets and meteorites, as was once believed. So says a fresh analysis of lunar rock samples from two American moonshots.The Apollo missions painted a picture of the moon as a bone-dry desert. So astronomers were surprised when three probes in 2009 showed that a lot of water is locked up in minerals in the soil.
The sounds that most animals use to communicate are innate, not learned. However, a few species, including humans, can imitate new sounds and use them in appropriate social contexts. This ability, known as vocal learning, is one of the underpinnings of language. Now, researchers have found that killer whales can engage in cross-species vocal learning.Alt: Captive orcas speak dolphin
Being able to breathe underwater has long been a fascination for mankind, but the bulky oxygen tanks and face masks take some of the romance out of it.They could soon no longer be needed however, thanks to the creation of the "Aquaman Crystal", or to use its proper name, "[{(bpbp)Co2II(NO3)}2(NH2bdc)](NO3)2 * 2H2O".
New research by scientists at the University of Bristol has challenged one of the key axioms in biology - that enzymes need water to function. The breakthrough could eventually lead to the development of new industrial catalysts for processing biodiesel.Enzymes are large biological molecules that catalyse thousands of different chemical reactions that are essential for all life, from converting food into energy, to controlling how our cells replicate DNA.
Rubber: there's nothing like the real thing. Manufacturers use synthetic rubber in toys and rubber bands and even passenger car tires, but higher performance products such as truck and aircraft tires demand the natural stuff. The problem is, almost all the natural rubber in the world comes from a single species of tree, Hevea brasiliensis, crops of which cannot be scaled up easily to meet future demand. So the tire industry, seeking a new source of natural rubber, has turned to a species that was last used in World War II: a flowering shrub known as Parthenium argentatum, or guayule.
Now here's a clever design trick. Birds actively match the colour of their nests to their surroundings to blend in.To test if birds choose to camouflage their nests or whether they are well-camouflaged simply because of the colour of available building tools, like twigs and leaves, Ida Bailey and her team at the University of St Andrews, UK, performed a spot of redecorating.
The scaly bearded dragon is the first reptile to show it can imitate a peer, and all for the price of a mealworm, new research suggests.In a new study, researchers trained a 3-year-old female bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps) how to open a sliding screen door with her head. Once successful, the lizard entered the doorway and ate a mealworm prize. Other bearded dragons then watched a video of the lizard opening the door, and scientists monitored whether the other animals imitated the behavior.
Wild chimpanzees in Uganda have been caught on tape developing a new drinking utensil: a mixture of moss and folded leaves that they place in their mouths and then dip into water.Although it has long been understood that chimpanzees learn by observing one another, scientists say this is the first time humans have witnessed the origins of such behavior. A new study in the journal PLOS Biology describes the phenomenon and how the researchers watched it spreading from chimp to chimp.
The high heritability of exam grades reflects many genetically influenced traits such as personality, behavior problems, and self-efficacy and not just intelligence. The study looked at 13,306 twins at age 16 . The twins were assessed on a range of cognitive and non-cognitive measures, and the researchers had access to their GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) scores.
Scientists have come closer to answering the question of why some children are destined to grow tall while others will end up shorter than average following a study that has identified hundreds of genetic mutations influencing human height.Although genes have been known to be central to height for many years, researchers now believe they have found some of the key genetic elements that contribute to at least 20 per cent of the variation seen within the human population.
Scientists have been surprised by the rapid cancer-fighting properties of a berry found only in Far North Queensland.An eight-year study led by Dr Glen Boyle, from the QIMR Berghofer medical research institute in Brisbane, found a compound in the berry could kill head and neck tumours as well as melanomas.
The cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years. But scientists say these findings do not throw suspicion on climate change itself.Alt: Different depths reveal ocean warming trends
New European Marine Board report recommends exploration of sea-submerged settlements abandoned by our ancestors.A specialist group of European researchers are studying what remains of prehistoric settlements, which are now submerged beneath our coastal seas. Some of these submerged sites are tens of thousands of years old.
Overwhelming evidence now shows that the Amazon traditions of the Greeks and other ancient societies were based largely on historical facts, says Adrienne Mayor in this excerpt from "The Amazons," which looks at these women in myth and history.Who were the Amazons?In Greek myth, Amazons were fierce warrior women of exotic Eastern lands, as courageous and skilled in battle as the mightiest Greek heroes. Amazons were major characters not only in the legendary Trojan War but also in the chronicles of the greatest Greek city-state, Athens.
Consuming an alcoholic beverage may make men more responsive to the smiles of others in their social group, according to new research in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings suggest that, for men, alcohol increases sensitivity to rewarding social behaviors like smiling, and may shed light on risk factors that contribute to problem drinking among men.
Think of psychedelics and you'll likely think of bright colors, hallucinations, spirituality, and an overall "mystical" experience. For centuries these drugs have been used in social, religious and medicinal contexts by cultures across the globe. But today, the ability of these drugs to alter our brain function is being tapped into as a potential therapeutic for a range of mental health conditions from anxiety and depression to addiction and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
An increasing proportion of Britons favours a more liberal approach to drugs and would support decriminalisation strategies, according to a comprehensive survey commissioned by the Observer.An overwhelming majority also believes that the so-called "war on drugs" is futile, with 84% saying that the decades-long campaign by law enforcement agencies against the global narcotics trade can never be won.
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. - Breckenridge Police say they are investigating reports of three "shiny" objects in the sky Friday morning."NORAD is not tracking any anomalies in that location. We are investigating," said Army Major Beth Smith, NORAD spokesperson.Multiple people have called in to report the objects floating in the sky. The Summit County Sheriff's Office is also investigating.
The next generation of space telescopes hunting for signs of extraterrestrial life should focus on water, then oxygen and then alien versions of the plant chemical chlorophyll, a new study suggests.In the past 20 years or so, astronomers have confirmed the existence of nearly 2,000 worlds outside Earth's solar system. Many of these exoplanets lie in the habitable zones of stars, areas potentially warm enough for the worlds to harbor liquid water on their surfaces.
Our sun's largest solar flare looks pretty wimpy next to this one.NASA's Swift satellite spotted the strongest, hottest, and longest-lasting stellar flares ever recorded from a nearby red dwarf star in April. And now, astrophysicists reveal that the flares were as much as 10,000 times more powerful than the largest solar flare ever recorded.