Newsdesk Archive
If there is one thing that Americans know about the environment of Brazil, it is the decimation of Amazon forests for ranching and agriculture. But what if I told you that there is a place in Brazil where cattle graze on native grasses seasonally replenished by an annual flooding cycle, where ranches are dotted with lakes full of fish, where rivers support giant river otters and where forests line riverbanks and form highways for jaguars and other rare species?Related: Switch from cattle fields to 'carbon farms' could tackle climate change, save endangered animals cheaply
When you think of Atlantic cod, you probably think of a strip of fish, battered and fried. But new research suggests that the fish might be able to use tools, and that might cause us to rethink how we evaluate tool use in other animals.
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.
The Rio Celeste in Costa Rica becomes an enchanting celestial blue at the convergence of two tributaries. Until recently scientists have been at a loss to explain this mysterious phenomenon.On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I encountered a challenge from a local guide who took us on a hike through the rainforest to a magnificent sky-blue river, called the Rio Celeste.
New Herschel Space Observatory findings have given scientists a remarkable insight into the internal dynamics of two young galaxies. Surprisingly, they have shown that just a few billion years after the big bang, some galaxies were rotating in a mature way, seemingly having completed the accumulation of their gas reservoirs.
Using geochemical meteorite data to understand how the volume of water has changed on Mars over its history, a new study from the Tokyo Institute of Technology reveals that more than half of the initial water inventory was lost during the first 0.4 billion years and that as-yet unidentified reservoirs of water should exist on the planet.
Noah would have loved this. Mars probably had its own colossal flood millions of years ago, when an ice-covered lake cracked open and gushed to the surface. The scenario hints that buried lakes sheltered microbes that may even now lie dormant in subsurface ice.On Mars, several huge channels seem to originate in the boulder-strewn floors of deep chasms and impact craters.
A genetically engineered pig heart which was transplanted into a baboon has survived more than a year without being rejected, leading scientists to hope that animal parts could one day provide a limitless sources of organs.
A mother's diet around the time of conception can permanently influence her baby's DNA, research suggests.Animal experiments show diet in pregnancy can switch genes on or off, but this is the first human evidence.
Babies begin to learn about the connection between pictures and real objects by the time they are nine-months-old, according to a new study by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of South Carolina.The research, published today in Child Development, found that babies can learn about a toy from a photograph of it well before their first birthday.
Parents contemplating giving their children complicated names should think again.The harder your name is to pronounce, the less likely people are to trust you, researchers have found.
High starting doses of antidepressants such as Prozac have been linked to increased suicidal behaviour in children and young adults, say scientists.A meta-analysis of various antidepressant drug trials by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that young people who received antidepressants were twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts or self-harm as those given a placebo.
Scientists now have a fuller picture of what happened at the poles during the last warm phase on Earth.Known as the Eemian, this time period extended from roughly 129,000 years ago to about 116,000 years before present.
If going gluten-free seems hard now, try doing it in ancient Rome. A well-heeled young woman with coeliac disease tried to adapt her diet in an unsuccessful effort to cope with gluten sensitivity, studies of her remains suggest.
Scientists have concluded that neanderthals were not the primitive dimwits they are commonly portrayed to have been.The view of the Neanderthal man as a club-wielding brute is one of the most enduring stereotypes in science, but researchers who trawled the archaeological evidence say the image has no basis whatsoever.
Seventy-five years ago, Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard wrote a letter to United States President Franklin Roosevelt expressing concern that German scientists would soon unlock the secrets to developing the first atomic bomb.
A 69-foot, 3,500-year old granite obelisk has stood in New York City's Central Park for 130 years, and it's never, ever, been cleaned. The ancient pillar is deceptively fragile, and conservationists have been hesitant simply to hose it down. The solution? Blast it with lasers, of course.
Physicists from the FOM Foundation and the University of Amsterdam have discovered that the ancient Egyptians used a clever trick to make it easier to transport heavy pyramid stones by sledge. The Egyptians moistened the sand over which the sledge moved. By using the right quantity of water they could halve the number of workers needed.
The sublime sounds of a jingling rattle silenced for more than 500 years helps tell the story of an ancient civilization in western Mexico and ties together more than seven years of discovery by a team of researchers led by a Colorado State University archaeologist.
Bones unearthed from an ancient mound in Turkey suggest that humans there shifted their diet from hunting to herding over just a few centuries, findings that shed light on the dawn of agriculture, scientists say.Agriculture began in the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, about 11,500 years ago. Once- nomadic groups of people settled down and began farming and herding, fundamentally changing human society and how people related to nature.
Neanderthals, the now-extinct cousins of modern humans, have a reputation of living lives that were brutal, primitive and short. They were apparently superseded by a more sophisticated species that became us.Maybe not. Researchers from the University of York in England, studying burial practices of Neanderthals, particularly the bones of children and adolescents, say Neanderthal society was close-knit, caring and complex. Neanderthals made fine parents.
A team of Catalan Egyptologists from the Catalan Egyptology Society and University of Barcelona claim to have found one of the earliest-known pictures of Jesus in a 6th century tomb unearthed in Upper Egypt, according to a news report in La Vanguardia. The image found painted on the wall of the Coptic Christian crypt depicts a young man with curly hair and a short tunic, with a hand raised in blessing.
Recent research into a kind of consciousness within the dream state is beginning to tell us more about the brainOne of our most mysterious and intriguing states of consciousness is the dream. We lose consciousness when we enter the deep waters of sleep, only to regain it as we emerge into a series of uncanny private realities.
Scientists have developed faster, more energy-efficient microchips based on the human brain -- 9,000 times faster and using significantly less power than a typical PC. This offers greater possibilities for advances in robotics and a new way of understanding the brain. For instance, a chip as fast and efficient as the human brain could drive prosthetic limbs with the speed and complexity of our own actions.
Gregory Sams, Author of the Month at GrahamHancock.com for May 2014 (see his article 'The Greatest Discovery Never Made ') was recently interviewed about his ideas around the relevancy of the State in the world today. Watch the interview here:Read the State is Out of Date on Kindle or Paperback. UK editions here
Researchers at the MedUni Vienna have demonstrated the possibility of using a blood test to detect depression. While blood tests for mental illnesses have until recently been regarded as impossible, a recent study clearly indicates that, in principle, depression can in fact be diagnosed in this way and this could become reality in the not too distant future.
It is generally well known that men have an overall shorter life expectancy compared to women. A recent study shows a correlation between a loss of the Y chromosome in blood cells and both a shorter life span and higher mortality from cancer in other organs.
Would you sacrifice one person to save five? Such moral choices could depend on whether you are using a foreign language or your native tongue. A new study from psychologists at the University of Chicago and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona finds that people using a foreign language take a relatively utilitarian approach to moral dilemmas, making decisions based on assessments of what's best for the common good.
A Rice University laboratory has flexible, portable and wearable electronics in its sights with the creation of a thin film for energy storage.Their electrochemical capacitor is about a hundredth of an inch thick but can be scaled up for devices either by increasing the size or adding layers.
New NASA research on natural ozone cycles suggests ozone levels in the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere probably won't be affected much by projected future strengthening of the circulating winds that transport ozone between Earth's two lowest atmospheric layers.
The smallest and least known of Spain's Canary Islands, El Hierro, is making a splash by becoming the first island in the world fully energy self-sufficient through combined water and wind power.A wind farm opening at the end of June will turn into electricity the gusts that rake the steep cliffs and green mountains of the volcanic island off the Atlantic coast of Africa.
The first example of living human cartilage grown on a laboratory chip has been created by scientists. The researchers ultimately aim to use their innovative 3-D printing approach to create replacement cartilage for patients with osteoarthritis or soldiers with battlefield injuries.
The history of science is one chock-full of mice and men. Historically, biological and medical research has largely depended on rodents, which provide scientists with everything from cells and organs to behavioral data. That's why a new study in which researchers found that mice actually fear men, but not women, has the potential to be so disruptive.
There are a great many religions of all types throughout the world with just as many ways for the faithful to show their devotion. These can be as simple as praying, or involve complex, intricate rituals and selfless sacrifice. Then there are the practices that to an outsider may seem truly bizarre, extreme, or even grotesque.
In a remarkable new discovery, archaeologists have uncovered a massive tomb in the West Bank of the Nile Valley of the Kings in Luxor containing more than 50 royal Egyptians, including four princes, eight previously unknown princesses, and a number of infants.The 3,300-year-old tomb was discovered when researchers investigated a depression in the ground and came across a 5 metre long shaft, a corridor, and four rooms, which had been trashed and plundered in antiquity.
Dutch archaeologists have recently completed the rescue excavation of a unique treasure hoard dating to the beginning of the 5th century AD, from a field in Limburg. The hoard partially consists of a combination of gold coins and pieces of silver tableware which had been deliberately cut up (hacksilver).
An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University reports a breakthrough on understanding the demographic history of Stone-Age humans.A genomic analysis of eleven Stone-Age human remains from Scandinavia revealed that expanding Stone-age farmers assimilated local hunter-gatherers and that the hunter-gatherers were historically in lower numbers than the farmers. The study is published today, ahead of print, in the journal Science.
Legend has it that Hippocrates, the ancient Greek "father" of medicine, taught his students under a tree on the island of Kos.More than 25 centuries later, experts in the US have produced the first DNA barcode of the Oriental plane that is believed to be its descendant.
Underwater archaeologists have discovered evidence of prehistoric caribou hunts that provide unprecedented insight into the social and seasonal organization of early peoples in the Great Lakes region.An article detailing the discovery of a 9,000-year-old caribou hunting drive lane under Lake Huron appears in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A previously unknown mineral has been discovered in a remote location in Western Australia. The mineral, named putnisite, appears purple and translucent, and contains strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, a very unusual combination.
The tiny Pacific republic of the Marshall Islands has filed suit against the United States and the eight other nuclear-armed countries, alleging that they haven't met their obligations in working toward global nuclear disarmament. The lawsuits were filed in US federal court and the International Court of Justice and aim to compel the nine nations to begin making a "good faith" effort toward disarmament, as many of them have agreed to do under the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Sure, that selfie you just uploaded is perfect in your eyes, but will the internet feel the same way? A new calculator made by researchers at MIT lets you upload your snapshots to calculate the probability that they will go viral.
A university team has developed a machine that can fire coloured, scented bubbles at users to deliver notifications, adverts or even teach mathsResearchers are claiming to have invented a new form of human/computer interaction after developing a machine that can fill bubbles with different smells and project images on to them.
An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University (Sweden) reports a breakthrough on understanding the demographic history of Mesolithic and Neolithic peoples.A genomic analysis of eleven Mesolithic and Neolithic individuals from Scandinavia revealed that expanding farmers assimilated local hunter-gatherers, who were historically lower in numbers.
From shooting their enemies with darts and arrows to crushing their skulls and even harvesting body parts as trophies, the ancient foragers of central California engaged in sporadic, and sometimes severe, violence, according to a new archaeological study spanning 5,000 years.
A study of Cold War spy-satellite photos has tripled the number of known archaeological sites across the Middle East, revealing thousands of ancient cities, roads, canals, and other ruins.In recent decades archaeologists have often used declassified satellite images to spot archaeological sites in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.
A "brown dwarf" star that appears to be the coldest of its kind -- as frosty as Earth's North Pole -- has been discovered by a Penn State University astronomer using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance at 7.2 light-years away, making it the fourth closest system to our Sun.
A robotic space plane is speeding in low Earth orbit at this very moment. Some say it's a weapon; others, a data-gathering mission. There's one fact most agree on as the plane hits 500 days in space: Its real purpose is a mystery.The Boeing-built X-37B Orbital Space Vehicle, constructed in California, is one-fourth the size of the Endeavour Space Shuttle.
Plans to open the world's first mine in the deep ocean have moved significantly closer to becoming reality.The controversial project aims to extract ores of copper, gold and other valuable metals from a depth of 1,500m.
Birds in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl are adapting to -- and may even be benefiting from -- long-term exposure to radiation, ecologists have found. The study is the first evidence that wild animals adapt to ionizing radiation, and the first to show that birds which produce most pheomelanin, a pigment in feathers, have greatest problems coping with radiation exposure.
Tommy, a chimpanzee in upstate New York has become the first non-human primate to sue its captor, in an effort to become free. But it's not like the chimp actually walked into a courtroom and filed papers himself. Rather, a group of lawyers, led by Steven Wise, filed a suit on behalf of the animal on Dec. 10, as the plaintiff. The complaint: that Tommy was kept in a dank and dark cage within a trailer, unfit for an animal that needs much more space and freedom.
A tiny hamster sized deer has been born at a southern Spanish zoo. The newborn, an endangered Java mouse-deer weighs just 100 grams, staff from Bioparc Fuengirola said.The Java mouse-deer is one of the smallest hoofed animals in the world - even once the youngster is fully grown it will be no larger than a rabbit and weigh just 1kg.
Horses can significantly lower stress hormones in youth, according to a Washington State University Spokane study. The finding supports the claims of therapeutic horsemanship professionals who have received positive feedback regarding these programs from patients.Researchers said that healthy stress hormone production in young adolescents prevents the development of physical and mental health problems.
Torture and atrocities are often downplayed by those inflicting the pain. Now, research reveals how attempting to justify the behavior of one's own group literally alters memory.In the new study, people from the United States listened to accounts of torture and war crimes shared by Afghani or American soldiers. Researchers found that the listeners clung to their memories of the justifications for these crimes only if they heard another American telling the tale.
The perceived size of your hand affects how intensely your hand feels pain, according to a new study.A paper published in Neuropsychologia in March detailed the results of an experiment in which each participant was subjected to a pinprick-like sensation on one fingertip. The researchers used a lens to modify the size of the hand receiving the painful stimulus to look larger or smaller than normal in some of the experiments.
Near-Death-Experiences, depending on which researcher you listen to, are nearly universal across the globe. People in every country, from every culture, with every belief system and background report having these highly profound and life-altering experiences. The landscapes and images they see, the people that greet them, the sensations they feel, in almost every case they are the same (or nearly the same). In that way, Near-Death-Experience iconography is archetypical among almost everyone who experiences it.
The mysterious abandonment of one of North America's first big cities may be linked to a massive Mississippi River flood 1,800 years ago, a new study finds.In the bottom of an oxbow lake next to Cahokia, Ill., which was the most powerful and populous city north of Mexico in A.D. 1200, lie the buried remains of a flood that likely destroyed the crops and houses of more than 15,000 people.
Scientists have discovered and named the earliest and most primitive pterodactyloid -- a group of flying reptiles that would go on to become the largest known flying creatures to have ever existed -- and established they flew above Earth some 163 million years ago, longer than previously known.
A sample of blood long thought to belong to French King Louis XVI is probably not authentic, scientists say.An elaborately decorated gourd was thought to contain a handkerchief that had been dipped in the king's blood after he was killed by guillotine by French revolutionaries in 1793.
Near the small village of Krastevich in central Bulgaria, a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers have been busy excavating the remains of two ancient Greek sites that bustled with activity more than 2,500 years ago. One has been identified as a cult or temple complex and the other as an emporium, a place of trade and commerce conducted by Greek colonists during the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The settlements are thought to have thrived in an area known to have been populated by the ancient Thracians.
A 13th century bishop's theory about the formation of the universe has intriguing parallels with the theory of multiple universes. This was uncovered by the the Ordered Universe project at Durham University, which has brought together researchers from humanities and the sciences in a radically collaborative way.
Quantum mechanics is able to effectively explain three of the four fundamental forces of the Universe - electromagnetism, weak interaction and strong interaction - but it does not explain gravity, which is currently only accounted for by general relativity, which is classical physics.
Bitcoins soon may go off the grid and into space. One private venture is aiming to launch a cluster of tiny satellites that would broadcast the latest bitcoin transactions from orbit.Garzik hopes the BitSat network will have a democratizing effect, making bitcoin data available to people living in off-grid locations or outside Western nations in places where an Internet connection is costly.
Drones are becoming more common in our skies, performing a variety of tasks, from taking photos to monitoring crops and potentially even delivering broadband.But there are strict rules about their usage, which has led some to come up with innovative ways to fly such vehicles more safely.
As former NSA director Michael Hayden learned on an Amtrak train last year, anyone with a smartphone instantly can become a livetweeting snoop. Now a whole crowd of amateur eavesdroppers could be as close as the nearest light fixture.Two artists have revealed Conversnitch, a device they built for less than $100 that resembles a lightbulb or lamp and surreptitiously listens in on nearby conversations and posts snippets of transcribed audio to Twitter. Kyle McDonald and Brian House say they hope to raise questions about the nature of public and private spaces in an era when anything can be broadcast by ubiquitous, Internet-connected listening devices.
The director of Alien and Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, is developing a new TV series for HBO, focussing on alien activity in ancient Egypt.Scott will serve as executive producer and director on the upcoming Pharoah, set to explore the rise of Egypt and the influence extra-terrestrials had on the highly advanced culture. We're expecting something along the lines of Rome with an Ancient Astronauts twist, rather than a Stargate redux.
New research has shown that there was liquid water on Mars as recently as 200,000 years ago. The southern hemisphere of Mars is home to a crater that contains very well-preserved gullies and debris flow deposits. The geomorphological attributes of these landforms provide evidence that they were formed by the action of liquid water in geologically recent time.
An exceptionally bright supernova that baffled scientists has been explained.It is so luminous because a galaxy sitting in front amplifies its light - making it appear 100 billion times more dazzling than our Sun.
Back in 2011 and 2012, astronomers working at an Australian observatory picked up a series of fleeting but powerful radio signals. These signals have never been detected elsewhere, casting doubts on their origin. But now, new observations from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico suggest they're for real.
Russians may be forgiven for thinking the sky is falling.A super-bright meteor exploded over the northern Russian city of Murmansk early Saturday morning (April 19), a little more than a year after another airburst lit up the skies above Chelyabinsk, about 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) to the southeast.
An enormous iceberg half the size of Greater London that broke off an Antarctic glacier last year is headed for the open ocean, scientists said on Wednesday.B31, which calved from Pine Island glacier last November, is large enough at 33km long and 20km wide to lead Nasa to monitor its movements via satellite. It is up to 500 metres thick.
Almost 25 years after the iron curtain came down, central European deer still balk at crossing areas where there used to be electrified fences, scientists have found.A seven-year study in Sumava national park, in the Czech Republic, discovered that red deer were still wary of spots where the then Czechoslovakia had three parallel electrified fences patrolled by heavily armed guards.
A US study has found that cow manure, commonly used to fertilise vegetable crops, contains a high number of genes that can fuel resistance to antibiotics.These genes come from the cows' gut bacteria, and while none have yet been found in superbugs that are infecting humans, researchers say the potential is real.
Heme iron, normally found in meat, poultry, and fish, increases the risk of coronary heart diseases by 57 percent, according to an Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington study. Researchers did not find evidence linking non-heme iron, found in plant foods and other non-meat sources, and coronary heart disease.
Recent research shows how skin grown from stem cells could eliminate the need for animal testing for drugs and cosmetics in the future. The newly discovered artificial skin, or "3D epidermal equivalents," as researchers refer to them, are the first of their kind with a permeable barrier.
Dolphins can use sponges as tools to snag food they could not otherwise grab, researchers say.This is the first direct evidence that dolphins can use tools to carve out unique places in the food chain, scientists added.
Big brains do not explain why only humans use sophisticated language, according to researchers who have discovered that even a species of pond life communicates by similar methods.Dr Thom Scott-Phillips of Durham University led research into Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a type of bacteria common in water and soil, which showed that they communicated in a way that was previously thought to be unique to humans and perhaps some other primates.
How did farming take over the world? One theory is that farming was such an evidently good idea that it spread on its own. As hunter-gatherers encountered farmers, they were converted to an agricultural way of living. But a large-scale genetic analysis of Stone Age remains in Sweden suggests that this wasn't the case.
If Facebook were around 1,400 years ago, the ancient Maya might have been big fans of the virtual self.The Maya believed that part of your identity could inhabit material objects, like a courtier's mirror or sculptor's carving tool. Maya might even name these objects, talk to them or take them to special events. They considered these items to be alive.
A treasure trove of Coast Miwok life dating back 4,500 years - older than King Tut's tomb - was discovered in Marin County and then destroyed to make way for multimillion-dollar homes, archaeologists told The Chronicle this week.The American Indian burial ground and village site, so rich in history that it was dubbed the "grandfather midden," was examined and categorized under a shroud of secrecy before construction began this month on the $55 million Rose Lane development in Larkspur.
Lowland South America, including the Amazon Basin, harbors most of the last indigenous societies that have limited contact with the outside world. Studying these tribes, located deep within Amazonian rainforests, gives scientists a glimpse at what tribal cultures may have been like before the arrival of Europeans.
While the world has been deciding who governs the internet, Brazil has been busy establishing internet rules of its own -- and they may just set an example for everyone else. The country has passed a bill of rights that goes some length towards protecting net neutrality and privacy.Related: In Policy Shift, F.C.C. Will Allow a Web Fast Lane
Humans are good at making things that are one color. But if you want to really blend into your surroundings, it would be best to have a material that can change its appearance based on its surroundings--like a chameleon. University of Michigan researchers have created a material imbued with a special type of crystal that can change its shape and color when different wavelengths of light are shone on it, that could be used in the future to create active camouflage.
Researchers in South Korea have devised a way to harness the motion of water, including from raindrops or from a flushing toilet, as a sustainable energy source.Devices that renewably generate electricity in an uncomplicated manner are in demand.
In some parts of Ethiopia, finding potable water is a six-hour journey.People in the region spend 40 billion hours a year trying to find and collect water, says a group called the Water Project. And even when they find it, the water is often not safe, collected from ponds or lakes teeming with infectious bacteria, contaminated with animal waste or other harmful substances.
Fertilization takes place when an egg cell and a sperm cell recognize one another and fuse to form an embryo.But how they recognize each other in order to hook up had remained a mystery.
Could preventing the brain shrinkage associated with depression be as simple as blocking a protein?Post-mortem analysis of brain tissue has shown that the dendrites that relay messages between neurons are more shrivelled in people with severe depression than in people without the condition. This atrophy could be behind some of the symptoms of depression, such as the inability to feel pleasure. As a result, drugs that help repair the neuronal connections, like ketamine, are under investigation.
There are dozens upon dozens of moons in the Solar System, ranging from airless worlds like Earth's Moon to those with an atmosphere (most notably, Saturn's Titan). Jupiter and Saturn have many moons each, and even Mars has a couple of small asteroid-like ones. But what about Venus, the planet that for a while, astronomers thought about as Earth's twin? .
The sun will look like a ring of fire above some remote parts of the world next Tuesday (April 29) during a solar eclipse, but most people around the world won't get a chance to see it.Whereas lunar eclipses occur only when there's a full moon, and solar eclipses only happen during a new moon.
In order for humanity to survive into the distant future, we need to visit and learn how to survive on other worlds, according to NASA chief Charles Bolden.NASA is in the process of developing technologies that are expected to help humans get to Mars and beyond. Landing astronauts on Mars and even establishing a long-term human presence on the Red Planet is just one step toward learning how to live on a different world, Bolden said during the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C., Tuesday (April 22).
There are a few different ways you can study evolution. You could live for months at a time in a tent on tiny island with an isolated population and no fresh water. Or you could program a computer model and some squirrel-sized robots to act out a thousand generations of sex and death in the comfort of your own lab.
Windows that double as solar panels could soon be a reality following a breakthrough in quantum dot research that could have significant implications on the way the sun's energy is harvested in the future.Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Milano-Bicocca synthesised a new generation of quantum dots that they were able to embed in a transparent polymer to capture the sun's energy.
Inspired by the fist-like club of a mantis shrimp, a team of researchers led by University of California, Riverside, in collaboration with University of Southern California and Purdue University, have developed a design structure for composite materials that is more impact resistant and tougher than the standard used in airplanes.
Geoscientists have identified a chunk of Africa stuck onto the southeastern United States.A long mysterious zone of unusual magnetism that stretches from Alabama through Georgia and offshore to the North Carolina coast appears to be the suture between ancient rocks that formed when parts of Africa and North America were pressed together 250 million years ago. If so, Africa could have left a lot more behind in the American southeast when the conjoined continents rifted apart and formed the Atlantic Ocean.
The 'mega-heatwaves' that parched Europe in 2003 and Russia in 2010 were exacerbated by a vicious feedback loop between soil and atmosphere, researchers report today in Nature Geoscience. Drying ground added more heat into air close to Earth's surface, a process that repeated over time to produce record-breaking warmth that shrivelled crops, set forests ablaze and claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The mystery of a bizarre quacking sound heard in the ocean has finally been solved, scientists report.The noise - nicknamed "the bio-duck" - appears in the winter and spring in the Southern Ocean. However, its source has baffled researchers for decades.
A visualisation showing where sizeable asteroids have hit the Earth in recent years has been released by the B612 Foundation.The US-based group, which includes a number of former Nasa astronauts, campaigns on the issue of space protection.
A Spanish-Egyptian team has uncovered two 26th Dynasty tombs during excavation work at Al-Bahnasa archaeological site in Minya.Al-Bahnasa was known in the ancient Egyptian era as the town of Pr-Medjet, developing in the Graeco-Roman period to be the city of Oxyrhynchus.
Modern humanity's ancient cousins, the Neanderthals, lived in small groups that were isolated from one another, suggests an investigation into their DNA. The analysis also finds that Neanderthals lacked some human genes that are linked to our behavior.
The authenticity of the "Gospel of Jesus's Wife" has been debated since the papyrus was revealed in 2012. Now, new information uncovered by Live Science raises doubts about the origins of the scrap of papyrus.The gospel, written in the ancient Egyptian language Coptic, has made headlines ever since Harvard University professor Karen King announced its discovery.