Newsdesk Archive

Australia's dingo is a unique species, not a kind of wild dog as previously believed, according to a new study that definitively classifies the country's largest land predator.The research by Australian scientists, published in the Journal of Zoology, resurrected the species name Canis dingo, first adopted in 1793 by Friedrich Meyer, a German naturalist.

It may sounds like something from an dystopian Antipdoean nightmare but scientists have invented an unstoppable robot kangaroo.Festo, the bio-engineering company behind 2011's creepily lifelike seagull, have developed 'BionicKangaroo' which is able to emulate the jumping behaviour or real kangaroos.

A revolutionary new method of encrypting confidential information has been patented by scientists inspired by their discoveries from human biology, which model how the heart and lungs coordinate their rhythms by passing information between each other.

Saliva-powered micro-sized microbial fuel cells can produce minute amounts of energy sufficient to run on-chip applications, according to an international team of engineers.Microbial fuel cells create energy when bacteria break down organic material producing a charge that is transferred to the anode.

DUNCAN, Okla._Stephens County is still dealing with a case of a phantom boom.Wednesday night, just after 6:00 p.m., several folks were rattled after hearing what sounded like a large explosion nearby. Twenty-four hours later, Duncan residents and officials alike are still stumped, which has caused the mystery blast to be the talk of the town.

A couple in Ratcliffe, Texas, has captured a creature that they believe may prove the existence of the mythical chupacabra.Jackie Stock says her husband, Bubba, found a strange-looking animal eating corn in a tree Sunday night and managed to contain it.

For the past three years 3,000 average people have been quietly making probability estimates about everything from Venezuelan gas subsidies to North Korean politics as part of the Good Judgment Project, an experiment put together by three well-known psychologists and some people inside the intelligence community.According to one report, the predictions made by the Good Judgment Project are often better even than intelligence analysts with access to classified information.

Exposure to morning light, whether it's pure sunlight or bright indoor lighting, is associated with leaner body weights, researchers say.The findings fit with a that suggests keeping our internal body clocks synchronized with the natural light-dark cycle is to our health and our waistlines.

More than 1,000 chemicals in the environment could be detected with a silicone wristband, giving wearers information about the chemicals they're exposed to in their everyday lives, researchers say.The wristbands are made out of the same material as popular charity bands (such as LiveStrong), but the material has been modified to absorb chemicals from the air and water around a person, as well as their skin.

Angkor, what remains of the capital of the Khmer Empire, is an incredibly beautiful place, but it's also very remote: tucked in the Cambodian jungle, at the intersection of jumbled ancient roads, its ruins remain off the beaten path and seemingly untouched by the modern world. Or at least it remained untouched until the 2000s, when the Cambodian government granted the oil company Sokimex rights to the money earned from ticket concessions to Angkor, and tourism to the ancient ruins skyrocketed.

A joint international research team led by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), has discovered a giant tusk in the Arabian Desert.The two pieces of tusk, which together measure six feet (2.25m) in length, are thought to have belonged to a now extinct genus known as Palaeoloxodon (the so-called 'straight-tusked' elephants).

Many of the early Pre-Raphaelite paintings may have paint made from dead Egyptians.Considered to be a highly variable pigment between raw umber (almost greenish brown) and burnt umber (a ruddier brown), Mummy Brown was a transparent brown good for mixing. And it was appalling. Made from ancient Egyptian human and feline mummies.

THE image of Christ on the cross, arms stretched out to the sides, is seared onto many Christians' minds. But this isn't necessarily how people have imagined it throughout history. A new analysis of the Shroud of Turin, which appears to depict a man that has been crucified, suggests that whoever created it thought crucifixion involved the hands being nailed above the head.

The story of Noah may seem like an impossible legend, but scientists have calculated that the Ark could indeed have floated - even with two of every animal on board.Establishing the precise dimensions of the huge boat based on God's instructions according to The Bible, postgraduate physics students at the University of Leicester worked out that it would have been buoyant enough to be fit for purpose.

Inside a moon of Saturn, beneath its icy veneer and above its rocky core, is a sea of water the size of Lake Superior, scientists announced on Thursday.The findings, published in the journal Science, confirm what planetary scientists have suspected about the moon, Enceladus, ever since they were astonished in 2005 by photographs showing geysers of ice crystals shooting out of its south pole.

Add the Monastery at Petra to the monuments that humans probably built for astronomical purposes. New research suggests that ancient architects tracked the motion of the sun and constructed the religious center with the winter solstice in mind.

Nearly 5,000 years ago, nomadic shepherds opened some of the first links between eastern and western Asia. Archaeologists recently discovered domesticated crops from opposite sides of the continent mingled together in ancient herders' campsites found in the rugged grasslands and mountains of central Asia.

Eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day reduces your risk of death at any point in time by 42 percent compared to eating less than one portion, reports a new study. This is the first study to link fruit and vegetable consumption with all-cause, cancer and heart disease deaths in a nationally-representative population, the first to quantify health benefits per-portion, and the first to identify the types of fruit and vegetable with the most benefit.

The tobacco plant could be a powerful weapon in the fight against cancer, say Australian scientists.They have found a molecule in the flower of the plant that targets cancer cells and rips them open, according to an article in the journal eLife.

In a potentially landmark study, a team of researchers demonstrate that feelings of gratitude automatically reduce financial impatience. The human mind tends to devalue future rewards compared to immediate ones -- a phenomenon that often leads to favoring immediate gratification over long-term wellbeing.

Altitude sickness is two illnesses, according to Edinburgh scientists.The condition, triggered by falling oxygen levels, causes mild sickness, headaches and life-threatening problems affecting the heart, lungs and brain.

A big earthquake of magnitude 8.2 shook the coast of northern Chile on Tuesday night, setting off small landslides and a small tsunami and killing at least five people. But scientists say the quake, while large, was not the "big one" that is predicted for the region.Related: Chilean earthquake may be part of a cascade

The European Space Agency's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft opened its eyes in January after a 10-year voyage across the solar system and a long hibernation in deep space. For the first time since its wakeup call, Rosetta spied its destination.

The traces of water in ancient moon rocks may share a common source with water on Earth, scientists say.If confirmed, the potential moon-Earth water link would add more support to thetheorythat the moon's material came from the proto-Earth, and that water in this material survived the aftermath of the giant impact thought to have formed Earth's large natural satellite, researchers explained earlier this month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston.

A manned mission to an asteroid may be quite a bit less complicated than NASA had thought.The space agency is drawing up bold plans to capture a near-Earth asteroid and drag it back to a stable lunar orbit, where astronauts could visit it in the future. But tiny space rocks called "minimoons" already cruise near our planet and would make interesting targets for manned exploration, advocates say.

An international team of planetary scientists determined that the Moon formed nearly 100 million years after the start of the solar system (4.470 billion years ago), according to a paper to be published April 3 in Nature. This conclusion is based on measurements from the interior of the Earth combined with computer simulations of the protoplanetary disk from which the Earth and other terrestrial planets formed.

Some of Mars' lava fields may actually be massive mud flows, say planetary scientists after taking a detailed look at the distinctive Cerberus Fossae, indicating that the ancient feature may not have been caused by volcanic activity at all.If this is the case, then many other Mars lava flows need to be reexamined, argue Lionel Wilson of the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, and Peter Mouginis-Mark of Lancaster University in new research published in the journal Icarus.

Obviously lots of animals "move rhythmically." There are hundreds of them on YouTube: dogs, bears, cats, ferrets, horses, pigeons, squirrels, dolphins, fish, parrots. They stomp, bob, waggle, nod, jerk, but that's not true dancing, not as scientists define it.

OXYTOCINThe hormone oxytocin is usually associated with positive traits like trust, cooperation, and empathy, but scientists have now found that it can make people more dishonest when their lies serve the interests of their group.

Monkeys on a reduced-calorie diet live longer than those that can eat as much as they want, a new study suggests. The findings add to a thread of studies on how a restricted diet prolongs life in a range of species, but they complicate the debate over whether the research applies to animals closely related to humans.

Pinecone or pine nut? Friend or foe? Distinguishing between the two requires that we pay special attention to the telltale characteristics of each. And as it turns out, us humans aren't the only ones up to the task.According to researchers at the University of Iowa, pigeons share our ability to place everyday things in categories.

For years, scientists have debated the evolutionary reason behind a zebra's stripes. Are they: a. Costumes for courtship? b: Camouflage to confuse lions and other predators? c: A natural way to cool off? d: Bug repellent?

The origin and history of modern lions have been revealed by scientists.A genetic analysis of living lions and museum specimens confirms modern lions' most recent common ancestor lived around 124,000 years ago.

Contemporary Europeans have as many as three times more Neanderthal variants in genes involved in lipid catabolism than Asians and Africans. Although Neanderthals are extinct, fragments of their genomes persist in modern humans. These shared regions are unevenly distributed across the genome and some regions are particularly enriched with Neanderthal variants.

Hundreds of years before asbestos became ubiquitous in the construction industry, Byzantine monks used the fibrous material in plaster coatings underlying their wall paintings during the late 1100s, new research shows.

The idea that our universe may be just one among many out there has intrigued modern cosmologists for some time. But it looks like this "multiverse" concept might actually have appeared, albeit unintentionally, back in the Middle Ages.When scientists analyzed a 13th-century Latin text and applied modern mathematics to it, they found hints that the English philosopher who wrote it in 1225 was already toying with concepts similar to the multiverse.

Little is known about the education of royal children in ancient Egypt, so Filip Taterka of Adam Mickiewicz University examined Egyptian texts for clues to the literacy of the pharaohs. He found references to medical documents, letters, and wisdom literature written by the kings, and adds that the writing implements found in the tomb of Tutankhamun suggests that the boy king had been educated.More here

A tomb newly excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have boasted a pyramid 7 meters (23 feet) high at its entrance, archaeologists say.The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb.

Crowdfunding and medieval history have come together in Rome, with a group of Franciscan monks using the internet to raise funds to restore a dusty cell apparently used by St Francis of Assisi.Located in the Trastevere district, the church of San Francesco a Ripa looks much like any of the other 900 churches in the Eternal City.

Giuseppe Peano was, in his time, a towering mathematical genius. He was also a man who did a number of very unusual things - like making up a language, and insisting on lecturing his college students in it.

Researchers have found we have an inbuilt ability to tell how intelligent a man is just by looking at them.The team from the Czech Republic found people we unable to perform the same deduction on women.The team admit they are baffled as to how we do it - and say it does not appear to be based on symmetry of the alignment of features.

Shoes two blue or shoes blue two: which phrase makes more sense?Certain grammatical rules may be hardwired into our brains so we have an instinctive sense of how certain types of words should be grouped together, no matter what language we speak, a new study suggests.

Scientists have managed to create artificial nanostructures called metamaterials that can 'bend light.' But the challenge has been making enough of the material to turn invisibility cloaks into a practical reality. New research, however, may have just cracked that barrier.

Wounds may heal more quickly if exposed to low-intensity vibration, report researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.The finding, in mice, may hold promise for the 18 million Americans who have type 2 diabetes, and especially the quarter of them who will eventually suffer from foot ulcers. Their wounds tend to heal slowly and can become chronic or worsen rapidly.

Sharks have patrolled the oceans for at least 400 million years and evolved into a huge range of remarkable species.There are deep sea lantern sharks that glow in the dark, wobbegong sharks that grow shaggy beards, and majestic, plankton-sifting whale sharks - the biggest fish in the sea.

The UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the Japanese government must halt its whaling programme in the Antarctic.It agreed with Australia, which brought the case in May 2010, that the programme was not for scientific research as claimed by Tokyo.

Skeletons unearthed during excavations for a new London rail line are victims of the Black Death pandemic that swept western Europe in the 14th century, DNA tests reveal.Researchers say the skeletons' teeth contain DNA traces of the Yersinia pestis bacterium, which was responsible for the Black Death plague.

Curators were forced to remove a precious cup from display in a Spanish church when crowds swarmed there after historians claimed it was the holy grail, staff said.Visitors flocked to the San Isidro basilica in the north-western city of León after two historians published a book saying the ancient goblet was the mythical chalice from which Christ sipped at the last supper.

Methane-producing microbes may be responsible for the largest mass extinction in Earth's history. Fossil remains show that sometime around 252 million years ago, about 90 percent of all species on Earth were suddenly wiped out -- by far the largest of this planet's five known mass extinctions.

A audacious project to send volunteers on a one-way colony trip to Mars is drawing up plans for simulation outposts on Earth to give potential Red Planet settlers a taste of Martian life.Mars One announced their plans for mock Martian colonies Thursday (March 27), though the nonprofit hasn't picked a location for the first simulator yet.

New findings from a study of 12 astronauts show the heart becomes more spherical when exposed to long periods of microgravity in space, a change that could lead to cardiac problems, according to research. With implications for an eventual manned mission to Mars, the findings represent an important step toward understanding how a spaceflight of 18 months or more could affect astronauts' heart health.

People who are married have lower rates of several cardiovascular diseases compared with those who are single, divorced or widowed, according to research to be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session. The relationship between marriage and lower odds of vascular diseases is especially pronounced before age 50.

Scientists have successfully reversed the aging process in mice according to a new study just released. Human trials are to begin next, possibly before the year is over. The study was published in the peer reviewed science journal Cell after researchers from both the U.S and Australia made the breakthrough discovery.

A virus that invaded the genomes of humanity's ancestors millions of years ago now plays a critical role in the embryonic stem cells from which all cells in the human body derive, new research shows.

By tracing the evolutionary origin of a drug-like protein ring found in sunflowers, Australian and US scientists have discovered a diverse, 18-million-year-old group of buried proteins in daisy seeds.Researchers at The University of Western Australia, working with academics from The University of Queensland, CSIRO, La Trobe University, The University of Tennessee and The University of Texas were able to unearth a new family of seed proteins as well as provide an explanation of how a protein could appear 'from scratch' - a process called 'de novo protein evolution'.

In a joint operation conducted by the Shefet Police and the Israel Antiquities Authority *** The ossuaries were allegedly plundered recently from an magnificent ancient burial cave in the Jerusalem regionA number of suspects were apprehended in the early hours of Friday (28.3) in a joint operation by inspectors of the IAA Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery and detectives and patrolmen of the Shefet police station in Jerusalem.

An archaeology race is on to secure the ancient burial site of three Egyptian kings which contains relics that will outshine even that of Tutankhamun's, it has been claimed.British archaeologist John Romer, 72, believes he has discovered the site where three ancient Egyptian priest kings - Herihor, Piankh and Menkheperre - were buried in Luxor, Egypt, almost 3,000 years ago.

A tomb newly excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have boasted a pyramid 7 meters (23 feet) high at its entrance, archaeologists say.The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb.

If you haven't seen Darren Aronofsky's Noah yet, do yourself a favour and see it. It's copping a lot of criticism from atheists & believers alike, both sides completely missing the point of storytelling and mythology. Allegory isn't that hard to find in the dictionary. It's their loss, Noah is a fantastic movie.

Yellowstone National Park, which sits atop one of the world's largest super-volcanoes, was struck on Sunday by a magnitude 4.8 earthquake, the biggest recorded there since February 1980, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported.The tremor, a relatively light event by seismic standards, struck the northwest corner of the park and capped a flurry of smaller quakes at Yellowstone since Thursday, geologists at the University of Utah Seismograph Stations said in a statement.

This weekend I took friends visiting from Peru to see Stonehenge, Britain's most renowned ancient monument, which they were naturally very keen to see. We were stunned and horrified by what we found there. This world heritage site is managed on behalf of humanity by "English Heritage" who are clearly gripped by a bureaucratic, unimaginative mindset and who are in the process of turning the megalithic circle and its surroundings into something with about as much charm and mystery as Disneyland. Anyone who has been to Stonehenge within the last year will know that things were bad before, but they are a thousand times worse now. One must go first to the newly built visitor centre about a mile from the henge, and then be taken by shuttle bus or on a little supposedly ecologically friendly "train" drawn by Land Rover [See Photo] to the site where you are of course not allowed to approach the stones themselves but are kept at a distance by ropes and barriers. The theme park atmosphere induced by the shuttle bus and/or "train" ride completely destroys the mystery and creates an atmosphere in which the megaliths appear to be held captive, tamed, forced into obedience by the narrow-minded officials who have imposed their control on the site. No longer does it feel in any way that this is an English heritage or a British heritage or a world heritage monument of great mystery and spiritual power but rather that we are confronted by a beaten, destroyed, subjugated, enslaved monument castrated by the dead hand of bureaucracy. People are still able to walk in the surrounding fields half a mile or so away nearby the Neolithic long barrows and round barrows in the vicinity of Stonehenge but I have no doubt that this freedom, too, will soon be removed. Meanwhile the English Heritage organisation who are responsible for Stonehenge appear to have done little to dissuade the Ministry of Defence from building housing blocks at the exact point on the horizon where the sun at the summer solstice rises in line with the heel stone at Stonehenge. Nonetheless, if enough public opposition is registered it may still be possible to stop this silly and unnecessary housing plan (there is plenty of room to build these houses elsewhere) so please add your signature to this petition which I signed this morning and which must be completed and delivered tomorrow, 1 April 2014. Meanwhile Stonehenge does remain fully open to the public on four days a year, the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes and the Winter and Summer Solstices. On the Spring Equinox 2014 my friends at Megalithomania filmed this short video at Stonehenge which addresses the Ministry of Defence housing plans and shows some of the construction work being done by English Heritage to tame the site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqLQaP0E17I.Save Stonehenge Sunrise Horizon - ACT NOW! email them directly: [email protected] - Deadline is April 1st 2014!

From the Video Description:Save Stonehenge Sunrise Horizon - ACT NOW! email them directly: [email protected]. Deadline is April 1st 2014. Video from http://www.megalithomania.co.uk - Please sign this too: http://www.petitions24.com/save_solstice_sunrise - On the Spring Equinox 2014 at Stonehenge Hugh Newman caught up with Arthur Pendragon and archaeo-astronomer Simon Banton, to talk about the proposed housing near Larkhill military base, that is directly on the viewing line of the Summer Solstice sunrise from Stonehenge. This planning oversight needs to be stopped so please make your opinions count and get your emails sent, and petition signed ASAP, wherever you are in the world: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/salisbury-plain-training-area-master-plan-army-basing-programme

The last of a once-larger group of Native American burial mounds, protected by Wisconsin law since 1990, could be destroyed for the valuable rock beneath them if a court allows a Madison stone manufacturer to have them removed from state protection.

He was Rome's first emperor, the founder of a world-dominating imperial dynasty, and a builder of roads and stunning temples who brought peace to a far-flung empire; a man so powerful the Roman senate named a month after him. Now, on the 2,000th anniversary of the death of the emperor Augustus, the city of Rome is getting ready to honour its favourite son by saving his mausoleum from shocking neglect.

See two new articles on GrahamHancock.com:MEGALITHIC ORIGINS: Ancient connections between Göbekli Tepe and Peru by Hugh NewmanThe Catalysts for Change: Why consciousness expanding plants are feared and deemed illegal? by Sergey Baranov

Archaeologists and forensic scientists who have examined 25 skeletons unearthed in the Clerkenwell area of London a year ago believe they have uncovered the truth about the nature of the Black Death that ravaged Britain and Europe in the mid-14th century.Related: Research suggests the Black Death was caused by pneumonic - not bubonic - plague

Washington (AFP) - Turning the clocks forward an hour in the spring for daylight saving time is followed by a spike in heart attacks on the Monday afterward, said a US study on Saturday.But when the clocks fall back and people gain an hour of sleep, there is a drop in heart attacks on Tuesday, said the research presented at the American College of Cardiology conference.

Teaching maths using abstract gestures is a good way to help children learn, research suggests.Eight-year-olds gained a deeper understanding of mathematical principles by using their hands as well as their brains, say US psychologists.

Scientists are reporting significant progress toward creating "homo minutus" -- a benchtop human. Researchers have successfully developed and analyzed a liver human organ construct that responds to exposure to a toxic chemical much like a real liver.

In the same month as the Three Mile Island and Fukushima nuclear disasters, China announces it is speeding up its research into so-called molten salt reactors that can run on thorium. If it succeeds, it would create a cheaper, more efficient, and safer form of nuclear power that produces less nuclear waste than today's uranium-based technology.

A future computer might be a lot slimier than the solid silicon devices we have today. Researchers have revealed details of logic units built using living slime molds, which might act as the building blocks for computing devices and sensors.

What's one solution to the growing problem of plastic water bottle waste? A trio of Spanish design students think they have the answer, and it involves creating a "water bottle" that you can eat, reports Co.Exist.Designers Rodrigo García González, Guillaume Couche and Pierre Paslier call their creation "Ooho," a gelatinous blob that is actually a membrane that encapsulates water like a bladder.

The hunt for the hypothetical "Planet X" has been fruitless so far, but that doesn't mean astronomers are calling it off.A new analysis of data collected by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft revealed no sign of the mysterious Planet X hypothesized to exist in the outer solar system. But scientists are keeping up the search for a planet or dim star far from the sun.

Religion and spirituality have distinct but complementary influences on health, new research from Oregon State University indicates."Religion helps regulate behavior and health habits, while spirituality regulates your emotions, how you feel," said Carolyn Aldwin, a gerontology professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU.

For the first time ever, surgeons at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh could save patients by putting them between life and death. They're ready to test a technique that would place patients in a state of "suspended animation," giving surgeons enough time to operate on injuries that would otherwise be fatal.

A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder -- which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches -- has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant.

There has been a general trend toward decriminalizing marijuana in the US, one that was spearheaded by the legalization of its use in medical situations. Those efforts have been opposed by many who argue that easy access to pot will lead people into harder drugs and boost the rate of unrelated crimes.

Students who smoke marijuana do better in school than their cigarette-smoking classmates, according to a new study.Canadian researchers surveyed nearly 39,000 Ontario students in grades 7, 9, and 11 between 1981 and 2011 on their marijuana and tobacco use and their academic performance.

Rather than simply enjoying a good beer alongside the BBQ this summer, we should be using our cans to marinade the meat, scientists have said.As well as adding some extra taste, basting the meat in beer before it hits the grill reduces the chance of potentially cancerous chemicals being formed during cooking, research suggests.

By the time you finish reading this story, you'll be about 1,000 km closer to the planet Mars.Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter. As March gives way to April, the distance between the two planets is shrinking by about 300 km every minute.

An international team directed by researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, with participation from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, has managed to create an entanglement of 103 dimensions with only two photons. The record had been established at 11 dimensions.

The mysterious dark energy that's driving the universe's accelerated expansion may have its roots in the background "vacuum energy" that pervades all of the cosmos, a new study suggests.

A Czech archaeological team working on a site in Abusir on Monday unearthed the skeleton of a top governmental official, referred to as Nefer during studies carried out in his tomb after it was discovered last year.Nefer held several titles in the royal palace and the government during the reign of the fifth dynasty king, Nefereer-Ka-Re. He was the priest of the king's funerary complex, the supervisor of the royal documents scribes and also of the house of gold.

Located within the fertile plain of the Jezreel valley in northern Israel, the archaeological site known as Ein el-Jarba has been yielding finds that are beginning to tell a story of a people who lived there more than 6,000 years ago, before the pyramids arose in Egypt and before the ancient Canaanites dominated the region.

Leading archaeologists have challenged one of the most sensational discoveries of the last century, insisting there is no proof that the man with the twisted spine found in a Leicester car park was really the last Plantagenet, Richard III.

The new film "Noah" stars Russell Crowe as the man chosen by God to collect pairs of Earth's animals on a massive ark to save them from a global flood. The film, which opens March 28, is sizing up to be a Biblical blockbuster, replete with star power and stunning special effects. But how realistic is it?

A new call that some bats use to tell other foraging bats to 'back off' from bugs they've claimed for themselves has been identified by scientists. This sound, called a 'frequency-modulated bout,' warns other bats away from prey. The researchers are first to report this ultrasonic social call produced exclusively by flying, foraging male big brown bats, in a new article.

If your dog is misbehaving, you might want to spray it with pig pheromones.Androstenone is found in boar saliva and helps induce sows to mate. Now it is the active ingredient in a spray marketed as being able to calm boisterous dogs.

Right now, in a high-security research lab at Northwestern University's Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Illinois, scientists are tickling rats. Their goal? To develop a happiness pill. But their efforts might also produce some of the best evidence yet that humour isn't something experienced exclusively by humans.

In a biological first, an international team has inserted a man-made chromosome into brewer's yeast, producing a life form that thrives and successfully passes the designer genes on to its offspring.Related: Scientists Build a Yeast Chromosome From Scratch. Next Up? Designer Genomes

Psychologists have announced the results of a two-year study into dream control. The experiment shows that it is now possible for people to create their perfect dream, and so wake up feeling especially happy and refreshed. Researchers also discovered that people's dreams were especially bizarre around the time of a full moon.

The parts of the world that lack for consistent electricity also, unfortunately, often lack for consistent clean water. Students at the Technological University of Mexico have come up with a simple system to at least partially address both needs using a microturbine and collected rainwater.They named the device Pluvia, and tested it in a large, poverty-stricken part of Mexico City called Iztapalapa. Rainwater is collected by funneling it into a gutter on the rooftop, or by adding sheeting to simulate a slope.

By collecting rainwater, students of the Technological University of Mexico (UNITEC) were able to generate electricity using a microturbine and supplying the vital liquid to homes in a poor community in Iztapalapa, in Mexico City.This system is similar to that used in dams, which uses rainwater to rotate a microturbine and generate electricity.

The title for world's largest wind turbine is constantly up for grabs as manufacturers build higher and bigger to capture more energy from the passing air.One turbine in Alaska, however, will now spin high above the rest. Altaeros Energies will launch its high-altitude floating wind turbine south of Fairbanks to bring more affordable power to a remote community. Ben Glass, CEO of Altaeros told The New York Times that the company expects to provide power at about $0.18 per kilowatt-hour, about half the price of off-grid electricity in Alaska.

Living materials based on bacteria and grown in a Boston lab could point to a greener way of manufacturing.In future, complex and interactive structures could be grown using cells programmed to assemble into intricate patterns, the researchers argue.

In a blind taste test, eight out of eight pandas agree - sugar is delicious.In a study published today scientists put the panda taste receptors to the test, to uncover whether they would notice the difference between plain water and the sweet stuff.

New Caledonian crows are as good at reasoning as a human seven-year-old, claim researchers.The scientists subjected six wild crows to a battery of tests designed to challenge their understanding of causal relationships.Physics-minded crows bring Aesop's fable to life

IT was late August 2013 and Denise Herzing was swimming in the Caribbean. The dolphin pod she had been tracking for the past 25 years was playing around her boat. Suddenly, she heard one of them say, "Sargassum"."I was like whoa! We have a match. I was stunned," says Herzing, who is the director of the Wild Dolphin Project. She was wearing a prototype dolphin translator called Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) and it had just translated a live dolphin whistle for the first time.

A new filter-feeding giant that trolled the Cambrian seas has been unearthed in Greenland.The species, dubbed Tamisiocaris borealis, used large, bristly appendages on its body to rake in tiny shrimplike creatures from the sea, and likely evolved from the top predators of the day to take advantage of a bloom in new foods in its ecosystem, said study co-author Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in England.

Viking sailors may have been able to navigate after sunset, despite having no magnetic compasses and relying on sun compasses, says a team of researchers from Hungary and Sweden.The trick may have been to combine the power of a sun-compass, which is a sort of modified sundial, with that of sunstones to create what they are calling a "twilight board".