Newsdesk Archive
Last week, physicists announced that they'd discovered evidence of gravitational waves in the early universe, which makes it more likely that our universe began with a bang and inflated from there. But that also means a whole host of other things, including possible multiverses.
Our world is made up of particles so tiny they may actually be points in space. These are quarks, relative newcomers to the physics conversation that were not even postulated until the mid-1960s. Put them together and you get protons and neutrons. Put those together and you get the nuclei of atoms. Put those together and you get you and your universe.
A research team in Spain has the enviable job of testing out new electromechanical gear for potential use in future missions to the Red Planet. They do it within their Mars environmental simulation chamber, which is specially designed to mimic conditions on the fourth planet from the sun -- right down to its infamous Martian dust.
Astronomers have discovered a new small planet at the edge of the Solar System and in the process have received tantalising support for the idea that there may be a much larger planet still waiting to be discovered even further away.In a separate development, another team of researchers have startled seasoned sky watchers by finding an asteroid with its own orbiting ring system similar to the famous rings of Saturn.
Beam me up, Einstein. The world's most powerful atom laser could one day be sent into space to probe the mysteries of general relativity and perhaps offer clues to the long-sought connection between gravity and quantum mechanics.
A flower-shaped spacecraft may help scientists see Earth-like alien worlds like never before.Called a "starshade," the huge, sunflower-like spacecraft would deploy to its full size in space, blocking the light of distant stars so that a space-based telescope can image exoplanets in orbit around the stars. With this technology, researchers could directly image other worlds and potentially find long sought-after Earth twins, a historically difficult task for alien planet hunters.
It's well-known that the human body is a good conductor of electricity, and now researchers have taken advantage of this fact to create a small generator that uses the body as an electrode to power portable devices without the need for batteries. The "body contact electrode" replaces a grounded electrode that was used in a previous version of the generator, which would have been impractical for portable devices.
Researchers asked if one diet could be crowned best in terms of health outcomes. If diet is a set of rigid principles, the answer is a decisive no. In terms of broader guidelines, it's a decisive yes.Flailing in the swell of bestselling diet books, infomercials for cleanses, and secret tips in glossy magazines, is the credibility of nutrition science.
Scientists from the UK and Switzerland have used very intense X-rays to film inside an insect's body as it flies.The resulting footage - a 3D reconstruction made up of several X-ray snapshots - shows a blowfly's flight motor, the "muscles and hinges" that power flight.
Pesticides are sprayed on crops to help them grow, but the effect on earthworms living in the soil under the plants is devastating, new research reveals. The worms only grow to half their normal weight and they do not reproduce as well as worms in fields that are not sprayed, a research team reports after having studied earthworms that were exposed to pesticides over generations.
Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have found heart defects in several Gulf of Mexico fish embryos following exposure to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.Researchers said that the gulf populations of tunas, amberjack, swordfish, billfish, and other fishes that hatched in oiled surface habitats were largely affected.
Pigments in the feathers of birds with dark plumage may help the creatures rid their bloodstream of some toxic metals, thereby helping them better survive in urban or other polluted areas, a new study suggests. While the finding may help explain the higher proportion of darker colored pigeons in cities, some researchers suggest that other factors may play a larger role.
The Vatican Library has begun digitising its priceless collection of ancient manuscripts dating from the origins of the Church.The first stage of the project will cover some 3,000 handwritten documents over the next four years.
Often regarded as ruthless robbers, the Vikings were also impressive mariners capable of traversing the North Atlantic along a nearly straight line. Now, new interpretations of a medieval compass suggest the sea robbers may have skillfully used the sun to operate the compass even when the sun had set below the horizon.
An ancient stone carving on the walls of an Egyptian temple depicts the Roman emperor Claudius dressed as an Egyptian pharaoh, wearing an elaborate crown, a team of researchers has discovered.In the carving, Emperor Claudius, who reigned from A.D. 41 to 54, is shown erecting a giant pole with a lunar crescent at the top. Eight men, each wearing two feathers, are shown climbing the supporting poles, with their legs dangling in midair.
As with many things in nature, it helps to understand the past when trying to predict the future.Ilya Bindeman, an associate professor of geological sciences at the University of Oregon, believes this is true of the Yellowstone supervolcano and the likelihood that it will produce an apocalyptic eruption as it has three times over the last the last 2 million years.
The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru.They were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima.
Britain's rich maritime legacy is under threat from commercial treasure hunters who are accused by experts of plundering and destroying the nation's underwater heritage.
Two halves of a fossil bone found more 160 years apart have finally allowed scientists to scale one of the biggest sea turtles that ever lived.Atlantochelys mortoni was originally described from a broken arm bone, or humerus, found in the 1840s in the US state of New Jersey.
Huge advances in the ability to gather and decode ancient DNA from humans and animals have meant a paradigm shift for science, writes Annie Hastwell."Why did the chicken cross the Pacific?""Animals leave more of a signal on the landscape, you're more likely to find lots of chicken bones than lots of human bones," explains Cooper, who heads the Centre.
The first "Neolithic" long barrow to be built in the UK for 5,000 years, is attracting interest from all over the world.The burial chamber at All Cannings near Devizes in Wiltshire will contain niches housing urns of cremated ashes, and is set to be finished later this year.
A team of Greek and German researchers has shown that the colours of sunsets painted by famous artists can be used to estimate pollution levels in the Earth's past atmosphere. In particular, the paintings reveal that ash and gas released during major volcanic eruptions scatter the different colours of sunlight, making sunsets appear more red.
Scientists have been assessing the ecological consequences of a megafauna-depleted world and what, if anything, should be done about it.Researchers discussed whether the loss of big beasts contributed to regional and global system changes, such as Arctic warming and more wildfires.
Einstein's scepticism about quantum mechanics may lead to an ultra-secure internet, suggests a new paper by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology and Peking University.Associate Professor Margaret Reid from Swinburne's Centre for Quantum and Optical Science said Einstein's reservations about quantum mechanics were highlighted in a phenomenon known as "'spooky' action at a distance.".
An ancient labor contract by a guard hired to protect a vineyard in ancient Egypt has been deciphered. Scrawled in Greek on a piece of dark brown papyrus, the document dates back to the 4th century A.D., a new research paper claims.
Today's climate change doesn't hold a candle to the chemical warfare waged on Earth more than 2 billion years ago.Before plants discovered the power of photosynthesis, single-celled life survived on chemicals, not sunlight, burning through hydrogen, methane and sulfur, among other yummy compounds.
A single gas giant planet in the not-too-warm, not-too-cold habitable zone around its star--where Earth and Mars correspondingly reside--could host several livable moons. At this early point in our hunt for exoplanets, most of the worlds we have found in the habitable zone are giants, not Earths. It's possible that the first inhabited place we discover outside our Solar System will be a moon.
On an average day, 105 Americans lose their lives to suicide. And counterintuitively, more of these lives are lost when the weather is warm and the sun shines bright.Folk wisdom holds that winter is the most common time for suicides, with depressive symptoms exacerbated by cold, dark weather. Another myth suggests that suicides spike around the holidays, when struggling people feel left out of the cultural cheer.
Hold on to your hats and gird your loins, ladies and gentlemen, because there is life-changing news afoot: older dads have uglier children. Yes, you read that right. Choose to breed with a man twice your age and your spawn are likely to have faces that barely even a mother could love. In fact, one anthropologist from Vienna University stated that "someone born to a father of 22 is already 5%-10% more attractive than a 40-year-old father and the difference grows with the age gap".
When it comes to detecting deceit, your automatic associations may be more accurate than conscious thought in pegging truth-tellers and liars, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.The findings suggest that conscious awareness may hinder our ability to detect whether someone is lying, perhaps because we tend to seek out behaviors that are supposedly stereotypical of liars, like averted eyes or fidgeting. But those behaviors may not be all that indicative of an untrustworthy person.
Caffeine-fueled cram sessions are routine occurrences on any college campus. But what if there was a better, safer way to learn new or difficult material more quickly? What if "thinking caps" were real? Scientists have now shown that it is possible to selectively manipulate our ability to learn through the application of a mild electrical current to the brain, and that this effect can be enhanced or depressed depending on the direction of the current.
When a continent collides with another it doesn't just latch on to the landmass, it actually wraps itself around it, a new study shows.The three dimensional computer simulations, reported in the journal Nature, provide scientists with a detailed view of how continents grow at their margins.
A three-year study of ancient clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest has led researchers to make a discovery that could benefit coastal communities' food production. The researchers discovered that ancient clam gardens made by Aboriginal people produced quadruple the number of butter clams and twice the number of littleneck clams as unmodified clam beaches.
Wildflowers are to be planted in Monmouthshire to increase pollination and help reduce the decline of bees.Some grassed areas such as roadside verges and cemeteries will also be cut less often to allow existing plants to set seeds.
Nasty skull fractures are a sign Mayan armies engaged in open warfare with weapons that included spiked clubs, new research suggests.The findings come from a study of skulls recovered from 13 sites, including the important Mayan capital of Mayapan, in northwest Yucatan, Mexico.
Millions of homes across the UK could be heated using a carbon-free technology that draws energy from rivers and lakes in a revolutionary system that could reduce household bills by 20 per cent.The Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, has described the development as "game changing" in relation to Britain's need for renewable energy against the backdrop of insecurity in Russia, which supplies much of Europe's gas, and the political row at home over soaring fuel bills.
Scientists have found that the teeth of the nerpa seal may hold the strongest evidence of the effects of decades of environmental pollution, nuclear testing, and climate change on Russia's Lake Baikal. The nerpa, also known as the Baikal seal, is the only seal that lives exclusively in fresh water.
The University of Tübingen's Institute of Anatomy has discovered a fish with a previously unknown type of eye. The aptly-named glasshead barreleye lives at depths of 800 to 1000 meters. It has a cylindrical eye pointing upwards to see prey, predators or potential mates silhouetted against the gloomy light above.
Giant Burmese pythons have map and compass senses which help them travel "home" over vast distances, scientists have been surprised to discover.Pythons captured and relocated in Florida's Everglades - where they are an invasive species - returned 23 miles (36km) to their original start point.
True monogamy is rare in the animal kingdom. Even in species that appear to "mate for life," genetic maternity and paternity tests have revealed that philandering often takes place.Yet a new study by University of Pennsylvania researchers shows that Azara's owl monkeys (Aotus azarae) are unusually faithful.
To study the impact of everyday chemicals on fertility, federal researchers recently spent four years tracking 501 couples as they tried to have children. One of the findings stood out: while both men and women were exposed to known toxic chemicals, men seemed much more likely to suffer fertility problems as a result.
A beaky, crested dinosaur nicknamed the "chicken from hell" has been discovered in both North and South Dakota.This was not a "chicken" you'd want to stumble across in the barnyard: The new dino, dubbed Anzu wyliei, was about 11 feet (3.5 meters) long and about 10 feet (3 m) tall. It boasted a flashy head crest and probably wore feathers. Anzu wylieli lived at the same time as Tyrannosaurus rex, but was more lithe and graceful, said study researcher Emma Schachner.
The Rosetta probe has started turning on its instruments.After coming out of a near three-year, deep-space hibernation in January, the satellite now has sufficient power to check out its science payload.The spacecraft is currently about 675 million km from Earth, and continues to close in on its comet quarry.
Scientists have cast doubt on a major part of the case for the Moon having once held abundant water.A US team studied a mineral called apatite, which is found in a variety of lunar rock types.
Researchers have made a unique discovery in a well-preserved fern that lived 180 million years ago. Both undestroyed cell nuclei and individual chromosomes have been found in the plant fossil, thanks to its sudden burial in a volcanic eruption.
On the floor of a cave in a remote desert island in Mexico, scientists stumbled across a mat of urine-hardened poop, dating back to more than 1,500 years ago. The fossilized dung offers surprising evidence that bighorn sheep once lived on the uninhabited island, a new study claims.
With a few cosmetic adjustments, the ancient Greek gods could almost be mistaken for an archetypal family from a modern American television show. There's the strong but flawed patriarch (Zeus), the nagging wife (Hera), a mischievous, lovable child (Hermes), and two neatly contrasting pairs of older children.Scratch the surface, however, and things become somewhat stranger.
A student has decoded a 1,800-year-old letter sent by an Egyptian soldier to his family which bears striking similarities to those serving on the front line today.Graduate Grant Adamson, of Rice University in the United States, cracked the words on the document after being assigned the task in 2011 during a summer institute at Brigham Young University in Utah.
In the 19th century and even later, there was no shortage of people eager to watch the unwrapping of an Egyptian mummy.In 1908 in Manchester, some 500 people gathered in a lecture theatre to see prominent Egyptologist Margaret Murray supervise the unwrapping of a body from the Tomb of the Two Brothers from Manchester Museum's mummy collection.
Zhoukoudian Locality 1 in northern China has been widely known for the discovery of the Middle Pleistocene human ancestor Homo erectus pekinensis ( known as Peking Man ) since the 1920s. By 1931, the suggestion that the Zhoukoudian hominins could use and control fire had become widely accepted. However, some analyses have cast doubt on this assertion as siliceous aggregate (an insoluble phase of burned ash) was not present in ash remains recovered from the site.
The first humans to pluck a Caribbean fighting conch from the shallow lagoons of Panama's Bocas del Toro were in for a good meal. Smithsonian scientists found that 7,000 years ago, this common marine shellfish contained 66 percent more meat than its descendants do today.
Gottfried Wilhelm von Liebniz was a philosopher and mathematician in search of a model. In the late 1600s Leibniz decided there was a need for a new, purer arithmetic than our common decimal system. Leibniz discovered the model for this new arithmetic in the five-millennia-old book that is at the heart of Chinese philosophy: the I-Ching, or Book of Changes.
Happiness makes people more productive at work, according to the latest research from the University of Warwick.Economists carried out a number of experiments to test the idea that happy employees work harder. In the laboratory, they found happiness made people around 12% more productive.
Researchers have discovered a new mechanism that governs how body clocks react to changes in the environment. The discovery could provide a solution for alleviating the detrimental effects of chronic shift work and jet-lag.
Now you can measure everything under the sun with the technology you carry. A wristband that monitors exposure to UV rays allows users to soak up the light needed to make vitamin D without getting burned, and without the need for sunscreen.
Have you heard the startling news that the Earth's poles might flip? Perhaps in the response to a close pass from the mysterious Planet X? Are you imagining the entire Earth actually flipping over on its side or rotating upside down, possibly while Yakkity Sax plays in the background? When will this happen? Can this happen?
Nobody has seen them yet; particles that are smaller than the Higgs particle. However theories predict their existence, and now the most important of these theories have been critically tested. The result: The existence of the yet unseen particles is now more likely than ever.
Scientists have uncovered a mysterious structure that surround the earth rather like a giant zebraprint jacket.The strange structure has never been seen before, and initially baffled scientists.Stripes extend through the inner radiation belt, moving as the Earth rotates.
When young exoplanets crash into each other, their heavy, salty skies could give them away.Theory has it that rocky planets like Earth grow when smaller bodies smash together and merge. Earth and Venus probably suffered about a dozen of these giant impacts before they were fully grown, the most famous of which created the moon.
Red dwarf stars may be small, but they could be critical in the continuing hunt for exoplanets and the possibility of finding habitable alien worlds. In a new study, an international team of astronomers have estimated that every red dwarf in our galaxy hosts at least one exoplanet and that one quarter host super-Earths orbiting within their habitable zones.
Back on July 23, 2012 a furious solar magnetic storm just grazed our planet. Had it erupted just nine days earlier, it would have hit us, causing extensive damage to our technological infrastructure. It would have been a geomagnetic catastrophe the likes of which we've never seen. Scientists say the close shave should serve as an important wake-up call.
New radar measurements of an enormous sea on Titan offer insights into the weather patterns and landscape composition of the Saturnian moon. The measurements, made in 2013 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, reveal that the surface of Ligeia Mare, Titan's second largest sea, possesses a mirror-like smoothness, possibly due to a lack of winds.
Earlier this week, physicists they'd seen evidence of ripples in the fabric of space and time from just moments after the Big Bang. Such ripples were predicted almost a century ago by Albert Einstein.Einstein's theory of relativity is arguably the 20th century's greatest idea. But not everything he did was right: Some newly uncovered work from the brilliant physicist was wrong. Really, really wrong.
In his superlative The Improbability Principle, David J. Hand makes sense of bizarre patterns in Bible codes, lightning strikes and even drug trialsPEOPLE thought it was a fix when the Bulgarian lottery announced the same six winning numbers on two consecutive draws in 2009. The national sports minister launched an investigation, but found no tampering; the repetition was mere chance.
Contact lenses sharpen our blurry vision, and free us from the hassle of pushing sliding glasses back up our noses. But the future of contacts is nigh: Researchers have created a super-thin infrared sensor that could lead to the development of night vision contact lenses.
Why do we become saucer-eyed from fear and squint from disgust? These near-opposite facial expressions are rooted in emotional responses that exploit how our eyes gather and focus light to detect an unknown threat, according to a new study.
A MURDER has been committed, and all the cops have to go on is a trace of DNA left at the scene. It doesn't match any profile in databases of known criminals, and the trail goes cold. But what if the police could issue a wanted poster based on a realistic "photofit" likeness built from that DNA?
Ancient proteins could hold the key to unlocking the secrets of Australia's lost giant megafauna, a new paper suggests.The paper highlights the work of an international team in using ancient proteins to fill in gaps of understanding that ancient DNA cannot provide, in particular the presence of diseases in ancient times.
A joint study by researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Toronto has found that a computer system spots real or faked expressions of pain more accurately than people can.The work, titled "Automatic Decoding of Deceptive Pain Expressions," is published in the latest issue of Current Biology.
Conventional wisdom has a few things to say about trusting strangers--all things being equal, it isn't generally considered a wise thing to do. Perhaps surprisingly, then, new research has found a strong link between intelligence and general trust in others.
Rats' brains may remember odors they were exposed to while deeply anesthetized, suggests research. In the study, rats were exposed to a specific odor while under general anesthesia. Examination of the brain tissue after they had recovered from anesthesia revealed evidence of cellular imprinting, even though the rats behaved as if they had never encountered the odor before.
Bad memories are not only part of our conscious mind, they also leave a trace in our unconscious. But now, new research shows that actively trying to forget an unwanted memory can help erase this unconscious trace.
A new evolutionary theory in BioEssays claims that consuming a diet very low in nutrients can extend lifespan in laboratory animals, a finding which could hold clues to promoting healthier ageing in humans.
Many people who undergo treatment for addiction will relapse and begin using drugs again soon after their therapy ends, but a new study suggests that meditation techniques may help prevent such relapses.
Immediately after the biggest extinction event of all time there were once again functioning and complete food webs in the oceans of the Early Triassic. Contrary to previous assumptions there were large predators, too. Large predatory fish and amphibians, and later dinosaurs too, were the last link in the food chain.
Thieves detached and stole a section of fresco in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii last week, adding to the degradation of one of the world's outstanding archaeological sites after heavy rain caused sections of wall to collapse.
The "shrapnel" generated by small space rocks that periodically hit the Moon may pose a larger risk to lunar missions than was previously believed.A number of countries and private consortia have stated their plans to send robotic and crewed missions to the lunar surface in the coming decades.
A new gully has appeared on a sloped crater wall on Mars. The channel, which was absent from images in November 2010 but showed up in a May 2013 photo, does not appear to have been formed by water. Exactly what caused this Red Planet rivulet remains a mystery.
An animal horn thought to be 3,000 years old has been found on a beach in Gwynedd after the recent storms.Engineer Derfel Hughes from Rhos Isaf made the discovery while walking at Dinas Dinlle, near Caernarfon.
Researchers have discovered the earliest confirmed case of cancer in a young man who lived in ancient Egypt.The discovery of a diseased skeleton dating back to around 1,200 BC was made at the Amara West site in northern Sudan.
Why were Neanderthals replaced by anatomically modern humans around 40,000 years ago? One popular hypothesis states that a broader dietary spectrum of modern humans gave them a competitive advantage on Neanderthals. Geochemical analyses of fossil bones seemed to confirm this dietary difference. Indeed, higher amounts of nitrogen heavy isotopes were found in the bones of modern humans compared to those of Neanderthals. However, these studies did not look at possible isotopic variation of nitrogen isotopes in the food resource themselves.
A new NASA-led study seven years in the making has confirmed that natural forests in the Amazon remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they emit, therefore reducing global warming. This finding resolves a long-standing debate about a key component of the overall carbon balance of the Amazon basin.
The arctic whale known as the narwhal is famous for the spiral tusk protruding from its head, but scientists have long battled over the horn's purpose.On Tuesday, scientists published a study that advances a bold theory about how the whale uses its tusk. They say the horn, which is actually a tooth, is a sensory organ.
Evolutionary and developmental biologists have discovered that sea anemones display a genomic landscape with a complexity of regulatory elements similar to that of fruit flies or other animal model systems. This suggests that this principle of gene regulation is already 600 million years old and dates back to the common ancestor of human, fly and sea anemone.
It seems like scientists are all about immortality these days. It's not just plants and people that are getting the treatment, though. A team of Harvard engineers are developing a way of producing color that could produce paint that never fades, and displays that never go dark.Believe it or not, the method is based on bird feathers, which last centuries without losing their bright hues. .
Physicists at The University of Queensland and the Australian National University (ANU) have demonstrated a software-based quantum amplifier which has the potential to expand the use of ultra-secure quantum cryptographic communications.The development could lead to new ways to guarantee security of everyday communications, including financial transactions and email.
A powerful, new three-dimensional model provides fresh insight into the turbulent death throes of supernovas, whose final explosions outshine entire galaxies and populate the universe with elements that make life on Earth possible.
Flawed but colorful diamonds are among the most sensitive detectors of magnetic fields known today, allowing physicists to explore the minuscule magnetic fields in metals, exotic materials, and even human tissue.University of California, Berkeley, physicist Dmitry Budker and colleagues have now shown that these diamond sensors can measure the tiny magnetic fields in high-temperature superconductors, providing a new tool to probe these materials.
We've all seen the films where an asteroid hurtles towards our planet, threatening civilisation.What's less well known is that menacing space rocks sometimes come in twos.
Scientists have long suspected that volcanoes played a huge role in the evolution of cloud-shrouded Venus, the second planet from the sun.Now, images from Europe's Venus Express orbiter are showing that volcanic eruptions may not just be a thing from the past.
The Los Angeles Times was the first newspaper to publish a story about an earthquake on Monday - thanks to a robot writer.Journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke created an algorithm that automatically generates a short article when an earthquake occurs.
US Navy bosses have revealed futuristic plans to beam power from space.They believe large arrays of space solar modules could send solar power to Earth.The radical scheme could be used to power military installations and even cities.
The toughest part about defending Earth against hazardous space rocks may be overcoming human nature.Our species tends to tackle problems as they come up, defusing dangers deemed immediate and extreme. But effectively protecting the planet from asteroids will require constant vigilance over the long haul, experts say, since the threat of a major cosmic impact will never go away.
The surface of Mercury is shrinking faster than previously thought, photos from a NASA spacecraft orbiting the tiny planet reveal.The first comprehensive survey of the surface of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft shows that planet's crust has contracted as it cooled by as much as 4.4 miles (7 kilometers), significantly more than previous estimates. The findings clear up a long-standing clash between scientists' understanding of the heat production and loss and the contraction of Mercury.
New research in Geophysical Research Letters examines earthquake swarms caused by mounting volcanic pressure which may signal an imminent eruption. The research team studied Augustine Volcano in Alaska which erupted in 2006 and found that precursory earthquakes were caused by a block in the lava flow.
Sunlight plus a common titanium pigment might be the secret recipe for ridding pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other potentially harmful pollutants from drinking water. Scientists combined several high-tech components to make an easy-to-use water purifier that could work with the world's most basic form of energy, sunlight, in a boon for water purification in rural areas or developing countries.
The venom of earth's more exotic and dangerous creatures has long been used as medicine. Though snails aren't typically thought of as a source, one type, the cone snail, injects its prey with paralyzing poison 100 times as powerful (in terms of numbing pain) as morphine and gabapentin without the addictive qualities.
The more muscle mass older Americans have, the less likely they are to die prematurely, new research shows. The findings add to the growing evidence that overall body composition -- and not the widely used body mass index, or BMI -- is a better predictor of all-cause mortality. "In other words, the greater your muscle mass, the lower your risk of death," said the study's co-author.
Without elephants, the ancient Library of Alexandria might not have existed. Every war has, as a byproduct, cultural and technological innovation: in our world, the US Civil War led to medical advancements and the Cold War put us in space. In the classical era, it was the race to build elephant armies that changed the world.
British scientists have successfully revived mosses that have been frozen under the Antarctic ice for 1,500 years.The researchers thawed out the ancient vegetation and were surprised to see new shoots rapidly appear.