Newsdesk Archive
A shaft tomb containing skeletal remains along with a rich assemblage of grave goods, has been discovered in a later cemetery in the state of Colima, Mexico by researchers at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).Archaeologist Marco Zavaleta Lucido explained, shaft tombs such as this are targeted by looters because of the beauty of the materials deposited within them. The excavators have produced a detailed record of this burial area which unusually, was found intact.
Egypt has announced that a team of European archaeologists have found a nearly 2-meter- (6 ½-foot-) tall alabaster statue of a pharoanic princess, dating from approximately 1350 B.C., outside the southern city of Luxor.
A newly deciphered letter home dating back around 1,800 years reveals the pleas of a young Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion who was serving, probably as a volunteer, in a Roman legion in Europe.In the letter, written mainly in Greek, Polion tells his family that he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them.
THE Pyramid of the Sun may fall apart. One side is dry while another side is wet, which could lead to the pyramid's collapse unless a fix can be found.Between the 1st and 7th centuries, Mexico's Pyramid of the Sun was at the heart of the largest city in the Americas. Now known as Teotihuacan, the lost city had a population of more than 125,000, making it one of the biggest in the world.
Scientists have carried out the first controlled medical experiment in 40 years with the hallucinogenic drug LSD which they used as part of a psychotherapy course to treat severe depression in terminally ill cancer patients.
French scientists bring back to life a giant, still-infectuous virus lying dormant from the Siberian tundra for 30,000 years, raising fears that global warming could unleash other ancient viruses deadly to man.
The decline of Bronze-Age civilizations in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia has been attributed to a long-term drought that began around 2000 bc. Now palaeoclimatologists propose that a similar fate was followed by the enigmatic Indus Valley Civilization, at about the same time. Based on isotope data from the sediment of an ancient lake, the researchers suggest that the monsoon cycle, which is vital to the livelihood of all of South Asia, essentially stopped there for as long as two centuries.
A US couple who unearthed gold coins worth more than $10 million might have to return them as they may have been stolen, a report said.The California couple uncovered eight cans filled with more than 1,400 coins on their property, in what is believed to be the most valuable treasure trove ever discovered in the United States.
The Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, who once accused the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea, say they have used bitcoins to buy tickets for a trip on one of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space flights.Related: Native American tribes adopt Bitcoin-like currency, prepare to battle US government
200,000-ton asteroids don't usually just disappear into space (okay, maybe sometimes do), but when astronomers at NASA trained the Hubble on this asteroid, they were puzzled to see it was falling apart right before their eyes, the first time they'd ever seen such a sight.
Time-travel in Europe just got a lot less carefree, with the discovery of the hugest known land predator on the continent, with legs as long as the actor John Lithgow, and teeth the size of warbling wrens. It is called Torvosaurus gurneyi.
In a new book, a paleoanthropologist incorporates his research with a synthesis of a vast amount of research from other scientists who study primate evolution and behavior. The book explains how apes and humans evolved in relation to one another, and why humans became a bipedal, tool-making, culture-inventing species.
In Palaeolithic Europe 40,000 years ago, two different human species; anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals met for the first time. This collision of cultures resulted in our survival, while the Neanderthals vanished forever.
Darwin's idea of natural selection is simple. Good mutations are passed on, because the animals who have them will survive to reproduce. But how do you pass on those good mutations in honeybee colonies, where most bees are sterile workers who never have babies? A group of researchers decided to find out.
Scientists have designed a machine that they say can help women achieve orgasm at the push of a button.The device, which is a little smaller than a pack of cigarettes, uses electrodes attached to the patient's spine to trigger an orgasm via remote control. Doctors think it could help women who are unable to achieve orgasm by other means.
It sounds like a scene from a detective novel: The witness sees a body falling from the window, and then hears a loud noise that sounds like the body hitting the ground. But what if the noise actually came before the fall?Navigating through our memories of past events seems to be easy task, but we don't always get it right.
African elephants make a specific alarm call in response to the danger of humans, according to a new study of wild elephants in Kenya.Researchers from Oxford University, Save the Elephants, and Disney's Animal Kingdom carried out a series of audio experiments in which recordings of the voices of the Samburu, a local tribe from North Kenya, were played to resting elephants. The elephants quickly reacted, becoming more vigilant and running away from the sound whilst emitting a distinctive low rumble.
Astronomers say that magnetic storms in the gas orbiting young stars may explain a mystery that has persisted since before 2006.Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to study developing stars have had a hard time figuring out why the stars give off more infrared light than expected. The planet-forming disks that circle the young stars are heated by starlight and glow with infrared light, but Spitzer detected additional infrared light coming from an unknown source.
WASHINGTON - NASA is plotting a daring robotic mission to Jupiter's watery moon Europa, a place where astronomers speculate there might be some form of life.The space agency set aside $15 million in its 2015 budget proposal to start planning some kind of mission to Europa. No details have been decided yet, but NASA chief financial officer Elizabeth Robinson said Tuesday that it would be launched in the mid-2020s.
Earth can raise shields to protect itself against solar storms. For the first time, satellites and ground-based detectors have watched as the planet sends out a tendril of plasma to fight off blasts of charged solar matter. The discovery confirms a long-standing theory about Earth's magnetic surroundings and offers us a way to keep track of the planet's defences.
A massive ejection of material from the sun initially traveling at over 7 million miles per hour that narrowly missed Earth last year is an event solar scientists hope will open the eyes of policymakers regarding the impacts and mitigation of severe space weather, says a University of Colorado Boulder professor.
Exposing leafy vegetables grown during spaceflight to a few bright pulses of light daily could increase the amount of eye-protecting nutrients produced by the plants, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The type of fat you eat may affect not only your heart disease risk, but also where on your body you pack on extra pounds, new research suggests.People who ate extra amounts of saturated fat tended to accumulate fat around their waistlines and livers. Meanwhile, people who consumed extra amounts of polyunsaturated fat, which typically comes from vegetable oils, had trimmer waistlines, a new study found.
Researchers have found cannabinoid receptors, through which marijuana exerts its effects, in a key emotional hub in the brain involved in regulating anxiety and the flight-or-fight response, according to a recent study.For the first time, cannabinoid receptors have been identified in the central nucleus of the amygdala in a mouse model by scientists from Vanderbilt University. They said this could explain why some marijuana users take the drug mainly to reduce anxiety.
Removing all the dangerous bacteria from drinking water would have enormous health benefits for people around the world.The technologies exist for doing that, but there's a problem: cost.Now a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thinks he's on to a much less expensive way to clean up water.
Screws made from 100% silk have been used to repair broken bones in research that could transform surgery.US scientists say metal fixtures can potentially be replaced with plates and screws made from the natural fibre, which will eventually dissolve in the body.
UT Arlington biochemists say their newly published study brings researchers a step closer to understanding how the commonly used synthetic compound bisphenol-A, or BPA, may promote breast cancer growth.Related: BPA linked to prostate cancer, study shows
San Francisco became the first major city Tuesday to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on public property, building on a nationwide effort to curb the billion-dollar industry.The nine-month in the making proposal by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu navigated through a number of challenging issues from the city's drinking water infrastructure to the impacts on events like the Folsom Street Fair or lower-key nonprofit events that often rely on the sales of the plastic water bottles for revenue.
Skeletons from the oldest cemetery in the Pacific Islands show a preference for free-range food is not a modern phenomenon.In a paper published in this week's PLOS One, the international research team, including Australian scientists, reveals insights into the diet of the Lapita people, who colonised Oceania.
Back during the 1530s, a military planner in what is now Germany devised a rather strange means of siege warfare that would have seen cats and birds strapped with bombs to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise.".
While some people can't live without the sound of music, for others Midnight Oil is just something you burn and Cold Chisel is an uncomfortable tool, new research suggests.A study published in today's issue of Current Biology shows that some people may not find any pleasure in music at all.
After a class on out-of-body experiences, a psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa came forward to researchers to say that she could have these voluntarily, usually before sleep. "She appeared surprised that not everyone could experience this," wrote the scientists in a study describing the case, published in February in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
The brains of people with insomnia may have more plasticity than those of people who sleep well, new research suggests.The motor cortex, which is the part of the brain that controls movement, tends to be more flexible and active in insomniacs than in people who don't have trouble sleeping, according to a new study.
One of the greatest texts about happiness and living well wasn't written by a self-help expert, spiritual leader or psychologist. It was written by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and it may completely change your perspective on dealing with life's challenges.In 167 AD, Aurelius wrote The Meditations, a 12-book compendium of personal writings, originally written in Greek, that reflect his extensive study of Stoic philosophy.
Having a hot temper may increase your risk of having a heart attack or stroke, according to researchers.Rage often precedes an attack and may be the trigger, say the US researchers who trawled medical literature.
On the outskirts of Pisa in a back room of a modern block, a machine is waiting for its operator.The device has arms and legs and is suspended by ropes from a metal frame. Its only other tether is a thick umbilical cable plugged into its back.
A highly sensitive magnetic material that could transform computer hard drives and energy storage devices has been discovered.The metal bilayer needs only a small shift in temperature to dramatically alter its magnetism - a tremendously useful property in electronic engineering.
Solar panels usually get placed somewhere in the sun, but out of sight. Rooftops, deserts, mausoleums. But what if they were so beautiful we wanted to put them everywhere?That could happen! Maybe. We've at least got the groundwork laid out, thanks to a University of Michigan research team that's making solar panels like stained-glass windows: translucent, colored panels filled with solar cells.
Researchers have described a process that suppresses the formation of methane in soils that are rich in humic substances. For this process to work, the soils need to switch between having no oxygen and having oxygen.
IF ANY energy source is worthy of the name "steampunk", it is surely ocean thermal energy conversion. Victorian-era science fiction? Check: Jules Verne mused about its potential in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1870. Mechanical, vaguely 19th-century technology? Check. Compelling candidate for renewable energy in a post-apocalyptic future? Tick that box as well.
Not many 13-year-olds would describe themselves as an "amateur nuclear scientist." That's precisely what Jamie Edwards calls himself. When most kids his age are off playing video games, Edwards stays late after school to work on a control panel for a nuclear fusion reactor. He just reached his goal of becoming the youngest "fusioneer" in history, narrowly beating out the previous record-holder, who pulled it off at 14.
Not long after the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope took to the sky in 2008, astrophysicists noticed that it was picking up a steady rain of gamma rays pouring outward from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.This high-energy radiation was consistent with the detritus of annihilating dark matter, the unidentified particles that constitute 84% of the matter in the universe and that fizzle upon contact with each other, spewing other particles as they go.
The break up of an asteroid has been captured on film for the first time.Experts pictured the P/2013 R3 asteroid breaking into ten pieces using Nasa's Hubble space telescope.
A trip to the moon on gossamer strings? A "partial" space elevator that could carry satellites to geosynchronous orbit might be just the ticket.A space elevator untethered to Earth, with both of its ends hanging in space, might cut the costs of space travel to high orbit by 40 percent, researchers report in a new Acta Astronautica study.
An archaeologist says he discovered nine tiny scrolls with biblical text from the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed, according to news reports.The newfound scrolls, which date back to about 2,000 years ago, were hidden inside three leather tefillin cases, also known as phylacteries, traditionally carried by observant Jewish men.
THE sky is purple and the wind is fierce on top of the cliff. David Burney has to shout as he explains what we're looking at. Below us is the Makauwahi Cave, which contains the remains of plants and animals going back thousands of years. It is revealing what the Hawaiian island of Kauai was like before people arrived. Here you can find the bones of moa-nalo, the giant flightless ducks that once ruled Hawaii.
Pregnant women who eat a "prudent" diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and who drink water have a significantly reduced risk of preterm delivery, suggests a study published on bmj.com today.
Would you be prepared to sacrifice your fertility in order to live longer? It's an almost inconceivable dilemma, but one day we could be offered a choice between having children and enhancing our chances of reaching a grand old age.
Results have been posted online from the first controlled trial of LSD in more than 40 years.The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease published results Tuesday from a Swiss study that tested the effects of the drug as a complement for talk therapy for 12 people nearing their end of life.Related: LSD Study Breaks 40 Years of Research Taboo
Can your brain detect events before they even occur? That was the stunning conclusion of a 2012 meta-analysis of experiments from seven independent laboratories over the last 35 years, which found that the human body "can apparently detect randomly delivered stimuli occurring 1-10 seconds in the future" (Mossbridge, Tressoldi, & Utts, 2012).
A hairy creature conjuring the Sasquatch of North American folklore is stomping around Vancouver Island, according to a young First Nations man who claims he had a startling encounter with the beast.Fisheries officer Luke Swan Jr. told CTV News he was out in his boat patrolling Ahousaht territory near Tofino last Wednesday when he saw a mysterious figure crouching on the coast.
Italy says it will unblock 2m euros (£1.6m) in emergency funding to save the ancient city of Pompeii, after flooding caused walls to collapse.A number of structures, including the Temple of Venus and Roma, were damaged by heavy rainfall on Sunday and Monday.
The giant bluestones of Stonehenge may have been chosen because of their acoustic properties, claim researchers.A study shows rocks in the Preseli Hills, the Pembrokeshire source of part of the monument, have a sonic property.
New evidence establishes for the first time that Cahokia, a sprawling, pre-Columbian city situated at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, hosted a sizable population of immigrants. Cahokia was an early experiment in urban life, researchers say.
Plants are also able to make complex decisions. At least this is what scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Göttingen have concluded from their investigations on Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), which is able to abort its own seeds to prevent parasite infestation. The results are the first ecological evidence of complex behaviour in plants.
Early Earth's accidental deluge via water-carrying comets has long been a stumbling block for those interested in life on other planets.Scientists agree that life needs water to evolve. But if water only arrives through chance impacts with comets, then life elsewhere might indeed be rare.
Scientists have had the first look at the life that thrives in one of the deepest spots in the ocean.An expedition to the unexplored New Hebrides trench in the Pacific has revealed that cusk eels and crustaceans teem more than 7,000m (23,000ft) down.Related: Climate change affects fish living in the deepest parts of the ocean, scientists claim
Climbers scaling Mount Everest will have to bring back eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) of garbage under new rules designed to clean up the world's highest peak, a Nepalese official said Monday.
Each night at dinnertime, a familiar ritual played out in Michael Green's home: He'd slide a stainless steel sippy cup across the table to his two-year-old daughter, Juliette, and she'd howl for the pink plastic one. Often, Green gave in. But he had a nagging feeling. As an environmental-health advocate, he had fought to rid sippy cups and baby bottles of the common plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA), which mimics the hormone estrogen and has been linked to a long list of serious health problems.
Women are able to carry higher levels of genetic defects without getting brain development disorders such as autism, supporting the possibility of a "female protective effect," finds a new study.The study gives clues as to why 50 percent more males typically have an intellectual disability than females, and why boys are four times more likely to have autism than girls.
In the Marvel Comic Daredevil our eponymous hero is the victim of a radioactive spill, leaving him blind but also with an extraordinary heightening of his other senses, particularly hearing.For Julie, her superhuman hearing isn't the result of radioactivity, but is instead due to the reorganisation of neurons in her brain, enhancing her sense of hearing after the loss of her sight at the age of 16.
Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London are aiming to reconstruct people's faces with stem cells taken from their fat.The team has grown cartilage in the laboratory and believe it could be used to rebuild ears and noses.
In an advance for HIV vaccine research, a scientific team has discovered how the immune system makes a powerful antibody that blocks HIV infection of cells by targeting a site on the virus called V1V2. Many researchers believe that if a vaccine could elicit potent antibodies to a specific conserved site in the V1V2 region, one of a handful of sites that remains constant on the fast-mutating virus, then the vaccine could protect people from HIV infection.
Precious Metals vs. Precious Life: Destruction of the Amazon by Sergey BaranovSky Cults and UFO Encounters in Ancient Egypt by Xaviant HazeHow to visit Ancient Sites - Mindfulness & Meditation by Gary EvansThe Connection of Fractals, Sound and the Solar System by David Carr
A "live fast, die young" life history strategy could have been a key factor behind today's high tree diversity in the Amazon, scientists have suggested.The researchers hope the findings will shed light on why some groups of trees in the biodiversity hotspot contain hundreds of species.
A new way of measuring how much light a plant can tolerate could be useful in growing crops resilient to a changing climate, according to scientists from Queen Mary University of London.
French scientists said Monday they had revived a giant but harmless virus that had been locked in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30,000 years.Wakening the long-dormant virus serves as a warning that unknown pathogens entombed in frozen soil may be roused by global warming, they said.
Hominins and their closest living relative, chimpanzees, diverged approximately 6.5 million years ago on African continent. Fossil evidence suggests hominins have migrated away from Africa at least twice since then. Crania of the first wave of migrants, such as Neanderthals in Europe and Peking Man in East Asia, show distinct morphological features that are different from contemporary humans (also known as Homo sapiens sapiens).
Researchers have found evidence to suggest that Neanderthals may have spoken languages not too different from ones currently used by humans.Scientists at the University of New England used 3-D X-ray imaging to examine the hyoid bone from 60,000-year-old Neanderthal remains discovered about 25 years ago in Israel.
Around two-thirds of the way into the aged vellum pages of the Voynich manuscript, you'll find a line drawing of a bath. A pipe leads into it, another pipe leads away. Inside the bath, knee-deep in a green liquid, squat 16 naked women. Over the page, more naked women stand in the openings of ornate horns, seemingly suspended by jets of water and using their hands to support pipes, or archways, or rainbows.
Archaeologists have found the 5,500 year old bones of a Stone Age child and adult in a cave situated on Knocknarea mountain not far from the town of Sligo.Researchers at IT Sligo discovered 13 small bones and bone fragments in the cave last November.
Italy's culture minister demanded explanations on Sunday after more collapses this weekend in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii raised concerns about the state of one of the world's most treasured archaeological sites.
Exclusive pictures show autopsy on a four year old bison preserved in ice since ancient times.The autopsy, conducted on 27 February 2014, is understood to be the first in the world on a 9,000 bison, and it could provide vital scientific information.
Researchers have built the world's smallest tweezers, capable of picking up a single virus or molecule.The device could be a boon for scientists who want to manipulate biological specimens or build tiny structures from nanocrystals, says physicist Mathieu Juan from Sydney's Macquarie University.
Like a spring connecting two swings, light can act as photon glue that binds together the quantum mechanical properties of two vastly different materials.The effect could harness the most useful characteristics from each material for hybrid solar cells and high efficiency lighting, among other applications.
In the field of quantum physics, you could call this a droplet in the bucket.Physicists in Germany and the United States have discovered an exotic new type of particle that they call a quantum droplet, or dropleton.
As far as universal limits go, the speed of light gets all the glory. But did you know there is a different speed limit for particles? It's called the GZK limit, and some people think it has already been exceeded. Which has some pretty weird implications for the laws of the universe.
One of the Sun's most recently active sunspot regions has made its third migration around the star, NASA reported Friday.Sunspots are magnetically strong regions of the solar surface that are generally cooler than their surrounding regions, leading to their dark appearance on the solar surface.
For a rocky planet to be habitable it must be no bigger than Earth or its crushing atmosphere will be deadly to life, according to new research.The findings have dashed hopes that life as we know it can exist on super Earths - planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) astronomers using data gathered at the W. M. Keck Observatory have developed a new technique for planetary scientists that could provide insight into how many water planets like Earth exist within our universe.
It is almost common knowledge now, thanks to recent DNA studies, that many non-African humans living today have traces of Neanderthal DNA within their genomes --- the evidence, according to geneticists, that anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) interbred with their contemporary Neanderthal species cousins tens of thousands of years ago in places where they coexisted in present-day Europe and Asia.
The West Bank excavation site Qumran has brought to light another exceptional find after that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Working on materials from archaeological excavations of the 1950s, archaeologist Yonatan Adler found three phylacteries - pouches used by religious Jews containing small manuscript scrolls with a biblical text - dating back to about 2,000 years ago.
In a warmer world it might be best not to leave your windows open. As temperatures rise, so do crime rates, suggesting climate change will lead to millions of extra offences in the coming decades. However, factors such as better policing may keep a lid on the problem.
If anyone had hoped that the Arab Spring and Occupy protests a few years back were one-off episodes that would soon give way to more stability, they have another thing coming. The hope was that ongoing economic recovery would return to pre-crash levels of growth, alleviating the grievances fueling the fires of civil unrest, stoked by years of recession.But this hasn't happened.
A 4-month-old infant in Maryland may be the first person to have had teeth form in his brain as a result of a specific type of rare brain tumor, according to a new report of the case.The boy is doing well now that his tumor has been removed, and doctors say the case sheds light on how these rare tumors develop.
Researchers are charged up about biobatteries, devices able to harness common biological processes to generate electricity. Most biobatteries are unable to generate large amounts of power, but researchers recently developed a prototype version that has the potential to be lighter and more powerful than the batteries typically found in today's portable electronic devices, including smartphones.
Wetlands, including peatlands, have a high content of humic substances, which are organic compounds that form during incomplete decomposition of biomass. Under anoxic conditions, soil bacteria can use these organic compounds during respiration as electron acceptors. Many organisms (including us humans) instead use oxygen as the electron acceptor.
The common screw may not have been screaming for a makeover, but consider its shortcomings: stripped heads, tedious pilot holes, endless bit swapping. The company Outlaw has developed a new fastening system that cures all those headaches and could unseat the Phillips head as the bench standard.
A tiny personal computer that is worn on the ear and can be controlled with the blink of an eye or the click of a tongue is being tested in Japan.The 17-gram (0.59-ounce) wireless device has bluetooth capability and is equipped with a GPS, compass, gyro-sensor, battery, barometer, speaker and microphone.
Nearly 60 years after the USSR launched Spunik I -- and more than 4,900 space launches later -- a number of objects now circle the Earth. Scientists track nearly 20,000 pieces of space debris that are said to be larger than a softball, but it is estimated that close to 500,000 pieces of untrackable debris -- perhaps millions of the smallest size -- exist in orbit as well. If a single, marble-sized piece of orbital debris were to hit a functional, orbiting spacecraft -- as seen in the movie, "Gravity" -- the results would be catastrophic.
Called 'Globetrotter', a powerful technique has produced an interactive genetic roadmap for understanding how human population interbreeding has illucidated our ancestral connections and even uncovered human events previously undocumented in history.
It seems to be common wisdom that Europeans in the Middle Ages drank primarily beer and wine because water wasn't generally safe to drink. This, however, is a rather persistent myth as water was a regular part of the Medieval diet.
Heaps of mammoth and woolly rhino bones found piled up at the foot of a cliff were thought to be the grim results of Neanderthals driving the beasts over the edge.The piles of bones are a major feature at La Cotte de St Brelade on Jersey, one of the most spectacular Neanderthal sites in Europe. But the claim that they mark the remains of mass slaughter has been all but ruled out by a fresh investigation.
Plankton in the Earth's oceans received a huge boost when microorganisms capable of creating soluble nitrogen 'fertilizer' directly from the atmosphere diversified and spread throughout the open ocean. This event occurred at around 800 million years ago and it changed forever how carbon was cycled in the ocean.
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of wartime bombs unearthed because of the winter storms and flooding.Bomb disposal teams in the South West have dealt with double the number of unexploded ordnance than in the same period last year.
A 10th-century candelabra found off the coast of the Spanish island of Ibiza may be a clue to long-forgotten shipping routes in that era.But the candelabra's use and origin remain a stubborn mystery, researchers report in the journal Archivo Español de Arqueología.
A team of French investigators has discovered viruses containing genes for antibiotic resistance in a fossilized fecal sample from 14th century Belgium, long before antibiotics were used in medicine.
With its 14,000-year-old red bison, Spain's Altamira cave paintings reopened to a handful of visitors Thursday, giving them a glimpse of some of the world's most spectacular prehistoric art.Renowned for vivid paintings of beasts and animal-headed humans, the Altamira cave closed in 2002 because breath and microscopic fungi introduced by visitors threatened to ruin the prehistoric paint.
Scientists from the University of Cambridge have demonstrated that an abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon affected northwest India 4,100 years ago. The resulting drought coincided with the beginning of the decline of the metropolis-building Indus Civilisation, which spanned present-day Pakistan and India, suggesting that climate change could be why many of the major cities of the civilisation were abandoned.
If you've run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip, there's a simple solution: Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree, peel away the bark, and slowly pour lake water through the stick. The improvised filter should trap any bacteria, producing fresh, uncontaminated water.