Newsdesk Archive
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to use drones to deliver drivers licenses and other government documents to its citizens, as part of an ambitious plan announced this week. Officials unveiled a prototype unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on Monday, and plan to test it for six months in Dubai before expanding it to the rest of the country within a year.
High-tech glasses may help surgeons visualize cancer cells, which glow blue when viewed through the eyewear. The wearable technology, so new it's yet unnamed, was used during surgery for the first time today at Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.
Scientists report the development of hemp plants with fatty acid content similar to that of olive oil, as well as a longer shelf life and greater heat tolerance.The researchers say that high oleic acid varieties are a major step towards developing hemp as a commercially attractive break crop for cereal farmers. Their findings appear in Plant Biotechnology Journal.
African civilians in war-torn countries have experienced the threat of violence or death, and many have witnessed the abuse, torture, rape and even murder of loved ones. Many Congolese living in Ugandan refugee camps are suffering from severe posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Some of us age more gracefully than others, but perhaps no animal group does it better than the tiny freshwater polyps known as hydras. In 1998 one biologist ventured that the tentacled creatures, by continually renewing their own cells, may stave off aging altogether to achieve a kind of biological immortality.
2013 was the first year in 90 years in which there were no sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, prompting some to worry that the venerable cryptid has packed up and left.
As the row over the Environment Agency's failure to dredge rivers rages on and the military are shipped in to tackle the floods, a charity has proposed an unusual alternative solution.Britain's flooding crisis could be prevented in the future by boosting the UK population - of beavers, The Mammal Society said on Monday.
In the event of a future mass extinction, rats may be the animals best suited to repopulate the world, some scientists say.And if rats did "take over" after such a wipeout, they'd likely balloon in size, scientists also say.
The largest mass extinction in the history of animal life occurred some 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of life on land -- including the largest insects known to have inhabited Earth. Multiple theories have aimed to explain the cause of what's now known as the end-Permian extinction, including an asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruptions, or a cataclysmic cascade of environmental events.
Archaeologists discovered a building from around 2,200 B.C. in an archaeological and ecological park in the Ecuadorian capital at the foot of Pichincha Volcano, sources at the excavations told Efe.
Researchers have securely dated a prehistoric human stone tool industry that is thought to have been used by early modern humans, or possibly late Neanderthals, around the time when early modern humans were beginning to emerge in Europe, arguably sometime between 40,000 to 50,000 years B.P.
There's been a surge in earthquakes in the U.S. over the last few years. In Texas, there are 10 times the number of earthquakes now than just a few years ago.Scientists say it's likely linked to the boom in oil and gas activity, meaning that people who never felt the ground shake are starting to.
An unknown mega-society of chimpanzees has been discovered living in a 50,000sqkm forest in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands walked hundreds of kilometers in the forests across the region for several years and caught their activities on motion activated cameras.
THC appears to increase our sensitivity to scents and flavors by using naturally occurring neural networks to convince the brain that it's starving.Related: Why so munchy? Cannabis shown to ramp up sense of smell
Many woodland plants rely on ants to disperse their seeds; such seed dispersal increases the plant population's chance of survival. Robert Warren, assistant professor of biology, has recently demonstrated that ant-dispersed plants (myrmecochores) compete for ant dispersers by staggering seed release.
For some spider suitors, the arachnid equivalent of a box of chocolates is an insect wrapped in silk. New research shows it's not just the gift but also the color of the wrapping that can seal the deal among one species.Male spiders of the species Paratrechalea ornate reveal their health and suitability as a mate by the whiteness of their gift wrap, a new study suggests.
Russian authorities have issued warnings against using Bitcoin, saying the virtual currency could be used for money laundering or financing terrorism and that treating it as a parallel currency is illegal.
Perhaps over-eager drivers will think twice about running red lights when faced with a hulking humanoid robot that can give them a ticket. Two new traffic robots in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are doing just that.The two enormous solar-powered robots created by engineers from the Kinshasa Higher Institute of Applied Technique were recently placed at a busy intersection in the capital city. While they might look funny, the robots mean business.
Australian astronomers have found the oldest known star in the universe, a discovery that may help to resolve a long-standing discrepancy between observations and predictions of the Big Bang billions of years ago.Dr Stefan Keller, lead researcher at the Australian National University Research School, told Reuters his team had seen the chemical fingerprint of the "first star". After 11 years of searching, the star was discovered using the SkyMapper telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory.
People's past relations with their parents may influence or spill over into their current romantic partnerships, according to a new study.Matt Johnson from the University of Alberta in Canada contends that the love between parents and teens - however stormy or peaceful - may influence whether those children are successful in romance, even up to 15 years later.
New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that higher consumption of yoghurt, compared with no consumption, can reduce the risk of new-onset type 2 diabetes by 28%. Scientists at the University of Cambridge found that in fact higher consumption of low-fat fermented dairy products, which include all yoghurt varieties and some low-fat cheeses, also reduced the relative risk of diabetes by 24% overall.
The study titled "Rolling back prices and raising crime rates? The Wal-Mart effect on crime in the United States," released last month shows that the crime decline was stunted in counties where Wal-Mart expanded in the 1990s.
To spot future olympians, it's common practice to wait to see if youngsters are actually good at any given activity. But the central Asian country of Uzbekistan will begin testing the genes of kids as young as 10 to try and find future champion athletes, the Atlantic reports.
Archaeologists have located an astronomical observatory linked to sun worship in the Cerro de Coamiles site, one of the leading centres of Aztatlán (AD 850/900-1350 ) culture located in the central coast of Nayarit, Western Mexico. This discovery has helped define the importance astronomy had for the coastal boreal Mesoamerican.
Are you a man with a wide head in search of a fling? If so, you're in luck, as according to a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, women may find men with wide heads more appealing for short-term dates and perceive them to be more masculine than men with narrower offerings.
Emoticons such as smiley faces are a new language that is changing our brain, according to new Australian research.Since emoticons first appeared in the 1980s, they have become an integral part of our communication, especially in text messages and emails.
Human skin cells have been turned into stem cells which have the potential to develop into fully-formed embryos, simply by bathing them in weak citric acid for half an hour, a leading scientist has told The Independent on Sunday.The demonstration that the technique, which was pioneered on mouse cells, also works on human skin cells raises the prospect of new treatments for incurable illnesses, from Parkinson's to heart disease, based on regenerating diseased organs in situ from a patient's own stem cells.
The distinct smell of animal feces and soil fills the air. A slender figure, barely illuminated by a white ceiling lamp, bends down and strokes the head of a large sow. "You are a good pig, aren't you?" Jan Thomas Jenssen, 17, says softly.Then he straightens up, pulls down his gray woolen sweater, and heads off to train for cross-country skiing. "My plan is to become a farmer, like my dad and his dad before him. But first things first."
Flower power may have meant the difference between life and death for some of the extinct giants of the Ice Age, including the mighty woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.Scientists who studied DNA preserved in Arctic permafrost sediments and in the remains of such ancient animals have concluded that these Ice Age beasts relied heavily on the protein-rich wildflowers that once blanketed the region.
A trove of skulls and other body parts unearthed in the heart of London may have once belonged to Roman gladiators, war captives or criminals, a new study suggests.The remains, described in the January issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, belonged to about 40 men, mostly ages 25 to 35, and were marred by violence.
Earth's Sun was a weakling when it was younger. Around three or four billion years ago, the star's energy was about 20 percent to 25 percent lower than what's experienced today. If that was still true today, one would expect Earth would be an iceball, but the geologic record shows no evidence of a global ice age back then. What exactly kept the Earth warm during that time?
A Nasa spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet has spied a fresh impact crater on the Martian surface.The hole is about 30m (100ft) in diameter and surrounded by a blast zone of debris punched out of the ground by the meteorite impact.
You may have heard that omega-3 fatty acids are good for you. They are a prime component of the nervous system, and cannot be made by the body--they must be consumed. But just how important are dietary omega-3 fatty acids for brain development and function?
Alaska is poised to become the third state to legalize retail marijuana after pro-pot advocates this week cleared the signature hurdle to place an initiative on the August ballot.The Committee to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Alaska hit 31,593 valid signatures Tuesday, well above the 30,169 signatures required to place the measure before voters. The initiative is expected to appear on the Aug. 19 primary ballot once a final count is certified by the state.
Penguins in a British sanctuary are so fed up with the miserable winter weather they are being given antidepressants.Wild Humboldt penguins are used to withstanding inhospitable weather in the coastal areas of South America, but those living in captivity in Scarborough are struggling with the constant wind and rain lashing the country.
Temporary blindness heightens hearing and has potential as a therapy for some deaf people, animal research suggests.A study, published in the journal Neuron, showed keeping mice in the dark for a week changed their brains and enhanced hearing.
Archaeologists from around the UK have been examining a hoard of treasures unearthed in a 4,000-year-old tomb on Dartmoor.Prehistoric jewellery, animal pelts and beads made of amber were among the finds about two years ago in the burial chamber.
SAKURAI, Nara Prefecture--New excavations at the Makimuku archaeological dig here have unearthed the remains of a building that further indicate the palace of the shaman queen Himiko was located on the site in the earliest days of Japan, municipal education board officials said Feb. 6.
The driest, highest desert on Earth, Chile's Atacama Desert, also holds the world's richest nitrate and iodine deposits. As such, a "white gold" rush there fueled Europe's bombs in World War I and helped raise IQs once iodine deficiency was discovered.But even after the nitrate mines closed in the 1930s, the source of the massive mineral drifts remained a mystery. Glowing white as they bake on the sere desert surface, the Atacama nitrates are like nothing else in the world.
A 12-year-old girl who cries tears of stones has caused fear in her Yemeni village with locals concerned that it could be the result of magic or disease.The girl, Saadiya Saleh, is not thought to be suffering with any disease or ailment yet doctors have said they are completely baffled by it.
Multi-step puzzles can be difficult for humans, but what if I told you there was a bird that could solve them on its own?In this BBC special, Dr. Alex Taylor has set up an eight-step puzzle to try and stump one of the smartest crows he's seen in captivity. They describe the puzzle as "one of the most complex tests of the animal mind ever."
Scientists in Australia are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish that washed up on a beach in Tasmania. A family found the 1.5m (5ft) jellyfish on a beach south of Hobart last month.Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin, of Australia's CSIRO government agency, said that scientists had known about the species for a while but had not yet classified it.
There is more evidence that salmon use the Earth's magnetic field to perform extraordinary feats of navigation.A study suggests that Pacific salmon are born with an in-built "magnetic map" that helps them to migrate over thousands of kilometres.
The first top predators to walk on land were not afraid to bite off more than they could chew, a University of Toronto Mississauga study has found.Graduate student and lead author Kirstin Brink along with Professor Robert Reisz from U of T Mississauga's Department of Biology suggest that Dimetrodon, a carnivore that walked on land between 298 million and 272 million years ago, was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop serrated ziphodont teeth.
The humble chicken is distantly related to the T. rex. This raises an important scientific question: How could we make chickens walk like they're little dinosaurs? A new study provides the equally important answer! And also video!
Just before midnight, an aurora rips an iridescent gash along the northern horizon. Sixty miles below, down on Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska, Marilia Samara is fiddling with a two-stage rocket, and trying to stay warm.Samara's team at the Southwest Research Institute has passed several fruitless evenings in the bitter cold, waiting to launch a million-dollar sounding rocket into the Northern Lights.
The first black holes to form after the big bang heated up the universe slower than previously thought, according to a new study.The finding could be a boom for the next generation of radio telescopes being built to study the early universe.
Exotic particles never before detected and possibly teensy extra dimensions may be awaiting discovery, says a physicist, adding that those searching for such newbies should keep an open mind and consider all possibilities.
If you've ever smelt a rather unpleasant odour in the passport control queue, don't worry - it could soon help reduce your queuing time.Spanish researchers say they have developed an 'electronic bloodhound' that can sniff humans to prove their ID.They claim the system could one day replace fingerprints and iris scanning.
The United States federal government may not be ready to sanction marijuana use, but a new agriculture bill is set to legalize preliminary stages of hemp production in states that allow the practice.A new farm bill, passed by Congress on Tuesday, would allow universities and state agriculture departments to establish industrial hemp growing programs. If these research programs go well, they could pave the way for commercial hemp farming to become a reality.
Extraordinary new evidence of Britain's first human inhabitants has been discovered in Norfolk. Around 50 footprints, made by members by an early species of prehistoric humans almost a million years ago, have been revealed by coastal erosion near the village of Happisburgh, in Norfolk, 17 miles north-east of Norwich.
Scientists are only just beginning to understand how important germs are to our well-being. Our microbiome, the huge collection of microorganisms like bacteria and fungi that our bodies host, plays a vital role in keeping us healthy. The microbes floating around in the buildings we spend most of our lives inhabiting may be just as important.Architecture influences the bacterial communities that form indoors...
Our civilization will need more power in the future. Count on it. The ways we use power today: for lighting, transportation, food distribution and even entertainment would have sounded hilarious and far fetched to our ancestors.As our technology improves, our demand for power will increase. I have no idea what we'll use it for, but I guarantee we'll want it.
Memory can be rewritten or altered by new experiences, according to a recent study USA Today reported.This means that every time someone pulls up a memory - say of the first time meeting their significant other - the mind reinterprets the event for the present day. Love at first sight, for example, is more likely a trick of your memory than a Hollywood-worthy moment, USA Today reported.
Successful professional cyclists are seen as more handsome than their struggling colleagues, according to new research.Women rated facial attractiveness among riders in the 2012 Tour de France, won by Britain's Sir Bradley Wiggins.
A man who lost his left hand in a fireworks accident has described how he could feel things that he had not been able to feel for more than nine years after testing a bionic replacement with a sense of touch.Dennis Sorensen, from Denmark, felt the shape and texture of objects during a month's trial in Rome of the robotic hand developed by Swiss and Italian scientists.
The first-ever investigation of the honeybee ability to taste with their front feet may explain a persistent bee mystery: Why they swarm saltwater swimming pools.Saltwater swimming pools don't require chlorine or other chemicals, but online home and garden forums are full of complaints about these swimming holes' dark side. Apparently, they attract honeybees en masse. Now, scientists find that bees have taste receptors on their feet that are so sensitive to salt, that they even dwarf the bees' capacity to taste sweets.
A pair of botanists has published a paper in HerbalGram in which they note similarities between plant illustrations in the famed Voynich Manuscript and plant illustrations in old Mexican botanical books and suggest it might mean the Vonyich Manuscript has New World origins.
Archaeologists recently uncovered a 4,600-year-old step pyramid near the Egyptian city of Edfu. It is the seventh of the "provincial" pyramids built decades before the Great Pyramid at Giza, LiveScience reports. The solid structures are built around Egypt and are nearly identical.
From Egyptian mummies to Ötzi the Iceman, human remains are a common, if macabre, feature of museum exhibits. Writing in Clinical Anatomy, Dr. Philippe Charlier explores the argument that curators have an ethical obligation to return these bodies to their native communities for burial.
The oldest known shipwreck in the Indian Ocean has been sitting on the seafloor off the southern coast of Sri Lanka for some 2,000 years. In just a couple of weeks, scuba-diving archaeologists will embark on a months-long excavation at the site, looking for clues about trade between Rome and Asia during antiquity.
The sucker-footed bats of Madagascar have finally found an ancestor, in an Egyptian excavation site. Five little jawbones offer big clues about where bats originated, and how they migrated across ancient continents.
Archaeologists at Tel Aviv University in Israel said they have determined that camels were not domesticated until much later than depicted in the Bible, the International Business Times reported on Wednesday.
Woolly mammoths, rhinos and other ice age beasts may have munched on high-protein wildflowers called forbs, new research suggests.And far from living in a monotonous grassland, the mega-beasts inhabited a colorful Arctic landscape filled with flowering plants and diverse vegetation, the study researchers found.
It was climate that killed many of the large mammals after the latest Ice Age. But what more specifically was it with the climate that led to this mass extinction? The answer to this is hidden in a large number of sediment samples from around the Arctic and in the gut content from permafrozen woolly rhinos, mammoth and other extinct ice age mammals.
Tree roots in the mountains may play an important role in controlling long-term global temperatures. Researchers have found that temperatures affect the thickness of the leaf litter and organic soil layers, as well as the rate at which the tree roots grow. When the roots reach the rock below the soil, the rock disintegrates, releasing carbon dioxide. Researchers say this process is "acting like the Earth's thermostat.".
A new study from the University of Iowa shows evidence that stock price movements are, in fact, predictable during short windows.The study by researchers in the Tippie College of Business suggests that price movements can be predicted with a better than 50-50 accuracy for anywhere up to one minute after the stock leaves the confines of its bid-ask spread. Probabilities continue to be significant until about five minutes after it leaves the spread. By 30 minutes, the predictability window has closed.
It may sound like a terrifying science fiction baddie, but Japanese researchers have revealed the first cyborg cockroaches - and say they could help keep our cities clean.The team created a radical new battery that creates energy from sugar in the insect's body.They now hope to build giant 'swarms' of their cyber insects to create large sensor networks for chemicals and pollutants.
All human behaviour can be broken down into four basic emotions, according to research by Glasgow University.The study has challenged a commonly-held belief that there are six basic emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.
The Black Death of the 14th century may be written into the DNA of survivors' descendants, new research finds.The study reveals that Roma people (sometimes known as gypsies, although this is considered a derogatory term) and white Europeans share alterations to their genetic code that occurred after the Roma settled in Europe from northwest India 1,000 years ago. The plague of the 1300s, which killed at least 75 million people, is a likely candidate for forcing this evolutionary change.
The globe is facing a "tidal wave" of cancer, and restrictions on alcohol and sugar need to be considered, say World Health Organization scientists.It predicts the number of cancer cases will reach 24 million a year by 2035, but half could be prevented.
Pain sensitivity is controlled by a genetic "dimmer switch", which can be re-set, UK scientists have said.Twins sharing 100% of genes have different pain thresholds, which can potentially be altered by lifestyle or medication, say researchers at King's College, London.
More than 400 dead dolphins were found in January on the Pacific Ocean beaches of northern Peru where twice that number were encountered in the whole of 2012, officials have said.Authorities never established the cause of the deaths in 2012.
On average, organic farms support 34% more plant, insect and animal species than conventional farms, say Oxford University scientists.Researchers looked at data going back thirty years and found that this effect has remained stable over time and shows no signs of decreasing.
Everyone knows that space is cold. In the vast gulf between stars and galaxies, the temperature of gaseous matter routinely drops to 3 Kelvin, or 454 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.It's about to get even colder.
Conventional thinking has it that the universe and all the matter within it exploded out from a single point, the so-called Big Bang Singularity. But a German theoretical physicists says this never happened. Instead, the universe started empty and cold, slowly emerging from a deep freeze.
The puzzle of how a 120-million-year-old animal graveyard in China formed may have been solved.Scientists believe that the creatures from the lower Cretaceous era were instantly killed by volcanic eruptions similar to the violent blast that hit the Roman city of Pompeii.
Using radiocarbon dating, archaeologists can pinpoint the moment when domesticated camels arrived in the southern Levant. Their findings further emphasize the disagreements between Biblical texts and verifiable history, and define a turning point in Israel's engagement with the rest of the world.
A family of rabbits are believed to be responsible for unearthing an 8,000-year-old archaeological 'gold mine' near Land's End.A haul of Stone Age arrow heads and flint tools found in a freshly dug network of rabbit warrens less than 200 yards from the Cornish landmark has led archaeologists to plan a full excavation of the site.
A mysterious manuscript that appears to be written in gibberish may actually be in an extinct dialect of the Mexican language Nahuatl. Illustrations of plants in the manuscript have been linked to plants native to Central America for the first time, suggesting a new origin for the text. But some still say it could be a hoax.
The ubiquitous shallow icy lakes that dominate Alaska's Arctic coastal plain have undergone a significant change in recent decades.These lakes, many of which are no more than 3m deep, melt earlier in the season and retain open water conditions for much longer.
The Pacific island chain of Kiribati is one of the most densely settled places on Earth. The BBC's Julian Siddle investigates how the island is dealing with its overpopulation problem.Kiribati is perhaps best known as one of the countries most likely to disappear due to climate change.
The first four-legged vertebrates evolved from a fish that breathed through a hole atop its head, according to a recently published study. The hole, called a spiracle, was present on the 380-million-year-old fish gogonasus and is still present in the fish polypterus. With gogonasus able to breathe air through this hole, or spiracle, it was only a matter of time before air-breathing, land-dwelling vertebrates called tetrapods came into being, the researchers say.
Scientists believe rats could eventually grow to the size of sheep or even bigger as they evolve to fill vacant ecological niches.The scenario could become a reality as super-adaptable rats take advantage of larger mammals becoming extinct, an expert predicts."Animals will evolve, over time, into whatever designs will enable them to survive and to produce offspring," said geologist Dr Jan Zalasiewicz, from the University of Leicester.
It's official: The mystery of a strange rock on Mars that suddenly appeared in front of NASA's Opportunity rover has warped into the final frontier. Even "Star Trek" actor William Shatner wants to know what's going on with the stone, which looks like a jelly doughnut.
Alien planets without big, climate-stabilizing moons like the one that orbits Earth may still be capable of supporting life, a new study reports.Previous modeling work had suggested that Earth's axial tilt, or obliquity, would vary wildly over long time spans without the moon's steadying gravitational influence, creating huge climate swings that would make it tough for life to get a foothold on our planet.
Earth may be a nice and cosy place for life as we know it to evolve, but is it really the best place for life to thrive? Probably not, say two researchers. In fact, Earth may be one of the more extreme examples of a "habitable" world where life was lucky to survive.
Call it humanity's unexpected U-turn. One of the biggest events in the history of our species is the exodus out of Africa some 65,000 years ago, the start of Homo sapiens' long march across the world. Now a study of southern African genes shows that, unexpectedly, another migration took western Eurasian DNA back to the very southern tip of the continent 3000 years ago.
Do not smoke and do not allow yourself to be exposed to smoke because second-hand smoke and third-hand smoke are just as deadly as first-hand smoke, say scientists who conducted the first animal study of the effects of third-hand smoke.
New research shows that babies not only pick up on their mother's stress, they also show corresponding physiological changes."Our research shows that infants 'catch' and embody the physiological residue of their mothers' stressful experiences," says lead researcher Sara Waters, postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Francisco.
Over the past 50 years, wind, water, fog, 3D, and even Smell-O-Vision have graced our theaters in the name of cinematic enhancement. How then, has the humble book remained largely unchanged for centuries? That question could soon be moot, as researchers at MIT's Media Lab have developed a new way to experience the printed word, something that they call "Sensory Fiction.".
It may only have been visible for a few days, but archaeologists have announced the discovery of what may be the oldest Roman temple ever found.Located on the grounds of the Sant'Omobono church in central Rome, the ancient temple, which dates back to the early sixth century B.C., is believed to have been constructed near where the Tiber River once flowed. The location would have made the temple a sort of sanctuary and meeting place for merchants from as far away as Lebanon and Egypt.
A new cache of extremely well preserved, prehistoric canine fossils is shedding light on dog and wolf ancestors from two million years ago to today.The fossils, described in the latest issue of the Journal of Mammalian Evolution , date to that early period and belonged to a scrappy canine carnivore known as Canis etruscus that lived near Rome, Italy.
There are sleep cycles and there are also weight loss cycles. Almost everyone loses weight on weekdays and gains weight on weekends. What separates the slim from the heavy isn't how much more they gain on weekends. It's how much they lose during the weekdays.
There are numerous lobster-vations of non-human animals using tools on porpoise, but when it came to tool-usage among fish, until now, we have been floundering in the shallows. These fintastic researchers took the bait, and oh, my Cod, did they start reeling in the data.
The Earth is not the steady round rock we think it is, and it's not turning the graceful circles we imagine. Every little-bit-more-than-a-year, we make a sort of wobble in space called a nutation. Why?
Archaeologists working near the ancient settlement of Edfu, in southern Egypt, have uncovered a step pyramid that dates back about 4,600 years, predating the Great Pyramid of Giza by at least a few decades.The step pyramid, which once stood as high as 43 feet (13 meters), is one of seven so-called "provincial" pyramids built by either the pharaoh Huni (reign ca. 2635-2610 B.C.) or Snefru (reign ca. 2610-2590 B.C.). Over time, the step pyramid's stone blocks were pillaged, and the monument was exposed to weathering, so today, it's only about 16 feet (5 m) tall.
A few hundred metres from Clapham North tube station stands a padlocked gate. Behind the gate is a dark, damp entrance to a spiral staircase leading 33 metres underground. A series of tunnels built as a second world war bomb shelter large enough to fit 8,000 people have remained virtually unused. Until now.
Does giving a speech in public stress you out? Or writing a big presentation for your boss? What about skydiving?One way to cope, according to a new study from Sarah Townsend, assistant professor of management and organization at the USC Marshall School of Business, is to share your feelings with someone who is having a similar emotional reaction to the same scenario.
A mysterious illness has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of starfish on North America's west coast, and its symptoms are horrifying. Dubbed "sea star wasting syndrome," the arms of an infected individual will twist into knots, develop lesions, and finally crawl away in opposite directions until they tear away from its body, allowing its insides to spill out.