Newsdesk Archive
The rampant overfishing of sharks, often solely for their fins, is causing a damaging chain reaction that could significantly degrade coral reef systems, a decade-long Australian-led study has found.Scientists from Australia and Canada, led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, discovered that the removal of sharks from two remote reef systems led to a sharp decline in the number of fish that help keep coral healthy.
After a brief time-out while its servers were protected from the flooding in Colorado, the National Snow and Ice Data Center's (NSIDC) website was back this week, just in time for its scientists to declare that the 2013 melt season had come to a close. If you're a fan of ice, it was a good year for you. After a truly staggering ice loss last year, this summer's melt was nowhere near as severe, and in fact clusters in with the conditions that were typical at the end of last decade..
The deliberate large-scale manipulation of the Earth's environment, called geoengineering, could be one way to cool the Earth or help reduce levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.But scientists are aware that these technologies are in very early stages of development and remain untested on a global scale.Although there are great risks in deliberately interfering with nature to cool the planet, some researchers say that if the concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere reach a critical stage, geoengineering might become the only way to take control of our climate.
A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.
Research by a University of Southampton archaeologist suggests that early humans, who lived thousands of years before Neanderthals, were able to work together in groups to hunt and slaughter animals as large as the prehistoric elephant.
Jerusalem has been a religious and historical hot spot for millennia, and yet it still manages to surprise the experts.Why does the city continue to yield unexpected revelations about the days of King David and Jesus
An ivory toothbrush thought to have belonged to Brazil's Emperor Pedro II, and a minty toothpaste made by a European chemist for the Portuguese queen, are among more than 200,000 objects dating from the 17th to 19th centuries that archeologists have unearthed from a site in Rio de Janeiro being used for an extension of the city's subway lines.
One day in 2011, undergraduate student Naomi Martisius was sorting through tiny bone remnants in the University of California, Davis, paleoanthropology lab when she stumbled across a peculiar piece.The bone fragment, from a French archaeological site, turned out to be a part of an early specialized bone tool used by a Neandertal before the first modern humans appeared in Europe.
As U.S. lawmakers look for ways to balance the national budget, a new bill formally introduced to the D.C. council this week may provide the answer as a major source of tax revenue."The District has the highest marijuana possession arrest rate in the country, with black residents more than eight times as likely to be arrested than whites, even with similar levels of use. Despite spending millions of dollars to make thousands of arrests and ruin countless lives, marijuana is almost universally available. It
Ancient alchemists tried just about anything to turn lead into gold. But if they had just had a laser, they might have been able to make pseudo-platinum.More than half of the world
After almost 9 years in space that included an unprecedented July 4th impact and subsequent flyby of a comet, an additional comet flyby, and the return of approximately 500,000 images of celestial objects, NASA's Deep Impact mission has ended.
Timekeeping experts failed Friday to reach a decision on scrapping the four-decade-old practice of adding extra seconds to clocks, a system opponents say causes headaches in a hi-tech, interconnected world.After deferring a decision almost two years ago, members of the 193-nation International Telecommunication Union aim to settle the issue by 2015, but divisions persisted as a week of talks among technical experts wrapped up in Geneva.
Most of us know that there are five taste receptors. Now a US study has determined that smells can be lumped into one of ten categories which include citrus, mint, pungent and decaying.The findings are published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
Man, it's a tough time to be a big-faced dude. Last year, two management professors at the University of California, Riverside found that men with wider faces were more likely to cheat and lie for financial gain. Now, their latest study finds that the selfishness of wide-faced men is a self-fulfilling social prophesy: People perceive men with wider faces as more aggressive and less trustworthy, so they act more selfishly toward them, eliciting selfish behavior in return, the researchers say.
From the standpoint of global warming, burning natural gas can be better than burning coal, a study published this week suggests.This is a contentious issue among people who are opposed to the natural gas drilling practice known as fracking. That technique involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into wells to release far more gas than conventional drilling can. Opponents of fracking have been concerned not only about local environmental issues, but also about the potential for methane leaks to make global warming worse.
The rampant overfishing of sharks, often solely for their fins, is causing a damaging chain reaction that could significantly degrade coral reef systems, a decade-long Australian-led study has found.Scientists from Australia and Canada, led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, discovered that the removal of sharks from two remote reef systems led to a sharp decline in the number of fish that help keep coral healthy.
After a brief time-out while its servers were protected from the flooding in Colorado, the National Snow and Ice Data Center's (NSIDC) website was back this week, just in time for its scientists to declare that the 2013 melt season had come to a close. If you're a fan of ice, it was a good year for you. After a truly staggering ice loss last year, this summer's melt was nowhere near as severe, and in fact clusters in with the conditions that were typical at the end of last decade..
The deliberate large-scale manipulation of the Earth's environment, called geoengineering, could be one way to cool the Earth or help reduce levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.But scientists are aware that these technologies are in very early stages of development and remain untested on a global scale.Although there are great risks in deliberately interfering with nature to cool the planet, some researchers say that if the concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere reach a critical stage, geoengineering might become the only way to take control of our climate.
Research by a University of Southampton archaeologist suggests that early humans, who lived thousands of years before Neanderthals, were able to work together in groups to hunt and slaughter animals as large as the prehistoric elephant.
An ivory toothbrush thought to have belonged to Brazil's Emperor Pedro II, and a minty toothpaste made by a European chemist for the Portuguese queen, are among more than 200,000 objects dating from the 17th to 19th centuries that archeologists have unearthed from a site in Rio de Janeiro being used for an extension of the city's subway lines.
One day in 2011, undergraduate student Naomi Martisius was sorting through tiny bone remnants in the University of California, Davis, paleoanthropology lab when she stumbled across a peculiar piece.The bone fragment, from a French archaeological site, turned out to be a part of an early specialized bone tool used by a Neandertal before the first modern humans appeared in Europe.
In a busy bar it can often be a struggle to get served a drink as customers compete for the attention of the bartender.Now scientists have identified the key elements of body language that can increase your chances of being served before everyone else.They examined the behaviour of customers in nightclubs to see which behaviours were most successful at indicating to the barman the customer was ready to be served.
Male birds that exhibit 'shy' social behaviour are much more likely to join flocks of birds with a similar personality than their 'bold' male counterparts, a new study has found. But shy birds also have fewer social partners than bold birds.
The females in one species of squid may have a natural defense for escaping unwanted male attention: special light-reflecting cells that can create the illusion of testes.Like many of its cousins, the opalescent inshore squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) of the Eastern Pacific Ocean is equipped with shimmery cells on its body that can change color for camouflage and communication.
A life-sized model of a dinosaur has been suspended in a wind tunnel to help test how feathered dinosaurs might have taken to the air roughly 125 million years ago.The results suggest that the small, four-winged creatures of the genus Microraptor would have been efficient gliders even without feathers. This supports the idea that plumage might not have evolved for flight but may instead have been a key aspect of sexual-selection displays.
Archaeologists digging a Bronze Age site on the Russian steppes are using evidence from language and mythology to understand a remarkable discovery.Around 4,000 years ago, on the steppes north of the Black Sea, a nomadic people began settling down in small communities. Known today as the Timber Grave Culture, these people left behind more than 1,000 sites. One of them is called Krasnosamarskoe, and Hartwick College archaeologist David Anthony had big expectations for it when he started digging there in the late 1990s.
Excavations in the Midwest have turned up evidence of a massive ancient fire that likely marked
People often ask me whether or not there is hope for winning the race against climate change. It's a difficult question, especially if one keeps up with climate science
Remember pink slime
The European Union could be given powers to ban dangerous psychoactive substances known as
Are you excited about the new iPhone
Sea ice cover in the Arctic has shrunk to one of its smallest extents on record, bringing the days of an entirely ice-free Arctic during the summer a step closer.The annual sea ice minimum of 5,099m sq km reached last Friday was not as extreme as last year, when the collapse of ice cover broke all previous records.
Spanish scientists are reporting the world's first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention.The new material, dubbed a "Terminator" polymer in tribute to the shape-shifting, molten T-100 terminator robot from the "Terminator 2" film could be used to improve the security and lifetime of plastic parts in everyday products such as electrical components, cars and even houses, the researchers wrote in the Materials Horizons journal of Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry.
Edinburgh: Students around the world who want to know more about the
Protofeather fossils discovered entombed in amber from the Late Cretaceous era support theories of dinosaur and avian evolution -- and make for one beautiful galleryDinosaur and bird feathers preserved in amber from a Late Cretaceous site in Canada reveal new insights into the structure, function, and color of animals that date back to about 78 million years ago.
Indigenous red squirrels were almost wiped out after greys were introduced from North America in the 19th century.The native species survived in only a few pockets in the north of England, the Isle of Wight and Scotland.The numbers were getting dangerously low because of a pox virus carried by the greys, similar to myxomatosis, along with the greys
In findings that are as scientifically significant as they are crushing to the popular imagination, NASA reported Thursday that its Mars rover, Curiosity, has deflated hopes that life could be thriving on Mars today.The conclusion, published in the journal Science, comes from the fact that Curiosity has been looking for methane, a gas that is considered a possible calling card of microbes, and has so far found none of it. While the absence of methane does not rule out the possibility of present-day life on Mars
A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space.The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.Professor Milton Wainwright told The Independent that he was "95 per cent convinced" that the organisms did not originate from earth.
In a busy bar it can often be a struggle to get served a drink as customers compete for the attention of the bartender.Now scientists have identified the key elements of body language that can increase your chances of being served before everyone else.They examined the behaviour of customers in nightclubs to see which behaviours were most successful at indicating to the barman the customer was ready to be served.
Male birds that exhibit 'shy' social behaviour are much more likely to join flocks of birds with a similar personality than their 'bold' male counterparts, a new study has found. But shy birds also have fewer social partners than bold birds.
The females in one species of squid may have a natural defense for escaping unwanted male attention: special light-reflecting cells that can create the illusion of testes.Like many of its cousins, the opalescent inshore squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) of the Eastern Pacific Ocean is equipped with shimmery cells on its body that can change color for camouflage and communication.
A life-sized model of a dinosaur has been suspended in a wind tunnel to help test how feathered dinosaurs might have taken to the air roughly 125 million years ago.The results suggest that the small, four-winged creatures of the genus Microraptor would have been efficient gliders even without feathers. This supports the idea that plumage might not have evolved for flight but may instead have been a key aspect of sexual-selection displays.
Archaeologists digging a Bronze Age site on the Russian steppes are using evidence from language and mythology to understand a remarkable discovery.Around 4,000 years ago, on the steppes north of the Black Sea, a nomadic people began settling down in small communities. Known today as the Timber Grave Culture, these people left behind more than 1,000 sites. One of them is called Krasnosamarskoe, and Hartwick College archaeologist David Anthony had big expectations for it when he started digging there in the late 1990s.
Excavations in the Midwest have turned up evidence of a massive ancient fire that likely marked
People often ask me whether or not there is hope for winning the race against climate change. It's a difficult question, especially if one keeps up with climate science
Remember pink slime
The European Union could be given powers to ban dangerous psychoactive substances known as
Are you excited about the new iPhone
Sea ice cover in the Arctic has shrunk to one of its smallest extents on record, bringing the days of an entirely ice-free Arctic during the summer a step closer.The annual sea ice minimum of 5,099m sq km reached last Friday was not as extreme as last year, when the collapse of ice cover broke all previous records.
Spanish scientists are reporting the world's first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention.The new material, dubbed a "Terminator" polymer in tribute to the shape-shifting, molten T-100 terminator robot from the "Terminator 2" film could be used to improve the security and lifetime of plastic parts in everyday products such as electrical components, cars and even houses, the researchers wrote in the Materials Horizons journal of Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry.
Edinburgh: Students around the world who want to know more about the
Protofeather fossils discovered entombed in amber from the Late Cretaceous era support theories of dinosaur and avian evolution -- and make for one beautiful galleryDinosaur and bird feathers preserved in amber from a Late Cretaceous site in Canada reveal new insights into the structure, function, and color of animals that date back to about 78 million years ago.
Indigenous red squirrels were almost wiped out after greys were introduced from North America in the 19th century.The native species survived in only a few pockets in the north of England, the Isle of Wight and Scotland.The numbers were getting dangerously low because of a pox virus carried by the greys, similar to myxomatosis, along with the greys
In findings that are as scientifically significant as they are crushing to the popular imagination, NASA reported Thursday that its Mars rover, Curiosity, has deflated hopes that life could be thriving on Mars today.The conclusion, published in the journal Science, comes from the fact that Curiosity has been looking for methane, a gas that is considered a possible calling card of microbes, and has so far found none of it. While the absence of methane does not rule out the possibility of present-day life on Mars
A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space.The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.Professor Milton Wainwright told The Independent that he was "95 per cent convinced" that the organisms did not originate from earth.
In a busy bar it can often be a struggle to get served a drink as customers compete for the attention of the bartender.Now scientists have identified the key elements of body language that can increase your chances of being served before everyone else.They examined the behaviour of customers in nightclubs to see which behaviours were most successful at indicating to the barman the customer was ready to be served.
Male birds that exhibit 'shy' social behaviour are much more likely to join flocks of birds with a similar personality than their 'bold' male counterparts, a new study has found. But shy birds also have fewer social partners than bold birds.
The females in one species of squid may have a natural defense for escaping unwanted male attention: special light-reflecting cells that can create the illusion of testes.Like many of its cousins, the opalescent inshore squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) of the Eastern Pacific Ocean is equipped with shimmery cells on its body that can change color for camouflage and communication.
A life-sized model of a dinosaur has been suspended in a wind tunnel to help test how feathered dinosaurs might have taken to the air roughly 125 million years ago.The results suggest that the small, four-winged creatures of the genus Microraptor would have been efficient gliders even without feathers. This supports the idea that plumage might not have evolved for flight but may instead have been a key aspect of sexual-selection displays.
Archaeologists digging a Bronze Age site on the Russian steppes are using evidence from language and mythology to understand a remarkable discovery.Around 4,000 years ago, on the steppes north of the Black Sea, a nomadic people began settling down in small communities. Known today as the Timber Grave Culture, these people left behind more than 1,000 sites. One of them is called Krasnosamarskoe, and Hartwick College archaeologist David Anthony had big expectations for it when he started digging there in the late 1990s.
Excavations in the Midwest have turned up evidence of a massive ancient fire that likely marked
People often ask me whether or not there is hope for winning the race against climate change. It's a difficult question, especially if one keeps up with climate science
Remember pink slime
The European Union could be given powers to ban dangerous psychoactive substances known as
Are you excited about the new iPhone
Sea ice cover in the Arctic has shrunk to one of its smallest extents on record, bringing the days of an entirely ice-free Arctic during the summer a step closer.The annual sea ice minimum of 5,099m sq km reached last Friday was not as extreme as last year, when the collapse of ice cover broke all previous records.
Spanish scientists are reporting the world's first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention.The new material, dubbed a "Terminator" polymer in tribute to the shape-shifting, molten T-100 terminator robot from the "Terminator 2" film could be used to improve the security and lifetime of plastic parts in everyday products such as electrical components, cars and even houses, the researchers wrote in the Materials Horizons journal of Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry.
Edinburgh: Students around the world who want to know more about the
Protofeather fossils discovered entombed in amber from the Late Cretaceous era support theories of dinosaur and avian evolution -- and make for one beautiful galleryDinosaur and bird feathers preserved in amber from a Late Cretaceous site in Canada reveal new insights into the structure, function, and color of animals that date back to about 78 million years ago.
Indigenous red squirrels were almost wiped out after greys were introduced from North America in the 19th century.The native species survived in only a few pockets in the north of England, the Isle of Wight and Scotland.The numbers were getting dangerously low because of a pox virus carried by the greys, similar to myxomatosis, along with the greys
In findings that are as scientifically significant as they are crushing to the popular imagination, NASA reported Thursday that its Mars rover, Curiosity, has deflated hopes that life could be thriving on Mars today.The conclusion, published in the journal Science, comes from the fact that Curiosity has been looking for methane, a gas that is considered a possible calling card of microbes, and has so far found none of it. While the absence of methane does not rule out the possibility of present-day life on Mars
A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space.The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.Professor Milton Wainwright told The Independent that he was "95 per cent convinced" that the organisms did not originate from earth.
In a busy bar it can often be a struggle to get served a drink as customers compete for the attention of the bartender.Now scientists have identified the key elements of body language that can increase your chances of being served before everyone else.They examined the behaviour of customers in nightclubs to see which behaviours were most successful at indicating to the barman the customer was ready to be served.
The females in one species of squid may have a natural defense for escaping unwanted male attention: special light-reflecting cells that can create the illusion of testes.Like many of its cousins, the opalescent inshore squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) of the Eastern Pacific Ocean is equipped with shimmery cells on its body that can change color for camouflage and communication.
A life-sized model of a dinosaur has been suspended in a wind tunnel to help test how feathered dinosaurs might have taken to the air roughly 125 million years ago.The results suggest that the small, four-winged creatures of the genus Microraptor would have been efficient gliders even without feathers. This supports the idea that plumage might not have evolved for flight but may instead have been a key aspect of sexual-selection displays.
Archaeologists digging a Bronze Age site on the Russian steppes are using evidence from language and mythology to understand a remarkable discovery.Around 4,000 years ago, on the steppes north of the Black Sea, a nomadic people began settling down in small communities. Known today as the Timber Grave Culture, these people left behind more than 1,000 sites. One of them is called Krasnosamarskoe, and Hartwick College archaeologist David Anthony had big expectations for it when he started digging there in the late 1990s.
Sea ice cover in the Arctic has shrunk to one of its smallest extents on record, bringing the days of an entirely ice-free Arctic during the summer a step closer.The annual sea ice minimum of 5,099m sq km reached last Friday was not as extreme as last year, when the collapse of ice cover broke all previous records.
Spanish scientists are reporting the world's first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention.The new material, dubbed a "Terminator" polymer in tribute to the shape-shifting, molten T-100 terminator robot from the "Terminator 2" film could be used to improve the security and lifetime of plastic parts in everyday products such as electrical components, cars and even houses, the researchers wrote in the Materials Horizons journal of Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry.
Protofeather fossils discovered entombed in amber from the Late Cretaceous era support theories of dinosaur and avian evolution -- and make for one beautiful galleryDinosaur and bird feathers preserved in amber from a Late Cretaceous site in Canada reveal new insights into the structure, function, and color of animals that date back to about 78 million years ago.
A team of British scientists is convinced it has found proof of alien life, after it harvested strange particles from the edge of space.The scientists sent a balloon 27km into the stratosphere, which came back carrying small biological organisms which they believe can only have originated from space.Professor Milton Wainwright told The Independent that he was "95 per cent convinced" that the organisms did not originate from earth.
Most skyscraper architects want to build towers that are conspicuous signatures of a city
Australia will no longer have a science minister, following the election of a new government just over a week ago. That could be bad news for climate change, and big science efforts such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope.The incoming government clashed with scientists almost immediately, when it dramatically switched strategy on climate change
A unique housing arrangement between a specific group of tree species and a carbo-loading bacteria may determine how well tropical forests can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a Princeton University-based study. The findings suggest that the role of tropical forests in offsetting the atmospheric buildup of carbon from fossil fuels depends on tree diversity, particularly in forests recovering from exploitation.
A journalist's visit to South Omo, where rights groups say police have raped women and otherwise pressured locals to leave an area tagged to become a huge sugar plantation, was quickly curtailed by authorities."We Mursi [people] do not accept this ambitious government ideology," the man said of an official state plan to house them in new villages in exchange for their compliant departure. He is speaking in the village of Hailewuha, his face lit by flashlight. Cattle shuffle and grunt nearby. "What we want is to use our own traditional way of cultivation," he says.
How did we end up with the situation that about two thirds of the adults on our planet can't comfortably drink milk. The answer is a combination of 'cattle herding' and 'evolution'.About 12,000 years ago, somewhere near modern-day Turkey, the long and complex process of 'The Neolithic Transition' began. Those people acquired the social behaviours related to leaving a nomadic lifestyle and getting used to a sedentary way of life. They developed new economic strategies such as animal and plant domestication, and new technologies such as pottery and polished stone tools.
CRUMBLING walls. Breathtaking temples. Mysterious cities built entirely underground.They are the astounding feats of architecture that have been left to decay for centuries.But while they may be in ruins, the sites of the world's most ancient and intriguing cities continue to wow travellers.
A relic hunter has lifted the lid on a macabre collection of 400-year-old jewel-encrusted skeletons unearthed in churches across Europe.Art historian Paul Koudounaris has photographed dozens of skeletons in some of the world's most secretive religious establishments.Some of the skeletons, said to be the remains of early Christian martyrs, were even found hidden away in lock-ups and containers.
Archaeologists say they have uncovered a first-century mansion on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, complete with an ancient bathtub that just might have belonged to one of the priests who condemned Jesus to death."Byzantine tradition places in our general area the mansion of the high priest Caiaphas or perhaps Annas, who was his father-in-law," Shimon Gibson, the archaeologist co-directing the excavation, said in a news release. "In those days you had extended families who would have been using the same building complex, which might have had up to 20 rooms and several different floors.".
Sinkholes. Habitat destruction. Perilously low water levels. Can a dying sea be saved?EIN GEDI, Israel
A recent discovery reads like a Monty Python comedy sketch: bringing out a dead comet that was actually not dead.Scientists spotted a faint atmosphere called a coma around 3552 Don Quixote, an object classified as a near-Earth asteroid. The space rock was thought by some to be a "dead comet"
In 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft left Earth on a four-year mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Thirty-six years later, the car-size probe is still exploring, still sending its findings home. It has now put more than 19 billion kilometers between itself and the sun. Last week NASA announced that Voyager 1 had become the first man-made object to reach interstellar space.
NASA's proposed planetary landsail rover is the latest addition to humanity's on-again, off-again relationship with Earth's sister planet.Venus used to be described as a sister planet because it shares a similar size, mass, and composition with Earth. But the similarities end there. Venus's 900-degree-Fahrenheit temperature, sulfuric acid atmosphere, and overwhelming air pressure (93 times greater than our home planet's) have ruled out manned missions, leaving scientists with the challenge to develop technology and techniques to withstand such a harsh environment.
If the end of the summer, the short, cold days, and party conference season were not enough to bring on the gloom, scientists have calculated when life on Earth must come to an end.In a report that manufacturers of diaries may wish to note, researchers worked out when the sun will grow so warm that the oceans evaporate and the planet ceases to be habitable. As an inconvenient consequence of our sun's natural life cycle and the orbit of the Earth, the planet will warm so much it becomes impossible for plants, animals and humans to survive.
A species of bee reintroduced to the UK after becoming extinct has nested for the first time in a quarter of a century.The short-haired bumblebee started dying out in Britain in the 1980s and officially became extinct in 2000.A reintroduction project saw queen bees brought over from Sweden.After two releases of queens at the RSPB's Dungeness reserve in Kent, offspring worker bees have been recorded there for the first time.
Summer is drawing to a close in the Northern Hemisphere, and a symbol of fall hangs in the sky tonight (Sept. 18) to help drive that fact home
A parasite that infects up to one-third of people around the world may have the ability to permanently alter a specific brain function in mice, according to a study published in PLoS ONE todayToxoplasma gondii is known to remove rodents
Five years on from Lehman Brothers' collapse and