Newsdesk Archive
Even the smallest dose of power can change a person. You've probably seen it. Someone gets a promotion or a bit of fame and then, suddenly, they're a little less friendly to the people beneath them.So here's a question that may seem too simple: Why?If you ask a psychologist, he or she may tell you that the powerful are simply too busy. They don't have the time to fully attend to their less powerful counterparts.
Ladar Levison, 32, has spent ten years building encrypted email service Lavabit, attracting over 410,000 users. When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was revealed to be one of those users in July, Dallas-based Lavabit got a surge of new customers: $12,000 worth of paid subscribers, triple his usual monthly sign-up. On Thursday, though, Levison pulled the plug on his company, posting a cryptic message about a government investigation that would force him to
Two of Germany's biggest Internet service providers said Friday they will start encrypting customers' emails by default in response to user concerns about online snooping after reports that the U.S. National Security Agency monitors international electronic communications.The plan by Deutsche Telekom AG and United Internet AG is the digital equivalent of putting an envelope around a postcard. Currently most emails are sent across the web in plain view of anyone standing between the sender and the recipient.
A major new technology has been developed by The University of Nottingham, which enables all of the world
Ancient Egyptian rock inscriptions and carvings on pharaonic tombs chronicle hartebeest and oryx
The boreal forest seems to like the higher levels of carbon dioxide that result from fossil-fuel burning. All that carbon appears to be enabling growth rates not seen in human history for the northernmost forest, according to a new study."Boreal forests are more active than 50 years ago," says geochemist Heather Graven of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, lead author of the new analysis, published online August 8 in Science. She and her colleagues documented a dramatic uptick in the flow of carbon into and out of the forests, which cover most of Canada as well as large swathes of Russia and Scandinavia.
The key to understanding Earth's evolution is to look at how heat is conducted in the deep lower mantle
Once, somewhere in what is now China, lived an animal with the fur and teeth
A type of brain cell known to help animals keep track of their location has been found for the first time in humans, according to a new study.Researchers discovered the neurons, called grid cells, because they were activated in the brains of study participants exploring a virtual environment. The cells function like an internal GPS system, and may also play a role in memory, the researchers said."Grid cells tell a person where they are in their environment," said study researcher Joshua Jacobs, of Drexel University in Philadelphia, adding that in animals the cells provide a kind of measuring stick for navigation.
A dog may be man's best friend, but dolphins can imitate human actions, and even how they solve problems.A recent study shows that when a dolphin has one of its senses blocked, it can use other senses to mimic a human's movements.
You may have heard the news that SeaWorld recently hired a big-league public relations firm to try and counter the bad publicity resulting from the movie exposé "Blackfish."SeaWorld's image troubles cannot be addressed in their entirety by throwing money at public relations. Even with the best spin-masters in the world, it's very hard to reverse the growing public perception that whales should not be contained in sterile swimming pools.
In winter 2010, Adrian Glover, a marine biologist from the Natural History Museum in London, got a call from a colleague with some good news. While piloting a remotely operated vehicle to study a hydrothermal vent 4,700 feet beneath the surface of the Antarctic
Excerpted from Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car and Food on Your Plate, by Rose George.I leave a note for duty officers on the chart table of the container ship Kendal. It says,
Scientists have been trying to discover why millions of beehives have collapsed and died during the past six years. According to a new study, the reason for the phenomenon
The hole in the planet's ozone layer may be shifting wind patterns and cloud cover over Antarctica in a way that could be triggering slightly warmer global temperatures, a new study finds.Using computer models, researchers examined how the ozone hole may be altering winds in the jet stream over the Antarctic region, pushing clouds closer to the South Pole. These changes in cloud cover could affect how much of the sun's radiation is reflected by the clouds, leading to a slightly warmer planet, the scientists said.
The greenhouse at Metabolix
The private Dutch-based Mars One project is proposing to select a group of 40 would-be civilian astronauts this year, aiming to send four of them on a no-return journey to to the red planet in 2022.Experts have questioned both the financial and practical viability of the mission, but that hasn't stopped people signing up in droves, including 30,000 Americans, CNN reported.
New evidence was unveiled Thursday that Japan
Even the smallest dose of power can change a person. You've probably seen it. Someone gets a promotion or a bit of fame and then, suddenly, they're a little less friendly to the people beneath them.So here's a question that may seem too simple: Why?If you ask a psychologist, he or she may tell you that the powerful are simply too busy. They don't have the time to fully attend to their less powerful counterparts.
Ladar Levison, 32, has spent ten years building encrypted email service Lavabit, attracting over 410,000 users. When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was revealed to be one of those users in July, Dallas-based Lavabit got a surge of new customers: $12,000 worth of paid subscribers, triple his usual monthly sign-up. On Thursday, though, Levison pulled the plug on his company, posting a cryptic message about a government investigation that would force him to
Two of Germany's biggest Internet service providers said Friday they will start encrypting customers' emails by default in response to user concerns about online snooping after reports that the U.S. National Security Agency monitors international electronic communications.The plan by Deutsche Telekom AG and United Internet AG is the digital equivalent of putting an envelope around a postcard. Currently most emails are sent across the web in plain view of anyone standing between the sender and the recipient.
A major new technology has been developed by The University of Nottingham, which enables all of the world
The boreal forest seems to like the higher levels of carbon dioxide that result from fossil-fuel burning. All that carbon appears to be enabling growth rates not seen in human history for the northernmost forest, according to a new study."Boreal forests are more active than 50 years ago," says geochemist Heather Graven of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, lead author of the new analysis, published online August 8 in Science. She and her colleagues documented a dramatic uptick in the flow of carbon into and out of the forests, which cover most of Canada as well as large swathes of Russia and Scandinavia.
A type of brain cell known to help animals keep track of their location has been found for the first time in humans, according to a new study.Researchers discovered the neurons, called grid cells, because they were activated in the brains of study participants exploring a virtual environment. The cells function like an internal GPS system, and may also play a role in memory, the researchers said."Grid cells tell a person where they are in their environment," said study researcher Joshua Jacobs, of Drexel University in Philadelphia, adding that in animals the cells provide a kind of measuring stick for navigation.
A dog may be man's best friend, but dolphins can imitate human actions, and even how they solve problems.A recent study shows that when a dolphin has one of its senses blocked, it can use other senses to mimic a human's movements.
You may have heard the news that SeaWorld recently hired a big-league public relations firm to try and counter the bad publicity resulting from the movie exposé "Blackfish."SeaWorld's image troubles cannot be addressed in their entirety by throwing money at public relations. Even with the best spin-masters in the world, it's very hard to reverse the growing public perception that whales should not be contained in sterile swimming pools.
The hole in the planet's ozone layer may be shifting wind patterns and cloud cover over Antarctica in a way that could be triggering slightly warmer global temperatures, a new study finds.Using computer models, researchers examined how the ozone hole may be altering winds in the jet stream over the Antarctic region, pushing clouds closer to the South Pole. These changes in cloud cover could affect how much of the sun's radiation is reflected by the clouds, leading to a slightly warmer planet, the scientists said.
The private Dutch-based Mars One project is proposing to select a group of 40 would-be civilian astronauts this year, aiming to send four of them on a no-return journey to to the red planet in 2022.Experts have questioned both the financial and practical viability of the mission, but that hasn't stopped people signing up in droves, including 30,000 Americans, CNN reported.
Even the smallest dose of power can change a person. You've probably seen it. Someone gets a promotion or a bit of fame and then, suddenly, they're a little less friendly to the people beneath them.So here's a question that may seem too simple: Why?If you ask a psychologist, he or she may tell you that the powerful are simply too busy. They don't have the time to fully attend to their less powerful counterparts.
Two of Germany's biggest Internet service providers said Friday they will start encrypting customers' emails by default in response to user concerns about online snooping after reports that the U.S. National Security Agency monitors international electronic communications.The plan by Deutsche Telekom AG and United Internet AG is the digital equivalent of putting an envelope around a postcard. Currently most emails are sent across the web in plain view of anyone standing between the sender and the recipient.
New research by Peter Ralph of USC Dornsife has confirmed that everyone on Earth is related to everyone else on the planet. So the Trojan Family is not just a metaphor. Turns out, we're also linked by genetics more closely than previously thought.The assistant professor of computational biology's background in math and statistics enables him to develop methods and models and perform data analysis on genomic data, which he applies to learn about evolution and demography.
A West Coast man is 'freaked out' after coming face to face last night with what he claims was a UFO, parked on the road outside the entrance to Shantytown.Matthew Robert, a mechanic from Rutherglen, insists he is not alone and that three other cars were also confronted by the night-time visitor on Rutherglen Road, south of Greymouth, about 8.45pm.
An international team of physicists working at the University of Michigan has succeeded in building a tabletop antimatter "gun" capable of spewing short bursts of positrons. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describes how they created the gun, what it's capable of doing, and to what use it may be put.
"Magic" mushrooms are well known for their hallucinogenic properties. Until now, less has been known about their evolutionary development and how they should be classified in the fungal Tree of Life. New research helps uncover the evolutionary past of a fascinating fungi that has wide recreational use and is currently under investigation for a variety of medicinal applications.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy estimates that 50 to 80 percent of inmates in Swiss prisons use marijuana. Prison staff told researchers they found marijuana to be a relatively safe drug and that cracking down on consumption would have more negative effects than positive ones.
It sounds like the plot to a low-budget horror movie but the discovery of a 21cm fish off Sweden's southern coast should unsettle any man thinking of going for a swim there.Experts have warned men to keep their swimwear on if swimming in the Oresund channel between Denmark and Sweden after a fisherman discovered a pacu fish - dubbed the
The mystery of the Mona Lisa
A ship that served both for trade and as a warship in the ancient city of Phaselis in the southern province of Antalya will be reconstructed by Akdeniz University
Rare evidence that humans lived on the River Thames 9,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists working on the Crossrail project.A Mesolithic tool-making factory featuring 150 pieces of flint was found at the tunnelling worksite in Woolwich.Archaeologists said prehistoric Londoners were using the site to prepare river cobbles which were then made into flint tools.
A Maya pyramid beautifully decorated with a rare polychrome-painted stucco frieze was unearthed in July 2013 at the site of Holmul, a Classic Maya city in northeastern Peten region of Guatemala. The find came as archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli's team excavated in a tunnel left open by looters. The stucco relief stands along the exterior of a multi-roomed rectangular building, measuring 8m in length and 2m in height. Much of the building still remains encased under the rubble of a later 20m-high structure. The carving is painted in red, with details in blue, green and yellow.Related: Inside a Maya pyramid, mysterious carvings hint at superpower struggle
The discovery of a small furry beast from the Jurassic era has given scientists fresh insights into the evolution of the first mammals on Earth. The fossilised remains of the squirrel-sized animal that plodded rather than scampered, came from rock dated to 165m years ago, when feathered dinosaurs shared the land.Named Megaconus, or "large cusp", after its distinctive teeth, the animal was unearthed in Inner Mongolia where it had been preserved in volcanic ash that settled in a freshwater lake. It is thought to be an early relative of mammals, and has some mammalian features, while others are more commonly seen in reptiles.
An evolutionary ecologist at the University of Southampton, is using 'grains of sand' to understand more about the process of evolution.Dr Thomas Ezard is using the fossils of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, often less than a millimetre in size, which can be found in all of the world's oceans. The remains of their shells now resemble grains of sand to the naked eye and date back hundreds of millions of years.
Planetary scientists dream of sending a geologist to Mars to study its rocks by hand. Until then, they have to settle for examining meteorites
For decades, scientists were at a loss to explain the source of the so-called Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas discovered in the early 1970s that extends nearly halfway around the Milky Way.But new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers crack the case. The observations show that the stream did not form all at once; instead, the ribbon is a combination of material stripped at different times from both the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, two satellite galaxies that hover around the Milky Way less than 200,000 light years away.
One of the most shocking discoveries of the past 10 years is how much the landscape of Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth. Like our own blue planet, the surface of Titan is dotted with lakes and seas; it has river channels, islands, mud, rain clouds and maybe even rainbows. The giant moon is undeniably wet.
An international team led by astronomers from Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo and the University of Oxford has released its first version of a 3D map of the Universe from its FastSound project, which is surveying galaxies in the Universe over nine billion light years away. Using the Subaru Telescope's new Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS), the team's 3D map includes 1,100 galaxies and shows the large-scale structure of the Universe nine billion years ago (Figure 1).
Colonies of bacteria balance growth against risk, just like financial investors, ecologists have found.Using lab-based synthetic biology, experiments in bacterial evolution, and mathematical modelling the study finds links between organisms and markets.Bacterial investment crashes and boom-bust cycles are described in a paper in the journal Ecology Letters.
The caste system in South Asia
The untold story of how ancient Australians once walked a vast submerged sand plain dissected by rivers and rugged outcrops awaits discovery off WA's north-west coast, according to a leading expert from The University of Western Australia.Dr Ingrid Ward has spent the last eight years in the UK, where the creation of three-dimensional reconstructions of the submerged landscape of Europe's North Sea has helped bring to life a wealth of existing and new archaeological finds and fossils.
New research by Peter Ralph of USC Dornsife has confirmed that everyone on Earth is related to everyone else on the planet. So the Trojan Family is not just a metaphor. Turns out, we're also linked by genetics more closely than previously thought.The assistant professor of computational biology's background in math and statistics enables him to develop methods and models and perform data analysis on genomic data, which he applies to learn about evolution and demography.
A West Coast man is 'freaked out' after coming face to face last night with what he claims was a UFO, parked on the road outside the entrance to Shantytown.Matthew Robert, a mechanic from Rutherglen, insists he is not alone and that three other cars were also confronted by the night-time visitor on Rutherglen Road, south of Greymouth, about 8.45pm.
An international team of physicists working at the University of Michigan has succeeded in building a tabletop antimatter "gun" capable of spewing short bursts of positrons. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describes how they created the gun, what it's capable of doing, and to what use it may be put.
"Magic" mushrooms are well known for their hallucinogenic properties. Until now, less has been known about their evolutionary development and how they should be classified in the fungal Tree of Life. New research helps uncover the evolutionary past of a fascinating fungi that has wide recreational use and is currently under investigation for a variety of medicinal applications.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy estimates that 50 to 80 percent of inmates in Swiss prisons use marijuana. Prison staff told researchers they found marijuana to be a relatively safe drug and that cracking down on consumption would have more negative effects than positive ones.
It sounds like the plot to a low-budget horror movie but the discovery of a 21cm fish off Sweden's southern coast should unsettle any man thinking of going for a swim there.Experts have warned men to keep their swimwear on if swimming in the Oresund channel between Denmark and Sweden after a fisherman discovered a pacu fish - dubbed the
The mystery of the Mona Lisa
A ship that served both for trade and as a warship in the ancient city of Phaselis in the southern province of Antalya will be reconstructed by Akdeniz University
Rare evidence that humans lived on the River Thames 9,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists working on the Crossrail project.A Mesolithic tool-making factory featuring 150 pieces of flint was found at the tunnelling worksite in Woolwich.Archaeologists said prehistoric Londoners were using the site to prepare river cobbles which were then made into flint tools.
A Maya pyramid beautifully decorated with a rare polychrome-painted stucco frieze was unearthed in July 2013 at the site of Holmul, a Classic Maya city in northeastern Peten region of Guatemala. The find came as archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli's team excavated in a tunnel left open by looters. The stucco relief stands along the exterior of a multi-roomed rectangular building, measuring 8m in length and 2m in height. Much of the building still remains encased under the rubble of a later 20m-high structure. The carving is painted in red, with details in blue, green and yellow.Related: Inside a Maya pyramid, mysterious carvings hint at superpower struggle
The discovery of a small furry beast from the Jurassic era has given scientists fresh insights into the evolution of the first mammals on Earth. The fossilised remains of the squirrel-sized animal that plodded rather than scampered, came from rock dated to 165m years ago, when feathered dinosaurs shared the land.Named Megaconus, or "large cusp", after its distinctive teeth, the animal was unearthed in Inner Mongolia where it had been preserved in volcanic ash that settled in a freshwater lake. It is thought to be an early relative of mammals, and has some mammalian features, while others are more commonly seen in reptiles.
An evolutionary ecologist at the University of Southampton, is using 'grains of sand' to understand more about the process of evolution.Dr Thomas Ezard is using the fossils of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, often less than a millimetre in size, which can be found in all of the world's oceans. The remains of their shells now resemble grains of sand to the naked eye and date back hundreds of millions of years.
Planetary scientists dream of sending a geologist to Mars to study its rocks by hand. Until then, they have to settle for examining meteorites
For decades, scientists were at a loss to explain the source of the so-called Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas discovered in the early 1970s that extends nearly halfway around the Milky Way.But new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers crack the case. The observations show that the stream did not form all at once; instead, the ribbon is a combination of material stripped at different times from both the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, two satellite galaxies that hover around the Milky Way less than 200,000 light years away.
One of the most shocking discoveries of the past 10 years is how much the landscape of Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth. Like our own blue planet, the surface of Titan is dotted with lakes and seas; it has river channels, islands, mud, rain clouds and maybe even rainbows. The giant moon is undeniably wet.
An international team led by astronomers from Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo and the University of Oxford has released its first version of a 3D map of the Universe from its FastSound project, which is surveying galaxies in the Universe over nine billion light years away. Using the Subaru Telescope's new Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS), the team's 3D map includes 1,100 galaxies and shows the large-scale structure of the Universe nine billion years ago (Figure 1).
Colonies of bacteria balance growth against risk, just like financial investors, ecologists have found.Using lab-based synthetic biology, experiments in bacterial evolution, and mathematical modelling the study finds links between organisms and markets.Bacterial investment crashes and boom-bust cycles are described in a paper in the journal Ecology Letters.
The caste system in South Asia
The untold story of how ancient Australians once walked a vast submerged sand plain dissected by rivers and rugged outcrops awaits discovery off WA's north-west coast, according to a leading expert from The University of Western Australia.Dr Ingrid Ward has spent the last eight years in the UK, where the creation of three-dimensional reconstructions of the submerged landscape of Europe's North Sea has helped bring to life a wealth of existing and new archaeological finds and fossils.
New research by Peter Ralph of USC Dornsife has confirmed that everyone on Earth is related to everyone else on the planet. So the Trojan Family is not just a metaphor. Turns out, we're also linked by genetics more closely than previously thought.The assistant professor of computational biology's background in math and statistics enables him to develop methods and models and perform data analysis on genomic data, which he applies to learn about evolution and demography.
A West Coast man is 'freaked out' after coming face to face last night with what he claims was a UFO, parked on the road outside the entrance to Shantytown.Matthew Robert, a mechanic from Rutherglen, insists he is not alone and that three other cars were also confronted by the night-time visitor on Rutherglen Road, south of Greymouth, about 8.45pm.
An international team of physicists working at the University of Michigan has succeeded in building a tabletop antimatter "gun" capable of spewing short bursts of positrons. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describes how they created the gun, what it's capable of doing, and to what use it may be put.
"Magic" mushrooms are well known for their hallucinogenic properties. Until now, less has been known about their evolutionary development and how they should be classified in the fungal Tree of Life. New research helps uncover the evolutionary past of a fascinating fungi that has wide recreational use and is currently under investigation for a variety of medicinal applications.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy estimates that 50 to 80 percent of inmates in Swiss prisons use marijuana. Prison staff told researchers they found marijuana to be a relatively safe drug and that cracking down on consumption would have more negative effects than positive ones.
It sounds like the plot to a low-budget horror movie but the discovery of a 21cm fish off Sweden's southern coast should unsettle any man thinking of going for a swim there.Experts have warned men to keep their swimwear on if swimming in the Oresund channel between Denmark and Sweden after a fisherman discovered a pacu fish - dubbed the
The mystery of the Mona Lisa
A ship that served both for trade and as a warship in the ancient city of Phaselis in the southern province of Antalya will be reconstructed by Akdeniz University
Rare evidence that humans lived on the River Thames 9,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists working on the Crossrail project.A Mesolithic tool-making factory featuring 150 pieces of flint was found at the tunnelling worksite in Woolwich.Archaeologists said prehistoric Londoners were using the site to prepare river cobbles which were then made into flint tools.
A Maya pyramid beautifully decorated with a rare polychrome-painted stucco frieze was unearthed in July 2013 at the site of Holmul, a Classic Maya city in northeastern Peten region of Guatemala. The find came as archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli's team excavated in a tunnel left open by looters. The stucco relief stands along the exterior of a multi-roomed rectangular building, measuring 8m in length and 2m in height. Much of the building still remains encased under the rubble of a later 20m-high structure. The carving is painted in red, with details in blue, green and yellow.Related: Inside a Maya pyramid, mysterious carvings hint at superpower struggle
The discovery of a small furry beast from the Jurassic era has given scientists fresh insights into the evolution of the first mammals on Earth. The fossilised remains of the squirrel-sized animal that plodded rather than scampered, came from rock dated to 165m years ago, when feathered dinosaurs shared the land.Named Megaconus, or "large cusp", after its distinctive teeth, the animal was unearthed in Inner Mongolia where it had been preserved in volcanic ash that settled in a freshwater lake. It is thought to be an early relative of mammals, and has some mammalian features, while others are more commonly seen in reptiles.
An evolutionary ecologist at the University of Southampton, is using 'grains of sand' to understand more about the process of evolution.Dr Thomas Ezard is using the fossils of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, often less than a millimetre in size, which can be found in all of the world's oceans. The remains of their shells now resemble grains of sand to the naked eye and date back hundreds of millions of years.
Planetary scientists dream of sending a geologist to Mars to study its rocks by hand. Until then, they have to settle for examining meteorites
For decades, scientists were at a loss to explain the source of the so-called Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas discovered in the early 1970s that extends nearly halfway around the Milky Way.But new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers crack the case. The observations show that the stream did not form all at once; instead, the ribbon is a combination of material stripped at different times from both the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, two satellite galaxies that hover around the Milky Way less than 200,000 light years away.
One of the most shocking discoveries of the past 10 years is how much the landscape of Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth. Like our own blue planet, the surface of Titan is dotted with lakes and seas; it has river channels, islands, mud, rain clouds and maybe even rainbows. The giant moon is undeniably wet.
An international team led by astronomers from Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo and the University of Oxford has released its first version of a 3D map of the Universe from its FastSound project, which is surveying galaxies in the Universe over nine billion light years away. Using the Subaru Telescope's new Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS), the team's 3D map includes 1,100 galaxies and shows the large-scale structure of the Universe nine billion years ago (Figure 1).
Colonies of bacteria balance growth against risk, just like financial investors, ecologists have found.Using lab-based synthetic biology, experiments in bacterial evolution, and mathematical modelling the study finds links between organisms and markets.Bacterial investment crashes and boom-bust cycles are described in a paper in the journal Ecology Letters.
The caste system in South Asia
The untold story of how ancient Australians once walked a vast submerged sand plain dissected by rivers and rugged outcrops awaits discovery off WA's north-west coast, according to a leading expert from The University of Western Australia.Dr Ingrid Ward has spent the last eight years in the UK, where the creation of three-dimensional reconstructions of the submerged landscape of Europe's North Sea has helped bring to life a wealth of existing and new archaeological finds and fossils.
New research by Peter Ralph of USC Dornsife has confirmed that everyone on Earth is related to everyone else on the planet. So the Trojan Family is not just a metaphor. Turns out, we're also linked by genetics more closely than previously thought.The assistant professor of computational biology's background in math and statistics enables him to develop methods and models and perform data analysis on genomic data, which he applies to learn about evolution and demography.
A West Coast man is 'freaked out' after coming face to face last night with what he claims was a UFO, parked on the road outside the entrance to Shantytown.Matthew Robert, a mechanic from Rutherglen, insists he is not alone and that three other cars were also confronted by the night-time visitor on Rutherglen Road, south of Greymouth, about 8.45pm.
An international team of physicists working at the University of Michigan has succeeded in building a tabletop antimatter "gun" capable of spewing short bursts of positrons. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describes how they created the gun, what it's capable of doing, and to what use it may be put.
"Magic" mushrooms are well known for their hallucinogenic properties. Until now, less has been known about their evolutionary development and how they should be classified in the fungal Tree of Life. New research helps uncover the evolutionary past of a fascinating fungi that has wide recreational use and is currently under investigation for a variety of medicinal applications.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy estimates that 50 to 80 percent of inmates in Swiss prisons use marijuana. Prison staff told researchers they found marijuana to be a relatively safe drug and that cracking down on consumption would have more negative effects than positive ones.
Rare evidence that humans lived on the River Thames 9,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists working on the Crossrail project.A Mesolithic tool-making factory featuring 150 pieces of flint was found at the tunnelling worksite in Woolwich.Archaeologists said prehistoric Londoners were using the site to prepare river cobbles which were then made into flint tools.
A Maya pyramid beautifully decorated with a rare polychrome-painted stucco frieze was unearthed in July 2013 at the site of Holmul, a Classic Maya city in northeastern Peten region of Guatemala. The find came as archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli's team excavated in a tunnel left open by looters. The stucco relief stands along the exterior of a multi-roomed rectangular building, measuring 8m in length and 2m in height. Much of the building still remains encased under the rubble of a later 20m-high structure. The carving is painted in red, with details in blue, green and yellow.Related: Inside a Maya pyramid, mysterious carvings hint at superpower struggle
The discovery of a small furry beast from the Jurassic era has given scientists fresh insights into the evolution of the first mammals on Earth. The fossilised remains of the squirrel-sized animal that plodded rather than scampered, came from rock dated to 165m years ago, when feathered dinosaurs shared the land.Named Megaconus, or "large cusp", after its distinctive teeth, the animal was unearthed in Inner Mongolia where it had been preserved in volcanic ash that settled in a freshwater lake. It is thought to be an early relative of mammals, and has some mammalian features, while others are more commonly seen in reptiles.
An evolutionary ecologist at the University of Southampton, is using 'grains of sand' to understand more about the process of evolution.Dr Thomas Ezard is using the fossils of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, often less than a millimetre in size, which can be found in all of the world's oceans. The remains of their shells now resemble grains of sand to the naked eye and date back hundreds of millions of years.
For decades, scientists were at a loss to explain the source of the so-called Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas discovered in the early 1970s that extends nearly halfway around the Milky Way.But new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers crack the case. The observations show that the stream did not form all at once; instead, the ribbon is a combination of material stripped at different times from both the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, two satellite galaxies that hover around the Milky Way less than 200,000 light years away.
One of the most shocking discoveries of the past 10 years is how much the landscape of Saturn's moon Titan resembles Earth. Like our own blue planet, the surface of Titan is dotted with lakes and seas; it has river channels, islands, mud, rain clouds and maybe even rainbows. The giant moon is undeniably wet.
An international team led by astronomers from Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo and the University of Oxford has released its first version of a 3D map of the Universe from its FastSound project, which is surveying galaxies in the Universe over nine billion light years away. Using the Subaru Telescope's new Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS), the team's 3D map includes 1,100 galaxies and shows the large-scale structure of the Universe nine billion years ago (Figure 1).