Newsdesk Archive
Volcanic ash can become a multimillion-dollar nightmare, lingering in the skies, getting into engines and damaging aircraft.Volcanic ash is known to present hazards to aviation, infrastructure, agriculture, and human and animal health. With the emergence of aviation in the last 50 years as a key component of global travel and transport, the importance of understanding how long ash is suspended in the atmosphere, and how far it is transported has taken on greater importance.
When Rose Eitmiller found a new house on Sweet Pea Lane in Dewey-Humboldt, Ariz., population 3,613, she felt at home. She was still mourning the death of a daughter whom she always called "Sweetpea," and the place seemed right to her.But that move in 2004 only brought more heartache for Eitmiller. Four years later, U.S. EPA dug up her front lawn in a successful search for arsenic, and Dewey-Humboldt soon became a Superfund site.
Severe winter flooding in Britain could become twice as likely by the end of the century because rising global temperatures are increasing the chances of huge
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The Queen was expected to urge Britons to pray and remain united and resolute in the event of the "madness" of nuclear war, papers from 1983 show.The script for a hypothetical broadcast has the monarch describing the threat to the "brave country" as "greater" than any other in history.It also mentions the Queen's son Prince Andrew, then in the Royal Navy.
Two Michigan State University evolutionary biologists offer new evidence that evolution doesn
A new technique for depositing silver onto clothing fibres could open up huge opportunities in wearable electronics.Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the UK's National Measurement Institute, have developed a way to print silver directly onto fibres. This new technique could make integrating electronics into all types of clothing simple and practical. This has many potential applications in sports, health, medicine, consumer electronics and fashion.
In 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote a strange and enchanting novella called Flatland, in which a square who lives in a two-dimensional world comes to comprehend the existence of a third dimension but is unable to persuade his compatriots of his discovery. Through the book, Abbott skewered hierarchical Victorian values while simultaneously giving a glimpse of the mathematics of higher dimensions.
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.
Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried about civil liberties abuses than terrorismNumerous polls taken since our reporting on previously secret NSA activities first began have strongly suggested major public opinion shifts in how NSA surveillance and privacy are viewed. But a new comprehensive poll released over the weekend weekend by Pew Research provides the most compelling evidence yet of how stark the shift is.Related: A Challenge to the NSA: Deny Snowden's Most Radical Claims Under Oath
Online collaborators are decoding ancient glyphs that for hundreds of years refused to give up their secretsResearchers began decoding the glyphic language of the ancient Maya long ago, but the internet is helping them finish the job and write the history of this enigmatic Meso-American civilisation.For centuries, scholars understood little about Maya script beyond its elegant astronomical calculations and calendar.
Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of a prehistoric civilization along the Silk Road in the Gansu province of northwestern China.According to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, the discovered settlement dates back between 3,600 and 4,100 years ago. Among the findings are ancient coins, tools, crops, and a copper-smelting mill.
Over 2,000 years ago, gold and silversmiths developed a variety of techniques, including using mercury like a glue, to apply thin films of metals to statues and other objects.They developed thin-film coating technology that is unrivalled by today's process for producing DVDs, solar cells, electronic devices and other products and used it on jewels, statues, amulets and more common objects.
Volcanic ash can become a multimillion-dollar nightmare, lingering in the skies, getting into engines and damaging aircraft.Volcanic ash is known to present hazards to aviation, infrastructure, agriculture, and human and animal health. With the emergence of aviation in the last 50 years as a key component of global travel and transport, the importance of understanding how long ash is suspended in the atmosphere, and how far it is transported has taken on greater importance.
When Rose Eitmiller found a new house on Sweet Pea Lane in Dewey-Humboldt, Ariz., population 3,613, she felt at home. She was still mourning the death of a daughter whom she always called "Sweetpea," and the place seemed right to her.But that move in 2004 only brought more heartache for Eitmiller. Four years later, U.S. EPA dug up her front lawn in a successful search for arsenic, and Dewey-Humboldt soon became a Superfund site.
The Queen was expected to urge Britons to pray and remain united and resolute in the event of the "madness" of nuclear war, papers from 1983 show.The script for a hypothetical broadcast has the monarch describing the threat to the "brave country" as "greater" than any other in history.It also mentions the Queen's son Prince Andrew, then in the Royal Navy.
With the world's population expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and hotter, drier conditions due to climate change, researchers are racing against time to develop new crop varieties and to ensure there will be enough food to feed the planet.Two PhD research projects at The University of Western Australia have yielded important information about how some plants adapt to both drought and heat at the flowering stage.
Brightly colored little patches that stick on clothing or backpacks could represent an effective new way to fight mosquitoes and the deadly illnesses they spread. A California-based startup is close to getting the patches produced and distributed in areas where they
Police in rural parts of China's Xinjiang Province are no longer turning to dogs to stand guard at police stations at night. They're using geese instead. And it works.According to a recent report, a guy tried to break into a police station to take back a motorbike confiscated by the cops. The guard geese sounded the alarm, awakening the sleeping officers.
In waters from Florida to the Caribbean, dolphins are showing up stranded or entangled in fishing gear with an unusual problem: They can't hear.More than half of stranded bottlenose dolphins are deaf, one study suggests. The causes of hearing loss in dolphins aren't always clear, but aging, shipping noise and side effects from antibiotics could play roles.
In late 2006, researchers from the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciencesin Wuhan, China returned from a six-week journey on the Yangtze River, dejected.They had searched far and wide for signs of the baji
The pioneering scientist who created Dolly the sheep has outlined how cells plucked from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses might one day help resurrect the ancient beasts.The notional procedure
Without oxygen, there would be no carnivores. Without carnivores, there would be no Cambrian explosion, the stunning evolutionary burst of diversity in species and body forms that began 540 million years ago.Those are the findings of a new study that stitches together competing models for why meat-eating appeared simultaneously with the Cambrian explosion. Previously, one camp of scientists had proposed that rising oxygen levels gave animals the extra power to evolve complex body forms.
A devastating earthquake in 1945 sent millions of cubic feet of methane bubbling up to the earth
The Ivanpah Valley of the Mojave Desert in California is home to spiky yucca trees, long-nosed leopard lizards, loggerhead shrikes, and a rare species of tortoise
In case you haven
A new study co-authored by Boston University astronomers indicates that a bow shock (a dynamic boundary between the Sun's heliosphere and the interstellar medium) is highly likely. These findings challenge recent predictions that no such bow shock would be encountered.
Astronomers have found a new way of measuring the spin in supermassive black holes, which could lead to better understanding about how they drive the growth of galaxies. The scientists at Durham University in the UK publish their work in a paper in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dreaming of a white Mars? You may be in luck. Networks of valleys branching across the surface of Mars may have been carved out by melting snow, according to a new study.Researchers have been debating for years whether the water that once flowed on the red planet's surface formed by either water bubbling up from the ground or precipitation.
In the science fiction show, Star Trek, teleportation is a regular and significant feature. But how much time and power is required to send the data needed to teleport a human being?University of Leicester physics students James Nelms, Declan Roberts, Suzanne Thomas and David Starkey have calculated the answer to this very question.
It is known, informally, as the asteroid-lasso plan: NASA wants to launch an unmanned spacecraft in 2018 that would capture a small asteroid
A simple analogy shows how absurd the basis for the home secretary's drug prohibition plan really isNow this is embarrassing. I'm expected to have something to say about Theresa May's intention to ban the plant-drug qat, but due to a texting error by a new intern, I'd been preparing my thoughts on the Tory plan to ban cats, a plan which I now learn may not exist. Fortunately for her, I find that many of the same arguments apply, so I'm not quite back at square one.
The newest prince of England has been given a name: George Alexander Louis. Choosing a name is often serious business for parents. And it's no wonder, given that a number of psychological studies have shown that a person's name can influence subsequent events in their life.The new prince's father, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was named William Arthur Philip Louis at birth. His father, Charles, Prince of Wales, was called Charles Philip Arthur George by his royal parents.
A new study may explain why babies don't seem too worried about heights and steep edges for most of their first year. Researchers have linked the emergence of such fears with another crucial development: crawling.In a paper published in the journal Psychological Science, a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkley and Doshisha University of Kyoto studied how babies' sense of their surroundings develops as they begin to physically navigate it on their own.
AFTER A LONG DAY of being a dog, no dog in existence has ever curled up on a comfy couch to settle in with a good book. Dogs just don
With the world's population expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and hotter, drier conditions due to climate change, researchers are racing against time to develop new crop varieties and to ensure there will be enough food to feed the planet.Two PhD research projects at The University of Western Australia have yielded important information about how some plants adapt to both drought and heat at the flowering stage.
Brightly colored little patches that stick on clothing or backpacks could represent an effective new way to fight mosquitoes and the deadly illnesses they spread. A California-based startup is close to getting the patches produced and distributed in areas where they
Police in rural parts of China's Xinjiang Province are no longer turning to dogs to stand guard at police stations at night. They're using geese instead. And it works.According to a recent report, a guy tried to break into a police station to take back a motorbike confiscated by the cops. The guard geese sounded the alarm, awakening the sleeping officers.
In waters from Florida to the Caribbean, dolphins are showing up stranded or entangled in fishing gear with an unusual problem: They can't hear.More than half of stranded bottlenose dolphins are deaf, one study suggests. The causes of hearing loss in dolphins aren't always clear, but aging, shipping noise and side effects from antibiotics could play roles.
In late 2006, researchers from the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciencesin Wuhan, China returned from a six-week journey on the Yangtze River, dejected.They had searched far and wide for signs of the baji
The pioneering scientist who created Dolly the sheep has outlined how cells plucked from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses might one day help resurrect the ancient beasts.The notional procedure
Without oxygen, there would be no carnivores. Without carnivores, there would be no Cambrian explosion, the stunning evolutionary burst of diversity in species and body forms that began 540 million years ago.Those are the findings of a new study that stitches together competing models for why meat-eating appeared simultaneously with the Cambrian explosion. Previously, one camp of scientists had proposed that rising oxygen levels gave animals the extra power to evolve complex body forms.
A devastating earthquake in 1945 sent millions of cubic feet of methane bubbling up to the earth
The Ivanpah Valley of the Mojave Desert in California is home to spiky yucca trees, long-nosed leopard lizards, loggerhead shrikes, and a rare species of tortoise
In case you haven
A new study co-authored by Boston University astronomers indicates that a bow shock (a dynamic boundary between the Sun's heliosphere and the interstellar medium) is highly likely. These findings challenge recent predictions that no such bow shock would be encountered.
Astronomers have found a new way of measuring the spin in supermassive black holes, which could lead to better understanding about how they drive the growth of galaxies. The scientists at Durham University in the UK publish their work in a paper in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dreaming of a white Mars? You may be in luck. Networks of valleys branching across the surface of Mars may have been carved out by melting snow, according to a new study.Researchers have been debating for years whether the water that once flowed on the red planet's surface formed by either water bubbling up from the ground or precipitation.
In the science fiction show, Star Trek, teleportation is a regular and significant feature. But how much time and power is required to send the data needed to teleport a human being?University of Leicester physics students James Nelms, Declan Roberts, Suzanne Thomas and David Starkey have calculated the answer to this very question.
It is known, informally, as the asteroid-lasso plan: NASA wants to launch an unmanned spacecraft in 2018 that would capture a small asteroid
A simple analogy shows how absurd the basis for the home secretary's drug prohibition plan really isNow this is embarrassing. I'm expected to have something to say about Theresa May's intention to ban the plant-drug qat, but due to a texting error by a new intern, I'd been preparing my thoughts on the Tory plan to ban cats, a plan which I now learn may not exist. Fortunately for her, I find that many of the same arguments apply, so I'm not quite back at square one.
The newest prince of England has been given a name: George Alexander Louis. Choosing a name is often serious business for parents. And it's no wonder, given that a number of psychological studies have shown that a person's name can influence subsequent events in their life.The new prince's father, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was named William Arthur Philip Louis at birth. His father, Charles, Prince of Wales, was called Charles Philip Arthur George by his royal parents.
A new study may explain why babies don't seem too worried about heights and steep edges for most of their first year. Researchers have linked the emergence of such fears with another crucial development: crawling.In a paper published in the journal Psychological Science, a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkley and Doshisha University of Kyoto studied how babies' sense of their surroundings develops as they begin to physically navigate it on their own.
AFTER A LONG DAY of being a dog, no dog in existence has ever curled up on a comfy couch to settle in with a good book. Dogs just don
With the world's population expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and hotter, drier conditions due to climate change, researchers are racing against time to develop new crop varieties and to ensure there will be enough food to feed the planet.Two PhD research projects at The University of Western Australia have yielded important information about how some plants adapt to both drought and heat at the flowering stage.
Brightly colored little patches that stick on clothing or backpacks could represent an effective new way to fight mosquitoes and the deadly illnesses they spread. A California-based startup is close to getting the patches produced and distributed in areas where they
Police in rural parts of China's Xinjiang Province are no longer turning to dogs to stand guard at police stations at night. They're using geese instead. And it works.According to a recent report, a guy tried to break into a police station to take back a motorbike confiscated by the cops. The guard geese sounded the alarm, awakening the sleeping officers.
In waters from Florida to the Caribbean, dolphins are showing up stranded or entangled in fishing gear with an unusual problem: They can't hear.More than half of stranded bottlenose dolphins are deaf, one study suggests. The causes of hearing loss in dolphins aren't always clear, but aging, shipping noise and side effects from antibiotics could play roles.
In late 2006, researchers from the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciencesin Wuhan, China returned from a six-week journey on the Yangtze River, dejected.They had searched far and wide for signs of the baji
The pioneering scientist who created Dolly the sheep has outlined how cells plucked from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses might one day help resurrect the ancient beasts.The notional procedure
Without oxygen, there would be no carnivores. Without carnivores, there would be no Cambrian explosion, the stunning evolutionary burst of diversity in species and body forms that began 540 million years ago.Those are the findings of a new study that stitches together competing models for why meat-eating appeared simultaneously with the Cambrian explosion. Previously, one camp of scientists had proposed that rising oxygen levels gave animals the extra power to evolve complex body forms.
A devastating earthquake in 1945 sent millions of cubic feet of methane bubbling up to the earth
The Ivanpah Valley of the Mojave Desert in California is home to spiky yucca trees, long-nosed leopard lizards, loggerhead shrikes, and a rare species of tortoise
In case you haven
A new study co-authored by Boston University astronomers indicates that a bow shock (a dynamic boundary between the Sun's heliosphere and the interstellar medium) is highly likely. These findings challenge recent predictions that no such bow shock would be encountered.
Astronomers have found a new way of measuring the spin in supermassive black holes, which could lead to better understanding about how they drive the growth of galaxies. The scientists at Durham University in the UK publish their work in a paper in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dreaming of a white Mars? You may be in luck. Networks of valleys branching across the surface of Mars may have been carved out by melting snow, according to a new study.Researchers have been debating for years whether the water that once flowed on the red planet's surface formed by either water bubbling up from the ground or precipitation.
In the science fiction show, Star Trek, teleportation is a regular and significant feature. But how much time and power is required to send the data needed to teleport a human being?University of Leicester physics students James Nelms, Declan Roberts, Suzanne Thomas and David Starkey have calculated the answer to this very question.
It is known, informally, as the asteroid-lasso plan: NASA wants to launch an unmanned spacecraft in 2018 that would capture a small asteroid
A simple analogy shows how absurd the basis for the home secretary's drug prohibition plan really isNow this is embarrassing. I'm expected to have something to say about Theresa May's intention to ban the plant-drug qat, but due to a texting error by a new intern, I'd been preparing my thoughts on the Tory plan to ban cats, a plan which I now learn may not exist. Fortunately for her, I find that many of the same arguments apply, so I'm not quite back at square one.
The newest prince of England has been given a name: George Alexander Louis. Choosing a name is often serious business for parents. And it's no wonder, given that a number of psychological studies have shown that a person's name can influence subsequent events in their life.The new prince's father, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was named William Arthur Philip Louis at birth. His father, Charles, Prince of Wales, was called Charles Philip Arthur George by his royal parents.
A new study may explain why babies don't seem too worried about heights and steep edges for most of their first year. Researchers have linked the emergence of such fears with another crucial development: crawling.In a paper published in the journal Psychological Science, a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkley and Doshisha University of Kyoto studied how babies' sense of their surroundings develops as they begin to physically navigate it on their own.
AFTER A LONG DAY of being a dog, no dog in existence has ever curled up on a comfy couch to settle in with a good book. Dogs just don
With the world's population expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and hotter, drier conditions due to climate change, researchers are racing against time to develop new crop varieties and to ensure there will be enough food to feed the planet.Two PhD research projects at The University of Western Australia have yielded important information about how some plants adapt to both drought and heat at the flowering stage.
Police in rural parts of China's Xinjiang Province are no longer turning to dogs to stand guard at police stations at night. They're using geese instead. And it works.According to a recent report, a guy tried to break into a police station to take back a motorbike confiscated by the cops. The guard geese sounded the alarm, awakening the sleeping officers.
In waters from Florida to the Caribbean, dolphins are showing up stranded or entangled in fishing gear with an unusual problem: They can't hear.More than half of stranded bottlenose dolphins are deaf, one study suggests. The causes of hearing loss in dolphins aren't always clear, but aging, shipping noise and side effects from antibiotics could play roles.
Without oxygen, there would be no carnivores. Without carnivores, there would be no Cambrian explosion, the stunning evolutionary burst of diversity in species and body forms that began 540 million years ago.Those are the findings of a new study that stitches together competing models for why meat-eating appeared simultaneously with the Cambrian explosion. Previously, one camp of scientists had proposed that rising oxygen levels gave animals the extra power to evolve complex body forms.
A new study co-authored by Boston University astronomers indicates that a bow shock (a dynamic boundary between the Sun's heliosphere and the interstellar medium) is highly likely. These findings challenge recent predictions that no such bow shock would be encountered.
Astronomers have found a new way of measuring the spin in supermassive black holes, which could lead to better understanding about how they drive the growth of galaxies. The scientists at Durham University in the UK publish their work in a paper in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dreaming of a white Mars? You may be in luck. Networks of valleys branching across the surface of Mars may have been carved out by melting snow, according to a new study.Researchers have been debating for years whether the water that once flowed on the red planet's surface formed by either water bubbling up from the ground or precipitation.
In the science fiction show, Star Trek, teleportation is a regular and significant feature. But how much time and power is required to send the data needed to teleport a human being?University of Leicester physics students James Nelms, Declan Roberts, Suzanne Thomas and David Starkey have calculated the answer to this very question.
A simple analogy shows how absurd the basis for the home secretary's drug prohibition plan really isNow this is embarrassing. I'm expected to have something to say about Theresa May's intention to ban the plant-drug qat, but due to a texting error by a new intern, I'd been preparing my thoughts on the Tory plan to ban cats, a plan which I now learn may not exist. Fortunately for her, I find that many of the same arguments apply, so I'm not quite back at square one.
The newest prince of England has been given a name: George Alexander Louis. Choosing a name is often serious business for parents. And it's no wonder, given that a number of psychological studies have shown that a person's name can influence subsequent events in their life.The new prince's father, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was named William Arthur Philip Louis at birth. His father, Charles, Prince of Wales, was called Charles Philip Arthur George by his royal parents.
A new study may explain why babies don't seem too worried about heights and steep edges for most of their first year. Researchers have linked the emergence of such fears with another crucial development: crawling.In a paper published in the journal Psychological Science, a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkley and Doshisha University of Kyoto studied how babies' sense of their surroundings develops as they begin to physically navigate it on their own.
The Leicester municipal car park that, amid much fanfare, yielded the remains of King Richard III has, it seems, yet to give up all its long-buried secrets. Barely a year after archaeologists from the University of Leicester uncovered a skeleton confirmed in February as that of England's last Plantagenet monarch, they have exhumed a second body.
Three Inca mummies found near the lofty summit of Volcán Llullaillaco in Argentina were so well preserved that they put a human face on the ancient ritual of capacocha
Archeologists have discovered a lunar calendar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, that is nearly ten thousand years old. Their findings show that the calendar makers (1) thought about time and (2) figured out a means to follow it at a period in history that was still in the Stone Age. The discovery is considered both surprising and important because it now places a calendar nearly five thousand years before what was previously considered as the first formal calendar, created in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. But here, a discovery has been made of a calendar construct appearing to track the phases of the moon nearly 10,000 years ago.
The remains of two large 6000-year-old halls, each buried within a prehistoric burial mound, have been discovered by archaeologists from The University of Manchester and Herefordshire Council
If salvage companies get their way, an underwater forest of 50,000-year-old trees only recently discovered could be destroyed to make high-end coffee tables.The primeval underwater forest, long buried under the sediments at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, was probably uncovered by Hurricane Katrina and discovered by scuba divers.
Already ravaged by toxic algae, invasive mussels and industrial pollution, North America's Great Lakes now confront another potential threat that few had even imagined until recently: untold millions of plastic litter bits, some visible only through a microscope.Scientists who have studied gigantic masses of floating plastic in the world's oceans are now reporting similar discoveries in the lakes that make up nearly one-fifth of the world's fresh water. They retrieved the particles from Lakes Superior, Huron and Erie last year. This summer, they're widening the search to Lakes Michigan and Ontario, skimming the surface with finely meshed netting dragged behind sailing vessels.
Chile and Argentina may face critical water storage issues due to rain-bearing westerly winds over South America's Patagonian Ice-Field to moving south as a result of global warming.
Year-round ice-free conditions across the surface of the Arctic Ocean could explain why Earth was substantially warmer during the Pliocene Epoch than it is today, despite similar concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to new research carried out at the University of Colorado Boulder.In early May, instruments at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii marked a new record: The concentration of carbon dioxide climbed to 400 parts per million for the first time in modern history.
Look to Venus, and gulp. On our planet's twin, the atmosphere is toxic and at 460 °C, the temperature is high enough to melt zinc. Earth was thought to be immune from such a fevered state, but a new study suggests we shouldn't be quite so complacent
Untold numbers of migratory birds are being caught and killed every year in Afghanistan, helping drive species like the Siberian Crane to the verge of extinction. Hunters say other bird populations are also declining rapidly, raising fears among environmentalists.
The re-introduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the United States has had an unexpected benefit
A male kangaroo
Pope Francis has said gay people should not be marginalised but integrated into society.Speaking to reporters on a flight back from Brazil, he reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's position that homosexual acts were sinful, but homosexual orientation was not.
This line from Herman Hesse's 1922 novel Siddhartha came unbidden to me during a recent weeklong visit to Drepung Monastery in southern India. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had invited the U.S.-based Mind and Life Institute to familiarize the Tibetan Buddhist monastic community living in exile in India with modern science. About a dozen of us
The Leicester municipal car park that, amid much fanfare, yielded the remains of King Richard III has, it seems, yet to give up all its long-buried secrets. Barely a year after archaeologists from the University of Leicester uncovered a skeleton confirmed in February as that of England's last Plantagenet monarch, they have exhumed a second body.