Newsdesk Archive

The Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk because it served "no defence purpose" and was taking staff away from "more valuable defence-related activities", newly released files show.The desk was closed in December 2009 despite a surge in reported sightings.The disclosure came in National Archives files relating to reports of UFOs - Unidentified Flying Objects - between 2007 and November 2009.

Ministry of Defence personnel expressed amazement at the num-ber of UFO sightings reported in Scotland, declassified files show.The previously secret documents also reveal that flying saucers were spotted over Glasgow on Christmas Day 2008 and in the run-up to that year's Hogmanay celebrations.Related: UFO files: Police helicopter and UFO in 'near miss'

The howling, hurricane-force winds of Venus are blowing even faster lately, and scientists aren't sure why.Average cloud-top wind speeds on Venus rose 33 percent between 2006 and 2012, jumping from 186 mph (300 km/h) to 249 mph (400 km/h), observations by Europe's Venus Express orbiter show.

Scientists are a step closer to reconciling a mystery on Mars, a cosmic oddity centered on Martian rocks and pieces of the Red Planet discovered on Earth.The composition of meteorites long suspected to come from Mars have confounded scientists for a long time. Planetary scientists know that rocks sampled from the Martian surface are high in nickel, yet the Martian meteorites (known as the SNC meteorites) happen to have significantly less nickel than those other sampled rocks.

The idea that plants make use of quantum physics to harvest light more efficiently has received a boost.Plants gather packets of light called photons, shuttling them deep into their cells where their energy is converted with extraordinary efficiency.A report in Science journal adds weight to the idea that an effect called a "coherence" helps determine the most efficient path for the photons.

Does your salad know what time it is? It may be healthier for you if it does, according to new research from Rice University and the University of California at Davis."Vegetables and fruits don't die the moment they are harvested," said Rice biologist Janet Braam, the lead researcher on a new study this week in Current Biology. "They respond to their environment for days, and we found we could use light to coax them to make more cancer-fighting antioxidants at certain times of day." Braam is professor and chair of Rice's Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology.

French start-up company Ynsect has identified a cheap, nourishing and locally sourced alternative to soybeans as a vital source of protein in animal feed. The clue is in its name.Ynsect is not alone in looking to invertebrates to meet a jump in demand for meat and fish, and so for feed, in coming decades.

Physical representations of the phallus have been around for almost as long as there have been penises. Whether for fashion, decor, worship, or for fun, dildos are a part of human history. So let's take a look at the long, strange trip dildos have taken.The first known dildo recovered by paleontologists dates to the Paleolithic era. Made of siltstone and polished to a high gloss, the debate rages on about whether its primary purpose was for religious ritual or personal pleasure.

In the year 802 C.E., the founder of the medieval Khmer empire, Jayavarman II, anointed himself "king of the world." In laying claim to such a grandiose title, he was a little ahead of his time: It would be another few centuries before the Khmers built Earth's largest religious monument, Angkor Wat, the crowning glory of a kingdom that stood in what is today northwestern Cambodia. But Jayavarman II had good reason to believe that his nascent kingdom, in the sacred Kulen hills northeast of Angkor, was a record-holder.

Children who receive antibiotics in the first year of their lives are as much as 40% more likely to go on to develop eczema, according to a new study by British researchers."One potential explanation is that broad-spectrum antibiotics alter the gut microflora and that this in turn affects the maturing immune system in a way that prompts allergic disease development," said researcher Dr Teresa Tsakok, who works at St Thomas's hospital in London.

The quality of a performance does not drive the amount of applause an audience gives, a study suggests.Instead scientists have found that clapping is contagious, and the length of an ovation is influenced by how other members of the crowd behave.They say it takes a few people to start clapping for applause to spread through a group, and then just one or two individuals to stop for it to die out.

Online social networks and data mining make it possible for researchers today to trace the spread and influence of ideas across webs of connected individuals in real time. But piecing together those links is trickier for scholars studying thinkers and leaders of 16th and 17th centuries who used letters instead of Facebook.A new project called Six Degrees of Francis Bacon aims to gather known connections of the Early Modern era in a vast visual network to track the spread of tropes, images, ideas, ranging from religious toleration to the circulation of blood.

Ancient pollen from the Brazilian rainforest may help predict the impact of climate changes in the future, according to Edinburgh scientists.More than 140 types of pollen from trees and herbs preserved in lake sediment in the South American country's Atlantic Forest were studied.The work shows how previous changes in climate affected the environment.Scientists from Sao Paulo University are also part of the team studying the ancient pollen.

The ongoing global growth in the human population will inevitably crowd out mammals and birds and has the potential to threaten hundreds of species with extinction within 40 years, new research shows.Scientists at The Ohio State University have determined that the average growing nation should expect at least 3.3 percent more threatened species in the next decade and an increase of 10.8 percent species threatened with extinction by 2050.

The plights of the world's threatened birds show the value of investing in conservation, according to campaigners.One in eight of the world's birds is currently considered threatened.A report by the Birdlife Partnership links continuing declines to deteriorating biodiversity, but it also highlights successfully protected species and habitats.

The Philippines financial capital banned disposable plastic shopping bags and styrofoam food containers Thursday, as part of escalating efforts across the nation's capital to curb rubbish blamed for deadly flooding.After a widespread publicity campaign leading up to the ban, Makati city environment protection officers began handing out fines of 5,000 pesos ($115) to shops and supermarkets caught distributing the bags.

Chinese authorities have given courts the powers to hand down the death penalty in serious pollution cases, state media said, as the government tries to assuage growing public anger at environmental desecration.An increasingly affluent urban population has begun to object to China's policy of growth at all costs, which has fuelled the economy for three decades, with the environment emerging as a focus of concern and protests.

Indonesia plans to use weather changing technology to try to unleash torrents of rain and extinguish raging fires on Sumatra island that have cloaked neighboring Singapore in thick haze, an official said Wednesday.The city-state, which is home to 5.3 million inhabitants, has been pressing Jakarta to take action to put out the blazes, which have pushed air pollutant levels on the island to a 16-year high.

Earthquake researchers have now identified a 30 kilometers long and ten kilometers deep area along the North Anatolian fault zone just south of Istanbul that could be the starting point for a strong earthquake. The group of seismologists including Professor Marco Bohnhoff of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences reported in the current online issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications that this potential earthquake source is only 15 to 20 kilometers from the historic city center of Istanbul.

The summer solstice, 21 June, is one of the most important dates in the calendar for many followers of ancient religions, and it's a special time for people in Greece who worship the country's pre-Christian gods."I love the energy this place has," says Exsekias Trivoulides who has pitched his tent on what he considers to be the holy site of Mount Olympus.Trivoulides is a sculptor who studied art history and classics, and these days, he is living his passion.

Archaeologist Julia Mayo works at a site called El Caño near the Pacific coast 90 miles southwest of Panama City. During five years of excavation, she has uncovered the burials of gold-laden chiefs from a still-unnamed civilization that flourished for several centuries before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s.Now she can say how the chiefs got their power.

A carved pillar discovered near Bethlehem may be linked to the Biblical King of Kings, David himself, or perhaps validate the scope of wise Solomon's majestic kingdom.If they ever get around to digging it up, that is.Israeli tour guide Binyamin Tropper, who thought he was the first to discover the major historical artifact, was astonished to find out that authorities had known about the pillar for decades -- and had been keeping it a secret all that time.

The Marfa Lights, mysterious glowing orbs that appear in the desert outside the West Texas town of Marfa, have mystified people for generations.According to eyewitnesses, the Marfa Lights appear to be roughly the size of basketballs and are varyingly described as white, blue, yellow, red or other colors.Reportedly, the Marfa Lights hover, merge, twinkle, split into two, flicker, float up into the air or dart quickly across Mitchell Flat (the area east of Marfa where they're most commonly reported).

Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere more than a billion years before the Earth, say scientists. An examination of meteorites and rocks on the planet suggests that oxygen was affecting the Martian surface four billion years ago.On Earth, oxygen did not build up to appreciable quantities in the atmosphere for at least another 1.5bn years.The researchers compared Martian meteorites that have crashed onto the Earth with data from rocks examined by Nasa's Spirit Mars rover. Differences in their composition can best be explained by an abundance of oxygen early in Martian history.

Two thirds of Chile's territory is facing desertification in which the bone-dry Atacama Desert grows by over a meter (3.3 feet) a day, President Sebastian Pinera warned.The changing topography and consequences for the land "is one of the greatest threats to sustained development, and to sustainable development, and to the quality of life of millions of people around the world," Pinera said on Monday, in an address marking World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.

Geologists have spotted a new subduction zone off the coast of Portugal that is slowly tugging Europe toward the New World.If Christopher Columbus had been willing to wait just a few hundred million years, he could have simply walked to the New World.That's because geological forces are slowly tugging Europe toward the Americas, with an estimated time of arrival of about 220 million years from now.

The shape of a room can be modelled using echoes produced from sound, new research has found.Like bats who emit sounds in order to navigate, researchers can now plug sounds into a computer algorithm to map a room.The team were able to build a full 3D image of a room using four microphones to record echoes bouncing off walls.Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers say the technology could one day help solve crime.

Hens are capable of mathematical reasoning and logic, including numeracy, self-control and even basic structural engineering, following research.Traits such as these are normally only shown in children above the age of four, but the domesticated birds have an ability to empathise, a sophisticated theory of mind and plan ahead.

New research from the University of Adelaide shows that weight gain and increased head size in the first month of a baby's life is linked to a higher IQ at early school age.The study was led by University of Adelaide Public Health researchers, who analysed data from more than 13,800 children who were born full-term.

Researchers working to design new materials that are durable, lightweight and environmentally sustainable are increasingly looking to natural composites, such as bone, for inspiration: Bone is strong and tough because its two constituent materials, soft collagen protein and stiff hydroxyapatite mineral, are arranged in complex hierarchical patterns that change at every scale of the composite, from the micro up to the macro.

Attention Los Angeles shoppers: The plastic bag is disappearing from more than just the supermarket.L.A. on Tuesday became the newest and by far the largest city to back a ban on plastic grocery bags, approving an ordinance that applies not just to food stores and mini marts but also big retail chains with their own line of groceries, such as Target and Wal-Mart.

High levels of a toxic radioactive isotope have been found in groundwater at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says.Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said tests showed Strontium-90 was present at 30 times the legal rate.The radioactive isotope tritium has also been detected at elevated levels.

Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion."The boom was sparked by a little-noted government policy, implemented nearly a year ago, that guaranteed generous payments to anybody selling renewable energy, including solar power. Because of that policy, known as a feed-in tariff, investors and analysts say Japan has become one of the world's fastest-growing users of solar energy. This year alone, Japan is forecasted to install solar panels with the capacity of five to seven modern nuclear reactors.

The city that never sleeps wants to make sure your phone never dies. New York City is installing solar-powered Street Charge stations in a variety of parks and other locations in the coming weeks.The result of a partnership between AT&T and Goal Zero, each charging station includes six USB connectors. Users of iPhones and iPads can take advantage of 30-pin and Lightning plugs, while Android and Windows phone users can plug in to micro-USB cables. Three female USB ports will also be available for people to use their own cords.

Intestinal parasites have been found lurking in ancient poop in the toilet of a medieval castle in western Cyprus, scientists report.The findings paint a less than pretty picture of the health and hygiene of crusaders stationed on the Mediterranean island 800 years ago. Poor sanitation likely meant that food and water supplies were contaminated by fecal material, allowing parasitic infections to spread, the study suggests.

Two different accelerators have found evidence for a particle that appears to contains four quarks, according to papers published in Physical Review Letters. Although particles with two and three quarks are common, this would be the first time that something containing four quarks has been spotted. Depending on the precise nature of the interactions among the quarks, this could be a discovery that keeps the theoreticians very busy.

The world's population could reach 11 billion by the year 2100, according to a new statistical analysis.That represents 800 million more people than was forecast in 2011. Most of that increase comes because birth rates in Africa haven't dropped as fast as projected."The fertility decline in Africa has slowed down or stalled to a larger extent than we previously predicted, and as a result the African population will go up," said study co-author Adrian Raftery, a statistician at the University of Washington, in a statement.

A "cold snap" 116 million years ago triggered a similar marine ecosystem crisis to those witnessed in the past as a result of global warming, according to research published today in Nature Geoscience.The international study involving experts from the universities of Newcastle, UK, Cologne, Frankfurt and GEOMAR-Kiel, confirms the link between global cooling and a crash in the marine ecosystem during the mid-Cretaceous greenhouse period.

Research by Indiana University environmental scientists shows that air-pollution-removal technology used in "self-cleaning" paints and building surfaces may actually cause more problems than they solve.The study finds that titanium dioxide coatings, seen as promising for their role in breaking down airborne pollutants on contact, are likely in real-world conditions to convert abundant ammonia to nitrogen oxide, the key precursor of harmful ozone pollution.

It is one of the inexplicable frustrations of modern life, but scientists believe they have now discovered the cause of those bad hair days when your locks just will not do what you want.Researchers have discovered that traces of copper in the water that people wash their hair with from the pipes in their homes can damage their locks.

People who increase the amount of red meat in their diet may be at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study of more than 149,000 Americans.The study researchers found that people who increased their red-meat intake by half a serving per day during a four-year period had a 48-percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next four years compared with people who made no change in their red-meat intake.

Agricultural pesticides have been linked to widespread invertebrate biodiversity loss in two new research papers.Pesticide use has sharply reduced the regional biodiversity of stream invertebrates, such as mayflies and dragonflies, in Europe and Australia, finds a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A new study shows that the predator-prey relationship can affect the flow of carbon through an ecosystem. This previously unmeasured influence on the environment may offer a new way of looking at biodiversity management and carbon storage for climate change.

What if you could make biofuels without using plants? Or oil without extracting anything from the ground?That's been the goal of the U.S. Department of Energy's "electrofuels" program, a $48 million research effort involving 14 separate projects that is wrapping up this year.Instead of relying on corn, sugar cane, or other plants to collect the sun's energy, electrofuels researchers use microorganisms.

Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roads and canals, illustrating the remains of a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temples complex.The discovery was announced late on Monday in a peer-reviewed paper released early by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. The laser scanning revealed a previously undocumented formal urban planned landscape integrating the 1,200-year-old temples.

A colorful, well-preserved "mural tomb," where a military commander and his wife were likely buried nearly 1,500 years ago, has been uncovered in China.The domed tomb's murals, whose original colors are largely preserved, was discovered in Shuozhou City, about 200 miles (330 kilometers) southwest of Beijing. Researchers estimate that the murals cover an area of about 860 square feet (80 square meters), almost the same area as a modern-day bowling lane.

A small figurine depicting a slim, naked woman was recently found in a Danish field. Strangely, this is the fifth in a series of tiny golden human figurines found recently in the area.The small, heavily arched figurine is only 4.2 cm tall and weighs 3 grams, has many details and bears the mark of quality craftsmanship.

Archaeologists have identified more than 400 species of animals among offerings found at the site of Tenochtitlan, the ancient capital of the Aztecs.In this great city, the pyramid now known as the Templo Mayor towered above a ceremonial precinct. Beginning in the 14th century, the Aztecs made offerings to their gods there, ritually interring the bodies of animals that held great symbolic meaning for them.

A new language, one that combines elements of English with traditional indigenous speech, has been discovered in northern Australia, according to a new study.The language, now known as Light Warlpiri, is spoken by approximately 600 people in a remote desert community about 400 miles (644 kilometers) from Katherine, a town located in Australia's Northern Territory, said Carmel O'Shannessy, a professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. O'Shannessy documented the discovery of Light Warlpiri in a study published online today (June 18) in the journal Language.

According to a study by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the University of Cardiff and the Natural History Museum in London, technological innovation during the Stone Age occurred in fits and starts and was climate-driven. Abrupt changes in rainfall in South Africa 40,000 to 80,000 years ago triggered the development of technologies for finding refuge and the behaviour of modern humans. This study was recently published in Nature Communications.

A new report indicates that a class of pesticides linked to the deaths of bees may be harming other wildlife species.Neonicotinoids have now been banned by the European Union because of concerns over bee health.But this latest review of the scientific data suggests the chemicals pose a risk to soil, water and grain-eating birds such as partridge.Prof Dave Goulson of Sussex University has published his assessment in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a new rule that would extend "endangered species" protections to chimpanzees held in captivity. Nearly half of all the chimps in the U.S. live in research facilities, and would make it more difficult to use these animals in medical experiments.

Communities that stick together and do good for others cope better with crises and are happier for it, according to a new study by John Helliwell, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and colleagues. Their work suggests that part of the reason for this greater resilience is the fact that humans are more than simply social beings, they are so-called 'pro-social' beings. In other words, they get happiness not just from doing things with others, but from doing things both with and for others. The paper is published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies.

Five ancient tombs were destroyed overnight in Guangzhou's Luogang district to make room for a metro project on Saturday, raising concern over the protection of relics as economic construction in the Guangdong provincial capital speeds up.

Archaeologists using revolutionary airborne laser technology have discovered a lost mediaeval city that thrived on a mist-shrouded Cambodian mountain 1200 years ago.The city, called Mahendraparvata, includes temples hidden by jungle for centuries that archaeologists believe have never been looted.

Most of Australia's coal reserves will have to be left unburned if the world is to avoid catastrophic global warming, according to a major new report from the federal government's Climate Commission.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has tried to curb soda consumption, ban smoking in parks and encourage bike riding, is taking on a new cause: requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.Dozens of smaller cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, have adopted rules that mandate recycling of food waste from homes, but sanitation officials in New York had long considered the city too dense and vertically structured for such a policy to succeed.

Mammals vary enormously in size, from weighing less than a penny to measuring more than three school buses in length. Some groups of mammals have become very large, such as elephants and whales, while others have always been small, like primates. A new theory developed by an interdisciplinary team, led by Jordan Okie of Arizona State University, provides an explanation for why and how certain groups of organisms are able to evolve gigantic sizes, whereas others are not.

A Seattle woman is attempting to go 100 days without eating to prove that humans can "live on light".Naveena Shine says she believes it is possible for human beings to survive without food and is conducting what she describes as an experiment to prove it.The 65-year-old, originally from Birmingham in the UK, has been consuming just water and "one, maybe two cups of tea a day" for the past 41 days, losing 30lbs in the process.

The debate over internet and phone surveillance should be conducted in the open, not the shadows"NO ONE is listening to your calls," soothed President Barack Obama last week, following the revelation that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been collecting data about telephone and online communications on a truly epic scale. But Obama's pledge is nothing like as reassuring as it might sound.

Meteorite craters on ancient Mars may have been home to primordial life forms. Because hydrothermal systems host the most ancient known lineages of life on earth, many biologists think that the first organisms on this planet arose in hot springs. On earth these were largely volcanic systems, such as those that exist today in Yellowstone.

A big asteroid that flew past Earth last month belongs to a new category of space rock, scientists say.Asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon sailed within 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers) of Earth on May 31, making their closest approach to our planet for at least the next two centuries. New radar images captured by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico are revealing just how unique this binary asteroid is, researchers say.

IT USED to be called Earth's twin. With much the same size, mass and composition as our home, Venus was a lush jungle planet in the popular imagination of the early 20th century. Muggier than Earth, perhaps, but otherwise not so very different.That, of course, turned out to be entirely incorrect. Venus's surface is sweltering and its atmosphere suffocating: its being closer to the sun made a dramatic, not an incremental, difference to its fate.

Australian archaeologists using remote-sensing technology have uncovered an ancient city in Cambodia that has remained hidden for more than a millennium under dense jungle undergrowth.The discovery of Mahendraparvata, a 1,200-year-old lost city that predates Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat temple complex by 350 years, was part of the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire that ruled much of Southeast Asia from about 800 to 1400 A.D., during a time that coincided with Europe's Middle Ages.

Contrary to their hunting reputation, Stone Age Siberians killed mammoths only every few years when they needed tusks for toolmaking, a new study finds.People living between roughly 33,500 and 31,500 years ago hunted the animals mainly for ivory, say paleontologist Pavel Nikolskiy and archaeologist Vladimir Pitulko of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Hunting could not have driven mammoths to extinction, the researchers report June 5 in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Scientists have sequenced the genome of a type of ash tree with resistance to the deadly fungal disease sweeping the UK.The development could be the starting point for breeding a strain of ash to replace thousands expected to succumb to ash die-back in the next few years.Ash die-back is now established and spreading within BritainResearchers are hoping that genetics might yield the knowledge to fight back.

Most people who raise bees do it for the honey. Researchers at Washington State University want something else: the bees' semen. As WSU entomology professor Steve Sheppard explains, creating a bee sperm bank could help to create hardier breeds capable of withstanding colony collapse disorder. It could also provide essential genetic material for any at-risk bee populations in the future.

There are many names given to this cross-cultural phenomenon: In Asian countries, it's Gin-Sung; Wendigo in Algonquian; Canadians call it Sasquatch; for years, Bigfoot has creeped into bedtime lore from around the world - even in Somerset County.On May 14, Paint Township police were called to investigate a set of tracks that the caller, John Winesickle, claimed to have been made by the giant yet elusive creature. As with all these types of discoveries, the truth was anticlimactic - they were simply black bear tracks.

Plastic shielding could help protect astronauts from harmful radiation on long journeys through deep space, new observations from a NASA moon probe suggest.An instrument aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found that plastic reduces the radiation dose from fast-moving charged particles called galactic cosmic rays. Scientists have long suspected that this is the case, but the new results provide a vital confirmation in deep space, researchers said.

Luke Skywalker would be proud. Planets like Skywalker's fictional home of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" movie series might have more potential for habitability than planets in other systems, research suggests.Tatooine's dual suns might actually help prevent damaging solar winds from bombarding planets in their system, allowing for a wider "Goldilocks zone" of habitability, Joni Clark, an undergraduate at New Mexico State University, said during a poster session at the 222nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society last week.

Around 4,000 years ago intrepid Polynesian seafarers made their way into an untamed wilderness: the far-flung Pacific Islands. Over a thousands or so years, they rowed from one island to another, stepping on shores never yet seen by humans.

The outlawing of drugs such as cannabis, magic mushrooms and other psychoactive substances amounts to scientific censorship and is hampering research into potentially important medicinal uses, leading scientists argued on Wednesday.Laws and international conventions dating back to the 1960s have set back research in key areas such as consciousness by decades, they argued in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Stoners, pill-poppers and drug regulators everywhere: turn your eyes to New Zealand. The country looks set to adopt new laws permitting the limited sale of some designer drugs for recreational purposes. The legislation is the first in the world to regulate new recreational drugs based on scientific evidence of their risk of harm.

If all goes as planned, you'll soon be able to rent time on a space telescope, funded by individuals over the Internet. Private space company Planetary Resources is looking to crowdfund a telescope that it will then make available to funders, classrooms and visitors to museums such as the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Ordinary folks will be able to take control of the scope to snap cosmic photos, or beam their own images onto the telescope's screen.

Scientists may not know for certain whether life exists in outer space, but new research from a team of scientists led by a University of South Florida astrobiologist now shows that one key element that produced life on Earth was carried here on meteorites.In an article published in the new edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, USF Assistant Professor of Geology Matthew Pasek and researchers from the University of Washington and the Edinburg Centre for Carbon Innovation, revealed new findings that explain how the reactive phosphorus that was an essential component for creating the earliest life forms came to Earth.

When NASA sends a rocket out to tow an asteroid into Earth orbit, it'll be ion propelled.Ion propulsion engines harness magnetic fields to create thrust, instead of depending on chemical explosions the way chemically fueled engines do. NASA engineers are developing such an engine for the agency's plans to bring an asteroid into Earth's orbit and then send astronauts there to study it. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden went to see a prototype engine yesterday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the Associated Press reported.

One hour of global sunlight contains enough energy to meet the demands of every human on the planet for an entire year. And a recent breakthrough by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory could make harnessing this energy for human consumption a reality.Researchers have developed an "artificial forest" that can convert solar energy into chemical fuels.

Abdominal muscles are not something usually seen in marine life, but researchers found a fossil fish with "rippling" abs in Australia.The 380-million-year old armour-plated fishes, called placoderms, boasted the earliest know muscles ever found in a vertebrate.Curtin University's Associate Professor Kate Trinajstic said soft preserved soft tissue in fossils is extremely rare, usually there is only bone left, according to a news release.

The "harmful misuse" of mobile phone apps that mimic birdsong can stop birds performing important tasks such as feeding their young, experts have said.Dorset Wildlife Trust said visitors to Brownsea Island were using apps to imitate Nightjar calls to entice birds out so they could photograph them.The RSPB said birds could be diverted from vital tasks and said people might be "devastated" if they realised.

The world's population could reach 11 billion by the year 2100, according to a new statistical analysis.That represents 800 million more people than was forecast in 2011. Most of that increase comes because birth rates in Africa haven't dropped as fast as projected."The fertility decline in Africa has slowed down or stalled to a larger extent than we previously predicted, and as a result the African population will go up," said study co-author Adrian Raftery, a statistician at the University of Washington, in a statement.

Jiroemon Kimura, the oldest living man, celebrated his 116th birthday this past Friday. Born in 1897, Kimura is the last man alive born in the 19th century, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The resident of Kyotango, Japan, is also the oldest man in verified history.Should Kimura be interested, there are plenty lovely ladies in his age group to choose from. The Gerontology Research Group at UCLA lists 21 women born before New Year's Day in 1901 who are still alive and well. And the current world's oldest living woman, 115-year-old Misao Okawa, also lives in Japan.

Human genes may not be patented, but artificially copied DNA can be claimed as intellectual property, the US Supreme Court has ruled unanimously.The court quashed patents held by a Utah-based firm on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.The opinion said DNA came from nature and was not eligible for patenting.

In April, National Geographic News published a story about the letter in which scientist Francis Crick described DNA to his 12-year-old son. In 1962, Crick was awarded a Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, along with fellow scientists James Watson and Maurice Wilkins.

Spend a day with Graham amidst the megaliths and crop circles of the Wiltshire countryside. This is the prize in a competition, organised by Waterstones Bookshops, linked to Graham's new novel War God. No purchase necessary:http://www.wf-site.com/microsite/pages/ffb1515b9e6911beFor chapters from War God free-to-read online, see here: http://www.grahamhancock.com/wargod/background.phpGraham's speaking events in the UK at Waterstones Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Durham, 18 through 21 June:Manchester, 18 June, details here (click link and scroll down): http://goo.gl/8XcnkLiverpool, 19 June, details here (click link and scroll down):http://goo.gl/dZogkGlasgow, 20 June, details here: http://goo.gl/2pWGkDurham, 21 June, details here: http://goo.gl/bP0WdAt each of these events Graham will give a full-length presentation with slides, half about his new lost civilisation research for the sequel to Fingerprints of the Gods and half on the historical background to War God, his newly-released novel on the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Three dozen members of an armed gang invaded and stole the contents of five tombs from the Qubbet Al-Hawa (The Dome of The Winds) ancient Egyptian necropolis on Aswan's west bank.The lack of security in Egypt continues to negatively affect archaeological sites, especially those located in remote areas.The Qubbet Al-Hawa necropolis is named after the domed tomb of a Muslim Sufi cleric located at the crest of the hill. The area consists of a large collection of rock-hewn tombs of ancient Egyptian nobles who ruled Aswan throughout the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms.

A world filled with mobile devices capable of instantly recognizing anyone's face can seem both empowering and scary. It's empowering because ordinary consumers can expect to eventually wield such power in their handheld and wearable devices; it's scary because the government, corporations and strangers on the street could use the same devices.The merest hint of such a future prompted eight members of the U.S. Congress to help pressure Google into blocking facial-recognition technology on its "Google Glass" smart glasses. But for years, the technology has already helped law enforcement and casinos to identify wanted -- or unwanted -- individuals captured on surveillance cameras. Facial-recognition capability has also begun appearing on the smartphones of police officers and even ordinary consumers.

Hardcore gamers "see the world differently", says the author of a study that suggests gamers who play action games have better visual skills than non-gamers."They need less [visual] information to arrive at a probabilistic conclusion, and they do it faster," said Greg Applebaum, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Duke School of Medicine in North Carolina.The study, published in the June issue of Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, tested how well 125 non-gamers and intensive gamers could identify letters that flashed up for only a fraction of a second.In the test, a circle of letters appeared for 0.1 seconds followed by an arrow in the centre of the circle, pointing to where one of the letters had previously been. The study participants were then asked to identify the letter.

Humans and other mammals are able to regrow the tips of their fingers and toes after amputation. Now new research tells us how stem cells in the nails, surprisingly, play a role in the regrowth.In a study of mice, published in the journal Nature, scientists found that stem cells that the base of toenails and fingernails help not only nails to regrow, but the tips and bones of fingers and toes as well.

Oyster hatcheries are dropping the equivalent of Tums and other antacids into water to make it easier for naked mollusk larvae to build their shells. The remedy is working, for now, to keep hatcheries in business and oyster bars well stocked with the slimy delicacies, a hatchery scientist said.Heartburn for the shellfish industry comes from ocean waters turning ever more corrosive as they absorb a fraction of the carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the atmosphere. The acidification, in turn, makes it harder for oyster larvae to build their shells.

It's almost impossible to avoid BPA, a chemical that's found just about everywhere. But, a new study cautions that young girls who are exposed to high levels may become obese.""Our study suggests that BPA could be a potential new environmental obesogen, a chemical compound that can disrupt the normal development and balance of lipid metabolism, which can lead to obesity," wrote the authors of the new study, published June 12 in PLoS One. "Worldwide exposure to BPA in the human population may be contributing to the worldwide obesity epidemic."

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shed new light on how diving mammals, such as the sperm whale, have evolved to survive for long periods underwater without breathing.The team identified a distinctive molecular signature of the oxygen-binding protein myoglobin in the sperm whale and other diving mammals, which allowed them to trace the evolution of the muscle oxygen stores in more than 100 mammalian species, including their fossil ancestors.

When fish swim in waters tainted with antidepressant drugs, they become anxious, anti-social and sometimes even homicidal.New research has found that the pharmaceuticals, which are frequently showing up in U.S. streams, can alter genes responsible for building fish brains and controlling their behavior.Antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States; about 250 million prescriptions are filled every year. And they also are the highest-documented drugs contaminating waterways, which has experts worried about fish. Traces of the drugs typically get into streams when people excrete them, then sewage treatment plants discharge the effluent.

Humans today eat gorillas and chimpanzees, so why would our prehistoric ancestors flinch at sitting down to a nicely roasted Neanderthal?That's the shocking new hypothesis being raised by anthropologists in Spain who wonder if our closest extinct relative was exterminated in the same way as 178 other large mammals, so called megafauna, which are suspected of going at least partially by the hand of hungry human hunters.

Scientists say they have solved the mystery of one of the most extreme adaptations in the animal kingdom: how marine mammals store enough oxygen to hold their breath for up to an hour.The team studied myoglobin, an oxygen-storing protein in mammals' muscles and found that, in whales and seals, it has special "non-stick" properties.This allowed the animals to pack huge amounts of oxygen into their muscles without "clogging them up".The findings are published in Science.

Two months ago NASA commissioned Bigelow Aerospace to conduct a survey of the corporate sector to learn about private enterprise plans for space exploration. While the report has not yet been completed, Bigelow president Robert Bigelow and NASA's head of space operations William Gerstenmaier held a teleconference with reporter's to discuss findings thus far.

Opening spaceflight up to the masses could help spark a global conservation ethic that stems the tide of environmental destruction on Earth, NASA's science chief says.Seeing our fragile Earth hanging alone in the blackness of space tends to be a life-altering, or at least perspective-changing, experience. If more people around the world are treated to that unforgettable sight, humanity might handle the planet with a bit more care, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

Astronomers have found evidence of an alien planet forming surprisingly far from its host star, a discovery that could challenge the prevailing wisdom about how planets take shape.Researchers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted a large gap in the planet-forming debris disk surrounding the red dwarf star TW Hydrae, which lies about 176 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra (The Sea Serpent).

More than a third of all honeybee colonies in England died over the winter, according to figures from the British Beekeepers Association, the worst losses since its winter survival survey began.On average, 33.8 colonies in every 100 perished over the long winter of 2012-13 compared with 16.2% the previous winter. In the south-west of England, more than half of all colonies were wiped out and in the northern part of the country 46.4% didn't survive.

The newest addition to human anatomy is just 15 microns thick, but its discovery will make eye surgery safer and simpler. Harminder Dua, a professor at the University of Nottingham, recently found a new layer in the human cornea, and he's calling it (can you guess?) Dua's layer.Dua's layer sits at the back of the cornea, which previously had only five known layers. Dua and his colleagues discovered the new body part by injecting air into the corneas of eyes that had been donated for research and using an electron microscope to scan each separated layer.

Air pollution from Europe's 300 largest coal power stations causes 22,300 premature deaths a year and costs companies and governments billions of pounds in disease treatment and lost working days, says a major study of the health impacts of burning coal to generate electricity.The research, from Stuttgart University's Institute for energy economics and commissioned by Greenpeace International, suggests that a further 2,700 people can be expected to die prematurely each year if a new generation of 50 planned coal plants are built in Europe. "The coal-fired power plants in Europe cause a considerable amount of health impacts," the researchers concluded.