Newsdesk Archive

Greenwich - Armani, a giant anteater at LEO Zoological Center in Greenwich, Connecticut gave birth to a baby, named Archie. Only one problem, there was no male around, so how did this happen?Armani did, apparently, previously give birth to a baby named Alice, after a rendezvous with Alf, a male anteater at LEO. However, as male anteaters are known to kill and eat their offspring, LEO separated Armani and Alf for several months. So she was alone. No male close by.Pictures here

A feel-good tale of sperm whales "adopting" a deformed bottlenose dolphin made an Internet splash this week. The story resonated with readers, including Reddit commenter Fallapoo, who said: "I see a Disney movie in the works."But the marine mammals aren't the only ones that form odd alliances, experts say.

Invisibility cloaks made of plastic can now be created at home using 3D printers, researchers show.The first clues that cloaking devices might one day become more than science fiction, a la "Star Trek" began emerging seven or so years ago. Since then researchers have made such cloaks a reality by smoothly guiding rays of electromagnetic radiation such as microwave beams completely around objects so they proceed along their original trajectory as if nothing were there.

An immune system cell that helps limbs regrow in salamanders brings hope that we may eventually be able to mimic the animal's amazing regenerative powers, say Australian researchers.The findings by Dr James Godwin, of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University, and colleagues, are published in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If you're kind of a jerk, but at least concerned about your jerk-ness, take heart: researchers say they've shown it's possible to increase compassion in adults.The University of Wisconsin-Madison actually has a whole department dedicated to this kind of thing, the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, and researchers there set up an experiment recently to see if they could get a group of people to be more excellent to each other.First, the team had the group try the Buddhist technique of compassion meditation: thinking about a time someone was suffering, then chanting, "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease.".

Atlantis was a myth, but real-life lost lands do exist.A lost continent off the coast of Brazil may have been found, scientists announced this week.Granite boulders dredged from the seafloor off the coast of South America two years ago could be remnants of a long-vanished continent, according to Roberto Ventura Santos, the geology director of Brazil's Geology Service.

A new study by German scientists has concluded that the recently discovered planets Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are the first viable candidates for habitable zone water planet. One of the main ingredients in the formation of life is the abundance of water. Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are well within the habitable zone and according to their research water planets in the habitable zone are expected to have distinct geophysics and geochemistry of their surfaces and atmospheres which should be viewable soon.

Ocean measurements taken more than 135 years ago during the scientific expedition of HMS Challenger have provided further confirmation of human-produced global warming over the past century.The researchers also found the thermal expansion of sea water caused by this global warming contributed to around 40 per cent of the total sea level rise seen in tide gauges from 1873 to 1955. The remaining 60 per cent was likely to have come from the melting of ice sheets and glaciers.

White tigers today are only seen in zoos, but they belong in nature, say researchers reporting new evidence about what makes those tigers white. Their spectacular white coats are produced by a single change in a known pigment gene, according to the study, appearing on May 23 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication."The white tiger represents part of the natural genetic diversity of the tiger that is worth conserving, but is now seen only in captivity," says Shu-Jin Luo of China's Peking University.

"I want the thing to fall as one complete edifice. If they manage to let a few white middle-class people off the hook, that's very dangerous. If they can find a way for white kids in middle-class suburbia to get high without them going to jail," he continued, "and getting them to think that what they do is a million miles away from black kids taking crack, that is what politicians would do."If marijuana were exempted from the war on drugs, he insisted, "it'd be another 10 or 40 years of assigning people of colour to this dystopia."

A study by the National Health and Nutrition Surveyfound that marijuana use is linked to smaller waists, better blood sugar control and insulin resistance.Researchers based in Boston compared five years' worth of data from 579 marijuana users and thousands of non-users, LA Weekly reported.

In the mountains of northeastern Mexico, archaeologists have unearthed thousands of ancient paintings on the walls of caves and ravines from a time before Spanish rule.The rock art offers rare evidence from native cultures living in the area around the Sierra de San Carlos, a mountain range in Mexico's state of Tamaulipas, researchers say.

The VergeThe Japanese government has issued a formal statement denying knowledge of rumors that the prime minister's official residence is haunted by ghosts. Shinzo Abe is yet to move into the dwelling five months after he assumed power in December, prompting lawmakers to question the new prime minister's thinking.Since this is Abe's second spell in office after he resigned in 2007 amid illness and scandals, some have wondered if he had a bad experience last time he stayed at the residence. In a letter of inquiry, said the Asahi Shimbun, Ken Kagaya of the rival Democratic Party asked if ghosts are the reason Abe is yet to move in. The Cabinet issued a curt response saying that it was "unaware" of any such rumors.

The majority of the 9 billion people on Earth will live with severe pressure on fresh water within the space of two generations as climate change, pollution and over-use of resources take their toll, 500 scientists have warned.The world's water systems would soon reach a tipping point that "could trigger irreversible change with potentially catastrophic consequences", more than 500 water experts warned on Friday as they called on governments to start conserving the vital resource. They said it was wrong to see fresh water as an endlessly renewable resource because, in many cases, people are pumping out water from underground sources at such a rate that it will not be restored within several lifetimes.

What world traveler hasn't declined at least one local "delicacy"? A decade ago in Oaxaca, Mexico, I turned up my nose at chapulines, a steaming plate of toasted grasshoppers. "Tastes like chicken," my waiter said as he smiled unconvincingly. But overcoming disgust for "edible insects" may be the easiest way to meet global food needs, according to a fascinating, if occasionally stomach-churning, report from the UN's Food and Agricultural Agency (FAO), which is based, of all places, in Rome.The notion of meeting caloric, especially protein, needs from insects (as well as grubs, worms and other creepy-crawlies) is hardly new. It's something humans and their hominid ancestors have been doing for millions of years.

A new analysis shows that the nation's land and water resources could likely support the growth of enough algae to produce up to 25 billion gallons of algae-based fuel a year in the United States, one-twelfth of the country's yearly needs.The findings come from an in-depth look at the water resources that would be needed to grow significant amounts of algae in large, specially built shallow ponds. The results were published in the May 7 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, published by the American Chemical Society.

The massive, magnitude-8.3 temblor that struck today (May 24) near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula could turn out be the deepest earthquake ever recorded.At 378 miles (609 kilometers) below the seafloor, the quake could best the previous record set in Bolivia, in 1994. The initial depth may be revised as scientists collect more data. The Bolivian quake was a magnitude-8.2, and 392 miles deep (631 km), Nature News reported.

Thirteen years of supersized earthquakes, such as today's (May 24) magnitude-8.3 in Russia, have contaminated GPS sites around the world, a new study finds.The Global Positioning System is a network of satellites and ground stations that provide location information anywhere on Earth. Except for spots in Australia, western Europe and the eastern tip of Canada, every GPS site on the ground underwent small but important shifts since 2000 because of big earthquakes, according to a study published May 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

Near-Earth Objects (NEO) have long been a dilemma for scientists, especially since the discovery of 99942 Apophis in 2004. Apophis was first believed to be heading directly towards earth, and created a bit of a stir when people realized that it could hit earth in 2029. However, since then, due to several recalculations and lucky happenstances, the asteroid has only a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting earth.

NASA isn't planning a return trip to the moon, but private companies are speculating on the Moon's tourism and colonization possibilities. How much would you pay for a trip?Human exploration of deep space is looking more and more like a tag-team affair, with NASA jetting off to asteroids and Mars while the private sector sets up shop on the moon.While NASA has no plans to return humans to the lunar surface anytime soon, private industry is eyeing Earth's nearest neighbor intently, said Bigelow Aerospace founder and president Robert Bigelow.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio plans to fly to space on Virgin Galactic's new commercial spaceliner, along with the winning bidder in a charity auction at the Cannes film festival, according to news reports.The chance to ride with DiCaprio sold for 1.2 million Euros ($1.5 million) at the amfAR Cinema Against AIDS charity Thursday night (May 23), according to the Hollywood Reporter. The prize was listed as a "once-in-a-lifetime trip to space with a mystery guest" in the auction booklet, and the mystery guest's identity as DiCaprio was not announced until after the sale. The event took place at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc during the annual film festival on the French Riviera.

Chinese astronomers, actively searching for Earth-like planets using survey instruments in Antarctica, believe efforts to seek an extra-solar planet that that harbors life will soon be rewarded. "It's highly possible that human beings might find such a planet in the coming few years," said Lifan Wang, an astronomer at Texas A&M University in College Station, and director of the Chinese Centre for Antarctic Astronomy in Nanjing.

According to the New York Times, President Obama is "on the verge of backing" a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA forces telephone companies to provide backdoors to the government so that it can spy on users after obtaining court approval, and was expanded in 2006 to reach Internet technologies like VoIP.

A week ago, scientists from Oregon Health and Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center announced that they had successfully used human skin cells to clone embryonic stem cells. In the few days since the researchers' work came online, though, the research has been found to contain a few key errors.An anonymous online commenter on PubPeer, a post-publication peer review discussion site, highlighted four potential issues regarding image reuse in the paper, published online in the journal Cell on May 15

A new study by archaeologists at the University of York challenges evolutionary theories behind the development of our earliest ancestors from tree dwelling quadrupeds to upright bipeds capable of walking and scrambling.The researchers say our upright gait may have its origins in the rugged landscape of East and South Africa which was shaped during the Pliocene epoch by volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates.

Researchers have revealed the remains of King Richard III, which were discovered under a city car park, were found in a hastily dug, untidy grave.It is believed that gravediggers may have been in a hurry to bury the murdered king and that his hands could have been bound together. The lozenge-shaped grave was too short to contain the body conventionally and the bones of the last Plantagenet king were placed in an odd position, with the torso crammed in.

Most of us are used to thinking that the evolution of living organisms takes millions of years. But in the case of cockroaches, scientists say the resilient pests have a developed a fast-forward mechanism to save their own exoskeleton.In a newly published study in the journal , a group of researchers conclude that cockroaches have evolved to avoid sweet-tasting poisons by making a subtle change in their body chemistry that makes the bait taste bitter to them.

The European Commission said Friday that it will ban for two years beginning in December pesticides blamed for killing the bees that pollinate food and fruit crops.The decision to ban the three insecticides, made by chemicals giants Bayer and Syngenta, "marks another milestone towards ensuring a healthier future" for bees, EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg said.

Earth is often described as the blue planet, suggesting that there is plenty of water. And indeed there is. Hardly any of it, though, is available for people to use.Fresh water is only 2.5 per cent of the total, and 70 per cent of that is locked up in ice and snow. Water in rivers and lakes makes up less than 0.3 per cent of the world's fresh water. Globally, fresh water is scarce, and getting scarcer.

Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.Soon it will take only the click of a mouse or finger swipe on a tablet to explore some of the Galapagos Islands' most remote areas, surrounding waters and unique creatures.Google sent hikers to the Galapagos with Street View gear called "trekkers," 19-kilogram computer backpacks with large, soccer ball-like cameras mounted on a tower.

The world's largest Lego model, a 45,000-pound Star Wars X-Wing starfighter, is just sort of sitting in New York's Times Square right now.It was assembled by a team of 32 people over the course of 17,000 man-hours in Kladno, Czech Republic, on what one assumes was the world's largest living-room floor. The X-Wing comprises 5.3 million Lego bricks, some 2 million more than the previous title-holder, a robot at Minnesota's Mall of America. At 43 feet from front to back, it's actually two feet longer than than the fictional X-Wing that Luke Skywalker flew into battle in the original Star Wars movie.

Toking up may help marijuana users to stay slim and lower their risk of developing diabetes, according to the latest study, which suggests that cannabis compounds may help in controlling blood sugar.Although marijuana has a well-deserved reputation for increasing appetite via what stoners call "the munchies," the new research, which was published in the American Journal of Medicine, is not the first to find that the drug has a two-faced relationship to weight.

People with higher IQs are slow to detect large background movements because their brains filter out non-essential information, say US researchers.Instead, they are good at detecting small moving objects.The findings come in a study of 53 people given a simple, visual test in Current Biology.The results could help scientists understand what makes a brain more efficient and more intelligent.

Do you have a special talent for reading scribbled handwriting and an interest in looking at dead bugs?Rather than setting a handful of bleary-eyed undergrads with the task of transcribing hand-written field notes that correspond with its more than a million insect specimens, Calbug, a consortium of nine major entomological collections from across California, is opening the project up to the public, asking citizen scientists to help convert the records into an electronic form so they can be made available worldwide.

Humans spent centuries conspiring to fly, so it might be hard to imagine that any creature would give up the skill, and yet penguins waddle among us. A new study helps confirm that these seabirds traded flight to become better swimmers.Penguins have a litany of physical features that make them energy-efficient underwater. For instance, their shortened wingspans lessen drag; their dense wing bones make them less buoyant; and their bulky bodies help them stay insulated and dive deeper. Unlike other aquatic birds that paddle underwater with their webbed feet, penguins beat their wings to propel themselves far below the surface. Emperor penguins can even go to depths greater than 1,500 feet (450 meters), lasting 20 minutes on a single breath.

Farmers have resumed planting rice for market only 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, a local official said Wednesday.It was the first time since the March 2011 earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster that farmers have gone inside the former 20-kilometre "no-go" zone around the doomed plant to sow rice intended for sale.

The future of year-round farming could lie not in farms, but in huge warehouses lit with an eerie pink light, researchers have claimed.Researchers have found that tomatoes grown around LED lights in the winter can significantly reduce greenhouse energy costs without sacrificing yield - and say the technique could change the way farming works.One US firm is already experimenting with a giant warehouse in Texas, which hides a vast hi-tech pink growing area where 2.2 million plants will only see sunlight at the end of their life.

EARTH is shoving the moon away faster now than it has done for most of the past 50 million years, says a new model for the way tides influence the lunar orbit. The result helps solve a mystery concerning the moon's age that has long vexed astronomers.The moon's gravity creates a daily cycle of low and high tides. This dissipates energy between the two bodies, slowing Earth's spin on its axis and causing the moon's orbit to expand at a rate of about 3.8 centimetres per year. If that rate has always been the same, the moon should be 1.5 billion years old, yet some lunar rocks are 4.5 billion years old.

The dramatic meteorite strike that blasted out a big crater on the moon two months ago shows just how perilous manned lunar exploration can be.A 1-foot-wide (0.3 meters) rock slammed into the lunar surface at 56,000 mph (90,120 km/h) on March 17, creating a fresh crater 65 feet (20 m) wide. The crash caused the biggest and brightest explosion scientists have seen since they started monitoring lunar meteorite strikes in 2005.

The Ecuadorean space agency (EXA) is trying to pick up signals from its satellite after it crashed in space into debris from an old rocket.The nano-satellite, called Pegasus, was launched from the Jiuquan spaceport in China less than a month ago.It is Ecuador's first and only satellite in orbit.Experts said Pegasus had collided with debris from a Soviet rocket but was still in orbit. It is not yet clear if it has been damaged.

While various parties continue to debate whether harpooning space junk or collecting it with giant nets is the best course of action, an Australian company says it's close to being able to knock debris off collision courses with a 10 kilowatt ground laser.A study announced at the Sixth European Conference on Space Debris, 23 April, revealed that over the next 200 years the amount of space junk near Earth would increase perilously, leading to more frequent space collisions that threaten satellites and spacecraft alike. Later in the conference, EOS Space Systems stepped in to reveal it has a plan to tackle this problem -- the fruits of ten year's worth of labour.

smh.com.auAstrophysicists know full well that the biggest of Saturn's retinue of moons, Titan, is one of our solar system's most mysterious worlds.Might it one day turn out to harbour extraterrestrials, albeit of the most elementary kind? With its organic-rich chemistry and Earth-like processes sculpting the surface, Titan resembles a frozen version of the Earth, billions of years ago, before primordial life started pumping oxygen into the atmosphere.

Researchers 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 the enigmatic Mesoamerican civilization.For centuries, scholars understood little about Maya script beyond its elegant astronomical calculations and calendar. The Maya dominated much of Central America and southern Mexico for 1,000 years before their civilization collapsed about 600 years before the Spaniards reached the New World.

Wherever humans have gone in the world, they have carried with them two things, language and fire. As they traveled through tropical forests they hoarded the precious embers of old fires and sheltered them from downpours. When they settled the barren Arctic, they took with them the memory of fire, and recreated it in stoneware vessels filled with animal fat. Darwin himself considered these the two most significant achievements of humanity.

Anthropologists have discovered a beautiful Greek waterfront paradise once inhabited by generations of Neanderthals up to 100,000 years ago, according to a new study.This particular population was based at what is known as The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic Cave site on the Mani peninsula of southern Greece.

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.Related: See Graham's book Entangled

When it comes to weaning, humans are weird.Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, breast-feed their offspring for several years. Some baby orangutans nurse until they are 7 years old.But modern humans wean much earlier. In preindustrial societies, babies stop nursing after about two years. Which raises the question: How did we get that way? When did we make the evolutionary shift from ape-like parenting, to the short breast-feeding period of humans?.

TIBERIAS, Israel (AP) -- The massive circular structure appears to be an archaeologists dream: a recently discovered antiquity that could reveal secrets of ancient life in the Middle East and is just waiting to be excavated.It's thousands of years old - a conical, manmade behemoth weighing hundreds of tons, practically begging to be explored.The problem is - it's at the bottom of the biblical Sea of Galilee.Related: See Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization by Graham Hancock.

Five thousand cave paintings have been discovered in Burgos, Mexico.The red, white, black and yellow images depict humans hunting, fishing and gathering, as well as animals such as deer, lizards and centipedes.

Excavations at an archaeological site in Bahrain are shedding light on one of the oldest trading civilisations.Despite its antiquity, comparatively little is known about the advanced culture represented at Saar.The site in Bahrain, thought to be the location of the enigmatic Dilmun civilisation, was recently discussed at a conference in Manama, the Gulf nation's capital, organised by the UN's educational, scientific and cultural body (Unesco).

Dedicated club drug users may be on to something with 'Special K.'A new study, conducted by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, shows that the experimental party drug, ketamine, can alleviate depression symptoms in just hours, according to a news release.

Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security.Speaking on the UN's International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban said there was a "mutually reinforcing" relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed."We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards. Under current trends, future demands for water will not be met," Ban said.

The Solar Impulse plane has set a new distance record for solar-powered flight on the second leg of its trans-American journey on Wednesday evening.The craft landed in Dallas, Texas, after an 18-hour flight from Phoenix, Arizona - a journey of 1,541km (958mi).In the coming weeks, it will also stop over in St Louis, Missouri, and Washington DC before heading to New York in early July.

A study showing how ants tunnel their way through confined spaces could aid the design of search-and-rescue robots, according to US scientists.A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology found fire ants can use their antennae as "extra limbs" to catch themselves when they fall, and can build stable tunnels in loose sand.Researchers used high speed cameras to record in detail this behaviour.The findings are published in the journal PNAS.

When April and Bryan Gionfriddo brought home their newborn son, Kaiba, in October 2011, he seemed like a healthy baby. But one night, when the family was out to dinner, Kaiba stopped being able to breathe and turned blue. Bryan laid Kaiba, just 6 weeks old, on the restaurant table and performed chest compressions on him before he was rushed to the hospital.After 10 days, Kaiba was sent home, but he turned blue again two days later. That's when doctors realized Kaiba had a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, in which the windpipe is so weak that it collapses, preventing air from flowing to the lungs.

A working plastic gun has been printed using a self-assembled 3D printer, a nail and some household screws.The gun, based on blueprints made available online by Defense Distributed last month, cost just $25 (£16) to make and has already successfully fired nine .38 caliber shots by the Wisconsin engineer who built it.Up until now, the blueprints for the 'Liberator' gun have been mainly printed using industrial-grade 3D printers that cost around £5,250 ($8,000).

A video showing what is thought to be first ever 3D-printed bullet being fired has appeared on YouTube.In the video, from user Taofledermaus, three bullets of different weights and shapes are fired at various targets using a Mossberg 590 shotgun.According to the video, each plastic pellet has been 3D-printed. A small lead shot was then added to give the bullet weight.In the video, Taofledermaus is heard saying: 'You've heard of a 3D-printed gun? How about 3D-printed bullets.'.

When a new documentary promised to unveil DNA tests on a 6-inch-tall humanoid found 10 years ago in Chile, everyone weighed in with an opinion.UFO researchers hoped this might finally be proof of alien visitations. Skeptics were sure it was nothing more than shameless movie promotion.The latest ripple in this controversy might be the most bizarre turn yet.

The VergeNASA is funding research into 3D-printed food. As Quartz reveals, Mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor received a $125,000 grant from the agency to build a prototype 3D printer with the aim of automating food creation. It's hoped the system could provide astronauts food during long-distance space travel, but its creator has the loftier aim of solving the increasing food shortages around the world by cutting down on waste. The software for the printer will be open-source, while the hardware is based on the open-source RepRap Mendel 3D printer.

The Philippines has approved three wind farm projects that will generate 208 megawatts, enough to power more than 40,000 middle-class homes, an energy official said on Monday.The wind projects will be the first to benefit from an incentive scheme which aims to ensure half the country's energy comes from renewable sources by 2030, compared with about 39 percent currently, the official said.

Salamanders' immune systems are key to their remarkable ability to regrow limbs, and could also underpin their ability to regenerate spinal cords, brain tissue and even parts of their hearts, scientists have found.In research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers from the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University found that when immune cells known as macrophages were systemically removed, salamanders lost their ability to regenerate a limb and instead formed scar tissue.

New research from the University of Southampton has shown that blind and visually impaired people have the potential to use echolocation, similar to that used by bats and dolphins, to determine the location of an object.The study, which is published in the journal Hearing Research, examined how hearing, and particularly the hearing of echoes, could help blind people with spatial awareness and navigation. The study also examined the possible effects of hearing impairment and how to optimise echolocation ability in order to help improve the independence and quality of life of people with visual impairments.

Good news, guys! Candy isn't going to make you fat or kill you or anything negative at all! Feast on M&M's like an 8-year-old on Halloween, because you're totally good on this one.Says a study funded by the National Confectioners Association, a trade group representing the candy, chocolate, and gum industry.

Vintners age the best wines, and it seems the grape vine itself took ages to domesticate.Genetic analysis suggests grapes were probably first cultivated in southwest Asia during the Neolithic, approximately 8,000 years ago. However, archeological evidence suggests thousands of years passed during which many cultivated grape vines in Europe still produced smaller grapes and lower yields than the thoroughly domesticated grape subspecies, Vitis vinifera vinifera.

Genomic analyses suggest that patterns of genetic diversity which indicate population movement may not be as ancient as previously believed, but may be attributable to recent events. This study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Investigative Genetics, based in the Netherlands, is able to genetically characterize geographically separated subpopulations within the country and map them to population movement within the last 2000 years.

Entanglement, by general consensus of physicists, is the weirdest part of quantum science. To say that two particles, A and B, are entangled means that they are actually two parts of an inseparable quantum thing. An important consequence of this inherent kinship is that measuring a property of A (say, the particle's polarization) is necessarily to know the corresponding property of B, even if you're not there with a detector to observe B and even if (as explained below) the existence of that property had no prior fixed value until the moment particle A was detected.

Charles Darwin sparked more than one controversy over the natural progression of life. One such case involved the evolution of coral atolls, the ring-shaped coral reefs that surround submerged tropical islands.Coral reefs are actually huge colonies of tiny animals that need sunlight to grow. After seeing a reef encircling Moorea, near Tahiti, Darwin came up with his theory that coral atolls grow as reefs stretch toward sunlight while ocean islands slowly sink beneath the sea surface. (Cooling ocean crust, combined with the weight of massive islands, causes the islands to sink.).

Researchers have uncovered a mechanism in the Alaskan tundra that doesn't seem to follow the climate change script for soil carbon.For years, scientists have shown that rising temperatures stimulate microbes that decay plant matter, releasing carbon more quickly into the atmosphere. But when Seeta Sistla, a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, came to collect data for a 20-year-old experiment at the U.S. Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research site in northern Alaska, the soil carbon levels at the site were curiously stable.

Everything had to come together just perfectly to create the killer tornado in Moore, Okla.: wind speed, moisture in the air, temperature and timing. And when they did, the awesome energy released over that city dwarfed the power of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima.On Tuesday, the National Weather Service gave it the top-of-the-scale rating of EF5 for wind speed and breadth, and severity of damage. Wind speeds were estimated at between 200 and 210 mph. The death count is 24 so far, including at least nine children. The United States averages about one EF5 a year, but this was the first in nearly two years.

Reductions in Arctic sea ice levels have a greater effect on patterns of atmospheric circulation beyond the Arctic than previously thought. New research in the International Journal of Climatology indicates implications far beyond the Arctic leading to a weaker jet stream and less storminess in the mid-latitudes.The jet stream consists of ribbons of very strong winds which move weather systems around the globe. Jet streams are found 9-16 km above the surface of the Earth.

Abrupt climate change in Africa helped trigger technological and cultural advances in early modern humans, according to new research.Archaeologists had long noted that the complexity displayed by human groups moved in fits and starts.But there has been a debate about the causes of this stop-start pattern.Analysis of marine sediments suggest a close link between changes in human behaviour and changes in the southern African climate.

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In an open letter, former Latin American leaders call for legal regulation to help undermine organised crimeAfter more than four decades of a failed war on drugs, calls for a change in strategy are growing louder by the day. In Latin America, the debate is positively deafening. Statesmen from Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Uruguay are taking the lead for transformations in their own drug regime, which has set a strong dynamic of change across the region and around the world. Their discussion has expanded to the US, where public opinion toward regulation is also changing.

Scientists look at past climates to learn about climate change and the ability to simulate it with computer models. One region that has received a great deal of attention is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, the vast pool of warm water stretching along the equator from Africa to the western Pacific Ocean.In a new study, Pedro DiNezio of the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Jessica Tierney of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution investigated preserved geological clues (called "proxies") of rainfall patterns during the last ice age when the planet was dramatically colder than today. They compared these patterns with computer model simulations in order to find a physical explanation for the patterns inferred from the proxies.

An Australian led-project to turn 1.4 million tonnes of Chinese pig poo into alternative energy and fertiliser has been hailed in a national science award.The project, run by the Adelaide-based Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), Chinese firm HLM Asia PL and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, has developed technology for treating one of the world's largest and smelliest waste disposal problems.

A humanoid robot can receive an object handed to it by a person with something approaching natural, human-like motion thanks to a new method developed by scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh in a project partially funded by the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT) at Carnegie Mellon University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

Three planets are coming together in the evening sky at the moment, putting on a celestial show that won't be seen again for more than a decade.Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are gathering low in the west-northwest evening sky, and next week they'll form the tightest grouping of three naked-eye planets that skywatchers will see until 2026, experts say.

The Amazon rain forest, popularly known as the lungs of the planet, inhales carbon dioxide as it exudes oxygen. Plants use carbon dioxide from the air to grow parts that eventually fall to the ground to decompose or get washed away by the region's plentiful rainfall.Until recently, people believed much of the rain forest's carbon floated down the Amazon River and ended up deep in the ocean. University of Washington research showed a decade ago that rivers exhale huge amounts of carbon dioxide -- though left open the question of how that was possible, since bark and stems were thought to be too tough for river bacteria to digest.

What happened the last time a vegetated Earth shifted from an extremely cold climate to desert-like conditions? And what does it tell us about climate change today?John Isbell is on a quest to coax that information from the geology of the southernmost portions of the Earth. It won't be easy, because the last transition from "icehouse to greenhouse" occurred between 335 and 290 million years ago.

Lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park is a massive underground reservoir of magma, capped by the park's famous caldera. 640,000 years ago, a super eruption rocked the region. What would happen if another such event blasted the park today? We asked USGS geologist Jake Lowenstern, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The North Sea oil and gas industry's pursuit of new oil reserves has contributed to a greater understanding of where life exists on Earth and may even help us look for life on other planets.The sector has been funding academic research at the University of Aberdeen into how sand moves and cuts through mud beneath the Earth's surface for over a decade.

The Apollo 11 astronaut who walked on the moon dreams of a future where Americans are the first to walk on MarsA member of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon. In the years since, he has become an advocate for space exploration and technology, calling for renewed U.S. investment in the space program. In Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration, Aldrin lays out a detailed, multi-stage plan for journeying to the red planet that would culminate in the first permanent human settlement beyond the Earth.

A Russian spacecraft containing 45 mice, 8 gerbils, and 15 newts returned to Earth on Sunday. The spacecraft, a modified Bion-M life sciences satellite, was launched in April 2013 and was intended to study the biological effects of long-term weightlessness. However, due to a combination of equipment failure and what scientists referred to as "the stresses of space," fewer than half the mice (and none of the gerbils) remained alive after their month in space. The newts were fine, though.

The news that researchers have used cloning to make human embryos for the purpose of producing stem cells may have some people wondering if it would ever be possible to clone a person.Although it would be unethical, experts say it is likely biologically possible to clone a human being. But even putting ethics aside, the sheer amount of resources needed to do it is a significant barrier.

A study has discovered that early humans began hurling stone-tipped spears and darts at large prey at least 90,000 years ago.There has been debate surrounding the precise date that early man began to use stone-tipped spears - with some experts suggesting their use as far back as 500,000 years ago - but until now, evidence to prove theories had been lacking.The throwing of spears was an important development because by throwing instead of thrusting, humans could hunt buffalo and other game from a safer distance, and with less risk of mauling.

"Who invented clothes?" It's one of those brilliant questions that children ask, before they learn that the big things we wonder about rarely have simple answers. It's the kind of thing that archaeologists like me get put on the spot about when chatting to kids, and we love to have a crack at answering.

A PLANT first used by prehistoric man in 30,000BC can help fight infections, according to scientists following a four-year research project.Researchers have found that fibres from the common flax plant can kill bacteria efficiently when treated with special light-sensitive dyes and exposed to red light.

In a new discovery reported in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Brown University and Lifespan researchers show that in the brain cells of rats, obesity impedes the production of a hormone that curbs appetite and inspires calorie burning. The root cause appears to be a breakdown in the protein-processing mechanism of the cells. In the lab, the researchers showed they could fix the breakdown with drugs.

Archaeologists have discovered a lost civilisation deep in the jungles of Central America.The lost world resembles a "vast tended garden" and lies inland from the Mosquito Coast, an area known for swamps, poisonous plants and vipers that leap at their prey.The area was last explored over 70 years ago by Theodore Morde.

In a landmark ruling, Indonesia's Constitutional Court has invalidated the Indonesian government's claim to millions of hectares of forest land, potentially giving indigenous and local communities the right to manage their customary forests, reports Mongabay-Indonesia.

Morocco is ploughing ahead with a programme to boost wind energy production, particularly in the southern Tarfaya region, where Africa's largest wind farm is set to open in 2014.The kingdom, which has no hydrocarbon reserves of its own, hopes to cover 42 percent of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2020, and has launched a plan to produce 4,000 megawatts.

Hong Kong saw its first electric taxis hit the streets on Saturday in a step towards reducing the city's high levels of roadside pollution.The 45 bright red cars were launched by Chinese electric vehicle producer BYD, which is partly backed by US investment titan Warren Buffett.

In 2008 researchers from the University of Southern Denmark showed that the drug thioridazine, which has previously been used to treat schizophrenia, is also a powerful weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococci (Staphylococcus aureus).Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a huge problem all over the world: For example, 25 -- 50 per cent of the inhabitants in southern Europe are resistant to staphylococci. In the Scandinavian countries it is less than 5 per cent, but also here the risk of resistance is on the rise.

Twenty-five years after pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly unleashed Prozac on the red-braced 80s, SSRIs are still the world's most popular antidepressants. They are swallowed by more than 40 million people, from Beijing to Beirut, knitting a web of happiness from New York to New Caledonia. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, of which Prozac is the best known, are the defining drug of the modern age, the crutch of choice for the worried well. In the US, where one in 10 takes antidepressants, you can buy beef-flavoured Prozac for your dog, trademarked Reconcile.In his 1993 book Listening to Prozac, the psychiatrist Peter D Kramer explored the ethical issues around the rise of what he termed "cosmetic pharmacology".

A far-flung team is trying to build the first digital lifeform to work out the basic principles of the brain.For all the talk of artificial intelligence and all the games of SimCity that have been played, no one in the world can actually simulate living things. Biology is so complex that nowhere on Earth is there a comprehensive model of even a single simple bacterial cell.

Imagine peering into a microscope and finding yourself in a garden.That's the case at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where researchers have found a way to shape microscopic crystals into complex and often beautiful structures.Inspired by coral reefs, seashells and other naturally occurring complex mineral structures, postdoctoral fellow Wim L. Noorduin and Harvard colleagues have been researching ways to manually recreate similar designs.

The prospect of a deep sea "gold rush" opening a controversial new frontier for mining on the ocean floor has moved a step closer.The United Nations has published its first plan for managing the extraction of so-called "nodules" - small mineral-rich rocks - from the seabed.A technical study was carried out by the UN's International Seabed Authority - the body overseeing deep sea mining.It says companies could apply for licences from as soon as 2016.

What happened the last time a vegetated Earth shifted from an extremely cold climate to desert-like conditions? And what does it tell us about climate change today?John Isbell is on a quest to coax that information from the geology of the southernmost portions of the Earth. It won't be easy, because the last transition from "icehouse to greenhouse" occurred between 335 and 290 million years ago.

The moon generated a surprisingly intense magnetic field until at least 3.56 billion years ago, 160 million years longer than previously thought, a new study reports.These findings could shed light not just on the magnetic field of the moon, which is now extremely weak, but on that of asteroids and other distant worlds, investigators added.

The medicinal South Pacific plant kava can help patients with generalized anxiety disorder keep their symptoms under control.The psychoactive plant compound kava, usually served as a drink or in baked goods, can improve symptoms in chronic anxiety sufferers, Australian scientists demonstrated in a clinical trial.