Newsdesk Archive

The aroma of rosemary essential oil may improve prospective memory in healthy adults.This is the finding of a study conducted by Jemma McCready and Dr Mark Moss from the University of Northumbria. The findings presented today, Tuesday 9 April, at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society in Harrogate, suggest that this essential oil may enhance the ability to remember events and to remember to complete tasks at particular times in the future.

Scientists have grown a kidney in a laboratory and shown that it works when implanted into a living animal. The work is an important step towards the longer-term goal of growing personalised replacement organs that could be transplanted into people with kidney failure.More than 51,000 people are treated every year in the UK for end-stage kidney failure and 90% of those are on the waiting list for organs are waiting for kidneys. A shortage of organs means that every year fewer than 3,000 transplants are carried out, however, while more than 3,000 people die waiting for a transplant.

A new "digital public library" set to launch this month aims to provide an alternative to Google for those looking for American cultural information online.Visitors will be able to view, for example, letters penned by George Washington, a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, and ambrotype and daguerreotype images of Abraham Lincoln.

Airport scanners can see more than your underwear. Terahertz spectroscopy, the imaging technology used in airport body scanners, has uncovered a hidden, ancient fresco underneath a wall painting at the Louvre.Terahertz spectroscopy uses beams of electromagnetic radiation that lie between microwaves (used in kitchen ovens) and infrared rays (used in TV remotes) on the spectrum. These waves are known for their ability to examine materials without damaging them, unlike X-rays and ultraviolet light, and are commonly used in other areas like biomedical imaging and pharmaceuticals.

Men who lose their hair may have more to worry about than just vanity, especially if their balding starts early.Researchers have long known about the potential link between baldness and the risk of prostate cancer, but studies have been conflicting. Now a study of African-American men shows a higher risk of prostate cancer among men losing their hair, supporting the results of a previous study that found similar results in a group of primarily Caucasian men.

"One day if we blessed, we all gonna get old." So says Tommy Mickens. Decades ago, Mickens was one of the top drug lords in Queens, where he ran a multimillion-dollar cocaine enterprise. These days, after serving 20 years in prison, he's doing his best to give back and do something positive by helping seniors to exercise."I always loved older people," he told Yahoo News. "I learned from older people, I wanted to find a way to help them. Help those who couldn't help themselves and bring it back to my community.".

The U.S. has been pouring millions of dollars into anti-drug campaigns since the 1980s. Has it done any good?From Reefer Madness to Nancy Reagan's famous "Just Say No," we're constantly trying to convince kids that drugs aren't as fun as they think they are.The Office of National Drug Control Policy, established in 1988, runs the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, a propaganda machine created to stop kids from using drugs and the money behind anti-drug ad campaigns like "My Anti-Drug" and "Above the Influence.".

Soon after learning that his son had autism, Hollywood producer Jon Shestack ("Air Force One") tried to get researchers investigating the genetic causes of the disorder to pool their DNA samples, the better to identify genes most likely to cause that disorder. But his approach to scientists at universities across the country in the late 1990s hit a brick wall: They refused to join forces, much less share the DNA."Each thought they needed to hold on to it to publish and patent," Shestack said in an interview. "This seemed criminal to us.".

I've been involved in "big science" for more than 20 years, having led or personally participated in science teams for 24 suborbital, orbital and planetary space missions with a total value of over $3 billion.I'm a planetary scientist and a former NASA associate administrator, and when I led all of the agency's science programs, I had a budget of more than $5 billion.These days, I'm still doing big science, but I'm spending time at the other end of the funding-scale spectrum: I'm a science crowdfunder.

In the fall of 1972, then-President Richard Nixon signed the Marine Mammal Protection Act, providing sweeping protections for whales, dolphins, seals and other species swimming in U.S. waters whose populations had dwindled due to commercial fishing and accidental killing.The law invigorated conservation efforts and prohibited hunting, killing, capturing and even harassing marine mammals (which we're reminded of when beachgoers in Florida get caught riding manatees or sickly sperm whales.)

The UK's nature reserves act as 'ecological welcome mats' to new species, according to scientists.Since the 1960s, there has been a natural influx of wetland bird species from continental Europe.Species such as whooper swans, Cetti's warblers and little egrets have used the nature reserves to colonise new areas of the UK, found the scientists.

The turtle species Pelusios seychellensis regarded hitherto as extinct never existed. Scientists at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Dresden discovered this based on genetic evidence. The relevant study was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

It is 80 years since hotel manageress Mrs Aldie Mackay first reported seeing a "whale-like fish" in the waters of Loch Ness.Now an academic at St Andrew's University is trawling through 1,000 eye-witness accounts since to see what they can tell us.He wryly notes more than a few hotel proprietors among typical spotters. So is "Nessie" just a conspiracy to boost tourism?It was 14 April 1933 and Mrs Mackay, manageress of the Drumnadrochit Hotel, was driving with her husband along the road to Inverness.

Deepening the mystery of human origins, researchers Thursday offered the most complete view yet of fossils from a puzzling forerunner of humankind, revealing that these creatures were, from head to heel, a collage of primitive and modern anatomy.In six research papers published in Science, an international team described how the hominids had almost-human hands attached to apelike arms, a rib cage that was narrow like an ape's at the top but more humanlike lower down, and a spine that likely had the same number of vertebrae as a human.

Great scientists change the way we view the world.Doing that usually means smashing an old, entrenched idea - often making enemies in the process.Before being proven and accepted, a great theory can be subjected to harsh criticism and its proposer can be mocked, rejected, even vilified.Sometimes a religious authority is on the attack, other times it's the scientist's colleagues - either way it takes special determination to stick to an idea others believe is clearly wrong.

There may not be an alien planet named Heinlein any time soon if the International Astronomical Union (IAU) gets its way. The astronomy group issued a reminder April 12 that it is the only body authorized to give exoplanets their official names, despite recent naming initiatives by companies like Uwingu.In the statement, IAU officials said that planet-naming schemes have "no bearing on the official naming process," and stressed the importance of having a unified procedure, even though its members welcome the public's interest..

College athletes are not the only ones who sometimes suffer at the hands of higher ups. A new report brings to light a more hidden and pernicious problem -- the psychological, physical and sexual abuse of students in the field of biological anthropology working in field studies far from home.The report is based on an online survey and telephone interviews that, in a period of less than two months, elicited accounts of abuse from dozens of women and men working in the field of biological anthropology.

In a muddy field located between a motorway and a meander of the Seine southeast of Paris, French archaeologists have uncovered an Iron Age graveyard that they believe will shed light on the great yet enigmatic civilisation of Gaul.The site, earmarked for a warehouse project on the outskirts of Troyes, is yielding a stunning array of finds, including five Celtic warriors, whose weapons and adornments attest to membership of a powerful but long-lost elite.

A privacy-friendly Internet might be possible in the future according to an academic at the University of East Anglia (UEA).Speaking at a conference today (Friday April 12), Dr Paul Bernal will paint a picture of what a privacy-friendly Internet might look like in practice and put forward a series of Internet privacy rights -- rights that are both theoretical and achievable -- and look at how the implementation of those might impact upon the Internet.

After New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled his plan to ban the sale of sodas larger than 16 ounces, comedian Jon Stewart complained that the proposal "combines the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results they expect."It turns out the "Daily Show" host was on to something.

A monkey partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury was able to control its arm using an external link between its brain and spinal cord, a new study shows.Even after a spinal cord injury or stroke, the nervous system wiring above and below the injury can remain intact. With that in mind, researchers created an artificial electrical connection between the injured monkey's brain and an area below the damaged part of its spinal cord. This allowed the animal to send neural signals to its spinal cord to engage its arm muscles. The findings were detailed online Thursday (April 11) in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits.

By linking the brains of a human and a rat, scientists have now helped a man wiggle a rodent's tail using only the man's thoughts.These new findings are the first case of a brain-to-brain interface between species, and the first example of a noninvasive brain-to-brain interface, researchers added.In February, scientists revealed they linked together the brains of two rats. This first known instance of a brain-to-brain interface apparently helped the rodents share data to accomplish certain tasks, even across intercontinental distances. However, this advance depended on microscopic electrodes implanted in the rats' heads.

Ants with the world's worst taste in real estate seem to sense earthquakes before they strike, according to research presented today (April 11) at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna.Active faults, fractures where the Earth violently ruptures in earthquakes, are the preferred housing site for red wood ants in Germany. Researcher Gabriele Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany has counted more than 15,000 red wood ant mounds lined up along Germany's faults, like candy drops on a conveyor belt.

Women should forget everything they've been told about bras. According to a new French study, published on Wednesday, wearing a bra does nothing to reduce back pain, and the chest supports actually cause increased breast sagging.The results of a mammoth 15-year study led by professor Jean-Denis Rouillon, from the University of Besançon in eastern France, are finally in and it looks like conventional wisdom about bras and back pain has been way off the mark.

The Maya are famous for their complex, intertwined calendric systems, and now one calendar, the Maya Long Count, is empirically calibrated to the modern European calendar, according to an international team of researchers."The Long Count calendar fell into disuse before European contact in the Maya area," said Douglas J. Kennett, professor of environmental archaeology, Penn State. "Methods of tying the Long Count to the modern European calendar used known historical and astronomical events, but when looking at how climate affects the rise and fall of the Maya, I began to question how accurately the two calendars correlated using those methods.".

An evolutionarily unique "paired anal fin" suggests that evolution experimented with various wacky body plans, only some of which survived.A 370-milion-year-old primitive fish sported a weird pair of fins just below its anus, new research shows.The strange appendages, detailed today (April 9) in the journal Biology Letters, were found on an ancient jawless fish called Euphanerops longaevus that lived around the time that jawless fishes like lampreys split off from jawed vertebrates, which include everything from sharks to humans.

The influential head of Google, Eric Schmidt, has called for civilian drone technology to be regulated, warning about privacy and security concerns."How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?"

C|NET The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

States are now rushing to push bills through allowing for gold and silver to be recognized as legal tender as politicians fear that the U.S. economy is going to collapse.The push from states like Arizona, which passed through their House of Representatives on Monday allowing gold and silver to be considered legal tender, comes as conservatives fear that the Federal Reserve is running the country's economy into a deep hole.Lawmakers say the global economy is on the precipice of financial ruin and the U.S. dollar could soon be worth less than the paper used to make it.These doomsayers are pushing forward legislation that would declare privately minted gold and silver coins legal tender, no different under state law than the U.S. dollar printed by the federal Department of Treasury.

A population of 200 of the world's rarest orangutans was found tucked away in the forests of the island of Borneo, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).All subspecies of Bornean orangutans are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But scientists estimate just 3,000 to 4,500 individuals are left in the subspecies known as Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus, making them the most severely threatened.

New photos from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show that an icy cloud is growing over the south pole of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, hinting that a seven-year fall has taken hold at the cloudy moon's southern realm.Scientists are not sure what the budding cloud is made of, but the same icy haze has been clearing over Titan's north pole, where it is currently springtime."We associate this particular kind of ice cloud with winter weather on Titan, and this is the first time we have detected it anywhere but the north pole.

Put on your tin-foil hats and special anti-Illuminati underwear. A recently discovered mysterious ancient rock structure under the Sea of Galilee, possibly built in the same era as Stonehenge, has archaeologists stumped. To a certain slice of the population, any unexplained man-made rock pile is clearly evidence of an extraterrestrial visit.

DON'T be alarmed, but you have alien DNA in your genetic code. Science says so.Scientists from Kazakhstan believe that human DNA was encoded with an extraterrestrial signal by an ancient alien civilisation, Discovery.com reports.They call it "biological SETI" and the researchers claim that the mathematical code in human DNA cannot be explained by evolution.

Picture a 30-year-old male, wandering the wilderness alone, far from his friends, seeking love. Let's call him Manny.Picture him trudging from lake to lake in the Mexican mountains, having climbed nearly half a mile from his pals into the hills to the picturesque watering holes, in search of a mate.

Ancient DNA shows that bowhead whales bucked the trend to survive the last Ice Age, say scientists.The demise of cold-adapted land mammals such as mammoths has been linked to rising temperatures around 11,000 years ago.But researchers were surprised to find a contrasting population boom for whales living off the coast of Britain.

A giant "monumental" stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons, the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.

Disclosure is coming for the UFO world, or so we hope. Political activist Stephen Bassett, along with researchers and military witnesses, will tell their stories before former members of the U.S. House and Senate at the Citizens Hearing on Disclosure, starting at the end of April in Washington, D.C. They will testify about events and evidence that supports the idea that many people have of an extraterrestrial presence regularly engaging the human race. Their goal is to end the alleged ET truth embargo.

Saturn's rings are not just beautiful to look at; it turns out they are also responsible for rain falling on the planet.Using data collected from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, scientists found that the amount of "ring rain"--when water particles fall from Saturn's rings onto the planet below--is significantly more than previously thought, and may be responsible for the pattern of dark bands or shadows that appear on the planet's surface.

Last year's huge drought was a freak of nature that wasn't caused by man-made global warming, a new federal science study finds.Scientists say the lack of moisture usually pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico was the main reason for the drought in the nation's midsection.Thursday's report by dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies looked into why forecasters didn't see the drought coming. The researchers concluded that it was so unusual and unpredictable that it couldn't have been forecast.

Baby dinosaurs likely twitched inside their eggs to exercise developing muscles and spur bone development, according to a new study of the oldest embryonic dinosaur remains ever discovered.With a few rare exceptions, almost all known dinosaur embryos are from the Cretaceous period, which ended 65 million years ago. But scientists recently discovered hundreds of fossilized dinosaur embryo bones in China's Lufeng County (map) that date to the lower Jurassic period and are between 190 and 197 million years old.

The UN's International Court of Justice has set dates for public hearings on Australia's challenge against Japan's whaling programme in Antarctica.The hearings will start in June in The Hague, in the Netherlands, the court said in a statement on Thursday.Australia took legal action against Japan over whaling in 2010.

Scientists know that music can give intense pleasure by delivering chemical rewards in the brain that are equal to the joy of good food or even sex, but now they think they may have identified the part of the brain where this pleasure starts.Researchers scanned the brains of subjects while they listened to new songs and asked how much they would spend on buying the tracks. They found that the most popular songs - those which people were prepared to pay more for - were also the ones that elicited the strongest response in the nucleus accumbens, a structure in the centre of the brain that is involved in reward processing.

While NASA's proposed budget for 2014 unveiled this week reaffirms the space agency's ambitious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid, some members of Congress are pushing for a more familiar goal: a moon base by 2022.President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a bold plan to park an asteroid near the moon. Astronauts would then explore the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, with the first visit perhaps coming as early as 2021.

Mars is a funny place. It is both familiar and very alien. Take these sand dunes for example.There are countless examples of dunes on Mars -- features created by the transport of the fine Martian regolith blowing in the wind. The physics behind this movement of material is surprisingly complex, but not too dissimilar to the sand dunes you might find on a terrestrial beach or desert.

Ali Razeghi, a Tehran scientist has registered "The Aryayek Time Traveling Machine" with the state-run Centre for Strategic Inventions.The device can predict the future in a print out after taking readings from the touch of a user, he told the Fars state newsagency.Razaeghi, 27, said the device worked by a set of complex algorithims to "predict five to eight years of the future life of any individual, with 98 percent accuracy".

On the Red Sea shore at Wadi Al-Jarf area along the Suez-Zaafarana road, a French-Egyptian archaeological mission from the French Institute for Archaeological Studies (IFAO) stumbled upon what it believed to be the most ancient harbour ever found in Egypt.The harbour goes back to the reign of the fourth dynasty King Khufu, the owner of the Great Pyramid in Giza Plateau. The harbour is considered one of the most important commercial harbours where trading trips to export copper and other minerals from Sinai were launched.

A British man whose cancer surgery four years ago left his face disfigured has been given a new face that was created using a 3-D printer.Eric Moger, a 60-year-old restaurant manager, lost "the entire left side of his face, including his eye, his cheek bone and most of his jaw, leaving a gaping hole where his features had once been," according to London's Telegraph. Moger had eight reconstructive surgeries, but none was successful.

Fifty percent of the domestic honeybee population is dead, the greatest single-year loss of honeybees in the United States ever recorded. The dramatic loss of the bees is expected to affect consumers.LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Scientists and beekeepers have been baffled by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which is characterized by the sudden disappearance of the hive's worker population.According to the USDA, Symptoms of CCD include few or no adult honeybees present, honey and immature bees (broods) remain present in the hive suggesting a sudden abandonment of the hive--a possible response to stress. However, the bees are never found elsewhere, they simply disappear and die. Usually, the queen bee is left behind but dies without establishing a new population.

Bid adieu to Bordeaux, but also, quite possibly, a hello to Chateau Yellowstone. Researchers predict a two-thirds fall in production in the world's premier wine regions because of climate change.The study forecasts sharp declines in wine production from Bordeaux and Rhone regions in France, Tuscany in Italy and Napa Valley in California and Chile by 2050, as a warming climate makes it harder to grow grapes in traditional wine country.

The Mayan apocalypse may have been a bust, but a century-old understanding of the calendar that spawned the doomsday rumors appears to be right on.In a new study, scientists used modern methods to double-check the match between the Mayan Long Count calendar and the modern European calendar. Understanding how the two coincide is important, because research on the rise and fall of the Maya suggests that climate change spelled their doom. To be certain of that link, however, researchers have to be able to match carved Mayan historical records with dates in the modern calendar.

No dinosaur is more cherished than Tyrannosaurus rex. The Cretaceous king of the tyrants epitomizes the size, ferocity, and bizarre nature of dinosaurs that continues to enchant us. We're so smitten with T. rex that we are continually bringing the dinosaur back to life through art and film.Perhaps no restoration of the great carnivore has been as influential or celebrated as the genetically engineered tyrant that terrorizes Jurassic Park, which is being re-released in 3D today. Revived through computerized special effects and puppetry, the film's T. rex is a muscular, agile predator far more imposing than the tottering, tail-dragging representations that had appeared on film before. And in the 20 years since Jurassic Park debuted, as knowledge about T. rex has increased, the dinosaur has become even scarier still.

People in the United States who want to have children have been able to purchase donated sperm and eggs separately for some time, but the relatively recent practice of selling embryos introduces new ethical and legal issues that should be addressed, experts say.Most recently, a fertility clinic in Davis, Calif., began combining donor eggs and sperm to create embryos, which can then be used in fertility treatments for a price tag of $9,800 for a pregnancy, much cheaper than what it costs to become pregnant via traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to the Los Angeles Times. The clinic is able to offer the treatment at a lower cost because it creates a batch of embryos from a single sperm and single egg donor together, and then sells the embryos to multiple patients, the Times reported. Couples who opt for this method of fertility treatment would have no genetic relation to their children.

Scientists report that the meditating brain can control core body temperature, a finding that could help in boosting immunity to fight infectious diseases or immunodeficiency.A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Maria Kozhevnikov from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) studied Tibetan nuns practising a form of meditation known as g-tummo.

The most powerful solar flare of the year erupted from the sun today (April 11) sparking a temporary radio blackout on Earth, NASA officials say.The solar flare occurred at 3:16 a.m. EDT (0716 GMT) and registered as a M6.5-class sun storm, a relatively mid-level flare on the scale of solar tempests. It coincided with an eruption of super-hot solar plasma known as a coronal mass ejection."This is the strongest flare seen so far in 2013," NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox explained in a statement. "Increased numbers of flares are quite common at the moment, since the sun's normal 11-year cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum, which is expected in late 2013." .

A magnetic "solar heartbeat" beats deep in the sun's interior, generating energy that leads to solar flares and sunspots, according to new research.A new supercomputer simulation, described in the April 4 edition of the journal Science, probes the sun's periodic magnetic field reversals. Every 40 years, according to the model, the sun's zonal magnetic field bands switch their orientation, or polarity.That cycle is about four times longer than the 11-year sunspot cycle that governs the level of solar activity. Being able to model such a regular, long-term process is remarkable, the scientists said.

THE HUNT for some of the most wanted stuff in the universe took a new twist this week with the first results from a high-profile, space-based dark matter detector. The results are inconclusive, but, if combined with recent theory, they hint at something exciting. Could the universe have a dark side, complete with its own force, a zoo of particles and even a shadow version of the Milky Way?"There could be a mirror world where interesting things are going on," says James Bullock of the University of California at Irvine, who has been working on the idea of a "dark sector" for a while. "It means nature is much richer than we would otherwise know," he says.

The 2012 summer witnessed the largest ice loss ever in Greenland since scientists started recording melt rates there in 1979, and new research indicates that clouds might be the cause.The culprit behind the record-shattering level of ice melting in Greenland in 2012 may have been low, thin clouds, new research suggests.These novel findings, detailed in the April 4 issue of the journal Nature, may help answer climate mysteries elsewhere in the Arctic, the researchers said.

The police force in Nepal has introduced yoga lessons in an effort to slim down some of its heavier members.Officers at the Kathmandu HQ said they were concerned some staff were becoming too fat to carry out their duties.Obesity is an issue for many of Nepal's male and female officers who, once qualified, often forego the daily physical exercise they had to take to qualify for the force.

Experts have long wrangled over how the Mayan calendar - which leapt to global prominence last year when the superstitious said it predicted the end of the world - correlates to the European calendar.Texts and carvings from this now-extinct culture describe rulers and great events and attribute the dates according to a complex system denoted by dots and bars, known as the Long Count.

Dear Chris,I'm one of the many who in recent years discovered new and noteworthy ideas thanks to TED. You've grown TED into an important platform for the introduction of innovative thought to a popular audience; it's a wonderful vision and your achievement of it is widely appreciated. TED's prominence has made it, perhaps inadvertently, into an forum that validates worthy intellectual progress. If a good idea gets momentum, it will most likely end up, one way or another, presented by TED or one of the TEDx offshoots.That's why the censure of the TEDx talks by Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake is so dismaying. As you must know, to many of us the reasons behind their removal from the TED YouTube site are just not clear. On behalf of the Evolver community, I'd like to extend an invitation to you to help us understand the reasoning that led to TED's actions, because we suspect that behind your decision is an uninformed prejudice against groundbreaking research in a critical area of study, the possibility that consciousness extends beyond the brain.

A giant "monumental" stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.

AN EXPERT delving deep into the history of Nessie spotters is to reveal his findings on the 80th anniversary of the first modern-day sighting.Dr Charles Paxton, a statistical ecologist from St Andrews University, is working on the first catalogue of all known sightings of the Loch Ness monster in modern times.The researcher will present his findings at a conference this weekend, organised as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Most people still have a very last-century idea of what dinosaurs were like. No, T. rex didn't stand upright; lots of dinos were actually feathered, not leathery; and they may have been killed by a comet, not an asteroid.Now there's some new research to further muddle your mental image: Some of those clumsy-looking land dinosaurs, like the early tyrannosaur, may have actually been strong swimmers.

The shape of an individual's spinal column may predict his or her risk for nursing home admission or need of home assistance in old age, according to a new article published online in the Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.A team of researchers based in Japan discovered that the trunk angle of inclination -- the angle between the true vertical and a straight line from the first thoracic vertebra to the first sacral vertebra (view image) -- is associated with becoming dependent on help for activities of daily living (ADL). These activities include such basic self-care tasks as bathing, feeding, toileting, maintaining continence, dressing, and transferring in or out of a bed or chair.

An unusual prehistoric fish with fins near its butt has helped to solve the mystery over why most animals, including humans, have paired limbs.The fish, Euphanerops, is possibly the first creature on the planet to have evolved paired appendages, which in this case were fins. The 370-million-year-old species is described in the latest issue of Biology Letters.

By 2050, plane trips between the U.S. and Europe could take longer, use more fuel and be subject to more turbulence, according to a new study.The study investigated clear-air turbulence, or turbulence that occurs in clear sky instead of inside clouds or near mountains. Clear-air turbulence is impossible for pilots to spot or radar to detect, but models do exist to predict where and when it will occur.

Fruit-eating animals are known to use their spatial memory to relocate fruit, yet, it is unclear how they manage to find fruit in the first place. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now investigated which strategies chimpanzees in the Taï National Park in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, use in order to find fruit in the rain forest. The result: Chimpanzees know that trees of certain species produce fruit simultaneously and use this botanical knowledge during their daily search for fruit.

A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

As 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, picks up steam in industrial manufacturing and spurs the public imagination, scientists say the next frontier is 4-D printing: materials that fabricate themselves.3-D printing is now an established, popular manufacturing technique used to create rapid prototypes and production components with reduced lead times and costs. 3-D printing can be performed by desktop printers operating in the plastic medium or by larger industrial-strength devices that can make steel and stainless steel components.

In recent months, more than 1,000 starving baby sea lions have been found on Southern California beaches, from Santa Barbara to San Diego. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just declared the crisis an "unusual mortality event."On a recent early morning, Peter Wallerstein is on the job on a beach near Marina del Rey, Calif. His white truck is a familiar sight along this coastline. Next to him, a small blond dog named Pumpkin rides shotgun.Related: Is radiation from Fukushima to blame for a THOUSAND malnourished seals washing up on California beaches?

A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Maria Kozhevnikov from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences showed, for the first time, that it is possible for core body temperature to be controlled by the brain. The scientists found that core body temperature increases can be achieved using certain meditation techniques (g-tummo) which could help in boosting immunity to fight infectious diseases or immunodeficiency.

A couple of years ago, Brad Perry's dogs started having joint problems. Cowboy, the golden retriever, developed a severe case of arthritis, while Mr. Jones, the mutt, tore the ligaments in both of his knees during some overenthusiastic play."It was so sad. They wouldn't even come to the door to greet me they were in so much pain. It just broke my heart," recalled Perry, a tractor-trailer driver from Alexandria, Ky.

The ancient Egyptian sunken port-city of Thonis-Heracleion is now having some of its secrets revealed thanks to new research from the University of Oxford. The port-city served as the obligatory gateway to Egypt sometime around the first millennium BC, being the place where incoming cargo from other regions was inventoried and taxed, before being transferred to Egyptian ships for transport down the Nile.The region where this city was once located is now under water, and is located about 6.5 kilometers off of the present day coastline. Makes you wonder what the coastlines of the world will look like in a thousand or so years, and what modern cities will be underwater by then. When you factor in modern anthropogenic climate change, and the rate at which the seas are predicted to rise with it, it is likely to be quite a few.

According to reports from the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, serious damage to elements of the outer boundary of the world famous Nazca lines has been caused by heavy machinery belonging to a quarry firm removing limestone from the area.The damaged lines are located near the Panamericana Sur Highway and an adjacent area has also been affected. There are hundreds if not thousands of these lines and trapezoids on the Nazca plain with many of the most famous geogylphs such as the spider, hummingbird and monkey, etc. all undamaged.

An upcoming documentary promises to show an alleged, tiny "alien" being that was found a few years ago in Chile's Atacama Desert. And when we say tiny, we're talking six inches from head to ET toe.Don't be fooled by the apparent size of the creature in the picture above, as the following image shows its true 6-inch stature.The film, called "Sirius," will also depict how readily available forms of alternative energy technology are what extraterrestrials may be using to travel here from the cosmically improbable distances between their home world and ours.

Almost every month we see news dispatches from Mars, where the nuclear-powered rover Curiosity finds water-bearing minerals in rocks and other circumstantial clues that the Red Planet could have once supported life.But in terms of finding direct evidence of past or present Martians, the rover barely scratches the surface, says geochemist Jan Amend of the University of Southern California. Amend spoke at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., on April 5.

The degree to which Mars' atmosphere has thinned over time is evident in exquisite new measurements from Nasa's Curiosity rover.It has analysed the different types, or isotopes, of argon atoms in the planet's air.The study shows how a heavier version of the element has built up relative to a lighter one during Mars' history.It is confirmation that a substantial portion of the planet's original atmosphere has escaped into space.

A potential energy source for life appears to be common on Jupiter's icy moon Europa, a new study suggests.An analysis of infrared observations of Europa revealed that hydrogen peroxide is abundant on the ice-covered Jovian moon. If the hydrogen peroxide finds a way beneath Europa's surface and mixes with the moon's liquid water ocean, it could be a vital energy source for any life that might exist there, scientists said.

Albert Einstein famously described quantum entanglement as "spooky action at distance"; however, up until now experiments that examine this peculiar aspect of physics have been limited to relatively small distances on Earth.In a new study published today, 9 April, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, researchers have proposed using the International Space Station (ISS) to test the limits of this "spooky action" and potentially help to develop the first global quantum communication network.

Cooking waste from thousands of London restaurants and food companies is to help run what is claimed to be the world's biggest fat-fuelled power station.The energy generated from the grease, oil and fat that clogs the capital's sewers will also be channelled to help run a major sewage works and a desalination plant, as well as supplying the National Grid, under plans announced by Thames Water and utility company 2OC.

A University of Leeds-led study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, overturns the common assumption that evolution only occurs gradually over hundreds or thousands of years.Instead, researchers found significant genetically transmitted changes in laboratory populations of soil mites in just 15 generations, leading to a doubling of the age at which the mites reached adulthood and large changes in population size. The results have important implications in areas such as disease and pest control, conservation and fisheries management because they demonstrate that evolution can be a game-changer even in the short-term.

Researchers have found the strongest evidence yet that aerosols from burning fossil fuels are affecting coral growth.They say that these sooty particles can cool sea surface temperatures and limit the size of reefs.But they also believe this chilling effect could prevent the corals from bleaching in warmer waters.The research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Climate change could get worse quickly if huge amounts of extra heat absorbed by the oceans are released back into the air, scientists said after unveiling new research showing that oceans have helped mitigate the effects of warming since 2000.Heat-trapping gases are being emitted into the atmosphere faster than ever, and the 10 hottest years since records began have all taken place since 1998. But the rate at which the earth's surface is heating up has slowed somewhat since 2000, causing scientists to search for an explanation for the pause.

From lakes and grasslands with hippos and giraffes to a vast desert, North Africa's sudden geographical transformation 5,000 years ago was one of the planet's most dramatic climate shifts.The transformation took place nearly simultaneously across the continent's northern half, a new study finds. The results will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

The Harper government is pulling out of a United Nations convention that fights droughts in Africa and elsewhere, which would make Canada the only country in the world outside the agreement.The federal cabinet last week ordered the unannounced withdrawal on the recommendation of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, ahead of a major scientific meeting on the convention next month in Germany.The abrupt move caught the UN secretariat that administers the convention off guard, which was informed through a telephone call from The Canadian Press.

2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions or 30 percent of the carbon associated with deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2000 and 2010 was effectively exported in the form of beef products and soy, finds a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The research underscores the rising role that global trade plays in driving tropical deforestation.

Instead of typing your password, in the future you may only have to think your password, according to School of Information researchers. A new study explores the feasibility of brainwave-based computer authentication as a substitute for passwords.

Researchers at the University of Leeds may have solved a key puzzle about how objects from space could have kindled life on Earth.While it is generally accepted that some important ingredients for life came from meteorites bombarding the early Earth, scientists have not been able to explain how that inanimate rock transformed into the building blocks of life.

A wine-pressing complex covering more than 1,000 square feet (100 square meters) has been uncovered in Israel among the ruins of an ancient Byzantine settlement, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced this week.At the site near Hamei Yo'av, researchers found a ceramic lantern fashioned in the shape of a miniature church and carved with crosses, suggesting the centuries-old wine factory was owned by a Christian.

'Absurd' laws dealing with magic mushrooms, ecstasy and cannabis are hindering medical research, according to a former government drugs adviser.Prof David Nutt says he has funding to research the use of the chemical psilocybin - found in fungi known as "magic mushrooms" to treat depression.But he says "insane" regulations mean he cannot get hold of the drug.

Polls show the majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, but should dogs have it too? It sounds crackpot, but Veterinarian Doug Kramer thinks that the THC in marijuana could help dogs and other pets with painful conditions that don't respond to other treatments. VICE chatted with Kramer about his pot-for-pets campaign."A client first brought it to my attention," Kramer told VICE.

A strange green space rock hailed as perhaps the first meteorite ever discovered from Mercury may be too old to have come from the solar system's innermost planet, some scientists say.Last month, scientists announced that the green-hued meteorite NWA 7325 shares many chemical similarities with Mercury, suggesting it may be the first known visitor from the small, sun-scorched planet.

Can money buy immortality? Russian Internet mogul Dmitry Itskov believes that through his newest venture he'll be able to give humans the ability to live forever through his 2045 Initiative.By the year 2045, Itskov's group aspires to create the technology in which the person's consciousness is transferred into "hologram-like human avatars." Itskov's idea might not be technologically possible now, but that doesn't mean it isn't plausible in the near future.

As wars become increasingly automated, we must ask ourselves how far we want to delegate responsibility to machines. Where do we want to draw the line?Weapons systems have been evolving for millennia and there have always been attempts to resist them. But does that mean that we should just sit back and accept our fate and hand over the ultimate responsibility for killing to machines?

The deep blue sea is home to many a strange creature - giant squids, fish that look like blobs, and jellyfish that look like UFOs - but now we can add transparent-blooded fish to that list of strange-but-true animals.Experts at Tokyo Sea Life have researched into the Ocellated Ice Fish, which lives in the freezing waters of the Antarctic Ocean, and have found that it manages to live in exactly the same way that other fish do, but with clear blood.

The cooling system for a storage pool for fuel at one of the reactors at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan failed today for the second time in a month, although there was no immediate danger from the breakdown.Nuclear Regulation Authority spokesman Takahiro Sakuma said an alarm went off in the afternoon about the problem at reactor No. 3. The cause was still under investigation.

About 120 tons of contaminated water has leaked from an underground storage tank at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and may have mixed with underground water, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said April 6.TEPCO estimated that the water contained about 710 billion becquerels of radioactivity and leaked through the joints of protective sheets of the storage tank.

A group of ancient lines in the archaeological zone of Buenos Aires, in Nazca, have been destroyed by heavy machinery, El Comercio reported.According to the daily, the machinery belongs to a firm that is removing limestone from the area.The lines are located near kilometer marker 444 of the Panamericana Sur Highway. The area adjacent to the lines have reportedly also been affected, due to land being removed from the area.

Imagine if you were a super-villain who had taken control of all the world's gold, and had decided to melt it down to make a cube. How long would the sides be? Hundreds of metres, thousands even?Actually, it's unlikely to be anything like that size.Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest investors, says the total amount of gold in the world - the gold above ground, that is - could fit into a cube with sides of just 20m (67ft).But is that all there is? And if so, how do we know?

Babylon was one of the glories of the ancient world, its walls and mythic hanging gardens listed among the Seven Wonders.Founded about 4,000 years ago, the ancient city was the capital of 10 dynasties in Mesopotamia, considered one of the earliest cradles of civilization and the birthplace of writing and literature.But following years of plunder, neglect and conflict, the Babylon of today scarcely conjures that illustrious history.