Newsdesk Archive

Researchers diving off the coast of Georgia may have found the remains of an Atlantic gray whale, a relic of a population that was hunted to extinction by the 18th century.But this particular specimen died long before whalers became a threat. Carbon dating showed that the fossil, a left jawbone, is about 36,000 years old.The big bone was first discovered along with two badly eroded vertebrae near Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary about 20 miles (32 kilometers) off southeast Georgia in 2008.

FOR the first time in almost 60 years, Victorian authorities are attempting an island rescue of an endangered species.Considered extinct in the wild since 1991, the rabbit-sized eastern barred bandicoot has been introduced to French Island - 80 kilometres south-east of Melbourne in Western Port Bay.The release of 18 animals in July began an ambitious 12-month trial to establish if the grasslands of French Island would provide suitable habitat. Chief among the island's appeal is that it is fox-free.

The impact of a major drought in the Amazon rainforest in 2005 persisted far longer than previously believed, raising questions about the world's largest tropical forest to cope with the expected impacts of climate change, reports a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The research is based on analysis of rainfall observations and satellite data that measures characteristics of the forest, including water content in leaves and the overall structure of the canopy. The scientists, led by Sassan Saatchi of Caltech, looked at the response of the rainforest to the 2005 drought, which was the worst Amazon drought on record at the time.

If Santa Claus is getting the feeling that someone's looking over his shoulder as he rushes to make his Christmas deadline, he's not wrong: A succession of satellites is monitoring his North Pole workshop and the rest of the Arctic on a daily basis. Based on the satellite readings, the long-term outlook is worrisome, for Santa and the rest of us as well.This image shows the extent of Arctic sea ice, based on the latest microwave data from the Pentagon's DMSP-F17 satellite. Those readings are compared against the median extent for the same date over the 1979-2000 time frame. That median extent is indicated on the photo by the orange lines.

EVER since the 1930s, self-driving cars have been just 20 years away. Many of those earlier visions, however, depended on changes to physical infrastructure that never came about - like special roads embedded with magnets.Fast forward to today, and many of the modern concepts for such vehicles are intended to work with existing technologies. These supercomputers-on-wheels use a variety of onboard sensors - and, in some cases, stored maps or communications from other vehicles - to assist or even replace human drivers under specific conditions. And they have the potential to adapt to changes in existing infrastructure rather than requiring it to alter for them.

Engraved objects are usually seen as a hallmark of cognition and symbolism, which are viewed as important features of modern human behavior. In recent years, engraved ochre, bones and ostrich eggs unearthed from various Paleolithic sites in Africa, the Near East and Europe have attracted great attentions. However, such items are rarely encountered at Paleolithic sites in East Asia. According to article published in the journal of Chinese Science Bulletin (vol.57, No.26), Dr. GAO Xing, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team reported an engraved stone artifact in a stone tool assemblage at the Shuidonggou Paleolithic site, Ningxia, Northwest China.

Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, many of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe.The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as "fly agaric." These mushrooms are now commonly seen in books of fairy tales, and are usually associated with magic and fairies. This is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and were used by ancient peoples for insight and transcendental experiences.

Instead, Jesus was more likely to have been born in Bethlehem of the Galilee, a hillside village in northern Israel, The Times reports.Aviram Oshri, an Israeli archaeologist, told the paper that the genuine site of the Nativity had been mistaken by thousands."Bethlehem in the Galilee was inhabited by Jews at the time of Jesus, whereas the other Bethlehem? There is no evidence that it was a living site, an inhabited area in the first century.".

The first Christmas celebrated on land that is now part of the United States took place near Tallahassee, Fla., in 1539, according to historians there.The region is known for its sunny weather, so it definitely was not a white Christmas."It was not a very festive celebration either," Rachel Porter, special programs coordinator for the Florida Department of State, told Discovery News. "There were no Christmas trees or presents. Instead, it was a religious observance with a Christmas mass."

Islamists in Mali have begun destroying remaining mausoleums in the historic city of Timbuktu, an Islamist leader and a tourism official said."Not a single mausoleum will remain in Timbuktu," Abou Dardar, a leader of the Islamist group Ansar Dine, told AFP news agency.Islamists in control of northern Mali began earlier this year to pull down shrines that they consider idolatrous.

Entering the exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant is an unnerving experience.It is, strictly speaking, also illegal. It is an old cliché to say that radiation is invisible. But without a Geiger counter, it would be easy to forget that this is now one of the most contaminated places on Earth.The small village of Tatsuno lies in a valley 15km (9.3 miles) from the plant. In the sunlight, the trees on the hillsides are a riot of yellow and gold. But then I realise the fields were once neat rice paddies. Now the grass and weeds tower over me.

This may be old news to dinosaur history experts around the world, but many of us have continued to be fascinated by the Brontosaurus, which never actually existed.Still, as NPR reported Sunday, the story of how the Brontosaurus legend began is a fascinating tale that sheds light on the far-from-perfect origins of scientific discovery.In 1877, two paleontologists were competing to see who could make the most discoveries of dinosaur remains. Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope were bitter personal rivals who sometimes took extreme measures to show up one another. Their rivalry was so intense, it became known as the Bone Wars.

On 23 occasions over the past several years, wild dolphins were observed giving gifts to humans at the Tangalooma Island Resort in Australia. The gifts included eels, tuna, squid, an octopus and an assortment of many other types of different fin fish. While these gifts might not be your choice for a gift to find underneath your Christmas tree, some of the items that were offered to humans are highly valued food sources for cetaceans such as dolphins. A report describing this rare form of food sharing behavior in wild dolphins was published on December 4, 2012 in the journal Anthrozoös: A Multidisciplinary Journal of the Interactions of People & Animals.

You survived the Mayan apocalypse, or at least transitioned to the next baktun, number 14 according to the Mayan calendar. But what real lessons does this ancient culture hold?First and foremost, the Maya are a case study in adaptation. Their complex civilization of powerful city-states collapsed, and the jungle retook those urban centers. But the Mayan people endured, today being the principle ethnic population of parts of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.

A new analysis of temperature records indicates that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is warming nearly twice as fast as previously thought.US researchers say they found the first evidence of warming during the southern hemisphere's summer months.They are worried that the increased melting of ice as a result of warmer temperatures could contribute to sea-level rise.The study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The authorities in Argentina and Chile have issued an alert over increased activity at the Copahue volcano, which has begun spewing smoke and gas.Many residents have already left the area as a precaution.An orange volcano alert, the second highest, has been issued in both countries.The 3,000m (10,000ft) volcano is in Argentina's south-western Neuquen province, which borders the Biobio region of Chil.

On a day when global doomsday predictions failed to pan out, NASA had more good news for the Earth: An asteroid feared to be on a collision course with our planet no longer poses a threat.Uncertainties about the orbit of the asteroid, known as 2011 AG5, previously allowed for a less than a 1% chance it would hit the Earth in February 2040, NASA said.To narrow down the asteroid's future course, NASA put out a call for more observation. Astronomers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa took up the task and managed to observe the asteroid over several days in October.

The reusable Grasshopper rocket announced by Elon Musk to Wired in October has made a successful test flight.SpaceX founder, Musk, revealed the news via Twitter noting that the rocket rose 40 metres in the air during the 17 December flight -- that's around 12 storeys -- and hovered briefly before landing safely back on the ground in McGregor, Texas.

Nasa scientists are planning to capture a 500 ton asteroid , relocate it and turn it into a space station for astronauts on their way to Mars.The White House's Office of Science and technology will consider the £1.6bn plan in the coming weeks as it prepares to set its space exploration agenda for the next decade.If approved it would be the first time a celestial object has ever been moved by humans.A feasibility report prepared by Nasa and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists outlined how they would go about capturing the asteroid.A, 'asteroid capture capsule' would be attached to an old Atlas V rocket and directed the asteroid between the earth and the moon.

Since 2006, the Mexican government has undertaken a US-backed crackdown on drug cartels. Estimates suggest that around 60,000 people have been murdered, and the number of deaths is still rising.At the same time, in countries like Britain, we're buying more and more of the drugs that flow through Mexico. Our prohibition approach has failed to stop drug use, and it puts money in the hands of narco-terrorists and international criminals.Despite 50 years of criminalisation, illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in the world, after food and oil.

This Christmas, like many before it and many yet to come, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer will be told, including how the "jolly old elf" flies on his sleigh throughout the entire world in one night, giving gifts to all the good children.But according to one theory, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to an unlikely source: hallucinogenic or "magic" mushrooms."Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world," said John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

Doctor Who fans around the world are slowly gathering near their television sets as the Christmas Special relieves them of the dry spell following the early end of the last season. While you wait, fellow Whovians, take a look at this custom built TARDIS that appears to truly be bigger on the inside.Augmented Reality is one of those things that really seems to captivate everyone when it pops up.

Dead bodies can provide organs for transplants, now they might become a source of stem cells too. Huge numbers of stem cells can still be mined from bone marrow five days after death to be potentially used in a variety of life-saving treatments.Human bone marrow contains mesenchymal stem cells, which can develop into bone, cartilage, fat and other cell types. MSCs can be transplanted and the type of cell they form depends on where they are injected. Cells injected into the heart, for example, can form healthy new tissue, a useful therapy for people with chronic heart conditions.

If just one percent of drivers from commuter-heavy neighborhoods stayed off the road during rush hour, traffic congestion for everyone else would drop up to 18 percent, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of cellphone data.The finding provides a convincing incentive for people in specific neighborhoods to take the bus, carpool or work from home, according to research leader Marta Gonzalez, a civil and environmental engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Time to retrain our brains people. Just as touch-typing has become something of a sport, with lightning fast texting and constant keyboard contact, a new app is looking to change the paradigm. The Slice Keyboard app is a new on-screen rotary board that redefines typing by creating new finger movements.The idea is the typer will always have certain fingers on the touchscreen of their device. Depending on which circle the users' fingers are on, a rotary wheel appears with certain characters that allow the user to quickly access via simple taps.

It sounds like the plot of a bad Bruce Willis movie, but some experts are saying it should be a reality.In order to prepare for massive asteroids that could aim for Earth in the future, researchers should ram a spaceship into a real asteroid to see if the space rock would shift course, scientists say.

The climate after the largest mass extinction so far 252 million years ago was cool, later very warm and then cool again. Thanks to the cooler temperatures, the diversity of marine fauna ballooned, as paleontologists from the University of Zurich have reconstructed. The warmer climate, coupled with a high CO2 level in the atmosphere, initially gave rise to new, short-lived species. In the longer term, however, this climate change had an adverse effect on biodiversi-ty and caused species to become extinct.

The oldest-known representations of a pharaoh are carved on rocks near the Nile River in southern Egypt, researchers report.The carvings were first observed and recorded in the 1890s, but only rediscovered in 2008. In them, a white-crowned figure travels in ceremonial processions and on sickle-shaped boats, perhaps representing an early tax-collecting tour of Egypt.The scenes place the age of the carvings between 3200 B.C. and 3100 B.C., researchers report in the December issue of the journal Antiquity. During that time, Egypt was transitioning into the dynastic rule of the pharaohs."It's really the end of prehistory and the beginning of history," in Egypt, study researcher Maria Gatto told LiveScience.

The Baltic Crusades left major ecological and cultural scars on medieval pagan villages, and new archaeological evidence shows the campaign caused deforestation, pushed species to extinction and may have even ended a pagan practice of eating dogs.From the 12th century to the 16th century, a group of a Germanic Christian knights known as the Teutonic Order waged war against pagans, who viewed much of nature as sacred, in what is today Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and parts of Sweden and Russia. An archaeological and anthropological team, led by Stanford University researcher Krish Seetah, has been piecing together the changes that took place during this period, with an emphasis on the crusaders' use of wildlife.

The Mayan apocalypse believed by some to be taking place on Dec. 21, 2012, has apparently been preceded by multiple sightings of UFOs hovering over major U.S. cities. In the past week, San Francisco and Brooklyn were both treated to the sight of mysterious illuminated objects floating in the sky.On Dec. 3, in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, an amateur video captured a slow-moving parade of lights overhead. The trio of lights appeared to move in a coordinated fashion, slowing down and then moving again in roughly the same direction and at the same speed.

NASA's long-lived Mars rover Opportunity that beat newcomer sister probe Curiosity to an area containing water-formed clay minerals, has found that the spot may be far richer than scientists first realized.A new study looks at chemicals spotted by a Mars-orbiting spacecraft to conclude that Endeavour Crater, which Opportunity reached in August 2011 after a 1,000-plus day, 13-mile trek across the plains of Meridian, is flush with a variety of clays, which on Earth, form in the presence of water.

There are so many ways for speakers of English to see the world. We can glimpse, glance, visualize, view, look, spy, or ogle. Stare, gawk, or gape. Peek, watch, or scrutinize. Each word suggests some subtly different quality: looking implies volition; spying suggests furtiveness; gawking carries an element of social judgment and a sense of surprise. When we try to describe an act of vision, we consider a constellation of available meanings. But if thoughts and words exist on different planes, then expression must always be an act of compromise.

An experimental "Trojan-horse" cancer therapy has completely eliminated prostate cancer in experiments on mice, according to UK researchers.The team hid cancer killing viruses inside the immune system in order to sneak them into a tumour.Once inside, a study in the journal Cancer Research showed, tens of thousands of viruses were released to kill the cancerous cells.Experts labelled the study "exciting," but human tests are still needed.

Hypnotherapy helps fight IBS symptoms. These are the findings of a thesis from Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden which proposes implementing this treatment method into the care of severe sufferers of this common disease.Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is an very common stomach disease that manifests as abdominal pain and discomfort, disturbed bowel movements, abdominal swelling and bloating. Recent studies indicate that 10-15 percent of all Swedes suffer from IBS to varying degrees.Yet researchers still do not know what causes the condition and no effective treatment is available for those suffering from most severe symptoms.

Human skulls deliberately warped into strange, alien-like shapes have been unearthed in a 1,000-year-old cemetery in Mexico, researchers say.The practice of deforming skulls of children as they grew was common in Central America, and these findings suggest the tradition spread farther north than had been thought, scientists added.

CHICHEN ITZA, Mexico (Reuters) - Thousands of mystics, hippies and tourists celebrated in the shadow of ancient Maya pyramids in southeastern Mexico on Friday as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as the end of the world.New Age dreamers, alternative lifestyle gurus and curious onlookers from around the world descended on the ruins of Maya cities to mark the close of the 13th bak'tun - a period of around 400 years - in the Maya Long Calendar.

The Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range, may soon hold another record: it could become home to the greatest density of dams in the world. More than a thousand are either already operating, under construction or being planned in northern India, Nepal and Bhutan. Besides providing clean energy, they could improve flood control and access to drinking water. But they will also pose a serious threat to indigenous species.Hydroelectricity supplies about one-fifth of India's power, but even so nearly 300 million of the country's inhabitants have no access to electricity. More dams could help plug the energy shortfall: India's hydropower potential is estimated to be four times its current production of 39 gigawatts.

The editors of the journal Science have chosen the possible discovery of the elusive Higgs boson as the biggest breakthrough of 2012.The subatomic particle, named 50 years ago by physicist Peter Higgs, is what scientists believe gives mass to matter. The discovery is monumental because it confirms that the universe works the way that theoretical physicists think it does.Nine other groundbreaking achievements from 2012 were given honorable mention, including the safe landing of the Mars rover Curiosity this summer, and definitive proof that paralyzed patients could use their mind to move a robotic arm.

Evidence points to a further rise of just 1°C by 2100. The net effect on the planet may actually be beneficial.Forget the Doha climate jamboree that ended earlier this month. The theological discussions in Qatar of the arcana of climate treaties are irrelevant. By far the most important debate about climate change is taking place among scientists, on the issue of climate sensitivity: How much warming will a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide actually produce? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has to pronounce its answer to this question in its Fifth Assessment Report next year.

Not content with echolocation and being able to sense magnetic fields, when modern bats' ancestors learned to fly, they gained another superpower: immunity to some of the world's deadliest diseases.Bats carry many diseases, including SARS and Ebola, but very few actually make them sick. For an animal of their size, they also age very slowly, usually being killed by external causes rather than age or disease.But rather than just evolving to protect the animals from infectious diseases, this incredible immunity may have evolved in response to the extra stresses of flying.

Someday, Oahu's Koolau and Waianae mountains will be reduced to nothing more than a flat, low-lying island like Midway.But erosion isn't the biggest culprit. Instead, scientists say, the mountains of Oahu are actually dissolving from within."We tried to figure out how fast the island is going away and what the influence of climate is on that rate," said Brigham Young University geologist Steve Nelson. "More material is dissolving from those islands than what is being carried off through erosion.".

Until today, Alfred Russell Wallace's century old map from 1876 has been the backbone for our understanding of global biodiversity. Thanks to advances in modern technology and data on more than 20,000 species, scientists from University of Copenhagen have now produced a next generation map depicting the organisation of life on Earth. Published online in Science Express today, the new map provides fundamental information regarding the diversity of life on our planet and is of major significance for future biodiversity research.

Chinese researchers have identified a bacteria which may cause obesity, according to a new paper suggesting diets that alter the presence of microbes in humans could combat the condition.Researchers in Shanghai found that mice bred to be resistant to obesity even when fed high-fat foods became excessively overweight when injected with a kind of human bacteria and subjected to a rich diet.

Downloading a gun's design plans to your computer, building it on a three-dimensional printer and firing it minutes later. No background checks, no questions asked.Sound far-fetched? It's not. And that is disquieting for U.S. gun control advocates.At least one group, called Defense Distributed, is claiming to have created downloadable weapon parts that can be built using the increasingly popular new generation of printer that uses plastics and other materials to create 3-D objects with moving parts.

With $5 million from the search giant, the World Wildlife Fund is deploying unarmed drones to track and hunt down wildlife poachers.When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) wanted to fight animal poachers--illegal hunters of wildlife--they decided to bring in an unorthodox weapon: Drones. But these drones were different from the killer Predators of public imagination. Instead, they were unarmed, superlightweight, and users launch them by throwing them into the air--in fact, they are heavily modified model aircraft. After negotiations, Nepal was chosen as a pilot site for the wildlife drones. First launched in mid-2012, the WWF drones offered a new, experimental method of stopping poachers.

DAVIS, Calif., Dec. 20 (UPI) -- A meteorite that lit up the sky over California last spring was fast, rare and traveled a highly eccentric orbital route to get to Earth, scientists say.A 70-member international team has published its findings in the journal Science about the cosmic object that created a fireball over the Sierra foothills in Northern California.The meteorite that fell April 21 was a carbonaceous chondrite, the rarest type known to hit Earth, and was made up of of cosmic dust and presolar materials that helped form the planets in the earliest age of the solar system, they said.

The military judge in the 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others granted a government request to make all mention of alleged torture in the court classified. The defense called the ruling 'shameful.'In a significant victory for government prosecutors, the military judge presiding over the trial of accused 911 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has granted a government request to treat as classified any testimony or discussion about the alleged torture of Mr. Mohammed and others during CIA interrogations.

This area of eastern Kentucky is known for lush, green hillsides and white picket fences. It is a place where bluegrass music may be heard trailing off when a car passes by, where "downtown" is a two-block stretch of quaint shops.Life here may seem simple, but a darkness has been quietly nestling itself into the community."Rockcastle County is averaging one drug-related death per week," said Nancy Hale, an anti-drug activist and educator. "When your county is a little over 16,000 people and you're losing a person a week ... you're losing a whole generation."

The rise of space tourism is going to bring a new headache to doctors' doors: whether or not to approve their patients for spaceflight. Worse, a new paper cautions, there is no established protocol in place to judge a person fit for making the trip.The new study stops short of suggesting rigid regulation, saying that too much of it would hurt the space tourism industry before it even gets off the ground. Rather, the researchers encourage doctors to "consider developing a resource file for future reference.".

There are many carefully documented accounts in the medical literature of intense, life-altering religious experience in epileptic seizures. Hallucinations of overwhelming intensity, sometimes accompanied by a sense of bliss and a strong feeling of the numinous, can occur especially with the so-called "ecstatic" seizures that may occur in temporal lobe epilepsy. Though such seizures may be brief, they can lead to a fundamental reorientation, a metanoia, in one's life.

An unknown animal is attacking, but not eating, livestock in Kentucky, leaving many of the victims with gnawed or detached ears.According to WAVE News, the attacks have been ongoing for several weeks in Shelby County, Ky. At least five goats have had to be put to sleep due to their injuries, and a goat named Polka-dot has been left with just one ear.Kevin Cox, the local farmer who owns Polka-dot, has also had several of his bulls attacked, he told the news organization.

As the village bells struck noon, the moment at which the Mayans had supposedly predicted the world would end, Sylvain Durif was calmly playing the panpipes for a vast crowd of jostling camera crews. "I am Oriana, I embody the energy of cosmic Christ," he said. "When I was five I was abducted by a flying saucer belonging to the Virgin Mary. I'm here to get my message to the world, that there will be a regeneration.".

Forget toolmaking, think fisticuffs. Did evolution shape our hands not for dexterity but to form fists so we could punch other people? That idea emerges from a new study, although it runs counter to conventional wisdom.About the same time as we stopped hanging from trees and started walking upright, our hands become short and square, with opposable thumbs. These anatomical changes are thought to have evolved for tool manipulation, but David Carrier at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has an alternative explanation.

After conducting the largest online intelligence study on record, a Western University-led research team has concluded that the notion of measuring one's intelligence quotient or IQ by a singular, standardized test is highly misleading.The findings from the landmark study, which included more than 100,000 participants, were published today in the journal Neuron. The article, "Fractionating human intelligence," was written by Adrian M. Owen and Adam Hampshire from Western's Brain and Mind Institute (London, Canada) and Roger Highfield, Director of External Affairs, Science Museum Group (London, U.K).

Two elephants have been saved from the deadly Siberian cold by drinking vodka, Russian officials say.They say the animals had to be taken out into the bitter cold after the wooden trailer they were travelling in caught fire in the Novosibirsk region.The elephants, aged 45 and 48, suffered frostbite to the tips of their ears amid temperatures of -40C (-40F)But they were warmed up by two cases of vodka mixed with warm water, one official was quoted as saying.

Wild elephants living in North China 3,000 years ago belonged to the extinct genus Palaeoloxodon, scientists say.They had previously been identified as Elephas maximus, the Asian elephant that still inhabits southern China.The findings suggest that Palaeoloxodon survived a further 7,000 years than was thought.The team from China examined fossilised elephant teeth and ancient elephant-shaped bronzes for the study.

Curators at the National Museum of London have discovered what they believe to be the first ever recordings of a family Christmas.They were made 110 years ago by the Wall family who lived in New Southgate in North London.There are 24 clear recordings on wax cylinders which were made using a phonograph machine between 1902 and 1917.Music curators say the sound quality of the music recorded is outstanding.

The idea that we live in a simulation is just science fiction, isn't it?There is a famous argument that we probably do live in a simulation. The idea is that in future, humans will be able to simulate entire universes quite easily. And given the vastness of time ahead, the number of these simulations is likely to be huge. So if you ask the question: 'do we live in the one true reality or in one of the many simulations?', the answer, statistically speaking, is that we're more likely to be living in a simulation.

Despite sharing 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, humans have much bigger brains and are, as a species, much more intelligent. Now a new study sheds light on why: Unlike chimps, humans undergo a massive explosion in white matter growth, or the connections between brain cells, in the first two years of life.The new results, published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, partly explain why humans are so much brainier than our nearest living relatives. But they also reveal why the first two years of life play such a key role in human development.

Through his interpretation of the Scriptures and because the 5,125 year cycle of the Mayan long calendar ends on Friday 21 December, the Dutch evangelical Christian is ready for a second flood of Biblical proportions. "It may be another 10 years. The Scripture says that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. You need to be ready every day," Mrs van der Meer told the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper."But as far as tomorrow is concerned, we have to see whether we see the end. If so, we're done. We wait in confidence. The end of time is bad, but what comes next is beautiful."

Despite a flood of debunking from news agencies and NASA, belief in the upcoming Mayan apocalypse is apparently still going strong.From China to the Americas, people are reacting to the alleged doomsday with more fear than skepticism, according to multiple news reports. Space agency NASA is fielding hundreds of concerned calls, and hundreds of members of a religious group in northwest China have been arrested for spreading doomsday rumors.

We are the authors of our own future. For my views on the meaning of 21 December 2012 see pages 7 through 9 here:http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG2.php. The last fifteen minutes (from 1.12.08 to 1.25.11) of this presentation I gave in January 2010 (at a conference in Mexico on the subject of 2012) are also relevant: http://youtu.be/X4k8pdJ2so4?t=1h12m8s.

Researchers involved in a new study led by Oxford University have found that between three million and 3.5 million years ago, the diet of our very early ancestors in central Africa is likely to have consisted mainly of tropical grasses and sedges. The findings are published in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.An international research team extracted information from the fossilised teeth of three Australopithecus bahrelghazali individuals -- the first early hominins excavated at two sites in Chad. Professor Julia Lee-Thorp from Oxford University with researchers from Chad, France and the US analysed the carbon isotope ratios in the teeth and found the signature of a diet rich in foods derived from C4 plants.

Garlic sales are up. Wooden crosses are a hot commodity. That can only mean one thing: Vampire on the loose!But this isn't part of a movie script or book. It's a real-life event in the Serbian town of Zarozje (map), where last month the local council issued a public health warning that the resident vampire, Sava Savanovic, may be on the prowl.The vampire scare was sparked by reports that an old mill where the vampire allegedly lived has collapsed. According to ABC News, the town's mayor, Miodrag Vujetic, said: "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else [to live] and possibly other victims is terrifying..."

As millions of us post our Christmas cards -- many of which star a robin red breast -- ecologists are investigating whether birds make us happy. Speaking at this week's British Ecological Society Annual Meeting, researchers will reveal how they are investigating the links between birds and our well-being, and explain how their results -- due out next year -- could have a major impact on UK bird conservation.There has been an increasing amount of research on the health benefits of green spaces such as parks and nature reserves, but we know far less about how the wildlife within these habitats contributes towards well-being benefits.

The pygmy right whale, a mysterious and elusive creature that rarely comes to shore, is the last living relative of an ancient group of whales long believed to be extinct, a new study suggests.The findings, published today (Dec. 18) in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may help to explain why the enigmatic marine mammals look so different from any other living whale."The living pygmy right whale is, if you like, a remnant, almost like a living fossil," said Felix Marx, a paleontologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. "It's the last survivor of quite an ancient lineage that until now no one thought was around.".

Astronomers have discovered what may be five planets orbiting Tau Ceti, the closest single star beyond our solar system whose temperature and luminosity nearly match the sun's. If the planets are there, one of them is about the right distance from the star to sport mild temperatures, oceans of liquid water, and even life. Don't pack your bags just yet, though: The discovery still needs to be confirmed.Tau Ceti is only 12 light-years from Earth, just three times as far as our sun's nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri.

A British attempt to search for life in an ancient lake beneath the Antarctic ice-sheet has run into trouble.The team has reported "a serious problem" with the main boiler used to heat the water that powers a drill.Work was halted on Saturday in what could prove to be a major blow to the project to investigate sub-glacial Lake Ellsworth.The aim is to use 90C water to blast a hole through the two-mile-thick ice-sheet to reach the lake waters below.

It is an astonishing image that could have come straight from the plot of a Ridley Scott movie.Archaeologists in Mexico today revealed the astonishing skull of a person suffering from a cranial disfiguration.Believed to be 1,000 years old, the find was made near the small Mexican village of Onavas.The find is believed to be the first in the region showing the practice of binding a skull to change its shape.

One in 10 of us is said to be anxious that 21 December marks the end of the world. The Ancient Mayans predicted this doomsday, and the press is eating it up. But where are all the believers?That the world will end in 2012 is the most widely-disseminated doomsday tale in human history, thanks to the internet, Hollywood and an ever-eager press corps.Recent hurricanes, unrest in the Middle East, solar flares, mystery planets about to collide with us - all "proof" of what the ancient Mayans knew would come to pass on 21 December 2012.

Today, the Guardian guffaws in the faces of those "very silly people" who believe that, according to Mayan prophecy, the world will end this Friday.You know what? The Guardian's mocking of dumb foreigners for believing the world is about to curl up and die would be way more convincing if the Guardian itself hadn't for the past four years been publishing a countdown to the end of the world. Yes, that's right, the same paper that sniffily sneers at the "idiocy" of Mayan-obsessed Ruskies and Chinese is doing its very own, supposedly scientific (ha ha) countdown to when there will be "irreversible climate change" leading to a "disaster" that will "clearly threaten human civilisation". That's a fancy way of saying "when the world will end".Where the Mayan prophecy (which doesn't actually exist) at least gave us a few thousand years to prepare for the end of the world, the Guardian has given us a mere 100 months.

Gloriously grand, gnarly and twisted, big old trees are the kings of the forest, providing food and shelter for humans and animals since the dawn of time.And they make pretty nifty places to build treehouses too!But now scientists say these ancient giants are under threat. According to a report published recently in the journal Science, death rates have increased alarmingly among trees between 100 and 300 years old.

When you hear about climate change it's most often about melting glaciers and sea ice, increasing frequency of heatwaves and powerful storms. Maybe, just maybe, you'll hear about the acidification of the oceans too. What you don't hear about is the saltiness of the seas. But that's changing too, according to a new piece of research just published in Geophysical Research Letters (see the abstract and figures).

The American reaction to Sputnik was diverse. Laymen and aerospace professionals alike were divided; some were unthreatened by the Soviet feat while others were fearful, eager to see national programs fast tracked to match the adversary in the new realm of space.United States Air Force Physicist Leonard Reiffel had a more drastic reaction. In 1958, he published a report that proposed nuking the moon.The motivation for detonating a nuclear device, Reiffel wrote, "is clearly threefold: scientific, military and political." The report, innocuously titled A Study of Lunar Research Flights, focuses almost exclusively on the scientific benefits from such a mission.

A team of dental physical scientists have been using x-ray diffraction to study the development of children's teeth in order to track migration patterns of our ancestors.The team has been using the festively-named XMaS facility (X-ray Magnetic Scattering) at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble to perform detailed analysis of tooth structure and composition. The work will make it possible to re-interpret archaeological records of ancient human migrations and may also help scientists to regrow human teeth lost due to disease or age.

Sir John Gurdon, whose work cloning frogs in the 1950s and 60s led to the later creation of Dolly the sheep by Edinburgh scientists in 1996, said that progression to human cloning could happen within half a century.Although any attempt to clone an entire human would raise a host of complex ethical issues, the biologist claimed people would soon overcome their concerns if the technique became medically useful.In-vitro fertilisation was regarded with extreme suspicion when it was first developed but became widely accepted after the birth of Louise Brown, the first "test tube baby", in 1978, he explained.

After draining four-fifths of its massive underground aquifer for unsustainable agriculture, the Saudi Kingdom turns to verdant Ethiopia.The cows appear on the horizon like a mirage. Drive about a hundred miles (160 kilometers) through the Arabian Desert southeast from Riyadh, and you will come across one of the world's largest herds of dairy cattle. Some 40,000 Friesian cows survive in one of the driest places on the planet, with temperatures regularly reaching 110°F (43°C).The cows live in six giant air-conditioned sheds, shrouded in a mist that keeps them cool. They churn out 53 million gallons (200 million liters) of milk a year, which heads off down the highway in a constant stream of tankers.

EVEN ancient cities knew about rebranding. Troy was destroyed by war about 3200 years ago - an event that may have inspired Homer to write the Iliad, 400 years later. But the famous city rose again, reinventing itself to fit a new political landscape.Troy lies in north-west Turkey and has been studied for decades. Pottery made before the war has a distinct Trojan style but after the war its style is typical of the Balkans. This led archaeologists to believe that the locals had been forced out and replaced by populations from overseas.

As planned, NASA's two Grail spacecraft crashed into the moon yesterday afternoon, hitting a mountain at about 2:28 pm.The probes, named Ebb and Flow, hit the southern face of the 1.5 mile-high mountain near a crater named Goldschmidt at a speed of 3,760 mph, or about 1.7 kilometers per second. Because the site was in shadow at the time of impact, there's unfortunately no imagery.Fifty minutes before the impact, the spacecraft fired their engines until their propellant was depleted...

On December 18, 1912, Charles Dawson told The Geological Society of London that a workman had uncovered the remains of one of the earliest humans in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England. The skull fragments and lower jaw bone of the "Piltdown Man" showed that it had a brain two-thirds the size of a modern human's and a jaw remarkably similar to that of a young chimpanzee.The Piltdown Man became a starring figure in the human evolutionary tree over the next 40 years. (Popular Science even published a feature in 1931 about the "man-ape.")

The apocalypse is surely near when Ramzan Kadyrov emerges as the voice of reason.The ruthless leader of Chechnya is among dozens of Russians officials, priests, doctors and psychiatrists aiming to calm an anxious populace frantically preparing for the end of the world later this week."People are buying candles saying the end of the world is coming," Kadyrov said in comments published on his official website last week. "Does no one realise that once the end of the world comes, candles won't help them?"

Anyone worried that the world will come to an end Friday (Dec. 21) can scan the heavens online this week for any signs of death from above.The online Slooh Space Camera will broadcast a series of live cosmic views all week, beginning today (Dec. 17). The free webcasts will help the public keep watch for any monster solar storms, impending asteroid strikes or other potential agents of the so-called "Mayan apocalypse" that doomsayers claim is set for Friday.

The fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been leaked to the web by a climate skeptic named Alec Rawls.Rawls, who is based in the United States and was chosen as one of the report's 800 expert reviewers, admitted leaking the document and justified his actions by pointing to a sentence that he says "undercuts the main premise and the main conclusion of the full report, revealing the fundamental dishonesty of the whole."The sentence in question deals with the effect of cosmic rays on the climate, and skeptics have interpreted it as meaning that cosmic rays have a greater warming effect than the actions of humans.

The Yakama Nation has asked the federal government to halt the planned replacement of a natural gas pipeline over southwest Washington's White Salmon River.The tribe claims the pipeline will hurt a known archaeological site that is of cultural significance to the Yakama people. Tribal chairman Harry Smiskin says the tribe was never consulted about replacement plans and asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to immediately halt construction plans.

NEW SCIENTISTA species of octopus has been found to use coconut shells as tools to hide from potential threats.

Dolphins and crickets might have more in common than you think.A large group of insects that includes crickets and katydids is believed to share a hearing feature with toothed whales like dolphins, according to a new study."We don't know why animals who are so far apart in evolutionary terms have this similarity, but it opens up the possibility that others may use the same system component," Windmill added.

To help protect a diminutive elephant, researchers are taking an innovative look at the pachyderm's genome.The goal is to understand the genetic diversity of pygmy elephants on the island of Borneo. Numbering about 2,000, these babyish-looking elephants are the most endangered subspecies of Asian elephant. They live primarily in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo, where they are threatened by the loss and fragmentation of their forest, often by development associated with palm oil, a widely used, edible plant oil.

The National Geographic Society has announced the next phase of its Genographic Project -- the multiyear global research initiative that uses DNA to map the history of human migration. Building on seven years of global data collection, Genographic shines new light on humanity's collective past, yielding tantalizing clues about humankind's journey across the planet over the past 60,000 years."Our first phase drew participation from more than 500,000 participants from over 130 countries," said Project Director Spencer Wells, a population geneticist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. "The second phase creates an even greater citizen science opportunity -- and the more people who participate, the more our scientific knowledge will grow.".

A UNLV research team recently unearthed fossil remains from an extinct wolf species in a wash northwest of Las Vegas, revealing the first evidence that the ice age mammal once lived in Nevada.The metapodial, or foot bone, was uncovered late last year by UNLV geologist Josh Bonde during a survey of the Upper Las Vegas Wash. They have now confirmed that the bone comes from a dire wolf.

Forget old conspiracy theories about snake bites and fatal poisons. Egyptian King Ramesses III died after a brutal throat slashing, a new study says.The study provides the latest twist in a mystery that has long perplexed researchers.Did a venomous viper take him out? Poison? An assassination plot in a reign tainted by war?And if it were the latter, who did it?Researches say he died at the hands of a killer in a plot planned by one of his wives and a son who wanted to succeed him.

Scientists are studying the Earth's magnetic field using the stones that line Maori steam ovens.The cooking process generates so much heat that the magnetic minerals in these stones will realign themselves with the current field direction.An archaeological search is under way in New Zealand to find sites containing old ovens, or hangi as they are known.Abandoned stones at these locations could shed light on Earth's magnetic behaviour going back hundreds of years.

Two NASA moon probes are slated to slam into the rim of a lunar crater today (Dec. 17), and the space agency will give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the dramatic action.The twin Grail spacecraft, known as Ebb and Flow, will crash intentionally near the moon's north pole at 5:28 p.m. EST (2228 GMT) today, bringing their gravity-mapping mission to a spectacular close. The event will be broadcast on NASA TV and streamed live on the agency's website, beginning at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT).

New video recorded last week shows a flyby of a giant asteroid near Earth.The asteroid known as 4179 Toutatis approached Earth's vicinity on Dec. 12 and was still able to be seen by telescope the day after. The massive 3-mile-wide asteroid was caught on video by scientists at NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif.The 40 second long video can be seen at Space.com and was put together using a combination of around 64 radar images gathered from Toutatis's two day pass. The high-quality images reveal the details of the asteroid's composition including ridges and bright glints that may be surface boulders.

Following a brief inspection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday, Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim gave the go-ahead for a long-awaited initiative aimed at developing the famous museum.Egyptian Museum Director Salwa Abdel-Rahman said the development project would be completed in three phases. The first phase will involve the development of Hall 32, home to a large collection of Old Kingdom artefacts unearthed at the Saqqara Necropolis; and Hall 37, which displays the funerary collection of Queen Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu, the builder of Egypt's Great Pyramid.

OK, so let's assume that nothing is real in the sense that we understand reality. We and everyone and everything we know are part of a computer simulation created by an advanced post-human intelligence. Scientists have considered the theory and come up with arguments for and against it. Before now, though, no one has suggested a test could be run to find out one way or another. Do we want to know?For those who spend enough time playing World of Warcraft, the line between what is "real" and what isn't probably blurs from time to time. However, a far deeper and more philosophical question has been raised: whether life, the universe and everything is actually just a computer simulation.

Australia announced plans to drill a 2,000 year-old ice core in the heart of Antarctica in a bid to retrieve a frozen record of how the planet has evolved and what might be in store.The Aurora Basin North project involves scientists from Australia, France, Denmark and the United States who hope it will also advance the search for the scientific "holy grail" of the million-year-old ice core.

Researchers say that large man-made reservoirs can increase the intensity of rainfall and could affect flood defences.The scientists found that rain patterns around bodies of water in Chile were much higher than in similar areas without them.This "lake effect" could overwhelm flood defences which are often built without taking it into account.The study has been accepted for publication in the journal Hydrology.

I was interviewed by BBC Radio 4 on the meaning of 2012. Documentary airs tonight at 8pm UK time and will be available from tomorrow for free download worldwide on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pbq40. A snippet from the same interview was also run by the BBC yesterday and is available for free download here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/sunday. I'm on between 16 mins 40 and 22 mins 47.-Graham

Faults Under Japan's Nuclear Power:A second nuclear plant in Japan sits atop a possibly active seismic fault, government-appointed experts said Friday, days after the first facility was said to be at risk.A panel appointed by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said fractured strips of earth beneath the Higashidori plant's compound in northern Japan may be active faults, meaning it would likely have to be scrapped.

Half a century after America's first partial nuclear meltdown, hundreds of radioactive hot spots remain at a former research facility overlooking the west San Fernando Valley, according to a recently released federal study.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's $41-million survey of the facility, now owned by Boeing Co. and NASA, is expected to provide a precise map for state and federal agencies hoping to clean up the site by 2017.