Newsdesk Archive

St. Petersburg residents were scratching their heads about the existence of UFOs on Tuesday after seeing mysterious lights hover over their city overnight.At least four people in the north of the city captured the unidentified lights on video on Monday night and posted them to YouTube."I filmed this out of the window in the evening," wrote one person, who identified himself only as Newnarva. "There were two objects. After I ran for my camera, only one was left.

A newly unveiled firm's asteroid-mining plans may be ambitious, but they're not any crazier than some extractive operations already under way here on Earth, company officials say.The billionaire-backed Planetary Resources, Inc. announced Tuesday (April 24) that it hopes to mine near-Earth asteroids for water and precious metals, with the dual aims of making a tidy profit and helping open the final frontier to further exploration and exploitatio.

World population needs to be stabilised quickly and high consumption in rich countries rapidly reduced to avoid "a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills", warns a major report from the Royal Society.Contraception must be offered to all women who want it and consumption cut to reduce inequality, says the study published on Thursday, which was chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the cause of the Bhoja Air Boeing 737 crash in Pakistan last Friday may have been a UFO sighting by the pilot.A Russian news report on the crash posted on YouTube incorporates footage of three mysterious lights moving in formation, leading to speculation in the UFO community that blame for the tragic accident may lie with an extra-terrestrial craft.There are rumours that the pilot may have been buzzed by the object and complained to the control tower at Islamabad airport as he made his approach, according to Gather News.

"Coffee shops" where small amounts of cannabis have been legally bought and smoked, on or off the premises, since 1976, have become a major industry and a popular tourist attraction in many Dutch cities, especially the capital.But the Dutch government has in recent years launched a major overhaul of the country's "gedoogbeleid" or tolerance policy on soft drugs in order to combat drug tourism, which has is associated with public rowdiness in border towns, such as Maastricht, that lie close to Belgium, France and Germany.

Mayors from eight B.C. communities have added their voices to calls to the provincial government to regulate and tax marijuana as part of a strategy to end gang violence and make communities safer.Mayors from Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver City, Vernon, Armstrong, Enderby, Lake Country and Metchosin made the argument in an April 26 letter to B.C.'s premier, Opposition NDP leader and B.C. Conservative Party leader.Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was unavailable for comment Thursday, but Coun. Kerry Jang, who is also professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, said the current federal laws have failed.

Scientists are attempting to understand how trees from Scotland's ancient Caledonian forest fare in different climates.The James Hutton Institute has gathered seeds from 21 native pinewoods in what remains of the forest.Saplings are being planted at Inverewe Gardens on Wester Ross's damp and mild coast.A similar project is to be run in Aberdeenshire where the climate is sunnier, but cooler and drier.

A prize-winning light bulb that lasts for 20 years is going on sale in the US on Sunday - also known as Earth Day.Made by Dutch electronics giant Philips, the bulb swaps filaments for light-emitting diodes to provide illumination.Using LEDs endows the light with a long life and a hefty price tag. The first versions are set to cost $60 (£37).Philips has arranged discounts with shops that will sell the bulb meaning some could buy it for only $20 (£12).Note: Find the bulb on Amazon CA, UK, US.

The Special Archaeological Superintendent for Naples and Pompeii confirmed the collapse of the red-frescoed wall next to an unidentified villa in an area already closed to the public.The collapse of the wall is particularly embarrassing for the government as it follows several other incidents at the world heritage site in the past two year.There is growing concern Italy's ability to protect it from further degradation and the impact of the local Mafia or Camorra.

Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they stress that large scale drilling might not be the best way of increasing water supplies.

Data from NASA's Cassini mission reveal Saturn's moon Phoebe has more planet-like qualities than previously thought.Scientists had their first close-up look at Phoebe when Cassini began exploring the Saturn system in 2004. Using data from multiple spacecraft instruments and a computer model of the moon's chemistry, geophysics and geology, scientists found Phoebe was a so-called planetesimal, or remnant planetary building block. The findings appear in the April issue of the Journal Icarus.

The planet lies in what they describe as a 'habitable zone', neither too near its sun to dry out or too far away which freezes it.And the discovery could help answer the question of whether we are alone in the universe, which has been plagued astronomers and alien fanatics for years.Scientists found the planet, Gliese 667Cc, orbiting around a red dwarf star, 22 light years away from the earth.

Researchers at Northwestern University have created a system by which a paralyzed hand can be controlled through an implant in the brain by "eavesdropping" on the brain's commands and relaying them to corresponding implant in the arm.The study, led by Lee E. Miller at NWU's Feinberg School of Medicine, demonstrated that a monkey, its hand temporarily disabled by an anesthetic, could perform simple movements far better with the implants, together called a "neuroprosthesis," in place.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) - Nearly 60 archeological sites dating back 6,000 years have been unearthed during construction of a road near Rio, an archaeologist said Thursday."Last week, we found a small stone well dating back to the (Portuguese) colonial period with clear water and we stopped work," said Jandira Neto, who led the 40-member team of the Brazilian Archaeology Institute (IAB) that made the discovery.

For archaeologists and students of archaeology, hearing the name "Jerusalem" conjures up images of ancient artifacts that can be found in few other places in the world. But recent archaeological excavations there have uncovered something that has not been commonly found.Directed by Israeli archaeologists Eli Shukron and Joe Uziel under the sponsorship of the Israel Antiquities Authority, excavations have recovered an ancient Egyptian scarab dated to the 13th century B.C.E. (the Late Bronze Age).

Missing fragments from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead have been uncovered deep in the stores of the Queensland Museum.The manuscript belonged to a high-ranking Egyptian official who lived in 1420 BC.It was believed to contain magical spells to guide the dead to the afterlife.Parts of the manuscript were discovered in the late 19th Century, but archaeologists have never found it all.

Technology invented by a University of California, Davis, researcher that converts solid waste into renewable energy is debuting today as the first commercially available, high-solid anaerobic digestion system in the United States.Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering, has been working on her anaerobic digester technology for the past decade, bringing it from the laboratory to the pilot stage in 2006.

A European team of researchers led by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland has developed a prototype of a new, ultra-compact motor that will enable small satellites to journey beyond Earth's orbit. The objective of this new motor is to make space exploration less expensive. The result is an outcome of the MICROTHRUST ('Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based electric micropropulsion for small spacecraft to enable robotic space exploration and space science') project, which is supported under the Space Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), to the tune of EUR 1.9 million.

Off the coast of Antarctica undersea vents provide a hot spring sanctuary supporting new species. Oxford University shares their video of these never-before-seen underwater animals.

Hoping to better understand conditions where life can form and grow, scientists want to explore three of Jupiter's large icy moons which may resemble some of the planets found orbiting stars beyond our solar system.Europa, Callisto and Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, are all believed to have liquid oceans beneath their icy shells, as well as organic chemistry and possible sources of energy beyond the dim amount of sunlight that reaches their distant surfaces. These are all conditions that may be required for life in much more distant planetary bodies.

If diet is destiny, then modern humans should thank our ancestors for their ability to eat just about anything.Two new studies peek into the distant past to try to figure out just how big a role food played in human evolution. One says that eating meat made it possible for early human mothers to wean babies earlier and have more children.

Cleopatra's twin babies now have a face. An Italian Egyptologist has rediscovered a sculpture of Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, the offspring of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.Discovered in 1918 near the temple of Dendera on the west bank of the Nile, the sandstone statue was acquired by the Egyptian Museum but has remained largely overlooked.The back of the 33-foot sculpture, catalogued as JE 46278 at the museum, features some engraved stars -- likely indicating that the stone was originally part of a ceiling. Overall, the rest of the statue appears to be quite unusual.

Bowerbirds are the first known nonhumans to cultivate plants for use other than food.The flashy birds propagate fruits used as decorations in their elaborate sexual displays, according to a paper published today in Current Biology.Male bowerbirds appear to have the green thumb, as researchers discovered that these avians had an unusually high number of fruit-growing plants around their bowers. The scientists then noticed that the amorous males use the flowers to woo available females.

Retrieving a lost soccer ball is standard fare for many teenagers, but one Japanese schoolboy is getting his ball back all the way from Alaska, where it drifted following last year's tsunami.Misaki Murakami, 16, lost his house and all its contents when the massive waves of last March crushed his hometown of Rikuzentakata in Japan's northeast.But now, thanks to an observant beachcomber in the Gulf of Alaska, he is set to have his soccer ball returned to him, identified by the "good luck" messages scrawled on it by former schoolmates.

Sydney - Parts of an Egyptian scroll dating from 1420 BC missing for 120 years have been found in the basement of Australia's Queensland Museum, a report said on Saturday.The discovery was made by the British Museum's curator of ancient Egyptian artefacts, who was visiting the museum in Brisbane to open a special exhibit on Egyptian mummies, The Australian newspaper said.

Traces of ancient viruses which infected our ancestors millions of years ago are more widespread in us than previously thought.A study shows how extensively viruses from as far back as the dinosaur era still thrive in our genetic material.It sheds light on the origins of a big proportion of our genetic material, much of which is still not understood.The scientists investigated the genomes of 38 mammals including humans, mice, rats, elephants and dolphins.

The Feb. 27 letter from the chairman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes was pleading and tough. It asked President Obama to slow the federal government's "frantic pursuit" of massive solar energy projects in the Mojave Desert because of possible damage to Native American cultural resources.The Obama administration didn't respond. But four days after Chairman Eldred Enas sent the letter, the Indians say they found an answer, delivered by spirits of the desert.

I am not a marijuana smoker and never will be. Based on what I have seen, even casual use can be psychologically addicting. If consumed heavily, pot can sap ambition, destroy creative energy and ruin lives. Except for some very sick people, weed is something to avoid.But just because an activity is foolish, that doesn't mean we should pass laws against it and spend billions of dollars locking up the offenders. That's especially true if prohibition creates a huge, violent black market for the thing being outlawed and generates costs out of proportion to any social good the ban produces. Such is the case with marijuana criminalization, and it's time to put an end to it.

A newly discovered skeleton from an ancient three-toed horse not only provides information about ancient Tibetan wildlife, but it also sheds light on the habitat and elevation of Tibet nearly 5 million years ago.This area of the world, called the Tibetan plateau, is the youngest and highest plateau on Earth, its average elevation exceeding 14,800 feet (4,500 meters), but researchers don't know exactly when this happened. Some researchers think that 5 million years ago, the plateau was once much higher than it is today, but others think it was much lower.More data is needed to get a good grip on when the plateau rose up, and these researchers used the fossilized horse to shed some light on the debate.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden says it's the "beginning of a new era" for NASA, now that the Shuttle program has ended and the massive craft are making their ways to museums. But nonetheless, he was "very emotional" watching Space Shuttle Discovery make its last flight yesterday to its permanent home at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center.Bolden had "good times in Discovery" when he piloted two of its 39 missions -- one that put the Hubble Space Telescope in order and the other the first with a crew that included a Russian cosmonaut.

Ancient Scandinavians dragged 59 boulders to a seaside cliff near what is now the Swedish fishing village of Kåseberga. They carefully arranged the massive stones -- each weighing up to 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) -- in the outline of a 220-foot-long (67-meter) ship overlooking the Baltic Sea.Archaeologists generally agree this megalithic structure, known as Ales Stenar ("Ale's Stones"), was assembled about 1,000 years ago, near the end of the Iron Age, as a burial monument. But a team of researchers now argues it's really 2,500 years old, dating from the Scandinavian Bronze Age, and was built as an astronomical calendar with the same underlying geometry as England's Stonehenge.

Following the recent announcement of the discovery of the earliest known Christian imagery in the exploration of a sealed first century Jerusalem tomb, controversy predictably erupted, with numerous members of the community of biblical scholars offering alternate interpretations of the iconography and disputing the tomb's claimed Christian connections.

German researcher presents new research at SSA Annual MeetingSan Francisco -- In the winter of 479 B.C., a tsunami was the savior of Potidaea, drowning hundreds of Persian invaders as they lay siege to the ancient Greek village. New geological evidence suggests that the region may still be vulnerable to tsunami events, according to Klaus Reicherter of Aachen University in Germany and his colleagues.

The earliest cells were unstable chemical systems that survived by combining a handful of shaky carbon-based assemblies together, researchers say.All life on Earth is based on carbon. To create living matter from carbon, organisms carry out chemical reactions such as photosynthesis to generate organic compounds from the carbon dioxide in the environment. These mechanisms, known as carbon fixation, make up the largest bridge between Earth's nonliving chemistry and its life.

The ancient empires of the world are remembered for their impressive large-scale feats of engineering: Macchu Picchu in Peru; the pyramids in Egypt; and the Parthenon in Greece to name a few. But the craftsmen of those eras were also skilled at engineering at the opposite end of the spectrum at the nanoscale.The manipulation of material at the atomic and molecular scale to create new functions and properties sounds like it should be a profoundly modern concept. But artisans from the past also controlled matter at the tiniest scales. By modern-day standards, they were working in a branch of nanotechnology called nanocomposites. These are bulk materials in which nanoscale particles are mixed to improve the properties of the overall or composite material.

Genetic analyses of individuals buried in funereal monuments near a volcano in southern Peru have revealed the family relationships and burial traditions of ancient Peruvians that lived before Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas.The ancient Peruvians buried their dead in "chullpas," structures resembling vertical tombs, which can be up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) high. Researchers hadn't known how the individuals buried within one chullpa were related.

US Army chaplain Father Emil Kapaun stole, suffered and sacrificed his life for his fellow soldiers in a Korean prison camp. Six decades after his death, he is being considered for the Medal of Honor - and sainthood.On 2 November 1950, Father Kapaun made the decision that led to his death.The Korean war chaplain was in the middle of a firefight, with the American forces overrun by Chinese soldiers outside a crossroads town called Unsan in North Korea.

Stuart Witt guns the motor of the white SUV known as Mojave One and drives it up a dun-colored mound of earth. From atop his wind-swept perch, the CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port surveys a fleet of graders and other heavy equipment churning up 19 acres of dirt beneath a blue desert sky.At the moment, it's just a sprawling construction site, but within two years, work will be completed on a pair of hulking buildings. One will be a fabrication facility for the world's biggest airplane. The other will be the hangar that houses it. "You're looking at something that's going to be fundamentally breathtaking," Witt says.

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. When life handed game developer Christopher Albeluhn a pink slip, he made a solar system. Or at least a working model of our own using a game engine.Built in the Unreal Engine 3, which powers hit games like Gears of War 3 and Batman: Arkham City, Albeluhn's creation, The Solar System, actually began as a 3D model of the Earth for his portfolio. He continued to work on it, adding the remaining seven planets, along with their moons, the asteroid belt, and even all 88 constellations. What sets his simulation apart from others is its astonishing amount of detail, including cutaway views of the Earth and a Sun that looks hot enough to singe your screen.

Even if humans hadn't hunted the Tasmanian tiger to extinction, its low genetic diversity may have naturally doomed the curious marsupial, researchers have found."We found that the thylacine had even less genetic diversity than the Tasmanian devil," study researcher Andrew Pask, of the University of Connecticut, said in a statement. "If they were still be around today, they'd be at a severe risk, just like the devil.

Archaeologists find it hard agree about the relative merits of excavating the ancient past or leaving it undisturbed until we have the resources and technology to preserve its remains indefinitely above ground.It can work both ways. If it wasn't for the enterprising Birley family at Vindolanda, we would not have the extraordinary writing tablets with details of the first and 2nd century AD social engagements of garrison wives and the like. Equally, the mosaic at Woodchester in Gloucestershire remains in a very fine state because it is so relatively seldom put on show.

When the ventriloquist Jeff Dunham wanted to make a new dummy for his show, he designed the character's head on his home computer and then printed it out in his workshop.Using a rising technology known as 3-D printing, Dunham's printer laid down layer after layer of colored plastic until it formed the dummy's head.

Scientists have built an "emotionally intelligent" electric car that aims to keep people over 65 on the roads for longer.Fitted with a range of devices from eye-tracking goggles to biometric technology that monitors heart rates and cardiovascular health, the modified Peugeot iOn will monitor drivers' concentration, stress levels and driving habits. It is hoped the findings will pave the way for new technology that will instill confidence in drivers over 65 and keep them safely on the road for longer.

One hallmark of humanity is the rich world of symbols we have constructed to give meaning to our lives.And when we die, our loved ones mark our passing with symbols of honor and commemoration appropriate to our status and beliefs.At what point in our evolutionary journey did we become attuned to the potential symbolic significance of objects? When did our imaginations open to the possibility that a drinking cup could be a sacred chalice?.

The Jews had significant competition in antiquity when it came to worshipping Yahweh. Archeologists have discovered a second great temple not far from Jerusalem that predates its better known cousin. It belonged to the Samaritans, and may have been edited out of the Bible once the rivalry had been decided.Clad in a gray coat, Aharon ben Ab-Chisda ben Yaacob, 85, is sitting in the dim light of his house. He strikes up a throaty chant, a litany in ancient Hebrew. He has a full beard and is wearing a red kippah on his head.

Wednesday was a dark day for the future of books.The Department of Justice charged Apple and five large book publishers with conspiring to raise e-book prices. Three of the five publishers quickly capitulated rather than face the risk and expense of a protracted legal battle.Much of the case revolves around the decision of five of the largest six publishers to simultaneously adopt the agency pricing model immediately before Apple launched the iPad and iBookstore in April 2010. At that time, Amazon commanded about 90% of the e-book market. Amazon priced many books at $9.99 -- which was below the cost at which Amazon was paying the publisher -- in an effort to drive e-book adoption among consumers and capture market share.

After three years of extensive excavation by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Khirsara has emerged as the prominent mature Harappan site in western Kutch, showing how advance the trade from this part of Gujarat used to be around 4,600 years ago."Khirsara has emerged as one of the most prominent mature Harappan settlements in Western Kutch. Earlier, Dholavira and Junikuren had emerged as prominent Harappan sites in Kutch," ASI's Superintendent Archaeologist, Vadodara, Dr Jitendra Nath said.

A group of ancient fish, called coelacanths, have changed so little over time they are known as "living fossils." Now, the remains of a skull found in the Yunnan Province of China, confirms these creatures have been around, largely unchanged, for more than 400 million years.

As a 5-year-old, Erdne Ombadykow began to display signs of eccentric behavior. While his many brothers and sisters were busy watching cartoons on TV or playing in the streets of their rough Philadelphia neighborhood, Erdne would bug his mother to take him to a nearby Buddhist temple.

Washington looks set to wave through new cybersecurity legislation next week that opponents fear will wipe out decades of privacy protections at a stroke.The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (Cispa) will be discussed in the House of Representatives next week and already has the support of 100 House members.It will be the first such bill to go to a vote since the collapse of the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) in January after global protests and a concerted campaign by internet giants such as Google, Wikipedia and Twitter.See an ACLU petition against CISPA here.

BEFORE pints, schooners and pots, golden lager was drunk from a gold cup with, ahem, a straw.The practice might have modern drinkers choking on their beer, but 4500 years ago that was how the royal well-to-do in ancient Mesopotamia swilled their brew.Today a cup made of pure gold from that era is considered so treasured its custodians dare not touch it with their bare hands, let alone fill it with beer.The cup is the centrepiece of Melbourne Museum's latest international exhibition, the Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia.

Researchers have succeeded in mimicking the chemistry of life in synthetic versions of DNA and RNA molecules.The work shows that DNA and its chemical cousin RNA are not unique in their ability to encode information and to pass it on through heredity.The work, reported in Science, is promising for future "synthetic biology" and biotechnology efforts.It also hints at the idea that if life exists elsewhere, it could be bound by evolution but not by similar chemistry.

Environmental policy has historically been driven by a demand-side mindset -- attempting to limit consumption of precious fossil fuels through pollution permits, taxation, and multi-national climate change treaties. However, new research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University suggests that actually buying coal, oil and other dirty fossil fuel deposits still in the ground could be a far better way to fight climate change.The new study, "Buy Coal! A Case for Supply-Side Environmental Policy," suggests that the single best policy for a multi-national climate coalition is to purchase the extraction rights of dirty fossil fuels in non-participating countries (also called "third countries"), and then conserve rather than exploit the deposits. According to the study's author, Bard Harstad, this would be a radical departure from the traditional view that focuses on reducing the demand for fuel.

The Bronze Age settlement of Akrotiri, home to some of the world's most prized artifacts of Minoan civilization and culture, has been reopened to the public following a tragic accident seven years ago in which a British tourist was killed and several others were injured. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, the beaming Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Petros Alivizatos said the opening would attract visitors and stimulate Greece's crucial tourism industry, telling reporters, "One of the most significant archaeological sites in Greece and the world opened its gates again."

A young Missouri man has turned to the Internet in search of investors for his expedition into the remote jungles of Africa seeking to document undiscovered flora and fauna. That is not so unusual, but one of the creatures he hopes to find is: a living dinosaur.

Though the grave of a real J. Dawson exists, and has proved boundless spectulation for Titanic history buffs, one Titanic passenger had a similar real-life love story to the fictionalized character Jack Dawson in James Camerons' movie.Emilio Portaluppi was an Italian artist who changed his travel plans to join the Titanic at the last minute. He traveled as a second class passenger, according to new archival research into the elusive Titanic survivor. And though he may not have had the charms of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Cameron's 1997 blockbuster movie, Portaluppi was a romantic with first class tastes.

NASA is racing to come up with a new, cheaper road map to Mars.The space agency said Friday that it's seeking ideas from scientists and engineers around the globe for robotic missions it can do in 2018 and beyond.Earlier this year, NASA pulled out of a partnership with the Europeans due to budget cuts. NASA and the European Space Agency had been working on missions targeted for 2016 and 2018 that woud have marked the first steps toward bringing Martian soil and rocks back to Earth.

For years, scientists have imagined that microbial life may have ridden to Earth on the back of a comet or meteorite, planting the seed for the diversity of life we know today. But could so-called panspermia have gone the other way? Could Earth have given other worlds life?It's an old idea, but Tetsuya Hara of Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan and colleagues now have new calculations suggesting it's possible. "The only planet which we know has life is Earth," they write in a paper posted to the arXiv physics preprint site. "Therefore, Earth would be a likely source to seed other planets with life.

How do you solve a problem like Apophis? For years, researchers have been tracking the asteroid to determine whether or not it could get into a catastrophic smash-up with Earth on Friday the 13th in April 2036. Last week, Russian reports suggested that Moscow is thinking about launching a probe to Apophis as early as 2015 to track the threat, but U.S. experts say it's the wrong idea for the wrong asteroid.So what's the right idea? They have a modest proposal that just might save the planet someday.

Starships, warp speed, transporters, phasers. Think "Star Trek" technology is only the stuff of fiction? Think again.Dr. Peter Jansen, a PhD graduate of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has developed a scientific measurement device based on the tricorders used by Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and other space adventurers on the classic TV series that has spawned numerous spin-offs in more than 45 years.

Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil's rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355. Survival International, with backing from Colin Firth, is campaigning to stop what a judge referred to as 'genocide'.

The search for life should be an essential component of a sample return mission from Mars, according to a recent report examining the science behind such a venture.A team of scientists, including technical advisors from NASA and the European Space Agency, and scientists from the United States, Canada, and Europe, identified and prioritized four scientific objectives involved with bringing material from the red planet back to Earth. The search for life, past and present, topped the list, while the preparation for human exploration came near the bottom of the list.

Scientists claim to have invented their own version of Doctor Who's famous sonic screwdriver.The Dundee University researchers have created a machine which uses ultrasound to lift and rotate a rubber disc floating in a cylinder of water.It is said to be the first time ultrasound waves have been used to turn objects rather than simply push them.The study could help make surgery using ultrasound techniques more precise, the physicists said.

Like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day, the Greenland Ice Sheet may be sliding faster into the ocean due to massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.Such lake drainages may affect sea-level rise, with implications for coastal communities, according to the researchers. "This is the first evidence that Greenland's 'supraglacial' lakes have responded to recent increases in surface meltwater production by draining more frequently, as opposed to growing in size," says CIRES research associate William Colgan, who co-led the new study with CU-Boulder computer science doctoral student Yu-Li Liang.

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered four Greek and Byzantine-era rock tombs in a section of old Alexandria's eastern necropolis in an area neighbouring Al-Ibrahimeya tunnel.The site was discovered during excavations carried out by the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) and stretches between the areas of Al-Shatbi and Mostafa Kamel.

In comments that may shock some staunch Catholics, Cardinal George Pell has described the biblical story of Adam and Eve as a myth.He appeared alongside renowned evolutionary biologist and atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins, on the ABC's Q&A program last night.Cardinal Pell said the existence of Adam and Eve was not a matter of science but rather a mythological account.

University of Cincinnati research is revealing early farming in a former wetlands region that was largely cut off from Western researchers until recently.The UC collaboration with the Southern Albania Neolithic Archaeological Project (SANAP) will be presented April 20 at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA).Susan Allen, a professor in the UC Department of Anthropology who co-directs SANAP, says she and co-director Ilirjan Gjipali of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology created the project in order to address a gap not only in Albanian archaeology, but in the archaeology in Eastern Europe as a whole, by focusing attention on the initial transition to farming in the region. Allen was awarded a $191,806 (BCS- 0917960) grant from the National Science Foundation to launch the project in 2010.

Give an angler the time of day and chances are they'll have a story to tell about the one that got away. When the Royal Society chose to publish a book on the natural history of fish in 1686, they came perilously close to letting slip one of the biggest scientific catches of all time - Newton's Principia Mathematica.John Ray and Francis Willughby's 1686 book Historia Piscium must have seemed like a good bet - the illustrations, like this one of a flying fish, were impressive. And other natural history books - such as Robert Hooke's 1665 book Micrographia - had become bestsellers.

On Monday, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol announced that the Colorado Democratic Party officially endorsed Amendment 64 at its state convention and assembly in Pueblo over the weekend.In a press statement, Cindy Lowery-Graber, chair of the Denver County Democratic Party, said this about the Democratic support of pot legalization:"This is a mainstream issue. Polls show that more than 60 percent of Democrats and a solid majority of Independents believe marijuana should be treated like alcohol. A broad coalition is forming in support of Amendment 64 and I am proud to say that it now includes the Colorado Democratic Party."

The Queensland Museum has been revealed as an unlikely resting place for the missing pieces of a rare manuscript from ancient Egypt.Archaeologists had been searching for the missing fragments of the rare Book of the Dead for 100 years when a visiting Egyptologist stumbled across them while in Brisbane to open a mummy exhibition.Fragments from the rest of the papyrus, more than 3000 years old, lie in the British Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The mystery surrounding the source of the highest-energy particles known in the Universe has grown deeper.The particles, known as cosmic rays, can show up with energies a million times higher than the biggest particle accelerators on Earth can produce.Astrophysicists believed that only two sources could make them: supermassive black holes in active galaxies, or so-called gamma ray bursts.A study in Nature has now all but ruled out gamma ray bursts as the cause.

"So what do you think happens when we die?" I was asked during dinner at a recent event, after one fellow diner -- who I'd only just met -- found out I was an atheist.Seeing the question as more of an accusatory statement and a segue into a religious argument, I decided to reply with a sound scientific answer: "Well, when you die, all the chemicals that make up your body are absorbed into the ground, blown into the atmosphere or biologically recycled. Ultimately, all of your body's elements stay here on Earth. And then, in around 4-5 billion years, the sun will swallow the Earth and your elements will be absorbed by our nearest star."Silence.

On Jan. 14 of last year, an Air Canada pilot flying from Toronto to Zurich, Switzerland, woke up from a nap to see an alarming sight out the cockpit window: what appeared to be a flying object (presumably another plane) flying directly at him. He immediately took evasive action, sending the jet into a steep, sudden dive that injured 16 people and almost resulted in a midair collision with another aircraft flying 1,000 feet lower.

Peruvian authorities are still trying to unravel the mystery of why hundreds of dolphins ended up dead on beaches in the country over the past 2 1/2 months.Deputy Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandria told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday that studies are incomplete but officials hope to complete their research on the likely causes next week.He said that the carcasses of 877 dolphins and porpoises were found between February and mid-April on the beaches of northern Peru. About 90 percent were long-beaked common dolphins, while others were Burmeister porpoises, Quijandria said.

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and billionaire co-founder Larry Page have teamed up with "Avatar" director James Cameron and other investors to back an ambitious space exploration and natural resources venture, details of which will be unveiled next week.The fledgling company, called Planetary Resources, will be unveiled at a Tuesday news conference at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, according to a press release issued this week.

The origins of the iconic Irish red deer was a controversial topic. Was this species native to Ireland, or introduced?In a new study that was published 30 March 2012 in the scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews, a multinational team of researchers from Ireland, Austria, UK and USA have finally answered this question.

The strange circumstances that connects Zahi Hawass with a Psychic Organization, the Fulbright Commission, the University of Pennsilvania, the National Geographic Society, Dr. David Silverman, Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, the King Tut World Exhibition, the Attorney General of Egypt, the Public Funds Procecution (Egypt) and the White House.

The EU has earned a lot of credit on the international climate scene. It has pushed through a roadmap to a second Kyoto deal at the Durban climate change summit, and stood firm on tugging global airlines into a carbon-pricing scheme.More than anything it has demonstrated its good faith with a pioneering set of decarbonisation targets at home: the "20-20-20" goals. By 2020, the EU has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% of their 1990 level, and to increase the share of renewables to 20% of the energy mix. It also has a voluntary target to increase energy efficiency by 20% on 2005 levels, and an obligation to source 10% of its transport fuels from renewable energy sources by the same year.

After nearly four decades of keeping mum about a close encounter with a UFO over Pensacola, a retired Marine Corps pilot is telling his story in a newly released book.On the night of Feb. 6, 1975, then Marine Reserve Squadron Capt. Larry Jividen was piloting a T-39D Sabreliner combat trainer and utility aircraft with a crew of five aboard.The two-hour flight, which began around sunset, took off and landed at Pensacola Naval Air Station. As the Sabreliner was returning from the training mission.

The polar bear is much older than previously thought, according to new genetic evidence.DNA studies suggest the Arctic predator split from its ancestor, the brown bear, about 600,000 years ago.Previous estimates put the polar bear at about 150,000 years old, suggesting the mammal adapted very rapidly to Arctic life.Conservationists say the new study, published in Science, has implications for bear conservation.Polar bears are listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act.

HOW ironic. Concerns abound about the acidification of oceans due to climate change. Meanwhile, researchers have found evidence that the reverse - a massive and toxic alkalisation of the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago - paradoxically made animal life flower.Complex animals first appeared 850 million years ago but didn't evolve into a great variety of forms until the Cambrian period, 540 million years ago. Why the delay? Answering this is difficult, in part because rocks that formed immediately before the Cambrian appear to have vanished. Cambrian rocks often sit on much older layers, creating the Great Unconformity - a geological formation seen around the world, including in the Grand Canyon.

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."

Research group headed by Professor Takashi Tsuji demonstrates regenerating "functional hair regeneration from adult stem cells" Substantial advance in the development of next-generation of "organ replacement regenerative therapies"Organ replacement regenerative therapy is purported to enable the replacement of organs damaged by disease, injury or aging in the foreseeable future. A research group led by Professor Takashi Tsuji (Professor in the Research Institute for Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, and Director of Organ Technologies Inc.) has provided a proof-of-concept for bioengineered organ replacement as a next stage of regenerative therapy.

The enigmatic Tasmanian tiger, known also as the thylacine, was hunted to extinction in the wild at the turn of the 20th century, and the last one died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936.Now scientists have sequenced a portion of the thylacine genome, showing that like its cousin, the Tasmanian devil, it had extremely low genetic variability. The results suggest that both animals' genetic makeup was affected by their isolation from mainland Australia.

By all accounts Earth should be a "snowball planet" like the frigid world Hoth in the 1980 Star Wars film "The Empire Strikes Back."Why? Because common theories of stellar evolution predict that the sun was only 70 percent of its current brightness when it first lit its fusion engine 4.5 billion years ago. The sun has been steadily growing brighter since then and will continue so into the future, eventually evaporating away Earth's oceans.Once Earth amassed an ocean 4.3 billion years ago, it should have quickly frozen over and reflected so much sunlight back into space that it squelched Earth's ability to thaw out for billions of years.

Two 70-year-old papers by Alan Turing on the theory of code breaking have been released by the government's communications headquarters, GCHQ.It is believed Turing wrote the papers while at Bletchley Park working on breaking German Enigma codes.A GCHQ mathematician said the fact that the contents had been restricted "shows what a tremendous importance it has in the foundations of our subject".

Daniel Suelo lives in caves in the canyonlands of Utah. He survives by harvesting wild foods and eating roadkill.He has no job, no bank account and does not accept government welfare. In fact, Suelo has no money at all.Suelo may have shunned all the trappings of modern American life, but he is not an isolationist.Since abandoning money in 2000, the former cook from Moab, Utah has remained an active member of his community and avid blogger.

WHEN visiting British Museum curator John Taylor asked to inspect Queensland Museum's collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts, he did not expect to stumble upon a long-lost section of the burial scroll of one of the civilisation's greatest builders.The world-renowned Egyptologist, in Brisbane for the opening this week of a touring exhibition of mummies from his museum, was poring over a display case of antiquities when his eye was drawn to a shred of papyrus bearing the distinctive hieroglyphs of Amenhotep, a chief builder in the 15th century BC, whose burial scroll, known as a "Book of the Dead", was scattered across the globe in the 1890s.Intrigued by the fragment, donated in 1913 by an unknown woman, Dr Taylor asked whether there were any more pieces in the museum's dungeons.

London: Meat eating helped early humans to spread more quickly across the world and had a profound effect on human evolution, scientists say. Researchers from Lund University in Sweden found that the high-quality diet allowed mothers to wean babies earlier and have more children, allowing human communities to grow faster.The researchers, who detailed their findings in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, compared 67 species of mammals, including humans, apes, mice and killer whales, and found a clear correlation between eating meat and earlier weaning.They also found that babies of all species stop suckling when their brains have developed to a particular stage, but that carnivores reached this point more quickly than herbivores or omnivores.

Amateur astronomers will be out in force this weekend to see a spectacular light show as one of the year's regular meteor showers coincides with the dark night sky of a new moon.The Lyrid Meteor Shower - so called as the radiant (from where the meteor trails seem to radiate from) lies in the constellation Lyra - peaks in the early hours of Sunday. It is a reliable shower with perhaps up to 15 meteors seen per hour - debris from the orbit of the comet Thatcher.Although Thatcher is far from Earth - it orbits the sun once ever[y] 415 years in a long, elliptical orbit - debris is spread out far along its path.

Following the end of the ancient Egyptian New Kingdom in around 1000 BCE, Egypt entered a long "late period," book-ended by the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, during which dynasties rose and fell with bewildering frequency. Political fragmentation and various foreign invasions only exacerbated centuries of decline.Few of the sort of magnificent temples that had marked the apogee of ancient Egyptian civilisation during the previous New Kingdom were built, and while the country's characteristic political and religious organisation was in the main preserved, the pharaohs that ruled Egypt during the centuries of its decline are on the whole rather anonymous figures, not leaving painted tombs behind them like those on the West Bank of the Nile at Luxor and often ruling for short periods and over only parts of the country.

Peter Schmitt, an MIT doctoral student, printed a clock in 2009. He didn't print an image of a clock on a piece of paper. He printed a three-dimensional clock -- an eight-inch diameter plastic timekeeping device with moving gears, hands and counterweights.When he put it up on a wall and pushed the counterweight, it went ticktock."It wasn't very accurate, but it was a functioning clock," Schmitt said.

A House of Representatives spending panel has proposed a NASA budget for 2013 that allocates $150 million toward the development of a Mars sample return mission within the next decade. The bill, drafted by the House appropriations subcommittee for commerce, science and justice, includes language that would forbid NASA from spending the money until the National Research Council (NRC) of the U.S. National Academies can certify that the mission concept chosen by the agency will lead to returning a martian sample to Earth.

An international group of scientists led by Dr. Barnaby Norris from the University of Sydney in Australia using new techniques which allowed them to look into the atmospheres of dying stars has found an answer to the long-standing mystery of superwind that plays a role in the death of stars.Stars like the Sun end their lives with a superwind, 100 million times stronger than the solar wind. This wind occurs over a period of 10,000 years, and removes as much as half the mass of the star. At the end, only a dying and fading remnant of the star will be left. The Sun will begin to throw out these gases in around five billion years.

Scientific research to date provides no useful conclusion on whether the death penalty reduces or boosts the murder rate, said a report by the US National Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.A committee of scientists reviewed research done over the past 35 years and found it was "not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates," said the report.

Childhood exposure to lead dust has been linked to lasting physical and behavioral effects, and now lead dust from vehicles using leaded gasoline has been linked to instances of aggravated assault two decades after exposure, says Tulane toxicologist Howard W. Mielke.Vehicles using leaded gasoline that contaminated cities' air decades ago have increased aggravated assault in urban areas, researchers say.

A year has now passed since the complete core meltdowns of three boiling water reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 plant. Because of the limited and biased information issued by the Japanese government, the world does not know what really happened when the earthquake and the tsunami hit the six Fukushima nuclear reactors. There are many important lessons that must be learned to avoid a future disaster. These lessons can be applied to all the nuclear reactors globally. People around the world deserve the right to know what happened.

New research findings highlight how deposits of animal droppings are scientifically important for determining the impact of environmental change on threatened species.Analysis of 50 years' bird droppings inside a large decommissioned chimney on Queen's campus, provided evidence that DDT and bird diet may have played a role, in a long-term decline for populations of insect-eating birds in North America. The chimney had been a roosting spot for chimney swifts.

The most accurate study so far of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the Sun. According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighbourhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts. This may mean that attempts to directly detect dark matter particles on Earth are unlikely to be successful.

A former wetlands region of Albania that was largely cut off from Western researchers until recently, is now revealing a landscape of early farming. The University of Cincinnati is working in collaboration with the Southern Albania Neolithic Archaeological Project (SANAP) to investigate the transitional period as farming spread across the region.Susan Allen, a professor in the UC Department of Anthropology who co-directs SANAP, says she and co-director Ilirjan Gjipali of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology created the project in order to address a gap not only in Albanian archaeology, but in the archaeology of Eastern Europe as a whole, by focusing attention on the initial transition to farming in the region.