Newsdesk Archive

You never experience the world as it is. You only experience it in the way light brings it to you.And light can be taught to lie.Last week researchers at Cornell University announced they had created a time cloaking device. Using their machine they could hide an event from detection, even if it occurred in plain view of very capable detectors.

But at a press conference on Monday, the physicists in charge of the Large Hadron Collider said that they had only established where the Higgs boson was not to be found, and that its location continues to elude them.However they added that as the amount of data created by the atom-smashing experiments increases, they now expect to know whether or not the most-wanted particle exists within 18 months.

My son Sean has written a coming of age novel called 'Trick'. It's a fantastic, fast paced read and at 99p on Kindle, a bargain as well!See Sean's website for links and info:http://www.seanhancockbooks.com/Or get it straight from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

The universe as we know it originated in a great explosion that we call the big bang. For nearly a century cosmologists have been studying the aftermath of this explosion: how the universe expanded and cooled down, and how galaxies were gradually pulled together by gravity. The nature of the bang itself has come into focus only relatively recently. It is the subject of the theory of inflation, which was developed in the early 1980s by Alan Guth, Andrei Linde and others, and has led to a radically new global view of the universe.Inflation is a period of super-fast, accelerated expansion in early cosmic history. It is so fast that in a fraction of a second a tiny subatomic speck of space is blown to dimensions much greater than the entire currently observable region. At the end of inflation, the energy that drove the expansion ignites a hot fireball of particles and radiation. This is what we call the big bang.

Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe.""Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.

For those most focused on Fukushima's human toll, there are several main sources of concern: the continuing radiation menace in the region's fields, crops and seafood; and TEPCO's recent admission that its reactors won't be under control until 2012 at best. These offer critical reminders that radioactive cesium is now Japan's public enemy No. 1.Behind the confusing fog of rad, rem, becquerel and milliseivert statistics lurks the basic fact that the spread of cesium 137 was the deadliest legacy of Chernobyl and is now the gravest health threat facing eastern Japan. Moving through strong radiation fields like chest x-rays, US airport scanners or Fukushima reactor rubble is obviously hazardous, but time limited. Carrying the radiation source around inside you 24/7, however, poses an exponentially greater threat, especially when it's an aggressive ionizing radionuclide like cesium 137 with a half-life of 30 years.

IN 314 BC the Greek philosopher Theophrastus noticed something unusual: when he heated a black crystalline rock called tourmaline, it would suddenly attract ash and bits of straw. He had observed what we now call pyroelectricity - the ability of certain crystals to produce a voltage briefly when heated or cooled. Now the same phenomenon is being used to convert waste heat into electricity.Nearly 55 per cent of all the energy generated in the US in 2009 was lost as waste heat, according to research by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. There have been many attempts at using this waste heat to generate electricity, so far with only limited success.

For decades, scientists have known that DNA consists of four basic units -- adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. Those four bases have been taught in science textbooks and have formed the basis of the growing knowledge regarding how genes code for life. Yet in recent history, scientists have expanded that list from four to six.Now, with a finding published online in the July 21, 2011, issue of the journal Science, researchers from the UNC School of Medicine have discovered the seventh and eighth bases of DNA.

Curtains are falling on the final chapter of the Harry Potter movie franchise, so it's time to hang up your invisibility cloak in the hall closet. But don't look so glum, there's a new cloak for your spatio-temporal wardrobe -- one that's sure to turn a few heads in the physics department.Moti Fridman and Alexander Gaeta, professors of applied and engineering physics at Cornell University, have developed a time cloak -- yes, a time cloak -- that, besides sounding like a Kurt Vonnegut trope, can also hide events in time.Physicists have already found ways to make invisibility cloaks by distorting electromagnetic fields and steering light around a volume of space so that, essentially, anything inside this space is invisible.

Artificial intelligence has been the inspiration for countless books and movies, as well as the aspiration of countless scientists and engineers. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now taken a major step toward creating artificial intelligence -- not in a robot or a silicon chip, but in a test tube. The researchers are the first to have made an artificial neural network out of DNA, creating a circuit of interacting molecules that can recall memories based on incomplete patterns, just as a brain can.

What miracles is Mother Nature hiding from us? Look no further than the bottlenose dolphin for a little bit of inspiration. At least that's what a researcher at the Georgetown University Medical Center suggests.Michael Zasloff has published a letter in the July 21 issue of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, in which he recounts several documented incidents of serious injuries to dolphins, presumably inflicted by sharks. These bites, some larger than a basketball, healed in weeks without leaving the dolphins disfigured, without causing them apparent pain and without becoming visibly infected.

A single sand grain is a simple thing. But en mass, grains of sand build, slide and settle into beautiful and mysterious patterns we admire, but cannot always understand.Sand has superhero qualities, as far as geological deposits go. Behaving at times like a solid, at times a liquid and at times a gas, it is a master shape-shifter. Formed by wind and water, sand allows large-scale geography to play out in miniature: settling into ripples, channels, canyons, valleys and deltas.Sand is born as tiny pieces break away from rock. Young grains have rough edges, which smooth with time. The roundest grains are found in the desert, where the constant shifting winds rub the grains against each other, grinding them to a smooth polish. Because of this, dunes, like those of the Sahara, move in vast waves.

Nurture matters - in plants as well as people. Cloned trees raised in different places and environments react differently to drought conditions even though they're genetically identical, scientists have found."Turns out the trees have a memory, and they are adapted to the environment in which they're grown," said Richard Meilan, a Purdue University molecular tree physiologist who was not involved in the study.

Analysis of new images of a curious "hot spot" on the far side of the Moon reveal it to be a small volcanic province created by the upwelling of silicic magma. The unusual location of the province and the surprising composition of the lava that formed it offer tantalizing clues to the Moon's thermal history.The hot spot is a concentration of a radioactive element thorium sitting between the very large and ancient impact craters Compton and Belkovich that was first detected by Lunar Prospector's gamma-ray spectrometer in 1998. The Compton-Belkovich Thorium Anomaly, as it is called, appears as a bull's-eye when the spectrometer data are projected onto a map, with the highest thorium concentration at its center.

Nepal has ordered a new measurement of Mount Everest to determine its exact height and end a series of disputes.For decades Nepal has claimed the height is 29,028 feet or 8,448 meters, but western and Chinese climbers and geologists have started to contest these measurements, the Associated Press has reported.Nepal and China, whose boarders share the mountain, have had disputes about the way in which the mountain is measured. The Chinese have said it should be measured by the height of the mountain's rock, while Nepal believes it should be measured according to the height of the snow, which is roughly 4 meters higher.

Monuments and artefacts uncovered during the past archaeological season in Aswan, Luxor and Alexandria have led to significant breakthroughs in understanding Egypt's ancient history, Nevine El-Aref reports...Almost 700,000 years ago, early humans began leaving traces of their wanderings in the land that is now Egypt. Much later Egypt, alongside its neighbour Mesopotamia, became the first cradle of human civilisation. Over the course of its history it witnessed the rise and fall of the kingdoms of ancient Egypt, the rise of the Greek and Roman empires, the establishment of the Coptic and Islamic periods and the colonial era - first under France, then Great Britain - until it finally regained independence.

The UN's highest court has ordered Thailand and Cambodia to withdraw troops from a disputed border region near an ancient temple complex.Cambodia had asked the International Court of Justice for a ruling after fighting broke out around the Preah Vihear temple earlier this year.The temple is in Cambodia. Both nations claim some of the surrounding area.

Move over, Montauk Monster. Step aside, Nessie. There's a new sea creature in town--maybe. Footage of a 20- to 30-foot long creature caught on tape by fishermen suggest we have an Alaska bonafide marine-creature mystery.The black and white footage from 2009 is by no means definitive. It is taken on a rainy day with a shaky camera, which make it all the more confounding. But you can check out the testimony of people who say they witnessed the creature's appearance in the video above.

Agricultural researchers believe that building indoor farms in the middle of cities could help solve the world's hunger problem. Experts say that vertical farming could feed up to 10 billion people and make agriculture independent of the weather and the need for land. There's only one snag: The urban farms need huge amounts of energy.One day, Choi Kyu Hong might find himself in a vegetable garden on the 65th floor of a skyscraper. But, so far, his dream of picking fresh vegetables some 200 meters (655 feet) up has only been realized in hundreds of architectural designs.

For years, advocacy groups have protested the use of chimps in entertainment because of worries about their safety and welfare. But, now, there may be another unexpected reason to be concerned about the use of chimpanzees for entertainment.Seeing the primate in television shows, movies, advertisements and greeting cards may actually undermine their conservation status, a new study says. The exposure makes people less likely to believe that chimps are actually endangered. People are also more likely to think that the animals would make good pets. Even images used by researchers, zoos and sanctuaries may unintentionally send the wrong message.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, has published in Mexico a facsimile edition of the Codex Colombino, dating back to the 14th or early 15th century, to put it within reach of the public.The facsimile is complemented by research that sheds new light on the 11th-century Mixtec ruler Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, a central figure in this pictographic document, the only one of pre-Columbian origin preserved in Mexico, INAH said Friday in a communique.The research, led by Manuel A. Hermann Lejarazu, complements previous studies of the document, such as those done in 1912 by the Englishman James Cooper Clark and in the 1960s by archaeologist Alfonso Caso.

A Chinese submersible conducted the country's deepest manned dive ever Thursday in the latest milestone for China's deep-sea ambitions as it seeks to exploit the vast resources of the ocean floor.The Jiaolong undersea craft -- named after a mythical sea dragon -- reached 4,027 metres (13,211 feet) below sea level in a test dive in the northeastern Pacific, the State Oceanic Administration said in a statement.

Gerald Kulcinski has a big problem.The nuclear engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin needs a rare element to fuel his research into a fusion reactor.But the cost of the isotope -- helium-3 -- is rising faster than a rocket headed to space. A few years ago it was $1,000 a gram, this year it is $7,000 and next year, well, he assumes it will be tens of thousands of dollars.

Maths is simple. But to discover this requires travelling to the ends of the earth where an illiterate, chain-smoking fortune teller lives in a room with a double bed and a beehive.As the sun rises over the hut belonging to Raoke, a 70-year-old witch doctor, a highly pitched din heralds bee rush hour. The insects he keeps shuttle madly in and out through the window.

The oil spills were a mystery. Dozens throughout the 1990s had killed more than 50,000 seabirds and several sea otters off the California coast."We couldn't find a source," said Lisa Symons, Damage Assessment and Resource Protection Coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Analyzing the oil, investigators determined it all came from the same source and was not a natural underwater seep of California crude.

Feeding a baby on only breast milk and for up to 6 months after birth can reduce their risk of developing asthma-related symptoms in early childhood, according to new research.The study, which is published online July 21, 2011 in the European Respiratory Journal, looked at the impact of the duration of breastfeeding and the introduction of alternative liquids or solids in addition to breast milk.

A genetic study focusing on the Central American river turtle (Dermatemys mawii) recently turned up surprising results for a team of Smithsonian scientists involved in the conservation of this critically endangered species. Small tissue samples collected from 238 wild turtles at 15 different locations across their range in Southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala revealed a "surprising lack" of genetic structure, the scientists write in a recent paper in the journal Conservation Genetics.The turtles, which are entirely aquatic, represent populations from three different river basins that are geographically isolated by significant distance and high mountain chains.

Fifteen pilot whales have died in a mass stranding near the northwestern tip of Scotland, according to a rescue charity.Rescuers have been trying to save a pod of around 60 long-finned pilot whales in the Kyle of Durness, a sea inlet near Cape Wrath.Around 35 beached as the water receded at low tide and 20 were refloated using inflatable pontoons as the water level rose again.However, the remainder perished, said the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) charity.

Exxon Mobil Corp. will have to bring in more people to mop up oil from a broken pipeline beneath the Yellowstone River as receding floodwaters reveal new contamination, federal officials said Friday.Also Friday, Montana environmental regulators said the pipeline may have leaked up to 1,200 barrels of oil into the scenic river. That equals 50,400 gallons and is 20 percent higher than prior estimates from Exxon Mobil.

The ruins of Machu Picchu are covered in jungle growth in this 1911 photograph taken when Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham first came to the site a century ago this week.Bingham was surprised to find that the ancient Inca sites he visited in Peru, including Machu Picchu, weren't as hidden or deserted as he imagined they would be.

A tiny toad from Tanzania is extinct in the wild, but thriving in a lab in Syracuse, New York.The Kihansi Spray Toad, which ranges from just 1 to 1.5 inches in length, is believed to have lived only under a 3,000 foot waterfall on the Kihansi River in southeastern Tanzania.Construction of a dam upriver reduced the flow of the waterfall, and the resulting spray needed by the toads. But before the population of toads declined, about 500 were relocated.

Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.The quasar, APM 08279+5255, was discovered in 1998. Observations with optical and infrared telescopes revealed that the quasar, a young galaxy with a voracious black hole at its center (image above), was forming new stars rapidly in a starburst. At a distance of more than 12 billion light-years, the quasar is seen as it was more than 12 billion years ago, just a billion or so years after the Big Bang.

Known to many as the "cradle of civilization," Iraq is a treasure trove of important archaeological sites including Babylon, Ur and Nimrud.Yet hostile circumstances on the ground have left the country's antique heritage vulnerable to looting and damage.International calls for the safeguarding of Iraq's ancient sites have resulted in the development of a sophisticated geodatabase record of ancient sites and monuments, which it is hoped will allow them to be better monitored and protected.

Elite members of ancient Egypt, including the pharaoh himself, likely wielded ornate daggers, swords and axes in battle, or to personally execute prisoners, rather than using the shiny metal for ceremonial purposes, research suggests.The weapons were used during the Bronze Age, a period between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago when the civilization was at its height, according to Daniel Boatright, an Egyptologist at Isle of Wight College in the United Kingdom.

Many of us assume that the shape of our coastlines is more or less a constant feature of geography.We all accept that the occasional severe storm might result in the loss of some shorefront property, but surely these changes are insignificant when considered on a continental scale.Actually, a variety of climatological and geological processes have, over the millennia, altered America's coasts in fairly significant ways.The Third Coast is no exception.

A foundational project is currently underway at Lake Mungo and those lakes that abound it to document the history of human settlement, past environmental change and landscape evolution that has occurred in this area. This immense undertaking comes after a long hiatus of research being conducted here and hopes to provide the first systematic archive of its archaeological traces.Documenting the history of human settlement seems like an epic task in any part of the world; in the stark beauty of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, it involves tracing back no less than 45,000 years.

Elah Valley, Israel (CNN) -- Archaeologists in Israel have found remains which may be the biblical City of King David, the first evidence that the ancient Jewish empire actually existed.The bible refers to a powerful 10th century B.C. Kingdom of David, Israel's second king, stretching from Egypt to the Euphrates, but little evidence of its existence has ever been found.Now, an archaeological discovery at Khirbet Qeiyafa, in Elah Valley, 30 km from Jerusalem, appears to show signs of a Jewish settlement.

Two 1,300-year-old sculptures of Mayan warriors have been discovered by Mexican archaeologists. The sculptures have hieroglyphic inscriptions on their loincloths and chest that say the warriors belonged to the city of Copan. The discovery proves warriors from Copan helped those in Palenque during the city's' 26-year war against Tonina.Mexican archaeologists have found two 1,300-year-old limestone sculptures of captured Mayan warriors that they say could shed light on the alliances and wars among Mayan cities during the civilization's twilight.

As space shuttle Atlantis' wheels touched down in Florida on Thursday, the shuttles' epoch of defining manned spaceflight came to a close. What comes next for the US space agency is a new way of running things - but not everyone is happy about it.For now, American astronauts and their long-time partners in Canada, Europe and Japan will depend on Russian Soyuz vehicles to get to orbit, and the job of developing the shuttles' successors will be carried out in the private sector.

It's official: The next Mars rover will explore a 5-kilometre-high mountain of sediment inside a crater called Gale, NASA announced today.The Curiosity rover is scheduled to launch between 25 November and 18 December. It will examine Martian rocks and soil to learn about the history of the planet's climate and to look for chemical traces of life.There has been vigorous debate about where to send the rover. At a meeting in May, competing camps made their final arguments for each of the four sites then on the shortlist.

Nasa's next Mars rover will be aimed at one of the planet's deepest craters.MSL-Curiosity weighs almost a tonne and is the size of a Mini Cooper.It will carry instruments to study whether Mars had the conditions in the past to support microbial life.The US space agency has selected an equatorial depression called Gale Crater to investigate that question.The $2.5bn rover will launch from Florida in November.

A new report into experiments which transplant human cells into animals for medical purposes said scientists may not be far from giving apes the ability to think and talk like humans.Concerns about the creation of talking apes should be taken seriously along with "what one might call the 'Frankenstein fear' that the medical research which creates 'humanised' animals is going to generate monsters", it was claimed.

A crude "pedicure" carried out by a mandrill at Chester Zoo suggests the monkeys are capable of more advanced tool use than previously thought.Scientists from Durham University, UK, filmed the mandrill stripping a twig and using the resulting tool to clean under its toenails.They published the findings in the journal Behavioural Processes.Mandrills are the fifth species of Old World monkey seen deliberately modifying tools.Non-human apes, including chimpanzees and orangutans, can adapt basic tools for specific jobs.

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. Discovery News has been reporting on human/Neanderthal interbreeding for some time now, so this latest research confirms earlier findings.Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal's Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of non-African heritage."This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions.

Not necessarily, but it does provide a possible mechanism for explaining how life initially arose from nonliving molecules. Szostak's team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital showed that the presence of clay aids naturally occurring reactions that result in the formation of fatty sacks called vesicles, similar to what scientists expect the first living cells to have looked like. Further, the clay helps RNA form. The RNA can stick to the clay and move with it into the vesicles. This provides a method for RNA's critical genetic information to move inside a primitive cell.

Some scientists have seen the ultimate sky show, and the fact that the sky isn't ours only makes it cooler. Gas giant Jupiter features some epic aurora beyond-borealis (and ultra-australis) and the causes make ours look like two small sparklers in a bucket of water.On Earth auroras are caused by the interaction between the solar wind and the upper atmosphere. Energetic particles slam into the upper atmosphere, slowing down and losing energy to electrons in the atoms already there. More electrons gain energy from magnetic fields in the solar wind particles violently rewiring themselves and our magnetosphere. Excited electrons from both processes then fall back down to their original state, emitting light as they go - different colors coming from different materials in the atmosphere.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spied a previously unknown moon around Pluto, bringing the dwarf planet's total number of natural satellites up to four.Astronomers estimate that the tiny fourth moon is between 8 and 21 miles (13 to 34 kilometers) wide. By contrast, Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is 648 miles (1,043 kilometers) across.The dwarf planet's other moons, Nix and Hydra, are both in the range of 20 to 70 miles (32 to 113 kilometers) wide.The new moon has been given the temporary designation P4.

A Hungarian court Monday acquitted one of the world's most wanted Nazi war suspects, saying there was not enough evidence to convict him of slaughtering three dozen people during World War II.Sandor Kepiro, 97, was accused of ordering the rounding up and execution of 36 Jews and Serbs in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1942.

Peruvian archaeologists working in the north of the country say they've found an unspoiled tomb from the Lambayeque culture.Initial studies indicate that the tomb belonged to a priest-like individual who performed human sacrifices during fertility ceremonies."He has with him, as offerings, three copper knives, some metal objects, a skirt made of circular copper sheets," says Fausto Saldana, an archaeologist working at the Huaca Chotuna site.

Do people believe good and bad luck can be washed away? Yes, according to an advanced online publication in the Journal of Experimental Psychology that was co-authored by Rami Zwick, a University of California, Riverside marketing professor in the School of Business Administration.Zwick, working with Alison Jing Xu of the University of Toronto, and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan, designed two experiments that showed risk taking depends on whether participants recalled a past episode of good or bad luck and whether they washed their hands before engaging in a risky decision making task.

A Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) scientist who has previously discovered antimicrobial compounds in the skin of frogs and in the dogfish shark has now turned his attention to the remarkable wound healing abilities of dolphins.A dolphin's ability to heal quickly from a shark bite with apparent indifference to pain, resistance to infection, hemorrhage protection, and near-restoration of normal body contour might provide insights for the care of human injuries, says Michael Zasloff, M.D., Ph.D.

Archaeologists believe the remains of burned oak uncovered at the site of the first Sainsbury's in the Highlands to be evidence of an ancient "rest stop".The supermarket and a filling station are being constructed on the outskirts of Nairn, at a cost of about £20m.Headland Archaeologists investigated the site ahead of building work.They radiocarbon-dated the hearth to the Mesolithic period, which started as the last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago.

To win at rock, paper, scissors try closing your eyes. It could help you to control an unconscious urge to imitate your opponent.Richard Cook at University College London and colleagues asked 45 adults to play rounds of the game with either one or both players blindfolded. There were significantly more draws when one player was sighted, but when someone did win, it was more often a blindfolded player than a sighted one.

After a decade of offshore prehistoric research in the seas around the UK, Wessex Archaeology Edinburgh reflects on the significant advances made under the Marine Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (MALSF) and where advances could be made within offshore development-led archaeology in Scotland over the next decade and beyond.

Early human ancestors walked fully upright about 2 million years earlier than scientists have long suggested, according to the results of a recent study.A team of researchers at the University of Liverpool, along with scientists at the University of Manchester and Bournemouth University, applied a new statistical technique often used in functional brain imaging to obtain a three-dimensional average of the famous 11 footprints discovered at Laetoli, Tanzania, discovered by Mary Leakey in 1976. The footprints are interpreted to have been left originally in soft volcanic ash by a group of three individuals of the Australopithecus afarensis species following the eruption of the nearby Sadiman Volcano approximately 3.7 million years ago. Australopithecus afarensis is an early species thought to be ancestral to the Human, or Homo, evolutionary line and popularized by "Lucy", the benchmark discovery made in the Afar region of Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in 1974. The data was compared to other data from footprint formation and under-foot pressure studies of walking modern humans and living great apes, as well as data from computer simulations of the same taken from different reconstructed gaits of the Australopithecus afarensis species that produced the original Laetoli prints.

Fossils of leaves, flowers, fruits and buds found in Patagonia, Argentina, have been identified as Eucalyptus and date to 51.9 million years ago, making them the oldest scientifically validated Eucalyptus macrofossils and the only ones conclusively identified as naturally occurring outside of Australasia.

Zoologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena found out how sloths move and how their locomotive system adapted to their unhurried lifestyle in the course of evolution.They live their lives upside down; instead of defying the force of gravity in an upright position, sloths spend most of their lives hanging in trees upside down. If they have to move, they do so only slowly. Very slowly. But why are sloths so 'lazy'? And how has the locomotive system of these outsiders adapted to their unhurried lifestyle in the course of evolution? Zoologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) have looked into the matter comprehensively.

The decline of large predators and other "apex consumers" at the top of the food chain has disrupted ecosystems all over the planet, according to a review of recent findings conducted by an international team of scientists and published in the July 15 issue of Science.The study, which included Jeremy Jackson and Stuart Sandin of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, looked at research on a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems and concluded that "the loss of apex consumers is arguably humankind's most pervasive influence on the natural world.

Physicists in Canada and Italy have derived quantum mechanics from physical principles related to the storage, manipulation and retrieval of information.The new work is a step in a long, ongoing effort to find fundamental physical motivation for the math of quantum physics, which describes processes in the atomic and subatomic realms with unerring accuracy but defies commonsense understanding.

New observations from the Herschel Space Observatory show a bizarre, twisted ring of dense gas at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Only a few portions of the ring, which stretches across more than 600 light-years, were known before. Herschel's view reveals the entire ring for the first time, and a strange kink that has astronomers scratching their heads."We have looked at this region at the center of the Milky Way many times before in the infrared," said Alberto Noriega-Crespo of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "But when we looked at the high-resolution images using Herschel's sub-millimeter wavelengths, the presence of a ring is quite clear." Noriega-Crespo is co-author of a new paper on the ring published in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Farmers have called for action for years, but mass slaughter of the animals has polarised opinion, with wildlife campaigners bitterly opposed.Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, will address MPs in the Commons today in response to a consultation on badger control.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) yesterday remained tight-lipped about the announcement, but a cull is one of the methods it has considered in order to keep badger numbers down.

Turtles should sit on the same branch of the tree of life as lizards, according to a genetic analysis that could clear up a long-standing mystery over the creature's origin.Palaeontologists have long used morphological data, obtained by looking closely at the physical characteristics of fossils and living relatives, to show the evolutionary relationship between different species. In recent decades, however, genetic comparisons have become important.

Today, fiber optics technology transports information in the form of classical data to homes and businesses. But researchers are currently working on ways to combine quantum data with the classical data in fiber optics networks in order to increase security. In a new study, scientists have shown how quantum and classical data can be interlaced in a real-world fiber optics network, taking a step toward distributing quantum information to the home, and with it a quantum internet.

Some 400 hectares of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said.The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added. Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary.Authorities have been checking for GMO crops since the beginning of this year as a new regulation came in force this March which stipulates GMO checks before seeds are introduced to the market.

A new plastic surface which overcomes the difficulties associated with growing adult stem cells has been developed, according to scientists.Standard surfaces have proved limited for growing large amounts and retaining the stem cells' useful characteristics.It is hoped the discovery could lead to the creation of stem cell therapies for re-growing bone and tissue, and also for conditions such as arthritis.

Honeybees are dying off, and scientists aren't entirely sure why. Since we depend on the bees to pollinate our crops, their disappearance could be catastrophic, exacerbating a worsening food crisis. Researchers at Canada's University of Manitoba are trying to help by creating super-bees that can survive conditions normal bees can't. Here, a brief guide:Bees are dying off?Big time. A baffling phenomenon known as "Colony Collapse Disorder" began decimating honeybee populations in 2006. Mites and viruses have contributed to the die-off, but scientists cite plenty of other culprits, including pesticides, climate change, and even cell phone use.

Populations of spur-thighed tortoises (Testudo graeca), a species classified as vulnerable and at risk of extinction, can withstand fires if outbreaks occur once every three decades or more. However, the youngest tortoises are more vulnerable, and disappear after each fire. These are the results of a study by Spanish researchers, who analysed the impact of a 2004 forest fire in the Sierra de la Carrasquilla mountains in Murcia (Spain) on these reptiles."Tortoises can withstand high temperatures, but this does not mean their shells are completely fire proof," Ana Sanz-Aguilar, lead author of the study said. Currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in Montpellier, France, she collaborated with the Miguel Hernández University (UMH) and the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA-CSIC) for this research.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have produced the first detailed data on how large-scale dairy facilities contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases. This research was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at the ARS Northwest Irrigation and Soils Research Laboratory in Kimberly, Idaho.ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, and these studies support the USDA priority of responding to climate change.ARS soil scientist April Leytem led the year-long project, which involved monitoring the emissions of ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from a commercial dairy with 10,000 milk cows in southern Idaho. The facility had 20 open-lot pens, two milking parlors, a hospital barn, a maternity barn, a manure solid separator, a 25-acre wastewater storage pond and a 25-acre compost yard.

Binge or "heavy episodic" drinking is prevalent during adolescence, raising concerns about alcohol's effects on crucial neuromaturational processes during this developmental period. Heavy alcohol use has been associated with decrements in cognitive functioning in both adult and adolescent populations, particularly on tasks of spatial working memory (SWM). This study examined gender-specific influences of binge drinking on SWM, finding that female teens may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of heavy alcohol use.

Fires raging in central Africa are generating a high amount of pollution that is showing up in data from NASA's Aura Satellite, with the ominous shape of a dark red butterfly in the skies over southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Angola.An image of the pollution from agricultural fires in central Africa was created from data of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels over the period from July 7 to 12, 2011. It was created from Ozone Measuring Instrument (OMI) data using the NASA Giovanni system by Dr. James Acker at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs Zahi Hawass has been sentenced to one year in jail on Sunday for refusing to fulfill a court ruling over a land dispute.The Egyptian criminal court also said Hawass must be relieved of his governmental duties and ordered him to pay a LE1000 penalty.Hawass failed to adhere to a ruling in favour of his opponent over a land dispute when he was in charge of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

The main Saturday morning news featured the troubles of professional archaeology. There were now, we were told, 7% fewer professional archaeologists than however many months ago and indeed archaeology was "more reliant on volunteers" than it had ever been before.My guess is that this did not make the nation's heart bleed. I suspect that most people did not realise that there was a "profession" of "professional archaeology" - and many of those that did would not have rated its importance along with teachers and nurses etc. Which is a pity.

Archaeological digs have found many treasures over the years that have enhanced our knowledge about the past.But there are concerns that funding cuts mean that the discipline will be more dependent on good will and amateur archaeologists then ever before.Louise Hubball reports.

Through the looking glass, Lewis Carroll's Alice stumbles upon an enormous egg-shaped figure celebrating his un-birthday. She tries to introduce herself:"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?""Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully."Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: "My name means the shape I am - and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost."PURE whimsy, you might think. Nearly 100 years of linguistics research has been based on the assumption that words are just collections of sounds - an agreed acoustic representation that has little to do with their actual meaning. There should be nothing in nonsense words such as "Humpty Dumpty" that would give away the character's egg-like figure, any more than someone with no knowledge of English could be expected to infer that the word "rose" represents a sweet-smelling flower. Yet a spate of recent studies challenge this idea.

For the first time, Tufts University biologists have reported that bioelectrical signals are necessary for normal head and facial formation in an organism and have captured that process in a time-lapse video that reveals never-before-seen patterns of visible bioelectrical signals outlining where eyes, nose, mouth, and other features will appear in an embryonic tadpole.

Everyday goods like glue, air fresheners and lavatory cleaner have been tested on animals for years.The experiments, usually involving rabbits, can mean shaving off hair to test irritation or force feeding animals to see if products are toxic.However Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said the practice is no longer acceptable.She is due to announce a ban on testing household products on animals shortly.

The next time you're outdoors, see if you can spot the tallest tree. If you're in the desert Southwest, this may be an easy task -- trees there are few and far between, and tend to hunch low to the ground to conserve resources. In the temperate Northeast, dense forests make the exercise a bit more difficult. And in the rainy Northwest, the towering stands of sequoias often reach higher than the eye can estimate.Knowing how tall trees can grow in any given region can give ecologists a wealth of information, from the potential density of a forest and size of its tree canopy to the amount of carbon stored in woodlands and the overall health of an ecosystem. Now an MIT researcher, along with colleagues at the University of Maryland and the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, has come up with a simple model to predict the maximum tree height in different environments across the United States. The researchers' results have been published in the journal PLoS One.

Entanglement, the spooky link that makes disparate quantum objects act as one, can now be topped up for as long as necessary.In recent years, physicists have learned to exploit entanglement to communicate, compute and even teleport. But these experiments have always been hard because entanglement rapidly leaks into the environment. Blink and it's gone.Now Hanna Krauter at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and colleagues have worked out how to entangle two clouds of caesium atoms and maintain the link for as long as they keep their experiment running.

What if our existence is a holographic projection of another, flat version of you living on a two-dimensional "surface" at the edge of this universe? In other words, are we real, or are we quantum interactions on the edges of the universe - and is that just as real anyway?Whether we actually live in a hologram is being hotly debated, but it is now becoming clear that looking at phenomena through a holographic lens could be key to solving some of the most perplexing problems in physics, including the physics that reigned before the big bang,what gives particles mass, a theory of quantum gravity.

Stored inside your genome are clues to the history of humankind, including global migrations and population crashes. So say researchers who have analyzed DNA pioneer, Craig Venter's publicly published DNA sequence, and those of 6 others, to reveal major milestones in human history.The analysis, published in Nature, suggests that descendants of the first humans to leave Africa shrunk to as few as 1,000 reproductively active individuals before rebounding. The study also suggests that, contrary to popular theories, these early humans continued to breed with sub-Saharan Africans until as recently as 20,000 years ago.

These stunning photographs were taken as the Space Shuttle Atlantis remains docked with the International Space Station. Once Atlantis leaves the station and returns home, NASA's 30-year shuttle programme will have come to an end.

By now, our overwhelming tendency to look for what confirms our beliefs and ignore what contradicts our beliefs is well documented. Psychologists refer to this as confirmation bias, and its ubiquity is observed in both academia and in our everyday lives: Republicans watch Fox while Democrats watch MSNB; creationists see fossils as evidence of God, evolutionary biologists see fossils as evidence of evolution; doomsayers see signs of the end of the world, and the rest of us see just another day. Simply put, our ideologies and personal dogmas dictate our realities.

Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing numerical simulations of the long-term evolution of the orbits of minor planets Ceres and Vesta, which are the largest bodies in the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is 6000 times less massive than Earth and almost 80 times less massive than our Moon. Vesta is almost four times less massive than Ceres. These two minor bodies, long thought to peacefully orbit in the asteroid belt, are found to affect their large neighbors and, in particular, Earth in a way that had not been anticipated.The findings are shown in the new astronomical computations released by Jacques Laskar from Paris Observatory and his colleagues, who include J. Laskar, M. Gastineau, J.-B. Delisle, A. Farrés (IMCCE, Observatoire de Paris, France), and A. Fienga (IMCCE/Observatoire de Paris and Observatoire de Besançon, France).

Those who study the sun face an unavoidable hurdle in their research -- their observations must be done from afar. Relying on images and data collected from 90 million miles away, however, makes it tough to measure the invisible magnetic fields sweeping around the sun.Scientists must learn more about these fields because they are crucial to understanding how coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, travel through space -- sometimes toward Earth where they can damage satellites. Now NASA researchers have made use of old mathematical techniques and new insights on how CMEs travel to devise a fresh way to measure this magnetic environment in the sun's upper atmosphere, the corona.

A recent study of the photographic archives of one of the 20th century's most sensational archaeological excavations and discoveries lends powerful credence to the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words". Tucked away carefully within the archival collections of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, more than 5,000 unpublished photographs taken between 1928 and 1937 recount a story in visual detail that cannot be fully told in the printed words of excavation reports, site journals or the popular press of the time.

Reports began to circulate in early June concerning damage to one of a series of four remarkable Neolithic monuments in Somerset, southwest England. However, the scale of the damage to the Priddy Circles is only now being fully appreciated.A ruined monumentThe four Circles are listed together as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and as such are under the protection of the State. Somerset County Council confirmed it was working in conjunction with English Heritage to pursue a resolution for this distressing situation, which arose when the landowner, Mr Penny, allegedly used his earth-moving equipment to bulldoze, flatten and reseed the entire southwestern arc of the southern circle.

Nasa expects to hear back from its Dawn spacecraft on Sunday to learn if the manoeuvre, which took place about 117 million miles from Earth, was successful."We just have to be patient," said chief engineer Marc Rayman of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.Dawn was dispatched to Vesta in 2007, the first stop in a $466 million quest to learn more about how the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.

Exceptionally preserved fossils of insect cocoons have allowed researchers in Argentina to describe how wasps played an important role in food webs devoted to consuming rotting dinosaur eggs. The research is published today (15th July) in the scientific journal Palaeontology.The approximately 70 million year old eggs, from gigantic titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs were discovered in 1989 in the Patagonia region of Argentina, well known for yielding fossils of sauropod dinosaur eggs and even embryonic dinosaurs. Only recently it was discovered that one of the broken eggs contained tiny sausage-shaped structures, 2-3cm long and 1cm wide. The structures closely resembled fossilised insect cocoons, and were most similar in size and shape to the cocoons of some species of modern wasp.

A Russian space telescope conceived during the Cold War is set to launch on Monday. When it reaches an orbit that will extend almost as far as the moon, the RadioAstron mission will sync up with radio antennas on the ground, effectively forming the biggest telescope yet built, with a "dish" spanning almost 30 times the Earth's diameter.RadioAstron's roots extend back more than three decades, but the mission lost momentum when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. "For 20 years it was always five years away," says collaborator Ken Kellermann of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It might be among the hardest materials known, but place a diamond in a patch of sunlight and it will start to lose atoms, say a team of physicists in Australia. The rate of loss won't significantly trouble tiara wearers or damage diamond rings, but the discovery could prove a boon for researchers working to tap diamond's exceptional optical and electronic properties.

Zoo visitors in southern Ukraine are being shocked by a rare albino snake with two heads. Zoo keepers have put the animal on display at the Yalta zoo through September, and people are flocking in droves to get a glimpse.The video below shows the abnormal creature as it slithers through its man-made environment hunting for food. But its pretty obvious it's a reptile with two minds. One is aggressive, the other passive. Until dinner time.

Scientists have captured the atmospheric signature of a tsunami in a discovery that could lead to an early warning system for the phenomenon.A study by the University of Illinois captured the airglow signature of the tsunami that struck the Japanese coast on March 11 using an observatory on the island of Hawaii.It was found at a height of 250km above the earth's surface and preceded the giant wave striking the coast by around an hour.

President Obama came into office promising to reverse George W. Bush administration practices and elevate science over politics. He explicitly applied that principle to drug policy, an area long driven by ideology and prejudice. He quickly began to make good on the pledge by promoting three evidence-based drug policies: eliminating the ban on states using federal funding for syringe exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis; reforming the racially unjust crack-cocaine sentencing disparity that punished crack offenses more harshly than powder offenses; and vowing to end years of federal interference in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.But as The Times' July 9 article makes dismayingly clear, the White House is putting the "science-free zone" sign back up.

On July 15, NASA's ion-propelled Dawn probe will become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid. Dawn will orbit Vesta for one Earth-year, studying the giant space rock at close range to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history.As Dawn approaches Vesta, surface details are coming into focus, as seen in a recent image taken from a distance of about 26,000 miles (41,000 kilometers).

If you've spent any time thinking about a chivalric order lately, dollars to doughnuts it's the Knights Templar, the sworn protectors of Jesus' secret bloodline in Dan Brown's daffy Da Vinci Code mythology. The visitor to Malta, however, is soon introduced to a different band of warrior-monks, the Knights of the Order of St. John. Though less shrouded in conspiracy theory, these knights played a more significant role in world history and have enjoyed far greater longevity. The Knights Templar were disbanded in the 14th century by King Philip IV of France. The Knights of St. John, by contrast, are still around, operating hospitals, providing humanitarian aid, and generally doing good deeds around the globe. They even print their own postage.

Scientists have been wrong for 250 years about a fundamental aspect of tissue regeneration, according to a University of Dayton biologist who says his recent discovery is good news for humans.In research published in Nature Communications this month, Panagiotis Tsonis concludes repeated regeneration, even at old age, does not alter the capacity of newts to regenerate tissue. His findings overturn long-accepted theories proposed by regeneration scientists that age and repeated amputation negatively affect regeneration.

Mechanical pumps to give failing hearts a boost were originally developed as temporary measures for patients awaiting a heart transplant. But as the technology has improved, these ventricular assist devices commonly operate in patients for years, including in former vice-president Dick Cheney, whose implant this month celebrates its one-year anniversary.Prolonged use, however, has its own problems. The power cord that protrudes through the patient's belly is cumbersome and prone to infection over time. Infections occur in close to 40 percent of patients, are the leading cause of rehospitalization, and can be fatal.

After digging holes in the Earth's crust for nearly two decades, Princeton University geoscientist Tullis Onstott is now making headlines for unearthing "worms from hell."Onstott's research team, which he led with Gaetan Borgonie of the University of Ghent in Belgium, recently made a startling discovery: microscopic roundworms known as nematodes living nearly two-and-a-half miles beneath the Earth's surface in several South African gold mines. The worms are roughly a quarter of the diameter of the head of a pin. Although nematode species have been known to live as far as 20 feet below the surface, scientists generally assumed there was no reason to believe the organisms would be found anywhere near the depths of those found by Onstott's team, he noted.

The ancient capital of the Iceni in Norfolk, southeast England, has been saved from continuing damage by a substantial grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The Norfolk Archaeological Trust received £374,000 to purchase part of Venta Icenorum, which lies beneath fields at Caistor St. Edmund.The Roman town, is one of only three regional centres in Britain that did not develop into a modern town.There was a high risk of irrevocable damage to the site as a result of both intensive agricultural ploughing and unauthorised metal detecting.

We might think that hot-blooded creatures are more impulsive than intelligent.But lizards can be every bit as clever as mammals and birds, researchers have found.Scientists were surprised to find that their test subjects could learn how to solve novel problems, challenging the widely-held view that reptiles have limited brain power.The experiments saw lizards placed on a wooden block with two wells, one of which contained a tasty gruband was covered by a tight-fitting blue lid.Having first learned how to 'recognise' the reward well from its appearance, four out of six lizards worked out how to dislodge its lid by biting or using their snouts.