Newsdesk Archive

Massive ice chunks are crumbling away from a shelf in the western Antarctic Peninsula, researchers said Wednesday, warning that 1,300 square miles of ice - an area larger than Rhode Island - was in danger of breaking off in coming weeks.The Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, but began retreating in the 1990s. Researchers believe it was held in place by an ice bridge linking Charcot Island to the Antarctic mainland.But the 127-square-mile bridge lost two large chunks last year and then shattered completely on April 5.

The great splat of an asteroid that might have wiped out the dinosaurs apparently didn't get all of them. New fossil evidence suggests some dinosaurs survived for up to half a million years after the impact in remote parts of New Mexico and Colorado.The whole idea that a space rock destroyed the dinosaurs has become controversial in recent years. Many scientists now suspect other factors were involved, from increased volcanic activity to a changing climate. Either way, some 70 percent of life on Earth perished, and an asteroid impact almost surely played a role.

In a recent issue of The Journal of Chemical Physics, published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), a group of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Los Alamos National Laboratory describe the first comprehensive, molecular-level numerical study of gene therapy. Their work should help scientists design new experimental gene therapies and possibly solve some of the problems associated with this promising technique.

As described in an article published this week in an advance, online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the work demonstrates some of the classic principles of evolution. For instance, research shows that when different species directly compete for the same finite resource, only the fittest will survive. The work also demonstrates how, when given a variety of resources, the different species will evolve to become increasingly specialized, each filling different niches within their common ecosystem.

CALL it CSI: Precambrian. About 700 million years ago, one of the most significant - and most mysterious - events in the history of life on Earth occurred. Suddenly, there was more to life than just single-celled microbes. Within a few tens of millions of years, an extraordinary array of large animals appeared, armed with jaws and claws and eyes and brains.

A century and a half ago, Athens was a humble, forgotten city of about 8,000 people. Today, one out of every three Greeks packs into this city of about 4 million.

A 1/10th-scale model of a NASA Saturn V rocket launched successfully on Saturday, becoming what is thought to be the largest amateur rocket ever to take off and be safely recovered. The feat could herald the arrival of the first amateur rockets to reach orbit.The 11-metre-tall, 750-kilogram rocket took off on Saturday from a field outside of Price, Maryland, near the eastern shore. It flew for roughly 20 seconds to an altitude of more than 1300 metres before segmenting and falling back to Earth beneath multiple parachutes.

Pundits and journalists like to deal in "worst-case scenarios" in stories about weather and climate. Like it or not, eye-grabbing headlines like "Worst drought on record;" "Worst hurricane season ever;" "Worst loss of Arctic since records began" really do catch readers' eyes, even if the period of record is as low as 30 years.

SYDNEY: The first clinical test of a bionic eye is likely within two years and commercialisation within five, according to researchers. A bionic eye is a form of neural prosthesis (artificial extensions of body) intended to partially restore lost vision or amplify existing vision.Director of Bionic Vision Australia Anthony Burkitt, also professor at the University of Melbourne (U-M), welcomed the announcement and says a $50 million (Australian) funding boost will place Australia at the forefront of development in the bionic eye.

LONDON: Comets have always fascinated people. Now, scientists have added a new twist to that fascination -- comets might have provided the elements for the emergence of life on Earth.A team at Tel Aviv University, led by Professor Akiva Bar-Nun, has carried out a study and found that comets were the source of missing ingredients needed for life in Earth's ancient primordial soup, the 'Icarus' journal reported. And, according to the scientists, it's the chemical composition of comets that allowed them to kickstart life.

Russia's next-generation manned space vehicle might be equipped with thrusters to perform a precision landing on its return to Earth.Engineers are considering a rocket-powered landing system for the successor to Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.If accepted, it would be the first time that a manned vehicle relied solely on rocket engines for touchdown.

NASA will probably not build an outpost on the moonMovie Camera as originally planned, the agency's acting administrator, Chris Scolese, told lawmakers on Wednesday. His comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.NASA has been working towards returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and building a permanent base there. But some space analysts and advocacy groups like the Planetary Society have urged the agency to cancel plans for a permanent moon base, carry out shorter moon missions instead, and focus on getting astronauts to Mars.

Giant pterosaurs, colossal winged reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, have long been considered the heaviest animals ever to take to the skies.But new research suggests that the notion of giant pterosaurs soaring over Earth simply doesn't fly.

Dr. David Luke lectures in psychology at several London universities and is a writer and researcher with a special interest in altered states of consciousness, parapsychology and extraordinary human experiences. He has studied ostensibly paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney in London. We are pleased to welcome David as our May 2009 Author of the Month

Though obscure in other respects, 1936 was an important year for the philosophy of the human past. This was the year in which the Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe published Man Makes Himself, a book that became one of the most widely read works of archaeology ever published. In the same year, R.G. Collingwood, the Oxford don, sat down to pen 36 lectures later published as The Idea of History, a landmark in historiography.There is nothing to suggest that Collingwood read Man Makes Himself while writing his lectures, though we know that Childe, in later years, read Collingwood. The books themselves could not be more different in form, in substance and in their intended audience. Yet both authors, in their very different ways, had things to say about the curious fragmentation that afflicts the science of the human past.

When one thinks of Einstein, it is natural to assume that obviously his brain differed from that of the average person. And, ever since Thomas Harvey, a pathologist in Princeton, removed Einstein's brain upon his 1955 death and documented it, scientists have been studying it. Currently, Einstein's brain is in 240 pieces, mounted on slides. However, measurements and photographs were taken of the brain prior to its dis-assembly, and these photos are pored over every few years by those wishing to unravel the secrets of the brain belonging to one of the geniuses of the 20th Century.In 1999, an anatomical study of Einstein's brain was made. Interestingly, reports Science Now, his brain was smaller than average:"One parameter that did not explain Einstein's mental prowess, however, was the size of his brain: At 1230 grams, it fell at the low end of average for modern humans."

MEXICO CITY, April 28 (Reuters) - Mexico's Senate approved a bill on Tuesday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of narcotics for personal use, in order to free resources to fight violent drug cartels.The bill, proposed by conservative President Felipe Calderon, would make it legal to carry up to 5 grams (0.18 ounces) of marijuana, 500 milligrams (0.018 ounces) of cocaine and tiny quantities of other drugs such as heroin and methamphetamines.

The winning images from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School's Underwater Photography Contest 2009 include a whitetip shark, boxer crabs, and a pygmy seahorse.

A super soldier program produces Marvel superhero Wolverine in the movie "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," along with rivals Sabretooth and Weapon XI. Now LiveScience looks back on real experiments that the U.S. government ran on soldiers and citizens to advance the science of war.The military didn't replicate Wolverine's indestructible skeleton and retractable claws. Rather, they shot accident victims up with plutonium, tested nerve gas on sailors, and tried out ESP. While some of the tests seem outlandish in hindsight, the military continues to push the envelope in seeking new warfare techniques based on cutting-edge science and technology.

Archaeologists in Egypt are hoping that the discovery of a burial site containing more than 50 mummies will shed light on the development of Egyptian funeral rituals.

WHAT IS IT like to be a baby? For centuries, this question would have seemed absurd: behind that adorable facade was a mostly empty head. A baby, after all, is missing most of the capabilities that define the human mind, such as language and the ability to reason. Rene Descartes argued that the young child was entirely bound by sensation, hopelessly trapped in the confusing rush of the here and now. A newborn, in this sense, is just a lump of need, a bundle of reflexes that can only eat and cry. To think like a baby is to not think at all.

Companies such as BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse will be asked to monitor all UK web use, e-mail traffic and phone calls after the government backed down on contentious plans for an overarching database for these activities.

The regulated legalisation of drugs would have major benefits for taxpayers, victims of crime, local communities and the criminal justice system, according to the first comprehensive comparison between the cost-effectiveness of legalisation and prohibition. The authors of the report, which is due to be published today, suggest that a legalised, regulated market could save the country around £14bn.For many years the government has been under pressure to conduct an objective cost-benefit analysis of the current drugs policy, but has failed to do so despite calls from MPs. Now the drugs reform charity, Transform, has commissioned its own report, examining all aspects of prohibition from the costs of policing and investigating drugs users and dealers to processing them through the courts and their eventual incarceration.

Archaeologists exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed four new temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city that could have been used as a stronghold during the Egyptian occupation of Mesopotamia and Canaan, and to impress foreign delegations visiting Egypt, antiquities authorities announced Tuesday.

THE HERAKLEOPOLIS false doors, which date back to the First Intermediate Period and Early Middle Kingdom era, display the skills of local artisans. Among these magnificent doors are those belonging to Lady Meret, who held the title of "king's ornament"; Khety, a funerary priest, and Ipy, the king's royal acquaintance.

A roll-your-own blood vessel, grown in the laboratory from a person's own cultured cells, works well in kidney dialysis patients, making it the first complex bioengineered tissue part built without synthetic components. The technique may someday be used to grow internal organs as well, researchers say.

The discovery of a bronze nail from an historic shipwreck north of Gisborne has come with a reminder from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) about the process that should be followed if the public come across potential archaeological artefacts.The Dominion Post reported today the discovery by an Anaura Bay man of three pieces of wood with five bronze nails attached after digging up the artefacts at low tide. One nail sent to the Maritime Archaeological Association for analysis is believed to be a cast bronze deck fastener, or spike, similar to those used in the mid-1800s.

BY ABOUT a billion years after the big bang, our universe was reionised. Hydrogen atoms were torn apart into electrons and protons, but the perpetrator has been something of a mystery. Could dark matter be responsible?Neutral atoms, mostly of hydrogen, formed about 380,000 years after the big bang, when the universe cooled enough for electrons and nuclei to combine. Most astronomers suspect that the hydrogen was reionised by the first generation of stars (see diagram). No telescope has ever peered far enough back in time to see the first stars form, but they are thought to have been giants, and their ferocious ultraviolet light could have done the trick.

Astronomers have found the most distant evidence of water in the Universe, a major conference has been told.The vapour is thought to be present in a jet ejected from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy that is billions of light-years away.The discovery, by a US-European team, was announced at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science meeting.The water was emitted from the black hole when the Universe was only about 2.5 billion years old.This is about one fifth of the Universe's current age, astronomers say. The water's signature, seen at radio wavelengths, is only now being detected because of the huge distance in space between the black hole and Earth.

The genome of a female Hereford cow has been sequenced, which could be a starting point for major improvements in the agricultural industry.Analysing this blueprint of DNA code for the chemical building blocks of the animal is revealing the unique role that many of the genes play.The information is likely to have a major impact on livestock breeding.The study, published in the journal Science, was a six-year effort by more than 300 scientists in 25 countries.Cattle now join an elite group of animals to have had their genome sequenced - a group that includes humans, other primates and rodents.

Spanish archaeology in Egypt began as early as 1886 when Spanish diplomat Eduardo Toda Y Gèell took charge of overseeing the excavation and inventory of the artefacts in the tomb of the 19th-Dynasty craftsman Sennedjem at Deir Al-Medina, near Luxor. During the early 20th century, the Count of Galarza carried out excavations in Giza and in 1908, when Cairo University was built, he was the only Spaniard to be appointed as a lecturer.The Spanish devotion to archaeology in Egypt was firmly established during the Nubia temples salvage operation in the late 1960s, when the Spanish archaeological mission led by Almagro Basch carried out excavations at sites in parts of Egyptian and Sudanese lands, which led to a better understanding of Nubian history from the Neolithic to the Islamic eras. At the end of the campaign, Spain received several thousand items found at the sites as compensation. These are now on display in the National Archeological Museum in Madrid. The Temple of Debod, now erected in central Madrid, was another acknowledgement of Spain's efforts to save the heritage of Egypt.

Sharjah: New archaeological discoveries in Sharjah's Jebel Fayah showed that human settlements existed in the area over 85,000 years ago.Excavation work was carried out as part of a joint programme between the Directorate of Antiquities at the Culture and Information Department in Sharjah and the Institute of Prehistoric Studies and Research at the German University of Tubengin.

UTSA Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) researchers are examining artifacts they recently discovered that date from 3700 B.C. to 600 A.D. The artifacts were discovered during a three-month dig at Miraflores Park, east of Brackenridge Park.CAR researchers were hired by the San Antonio design firm Rehler Vaughn & Koone to conduct an archaeological site inspection before construction of a pedestrian bridge over the San Antonio River from Brackenridge Park. What was expected to be a one-day observation turned into a three-month project which CAR researchers completed in March.

A very small human ancestor made a very big splash back in 2004, when researchers discovered the remains of Homo floresiensis, a 3-ft., prehuman "hobbit," in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. The origin of the species and the route it took to Flores have been much discussed since then. Earlier this month, researchers presented work at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, in Chicago, suggesting that H. floresiensis may have left Africa a full million years earlier than any other hominids were thought to have ventured out from the home continent.

It might not look like much, but this image represents one of the most distant objects astronomers have ever seen, 12.9 billion light years away.It is a "Lyman-alpha blob" and is 55,000 light years across - as large as present-day galaxies.Though younger such blobs have been found, "Himiko" confounds the idea that such large objects grew more recently by the merger of smaller ones.The research will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Fossils found in China may give clues to the evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex.Uncovered near the city of Jiayuguan, the fossil finds come from a novel tyrannosaur dubbed Xiongguanlong baimoensis.The fossils date from the middle of the Cretaceous period, and may be a "missing link", tying the familiar big T rex to its much smaller ancestors.

Two space probes are to be sent to explore the Sun, in an attempt to get closer to the centre of the star than any previous mission.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A painting by Adolf Hitler sold for almost $15,000 Thursday -- more than six times as much as expected.The watercolor was one of 15 items of Hitler art being sold at auction. Together, the artworks by the Nazi leader fetched almost $120,000.They had expected to raise just under $50,000, auction house Mullock's of Shropshire estimated.Many of the pictures were on the market because one of the sellers wanted money to install a new central heating system in his house, a spokesman for the auction house said.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The photograph is a jarring image that shows Nazi Party members, shovels in hand, digging up graves of American soldiers held as slaves by Nazi Germany during World War II.While the men dig up the site, U.S. soldiers investigating war crimes stand over them. Two crosses with helmets placed atop them -- the sign of a fallen soldier -- are visible. Two Germans are knee deep in mud. Another, with a handlebar mustache, has the look of a defeated man. The bodies of 22 American soldiers were found in at least seven graves, according to the photographer.On the back of the photo is written, "Nazi Party members digging up American bodies at Berga."

Reporting from San Diego -- Alan Houston, a political science professor at UC San Diego, had come to the end of a trip to London to research a book about Benjamin Franklin.He thought he might spend the day having fun with friends, but decided to make one more visit to the British Library.In his last request for documents, he stumbled on something unexpected: a letter written by Franklin and copied by a British literary figure named Thomas Birch.

An ancient script that's defied generations of archaeologists has yielded some of its secrets to artificially intelligent computers.Computational analysis of symbols used 4,000 years ago by a long-lost Indus Valley civilization suggests they represent a spoken language. Some frustrated linguists thought the symbols were merely pretty pictures."The underlying grammatical structure seems similar to what's found in many languages," said University of Washington computer scientist Rajesh Rao.

Over the course of its majestic, turbulent and bloody 1,000-year history, Ancient Rome gave rise to many extraordinary stories which live on to this day.Tales filled with unforgettable, larger-than-life characters who, whether heroes or villains, seem - like Shakespeare's brilliant, but fatally ambitious Caesar - to 'bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about...

A simple 45-minute operation being developed by British scientists could cure blindness in millions of people around the world.The revolutionary procedures could take place in six years and could be as commonplace as cataract surgery in less than a decade.The improvement is likely to be great enough to transform lives, allowing the blind to regain the ability to carry out everyday tasks such as reading or driving.

Whether crossword puzzles, sudokus and other brain teasers actually keep your brain in shape, has not been well-established. However, lack of education is a strong predictor of cognitive decline. The more you've tried to learn, the better you'll be at mental sit-ups in old age. The key may be tackling something new; the challenge of the unknown is likely more beneficial than putting together the same jigsaw puzzle over and over again.

Organic semiconductors are promising building blocks for many devices, from LEDs to transistors, offering potential advantages such as cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and high performance. Currently, most research in organic semiconductors has focused on p-channel semiconductors, which transport positively charged holes, rather than n-channel semiconductors, which transport negatively charged electrons. The choice of semiconductor depends on the application, and many applications require a combination of both types. However, the few n-channel semiconductors that exist today have performance that lags considerably behind their p-channel counterparts.

Ancient humans might have used animal bones to grind fruit smoothies as well as dig up termites, a new analysis of mysterious 1 to 2 million-year-old tools suggests.Researchers discovered the bones belonging to large mammals at several sites in South Africa, and their intended use has been the subject of equal parts contention and speculation.

DAYBREAK, and a group of apes are dancing around a rectangular monolith so dark it seems to suck light in. Inspired by this mysterious object, one of them grabs a bone and begins to wield it as a tool - then as a weapon. The armed ape goes hunting, makes a kill and eats flesh for the first time. Next day, he drives a rival group of apes from a watering hole and murders their leader. This, according to Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A space odyssey, is the dawn of humankind.

Astronomers have detected two of the most complex carbon-rich molecules ever found in interstellar space.Their models suggest even more complex await to be discovered, including amino acids - which are essential for life.The results were presented at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science meeting being held in the UK.Researchers detected the organic molecules in the star-forming region of space known as Sagittarius B2, close to the centre of our galaxy.

Rocks from Mars could be brought to the UK within the next 20 years, if a bid to host a study facility is successful.The European and US space agencies want to send a mission to the Red Planet to collect and return geological samples.These fragments of rock and soil could be in Earth labs by the 2020s, according to the European Space Agency's (Esa) science director.Britain would like to host a curation facility for the extra-terrestrial material at Harwell in Oxfordshire.It is certainly a possibility as the study of Martian rocks is likely to be distributed across a number of centres around the US and Europe.

A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains.The "Blue Brain" has been put in a virtual body, and observing it gives the first indications of the molecular and neural basis of thought and memory.Scaling the simulation to the human brain is only a matter of money, says the project's head.The work was presented at the European Future Technologies meeting in Prague.

It may look like a cross between a seal and an otter; but an Arctic fossil could, scientists say, hold the secret of seal evolution in its feet.A skeleton unearthed in northern Canada shows a creature with feet that were probably webbed, but were not flippers.Writing in the journal Nature, scientists suggest the 23 million-year-old proto-seal would have walked on land and swum in fresh water.It is the oldest seal ancestor found so far and has been named Puijila darwini.

Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in an area once known as the doldrums, an enormous, accidental monument to modern society has formed. Invisible to satellites, poorly understood by scientists and perhaps twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass, as is sometimes imagined, but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris.It was discovered in 1997 by a Californian sailor, surfer, volunteer environmentalist and early-retired furniture restorer named Charles Moore, who was heading home with his crew from a sailing race in Hawaii, at the helm of a 50ft catamaran that he had built himself.

Two researchers have solved a 150-year-old mystery from the dawn of Canadian science, rediscovering a long-lost set of fossilized footprints that - unbeknownst to William Logan, the pioneering geologist who found them in 1851 - represent the emergence of animal life on land.Logan, the iconic 19th-century scientist for whom Canada's highest mountain is named, was the head of the fledgling Geological Survey of Canada in the late 1840s when he was informed by the editor of the Montreal Gazette, Robert Abraham, of unusual markings seen on rocks in a sandstone quarry near the St. Lawrence River.

Brick by brick, tiny figure by tiny figure, Alec Garrard has painstakingly worked for 30 years on an astonishing recreation of Herod's Temple.But despite spending all that time and effort the retired farmer believes he won't finish it in his lifetime as he keeps finding things to add to it.In contrast, legend has it that the original construction of the entire complex lasted only three years, although historians believe it took far longer.

By measuring the photon signatures left when light bounces off photosynthesizing cells, astronomers may soon have a new tool for detecting extraterrestrial organisms."When you look at objects in the solar system, what's a high-probability way of determining whether or not that planet has life?" said Neill Reid, a Space Telescope Science Institute astrobiologist. "Circular polarization has the potential to be a signature of life."

As Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon on July 21, 1969, his immortal words "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" became synonymous with the scale of the achievement.However, in the event that astronauts Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin been stranded on the Moon, Nixon would have delivered a far more chilling address to the nation.

MAGNETS are being used to control the transformation of stem cells into specific tissues. They could also be used to guide stem cells to target locations in the body, allowing arthritic joints and torn cartilage, for example, to be repaired without surgery.Alicia El Haj of Keele University, UK, and her colleagues have created magnetic beads up to 2 micrometres across that bind to receptors on human mesenchymal stem cells, which are extracted from bone marrow or fat tissue. When a magnetic field is applied, the beads move, deforming the surface of the cells and forcing open its pores. The resulting influx of potassium ions sets in motion a cascade of reactions inside the cell that determine what kind of tissue it will turn into.

The early bird may get the worm, but the night owl has more stamina, a new study suggests.The differences come from the interactions between two regions of the brain, including one that is home to the master circadian clock.It has long been known that some people have a predilection for the "early to bed, early to rise" sleep schedule, while others prefer to sleep in and stay up until the wee hours.

Today is Earth Day, a day set aside for awarenesss and appreciation of the Earth's environment, and our roles within it - this year marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. As a way to help appreciate and observe our environment, I've collected 40 images below, each a glimpse into some aspect of the world around us, how it affects and sustains us, and how we affect it. Happy Earth Day everyone.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Have at least $68,000 to spare? If so, you may be in the running to join an exclusive group of individuals who have had their complete genome sequenced.Starting Friday, the non-profit X Prize Foundation and private firm Knome are auctioning a whole genome sequence on eBay.The highest bidder will walk away with a full readout of their gene map, along with a complete interpretation of their genetic details.Hopes that genome sequencing will help usher in a new era of individualized health care have been rising ever since the first human genome sequence was completed in 2003.

The ancient Maya civilisation used a rare type of clay called "palygorskite" to produce Maya blue. Combining structural, morphological and geochemical methods, Spanish researchers have defined the features of palygorskite clay on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. These findings will make it possible to ascertain the origin of the materials used to produce this pigment, which survives both time and chemical and environmental elements.

Earth Day may fall later this week, but as far as former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell and other UFO enthusiasts are concerned, the real story is happening elsewhere.Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms.

Today, I met Cleopatra's lawyer. Well, not her lawyer but someone who is determined to defend the legendary queen against centuries of bad publicity.Kathleen Martinez is a young archaeologist from the Dominican Republic who has toiled for three years on a barren hillside overlooking the coastal highway linking Alexandria with the Libyan border. According to the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, it's here, at a spot known as Abusir, that the tomb of Marc Antony and Cleopatra might be located.I met Martinez in a dusty tomb full of bones at the excavation site. She recounted to me that, as a young girl, she listened in on a scholarly discussion in her father's library about Cleopatra.

When World War II broke out, the "Bedford Boys" left home to serve. Many of them didn't come home _ so many that the community had among the greatest losses per capita on D-Day.Now the last survivor has died.Elisha Ray Nance died Sunday in Bedford, a spokesman at Tharp Funeral Home and Crematory said Monday. He was 94.

Pisa, April 15 - The 200-year-old travel diary of an Italian adventurer who explored Egypt and later guided the founders of Egyptology to key sites has been uncovered in this Tuscan city. The journal, accidentally unearthed during research into a groundbreaking historical expedition, was written by a Siena-born doctor, draughtsman and explorer named Alessandro Ricci, who set out for Egypt in 1817.Ricci's journal covered a five-year period until 1822, describing his adventures and experiences in detail. The document is particularly important as Ricci was a key figure in a later Franco-Tuscan expedition, led jointly by the French philologist who deciphered hieroglyphs, Jean-Francois Champollion, and a leading Italian Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini.

The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity.At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period.

The Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Valton Beqiri, hosted the director of the Archaeological Institute of Frankfurt and Germany's representative for Archaeological Heritage, Dr. Friedrich Lueth.On this occasion, Dr. Lüeth handed over a report to Minister Beqiri on scientific research of geophysical archaeological site of the ancient town of Ulpiana which is made pursuant to a cooperation memorandum signed in February of 2008 by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo and the Institute Archeology of Frankfurt.

Neanderthal women had different birth canals than humans today. But childbirth was probably just as difficult, a new study finds.Scientists used fragments of a fossilized Neanderthal pelvis to reconstruct the birth canal. Though its shape is different from that of modern humans, the researchers concluded that it would have been similarly painful for the ancient hominids to give birth.

From his place in New Mexico, Thomas Ashcraft recently took in a live show -- even though it unfolded some 390 million-plus miles away on Jupiter. All he needed was a few antennas, some short wave radios and a recorder to document the event.Listen to a recording of Jupiter's sounds here, courtesy of Thomas Ashcraft.It turns out Earth's big brother can belt out a tune ... well a few notes anyway. The radio waves come to Earth in two varieties: long bursts and short ones. They appear when particular parts of Jupiter are aligned with Io -- its closest and most volcanically active moon -- and receiving stations on Earth.

A baby mammoth dubbed Lyuba had her brief life cut short in a swamp 40,000 years ago, but the well-preserved specimen will provide the world a window into the extinct creatures from the Ice Age.Discovered in 2007, the 1-month-old mammoth died suddenly, probably trapped in mud. "She was doing great, very healthy," says paleontologist Dan Fisher of the University of Michigan, part of the international team researching Lyuba. "She just had this terrible misfortune."Lyuba appears in the May National Geographic and in Waking the Baby Mammoth Sunday (9 p.m. ET/PT) on the National Geographic Channel. She's perhaps the best-preserved mammoth ever discovered: Lyuba's skin and internal organs appear intact, as well as traces of mother's milk found in her stomach. The only damage to the mammoth, which is less than 3 feet tall, are bite marks from village dogs.

Climate change. Energy independence. Air pollution. There are countless arguments for moving beyond fossil fuels for our energy needs. Unfortunately, there are just as many hurdles that must be cleared before we can feasibly count on other sources to supplant oil, coal and natural gas, which currently provide the lion's share of U.S. electricity generation and transportation fuels.

Key Concepts* Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans and share nearly 99 percent of our DNA.* Efforts to identify those regions of the human genome that have changed the most since chimps and humans diverged from a common ancestor have helped pinpoint the DNA sequences that make us human.

GREAT news, there may be a way to avoid a looming disaster. All you need to do is forget all about it by "resetting" your memory.That's the claim of physicist Saibal Mitra at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and it is predicated on the existence of parallel universes.

Dust particles contained in a type of burnt-out star known as "white dwarfs" could be the remnants of planets similar to our own, they concluded.An international team, which included Dr Jay Farihi of the University of Leicester, found evidence that between one and three per cent of white dwarfs could once have had their own solar systems.When stars similar to the sun get to the end of their life they swell up to become giant bodies known as "red giants".

Rome, 17 April (AKI) - Last week's powerful earthquake in the central Italian Abruzzo regional capital L'Aquila has unearthed prehistoric dwellings there, according Italian daily La Stampa. Some of the vaulted caves measure up to five metres in height, according to Italian geologist Gianluca Ferretti, quoted by the daily."We are exploring them," said Ferretti, who teaches geology at L'Aquila's university.

A team of archaeologists recently found a part of a clay seal with ancient inscriptions at Paharpur Buddhist Monastery site in the northern district of Naogaon.The five-member team also dug out artifacts, including brick- built structures, floor and unknown earthen pots, at the site during their excavation.The Department of Archeology carried out the month-long excavation work that ended on April 16 to collect archeological information about site.

The city of Venice has announced a plan to utilize algae in a different way than we're used to hearing about. The Italian city plans to produce 50 percent of its electricity needs from an algae-based power plant instead of fossil fuels.The water-filled city is turning what has become a nuisance into a renewable energy resource. The city will be producing electricity from two types of algae that are brought in clinging to ships and regularly grow over the seaport. The algae will be cultivated and treated in laboratories to turn it into fuel. The fuel will then be used to power turbines in a new 40 MW power plant in the center of the city.

BEIJING (April 20) -The Great Wall of China is even greater than once thought.A two-year government mapping study has uncovered new sections of the ancient Chinese monument that total about 180 miles, according to a report posted on the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping Web site.

Hurricanes and other tropical cyclones inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming, researchers now say.The finding, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, provides more evidence of the intertwining of severe weather and global warming by demonstrating a mechanism by which storms could drive climate change. Many scientists now believe that global warming, in turn, is likely to increase the severity of tropical cyclones.

It's the southern ozone hole whatdunit. That's why Antarctic sea ice is growing while at the other pole, Arctic ice is shrinking at record rates. It seems CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals have given the South Pole respite from global warming.But only temporarily. According to John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey, the effect will last roughly another decade before Antarctic sea ice starts to decline as well.Arctic sea ice is decreasing dramatically and reached a record low in 2007. But satellite images studied by Turner and his colleagues show that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in every month of the year expect January. "By the end of the century we expect one third of Antarctic sea ice to disappear," says Turner. "So we're trying to understand why it's increasing now, at a time of global warming.".

Thousands of small, sharp-edged flakes of volcanic tuff and chert have been unearthed from the cave of the "hobbit," the roughly 1-meter-tall ancient human found on the island of Flores in Indonesia. The stone tools have puzzled researchers: How could a hominid with a brain the size of a grapefruit craft tools? Now a detailed analysis sheds light on the hobbit's technological capabilities and raises a new mystery: Why did the modern humans who arrived later on Flores make tools the same way hobbits did?

Neil Turok, chair of mathematical physics at Cambridge University, says governments are following the wrong policy when it comes to African aid.Focusing on basic healthcare and primary education is stopping Africa developing, Professor Turok suggests.The founder of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) says investment in higher education is key.He says Africa needs its own science and technology skills base to become an equal partner in the global economy.

For nearly 50 years, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has scanned the heavens with radio telescopes for signs of alien technology. At the same time, scientists have painstakingly crafted messages to send in reply. When NASA launched its Voyager missions in 1977, for example, both spacecraft carried audio recordings depicting the diversity of life and culture on EarthBut never have those messages truly represented all of humanity. On 15 May that will change as the SETI Institute launches a project to collect messages from people around the world. Though there are currently no plans to transmit these messages into space, the project aims to foster a global discussion about whether we should send more than symbolic messages to the stars, and if so, what we should say.

New research from Duke University suggests a reversal in the order in which two four-limbed creatures transitioned from water to land.The Ichthyostega and Acanthostega, lived some 360-370 million years ago in modern-day Greenland.Scientists had previously considered Acanthostega to be the first vertebrate animal to possess limbs with digits rather than fish fins, but Viviane Callier, a Duke University graduate student, found fossilized evidence to suggest that Acanthostega may have had a terrestrial ancestor and then returned full time to the water.

The inventor of the genetic technology behind the national DNA database says it risks losing support because it holds the records of innocent people.Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys told the BBC's World at One programme that the database's expansion left some people unfairly branded as criminals.His work led to the creation of the DNA database, which holds records of almost all those arrested - convicted or not.The Home Office says it is reforming the database after a European ruling.

Leading scientists are to receive a substantial cash injection to help them investigate the decline of the British honeybee.Up to £8m will be made available for research into bees by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish government. The new funding is in addition to the £2m announced earlier this year by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to help bee research. The funding increase marks a significant rise in government spending on bee health, which previously amounted to £1.2m annually in the UK, with the vast majority spent on bee inspectors.Bee numbers in the UK have fallen 15-30% in the last two years, mirroring steep declines and empty hives witnessed in the US, mainland Europe and elsewhere. Honeybees are vital insect pollinators, responsible for the healthy development of many of the world's major food crops.

Scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have succeeded in unlocking the potential of carbon dioxide - a common greenhouse gas - by converting it into a more useful product.In the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, the IBN researchers report that by using organocatalysts, they activated carbon dioxide in a mild and non-toxic process to produce methanol, a widely used industrial feedstock and clean-burning biofuel.

A living time capsule of sorts has been found buried under hundreds of feet of Antarctic ice - a colony of microbes that have been sealed off from the rest of the world for more than 1.5 million years.The finding, detailed in the April 17 issue of the journal Science, could serve as a model for how life might survive on icy planets elsewhere in the galaxy.The microbes, which live without light or oxygen, were detected in meltwater flowing out from Taylor Glacier, one of the outlet glaciers of the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the otherwise ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Traditional Chinese musical instruments are believed to have originated from the reign of Huangdi, or the Yellow Emperor, some two thousand years ago. But a recent discovery by the Chifeng Cultural Academy in Inner Mongolia suggests that Chinese musical instruments could be 3-thousand years older than previously calculated.Archeologists from the Chifeng Cultural Academy have scrutinized a flute made of bones, which was unearthed at the Xinglongwa Site in Inner Mongolian in 1986. The ancient flute has long been kept at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. It wasn't until recently that the flute was shown to the public.

THE odds of encountering a tsunami kicked up by an asteroid strike have just plummeted. Best to hope, though, that you're not underneath the almighty splash such an impact could create.Small impactors hit us far more frequently than larger ones: a 200-metre asteroid hits Earth about every 10,000 years on average, while 10-kilometre objects like the one that probably killed off the dinosaurs strike every 100 million years. Much of the worry over asteroids has centred on the more likely event of a smaller one splashing down in the ocean and triggering a powerful tsunami.

The solar system emerged from a well-blended soup of dust and gas despite being cobbled together from the remains of multiple exploded stars, new meteorite measurements suggest.Meteorites form a fossil record of the conditions that existed when they formed. By looking at the chemical makeup of some rocks, evidence has mounted in recent years that sun and the rest of the solar system formed from a cloud of debris blasted away from a number of supernovae.

A multi-disciplinary team of scientists from the University of Leicester could be potentially paving the way for the development of a powerful new strategy for both the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.The research is to use cutting edge nanotechnology to identify a pioneering treatment which could also be applied to other aggressive cancers.

Named the BLABY, the device consists of a contoured belt that wraps around a mother's waist with three inbuilt vibration speakers playing music into the womb.

Engineers in Iceland are set to convert carbon dioxide to solid rock as a way to tackle global warming.The experts want to exploit the country's volcanic origins to dispose of up to 30,000 tonnes of the greenhouse gas each year. They expect the gas to react with layers of volcanic rocks deep beneath the surface to form minerals that will lock the carbon pollution away for millions of years."This is a well-known natural process," said Holmfridur Sigurdardottir, project manager. "We are just trying to imitate what nature is doing."

NEW DELHI: Worried if the hospital equipment being used on you is hygienic or not?Now leave behind all worries as British researchers have claimed to have developed a sensor which will prompt you when the instrument is infected.In this new process, a high frequency sound wave is passed through a disinfecting liquid to create bubbles that implode. The force of each implosion removes contaminate particles from surrounding materials.

Space seems exotic, forbidding, and remote, but imagine trying to survive winter without a heated shelter or warm clothing. Our ancestors developed these technologies because they needed room to grow; without them, we would still be confined to narrow areas along the equator, but with them, we could live anywhere in the world. With the right technology, space is just another place for people to live.

THE risk to spacecraft from a collision with space debris could be reduced by equipping launchers with a gossamer-thin "sail". The idea is to deploy the sail after the rocket has released its payload to amplify the drag of the last vestiges of the atmosphere, and so force the rocket out of orbit.Rocket stages are a particular risk to spacecraft because they often contain large amounts of unused fuel, which can explode when sunlight heats the tank. Leaking fuel can also act like a mini-thruster, pushing the rocket into an orbit where it may cause a collision. One way to tackle the problem is to vent unused fuel in a controlled way, and drain power from the battery, but this is unlikely to eliminate all collisions.

Without an influx of cash, cost overruns could delay NASA's return to the moon or prompt cuts to the agency's science missions to try to keep its moon plans on track, according to a government report issued on Thursday.The agency is currently pursuing a programme called Constellation, which aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 using two new rockets. The Ares I is expected to be ready to loft astronauts into orbit by 2015. The agency plans to send a lunar lander aboard the heavy-lift Ares V rocket five years later.The agency is planning to retire the space shuttle in 2010.

Paleontologists say bones uncovered recently by a construction crew may be the remains of an extinct whale at least 5 million years old.The exact location of the bones is still a secret, but a Santa Cruz County construction crew notified scientists after uncovering a set of vertebrae in the ground last month.

Major Yuri Alexeyevitch Gagarin, the world's first astronaut, was last night undergoing a rigorous medical examination to find out the effects on him of his journey yesterday in orbit round the world in the Soviet space ship Vostok."The Columbus of interplanetary space," as Moscow Radio described him, is expected to reach Moscow tomorrow where a hero's welcome is being prepared for him. Major Gagarin, aged 27, a member of the Red Air Force, is a married man with two young daughters.