Newsdesk Archive

Researchers from UCLA and the University of Connecticut have designed a new biofriendly energy storage system called a biological supercapacitor, which operates using charged particles, or ions, from fluids in the human body. The device is harmless to the body's biological systems, and it could lead to longer-lasting cardiac pacemakers and other implantable medical devices.

Transportation of the future is being developed today: autonomous electric vehicles, flying cars, and the futuristic pods that make up the Hyperloop are just a few notable examples. There’s another idea vying to be the next generation of public transportation

A team of agricultural engineers are attempting a world-first of growing and harvesting a field of cereal crop without a human setting foot on the land. Researchers have pioneered an autonomous tractor which can be steered by a farmer from a control room to carry out the drilling, seeding and spraying of the land.

Welcome to marijuana 2.0, where the less product you use, the better it works Related: Does LSD 'Microdosing' Really Work? Study Aims to Find Out Related: Vermont’s legislature just voted to legalize marijuana

Our subconscious love for fractals may tell an evolutionary story. Our fractal fluency begins with the movement of our eyes. When we look at a fractal, our eyes trace a fractal trajectory with a dimension of around 1.4 —no matter what the fractal’s dimension is. Nature’s most prevalent fractals share this dimension, falling within a range of 1.3 to 1.5. “If we lived on a planet where 1.8 was prevalent, we would have ended up with an eye trajectory of 1.8,” Taylor says. “Clearly what’s happened is our visual system has evolved.”

It ranks among the most curious phenomena in cognitive neuroscience. A handful of people in the world have “blindsight”: they are blind, but their non-conscious brain can still sense their surroundings.

For Californians, the truth is out there. “UFO Sightings Desk Reference,” a new book on reported UFO sightings, found that California had the most reports of visual encounters with unidentified objects in the United States. This includes hundreds of reported sightings Related: Cigar-shaped 'alien spaceship' with flashing lights is seen in Paris after appearing in Australia and China, conspiracy theorists claim Related: Was a Creature Resembling a “Giant Owl” Recently Seen in Chicago? Related: Mother calls in ghostbusters to banish spirits who entered son's bedroom via a 'vortex' Related: Alien abduction? Unsolved mystery of man ‘who disappeared into space’ after building UFO

As the search becomes more heated (some would say more desperate), scientists are entertaining an ever-increasing number of possible explanations for Martian biology as a no-show. For example, could there be a “cover up” whereby the harsh Martian environment somehow obliterates all biosignatures—all signs of past or present life? Or perhaps life there is just so alien its biosignatures are simply unrecognizable to us, hidden in plain view.

Sometimes a brown dwarf is actually a planet -- or planet-like anyway. A team discovered that what astronomers had previously thought was one of the closest brown dwarfs to our own Sun is in fact a planetary mass object.

A pioneering new study uncovering the 'primitive atmosphere' surrounding a distant world could provide a pivotal breakthrough in the search to how planets form and develop in far-flung galaxies. Alt: Water vapor found in the atmosphere of a hot, Neptune-sized planet

A group of astronauts may spend a year in orbit around the moon in the late 2020s as part of NASA's plan to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, agency officials said today.

Dubai: The UAE will build the first city on Mars as part of the 2117 Mars project in collaboration with specialised international organisations and scientific institutes.

A European Space Agency-funded program aims to deploy an autonomous drone that could conduct low-altitude flights over the Red Planet.

In looking at NASA images of Mars a few years ago, Brown University geologist Peter Schultz noticed sets of strange bright streaks emanating from a few large-impact craters on the planet's surface. The streaks are odd in that they extend much farther from the craters than normal ejecta patterns, and they are only visible in thermal infrared images taken during the Martian night.

Scientists spotted the newest burst (and the 22nd ever), FRB 150215, on February 15, 2015 with the Parkes Telescope in Australia. FRB 150215 was strange for lots of reasons—based on the direction in the sky it came from, we probably shouldn’t have been able to see it. But despite what may have been the most well-coordinated follow-up effort yet with all sorts of equipment, scientists still don’t know the cause of it

Some of the first spacecraft that humanity sends to other solar systems may carry microscopic ambassadors from Earth. The $100 million Breakthrough Starshot initiative is working to develop the technology required to accelerate tiny, sail-equipped probes to 20 percent the speed of light, using powerful lasers.

The conditions for habitable exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system might depend on the presence of large moons — and Earth reveals clues to why.

When NASA announced its discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system back in February it caused quite a stir, and with good reason. Three of its seven Earth-sized planets lay in the star's habitable zone, meaning they may harbour suitable conditions for life.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a stunning image of a rare phenomenon which some scientists say is a sure sign of the oncoming solar minimum. The solar minimum is a regularly-occurring phase of the solar cycle which marks a low point in solar activity.

Ultimately, this absurd warranty lends authority to Musk’s previous claims that the solar roofs would be cheaper than traditional roofs, which is notable because cost efficiency is one of the primary hurdles when it comes to renewable energy.

Australia's next big export industry could be its sunlight and wind, as game-changing technology makes it easier to transport and deliver their energy as hydrogen.

Former ice sheets occupying Scandinavia and North America left numerous landforms on today's surface that witness of their hydrological system underneath them. However, most landforms have, so far, never been observed under contemporary ice sheets -- not least because they are relatively small and buried under kilometer thick ice.

A research group formed by 64 researchers from the National Institute of Polar Research, the University of Tokyo, and other organizations analyzed atmospheric temperatures and dust for the past 720,000 years using an ice core obtained at Dome Fuji in Antarctica. Results indicate that when intermediate temperatures occurred within a glacial period, the climate was highly unstable and fluctuated.

Fossil hunters say they have unearthed a missing link in the evolution of baleen whales after digging up the remains of a creature thought to have lived more than 36 million years ago.

Named after Zuul from Ghostbusters, this ankylosaurid grew spines from its flesh The armored beasts of the Cretaceous known as ankylosaurine dinosaurs don't get as much love as the charismatic T. rex Alt: ‘Rare as winning the lottery’: New dinosaur fossil so well-preserved it looks like a statue

Researchers have discovered a new species of giant, bird-like dinosaur that made nests larger than monster truck tires in what is now central China, a study said.

Until now, only two mammal species were known from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland. This month, my colleagues and I added a third one to the list: Wareolestes rex

A clutch of enormous fossil eggs from China has led to the discovery of a new species of giant bird-like dinosaur. Flightless Beibeilong sinensis, which lived around 90 million years ago, had feathers, primitive wings and a beak, but dwarfed any of its modern bird relatives. Alt: Embryo of Colossal Dinosaur Was Preserved for 90 Million Years

More of the ancient Roman city of Verulamium’s secrets have been discovered by archaeologists. The burnt remains of a 1,800-year-old kiln - a type of oven used to create pottery - have been unearthed during excavations of the ancient city near the modern city of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Great Britain.

The 3,700-year-old burial chamber of a pharaoh's daughter is believed to have been found near the remains of a recently discovered pyramid in Egypt.

Sites of ancient conflicts reignite a debate over when members of our species first took up arms against each other. The skull, though weathered from millennia of brutal heat and scouring sands, is unmistakably human. Unmistakable, too, are the signs of a violent death

A little more than 600 million years ago, you could have drunk from the ocean. After an extreme ice age known as snowball Earth, in which glaciers extended to the tropics and ice up to a kilometre thick covered the oceans, the melt formed a thick freshwater layer that floated on the super-salty oceans.

Eons ago Earth experienced a wild transformation: it turned into a giant snowball. These massive glaciation events, where ice encased the planet from pole-to-pole, are fittingly named “snowball Earth.” There were at least two occurrences: one around 717 million and another some 645 million years ago. Although geologists have good evidence Earth experienced these snowball events, they still cannot figure out how they happened.

Dramatic drops in oceanic oxygen, which cause mass extinctions of sea life, come to a natural end – but it takes about a million years. Alt: Oceans are at the 'edge' of losing all oxygen: Event could lead to mass sea life extinction

An international team of researchers has found that carbon uptake in the Tibetan Plateau may actually offset the carbon that is released as permafrost melts.

Scientists from the University of Nottingham, England and Tohoku University, Japan have helped to solve a mystery that has fascinated scientists since Charles Darwin - how plant roots sense water and change direction to find it.

Forests have always been considered huge carbon stores, helping to absorb greenhouse gas emissions, but new research in Brazil has found that rivers in the Amazon emit far more carbon dioxide (CO2) than previously estimated, suggesting that the Amazon Basin is closer to net carbon neutral.

A new global analysis of the distribution of forests and woodlands has "found" 467 million hectares of previously unreported forest – an area equivalent to 60% of the size of Australia.

Australian biosecurity officers have destroyed historic and irreplaceable plant specimens that date back to the mid-1800s due to a paperwork error, according to news reports.

Larger patches of tropical forest are being lost worldwide as governments and corporations clear more land to make way for industrial-scale agriculture, a Duke University study shows.

Scientists have recently found and re-described a monitor lizard species from the island of New Ireland in northern Papua New Guinea. It is the only large-growing animal endemic to the island that has survived until modern times Related: Three new sub-species of snow leopard discovered

The world's only population of Javan rhinoceros, already under severe threat from poaching, could go extinct in the future due to natural disasters, including volcanic eruptions and tsunamis

Two big cats - the African lion and the Sunda clouded leopard - are most at risk from extinction caused by loss of prey, according to a new analysis.

'If we accept the fact that the dragon is an artificial object, then the stones composing it were brought, processed and installed in a certain position, he said. 'The rock weighs over 120 tons.

The prehistoric petroglyphs near Malyshevo village in Khabarovsk region are among the most remarkable in the world - an ancient art exhibition dating to neolithic times. On the basalt rocks on the right shore of the Amur River are carvings of faces and shaman masks along with woolly mammoths, horses, snakes, concentric circles and hunting scenes.

Fossil evidence of early life has been discovered by UNSW scientists in 3.48 billion year old hot spring deposits in the Pilbara of Western Australia - pushing back by 3 billion years the earliest known existence of inhabited terrestrial hot springs on Earth. Alt: First Life on Earth: New Discovery Pushes Back Evidence by 3 Billion Years! --"Major Implications for Life on Mars" Alt: 3.5-billion-year-old fossils hint life evolved in pond, not sea

Leading hospital 'superbugs,' known as the enterococci, arose from an ancestor that dates back 450 million years -- about the time when animals were first crawling onto land (and well before the age of dinosaurs), according to a new study.

Scientists from the Australian National University in Canberra studying ancient minerals have filled in some gaps in our picture of Earth in the Hadean eon, 4.4. billion years ago.

Israelis like to boast about their success in developing the Negev, but under the Byzantine empire, Christian Arabs were the first to turn the desert into a garden. Related: Ancient Engineering That Kept One of the Driest Cities Wet

Ancient people butchered a mastodon, hammering its bones for marrow with rocks, some 130,000 years ago in California, according to a new archaeological study. The far more likely explanation, according to Grayson and other skeptics, is that the bones were crushed not by ancient humans, but by bulldozers carving a new highway in the 1990s.

Yemen's war has claimed thousands of lives and pushed millions to the brink of famine. Now the conflict threatens to erase a unique part of the country's ancient history.

Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities officially received today an ancient Egyptian limestone relief, which has been recovered from France, during a ceremony held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Cairo.

A mongoose on a leash, a colorful pelican and various bats are just a few of the rare animal drawings revealed in a new survey of a group of 4,000-year-old tombs in Egypt.

Pet dogs provide valuable social support for kids when they're stressed, according to a study by researchers, who were among the first to document stress-buffering effects of pets for children.

For far too long, we humans have suffered from an olfactory inferiority complex. We’ve been led to believe that our sense of smell is sadly deficient compared with our mammalian cousins such as rodents and dogs.

Studies in mice have garnered attention for a remarkable result: When the feces of one mouse was transplanted to another mouse, the recipient mouse either gained or lost weight. But can these transplants — which doctors call "fecal microbiota transplantations," or FMTs, and which everyone else calls "poop transplants" — have the same effects in humans?

Researchers have traced the cause of a baffling brain disorder to a surprising source: a particular type of bacteria living in the gut. Scientists increasingly suspect that the body’s vast community of bacteria — the microbiome — may play a role in the development of a wide variety of diseases, from obesity to perhaps even autism. Related: Bacteria Could Be Responsible For Shifts in Brain Structure in People With IBS

Recent research reveals that each individual neuron in a human brain may be genetically unique thanks to mutations that occur on a cell-by-cell basis. This area of research is providing insights into risk factors for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

You, too, could become a troll. Not a mythological creature that hides under bridges, but one of those annoying people who post disruptive messages in internet discussion groups – "trolling" for attention—and off-topic posters who throw out racist, sexist or politically controversial rants.

A controversial new study claims that men not only have bigger brains than women – but are actually more intelligent. But not everyone is convinced by the new study – and other scientists suggest that while men do have bigger brains, women’s may be more efficient.

Chemical signatures left behind in the bones of people living thousands of years ago suggest that the introduction of new commodities provided an opportunity for men

When fossil hunters unveiled the remains of a mysterious and archaic new species of human found deep inside a cave in South Africa two years ago, the scientific community was stunned. Since then, bodies of the long-lost family members have piled up. Alt: Homo naledi's surprisingly young age opens up more questions on where we come from

A team of archaeologists have discovered impressive paintings of Ancient Egypt in a Roman villa in Pompeii. The portraits clearly show the vast influence the Egyptian culture had in early Roman society. Experts speculate that some of the paintings could possibly underscore an early form of Globalization. Related: Back from the dead: 2,000-year-old tomb of Emperor Augustus will be restored to its former glory in £8.4 million project

In ancient times, there was an Aryan religion, Mithraism, so veiled in secrecy that only rumor of its beliefs and rites were recorded. Archaeologists are hoping to shed more light on the mysteries of the religion of Mithra in the ruins of an ancient Roman outpost in eastern Turkey.

In linguistics, there is a theory that there was a single, original language spoken by humankind. The Bible’s book of Genesis, Chapter 11, hews to that line too, in the passage about the tower of Babel. Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar [Babylonia] and settled there.

Museums are turning to virtual reality, apps, and interactive experiences to keep tech-savvy visitors engaged Related: Houzz has a new AR mode that lets you try furniture before you buy

Scientists have engineered a bone-like implant to have its own working marrow that is capable of producing healthy blood. The implant may help treat several blood and immune disorders without the side effects of current treatments.

How many times have you encountered a study — on, say, weight loss — that trumpeted one fad, only to see another study discrediting it a week later? That’s because many medical studies are junk. It’s an open secret in the research community, and it even has a name: “the reproducibility crisis.” For any study to have legitimacy, it must be replicated, yet only half of medical studies celebrated in newspapers hold water under serious follow-up scrutiny This level of failure slows scientific progress, wastes time and resources and costs taxpayers excesses of $28 billion a year, writes NPR science correspondent Richard Harris in his book “Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions”

In experiments with human colon cancer cells and mice, a team led by scientists say they have evidence that cancer arises when a normal part of cells' machinery generally used to repair DNA damage is diverted from its usual task.

A man has dreamed in colour for the first time after undergoing radiotherapy to treat a tumour on his eye. The 59-year-old Australian previously dreamed exclusively in black and white. But when he received radiation therapy to the front and side of his head for four weeks, he began dreaming in vivid colour.

Use of a common pesticide in spring could have an impact on wild bumblebees by interfering with their life cycle, a UK study suggests. The team, who looked at wild bumblebees caught in the English countryside, say the insecticide, thiamethoxam, reduces egg development in queen bees.

Improving the worst environments in the US could prevent 39 in every 100,000 cancer deaths. That’s according to the first study to address the impact of cumulative exposure to environmental hazards on cancer incidence in the US, which found strong links between poor environmental quality and increased rates of cancer.

The company now has 1.94 billion monthly active users, up 17 percent from the first quarter of 2016. (Currently, the world population is estimated at 7.5 billion.) Related: Leaked document reveals Facebook conducted research to target emotionally vulnerable and insecure youth

Scientists have developed a holographic imaging process that depicts the radiation of a Wi-Fi transmitter to generate three-dimensional images of the surrounding environment. Industrial facility operators could use this to track objects as they move through the production hall.

In India, air pollution has become a public health crisis as well as an economic one, and the government is responding in a big way: by 2030 all cars sold in the country will be electric.

A new article in the May edition of Transportation Research took up the question of how much, if anything, consumers would pay for autonomous driving capabilities in their vehicles. The survey of 1,260 American households concluded that the average household would be willing to pay $3,500 for partial automation, or $4,900 for full automation. Related: Citizen Scientist Challenges Math Behind Red Light Camera Tickets

Modern sensors can see farther than humans. Electronic circuits can shoot faster than nerves and muscles can pull a trigger. Humans still outperform armed robots in knowing what to shoot at — but new research funded in part by the Army may soon narrow that gap.

Researchers believe their surgery-assisting robot is capable of performing complex brain surgeries. The machine can reduce the time of surgeries by cutting down the time it takes to cut into the skull from two hours to two and a half minutes.

An artificial hand is using artificial intelligence to see with an artificial eye. The new prosthetic can choose how best to grab objects placed in front of it automatically, making it easier to use.

Swedish startup Gavagai AB, a language technology company, will be using its AI capabilities to decipher the language of dolphins. This latest application of AI will have implications for zoology, business, and maybe even space exploration.

Waste and contamination in the oceans is piling pressure on dolphins' immune systems, the first study comparing the immune health of wild and captive dolphins finds.

France has banned the breeding in captivity of dolphins and killer whales, in a move hailed by campaigners as a major victory. The government also banned the keeping of all whales, dolphins and porpoises in captivity, except for orcas and bottlenose dolphins already held.

In a mossy forest in the western Andes of Ecuador, a small, cocoa-brown bird with a red crown sings from a slim perch. Bip-Bip-WANNGG! It sounds like feedback from an elfin electric guitar. This is an evolutionary innovation — a whole new way to sing. But the evolutionary mechanism behind this novelty is not adaptation by natural selection, in which only those who survive pass on their genes, allowing the species to become better adapted to its environment over time. Rather, it is sexual selection by mate choice Related: Heroin chick: Vancouver pigeon uses syringes left behind by drug addicts to build a nest for its eggs in startling image posted by a police officer Related: Birds choose their neighbours based on personality

The ancient Chinese practiced copromancy, the diagnosis of health based on the shape, size and texture of feces. So did the Egyptians, the Greeks and nearly every ancient culture. Even today, your doctor may ask when you last had a bowel movement and to describe it in exquisite detail.

Hundreds of different dog breeds exist today — one for everyone’s taste. I love big dogs like German Shepherds and Goldendoodles, but I’m not a big fan of Chihuahuas and Shih Tzus. But where did all these breeds come from in the first place? How were they created and when? A new study tries to answer all these questions. Related: Researchers map the evolution of dog breeds Related: Human Emotions Found Contagious In Dogs: Pups Can Read Human Faces Via Emotional Intelligence

It's been an awfully long time since a wolf pack has called Denmark home — roughly two centuries, in fact. "Wolves were exterminated in Denmark because of intense persecution

Tourists who visit national parks and other protected areas in the United States hope to gain a respite from the sights and sounds of their everyday lives. But evading human soundscapes isn’t easy. Many protected areas are surprisingly noisy, a new study finds, and that can interfere with more than just the peace and quiet visitors seek.

Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic has just partnered with startup Boom Technology to build a supersonic aircraft, Boom Technology announced. The plane would zip through the skies faster than the Concorde jet or any other commercial aircraft today, Boom Technology said.

What lies in the narrow gap between Saturn and its rings? According to new data from Cassini, the answer is — not much! Alt: This Is Our First 'Sound' From the Creepy Void Inside Saturn's Rings

The gas giants have always been a mystery to us. Due their dense and swirling clouds, it is impossible to get a good look inside them and determine their true structure. Given their distance from Earth, it is time-consuming and expensive to send spacecraft to them, making survey missions few and far between.

Oxygen on comets might not date all the way back to the birth of the solar system. Instead, interactions between water, particles streaming from the sun and grains of sand or rust on the comet’s surface could generate the gas. Alt: Chemical engineers explain oxygen mystery on comets

It’s not easy to make Earth. Most of the explanations for how our planet formed have troubling problems. But if a new idea is right, we can thank a hyperactive young sun for Earth’s existence, plus solve a long-standing mystery about Mars.

A mysterious gamma-ray glow at the center of the Milky Way is most likely caused by pulsars – the incredibly dense, rapidly spinning cores of collapsed ancient stars that were up to 30 times more massive than the sun.

With the identification of the Higgs boson at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, scientists put the last piece of the Standard Model of physics in place. What they haven't found is any hint of something beyond the Standard Model. And that hasn't been for lack of trying. Supersymmetry, the most popular extension to the Standard Model, predicts a large collection of additional particles. We've looked for them and, so far, they have not shown up.

Large and small scale solar eruptions might all be triggered by a single process, according to new research that leads to better understanding of the Sun's activity. Researchers at Durham University, UK, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, USA, used 3D computer simulations to show a theoretical link between large and small scale eruptions that were previously thought to be driven by different processes.

Results from a clinical review find nearly 1 billion people worldwide may have deficient or insufficient levels of vitamin D due to chronic disease and inadequate sun exposure related to sunscreen use.

They say that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” But this is definitely not true of the vagus nerve, which wanders from the stomach to the brain, passing through the heart, esophagus and lungs along the way.

Antibiotics can double the risk of miscarriage if taken during early pregnancy, a new study suggests. A major review involving more than 95,000 women has found five common classes of the drug were associated with an increased risk, while two others were shown to be safe.

Microbiologists often study microbes in isolation. In the scientific vernacular, this is called "pure culture." While this is necessary to understand how individual microbes work, the trouble with this approach is that microbes do not live by themselves in the natural environment. Instead, they live in communities with multiple other species, cooperating and competing in order to survive. Alt: Fungi From a Toxic Mine Pit Have Teamed Up to Produce a New Type of Antibiotic Related: How a mushroom gets its glow

A global disease monitoring network is banking on the idea that healthier wildlife means healthier humans In the fall of 2014, the deadly Ebola virus jumped from an unknown animal to a 2-year-old boy in Guinea. The virus quickly spread to others around him and began terrorizing West African nations; by April 2016, more than 11,000 people had died.