Newsdesk Archive
When measuring time, we normally assume that clocks do not affect space and time, and that time can be measured with infinite accuracy at nearby points in space. However, combining quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity theoretical physicists from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences have demonstrated a fundamental limitation for our ability to measure time.
Three UK-based scientists have won a prestigious prize worth 1m euros for studying the brain's reward centre.
Their work helps understand our drive to shop, eat or even land on the moon. Reward is necessary for keeping us alive, but it can also spiral out of control leading to gambling and drug addiction.
Sharks, rays and skates are able to hunt for prey hidden in the sandy sea floor thanks to their ability to 'listen' to their prey's heartbeat.
These animals have electro-sensory organs that allow them to do this, but until now the way they work has remained a mystery.
A machine learning algorithm helped decode the squeaks Egyptian fruit bats make in their roost, revealing that they “speak” to one another as individuals
Work on gene therapy is showing significant progress for restoring muscle strength and prolonging lives in dogs with a previously incurable, inherited neuromuscular disease. UW Medicine Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine scientists are leading the multi-institutional research effort.
Chemists have developed a way to neutralize deadly snake venom more cheaply and effectively than with traditional anti-venom -- an innovation that could spare millions of people the loss of life or limbs each year.
Tomorrow's tires could come from the farm as much as the factory. Researchers at The Ohio State University have discovered that food waste can partially replace the petroleum-based filler that has been used in manufacturing tires for more than a century.
A key set of genes involved in honey bee responses to multiple diseases caused by viruses and parasites has been identified by researchers.
The findings are important given that honey bee populations have experienced severe losses across the Northern Hemisphere, mainly due to parasites and pathogens.
Eijiro Miyako gets emotional about the decline of honeybees. “We need pollination,” he says. “If that system is collapsed, it’s terrible.”
Insects, especially bees, help pollinate both food crops and wild plants. But pollinators are declining worldwide due to habitat loss, disease and exposure to pesticides, among other factors
Physicist Stephen Hawking may be a proponent of artificial intelligence, but he has also been outspoken about the potential challenges it creates. In a recent interview, he sounded a similar tone, and offered a solution that conservatives may find hard to accept.
Scientists say it's possible to build a new type of self-replicating computer that replaces silicon chips with processors made from DNA molecules, and it would be faster than any other form of computer ever proposed - even quantum computers.
Physicists have developed a quantum machine learning algorithm that can handle infinite dimensions—that is, it works with continuous variables (which have an infinite number of possible values on a closed interval) instead of the typically used discrete variables (which have only a finite number of values).
Related: IBM's online quantum machine gets faster
Scientists have taken another important step toward creating different types of synthetic life in the laboratory.
An international research consortium reports Thursday that it has figured out an efficient method for synthesizing a substantial part of the genetic code of yeast.
Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have reversed depression symptoms in mice by feeding them Lactobacillus, a probiotic bacteria found in live-cultures yogurt. Further, they have discovered a specific mechanism for how the bacteria affect mood, providing a direct link between the health of the gut microbiome and mental health.
Gluten-free diets adopted by growing numbers of health-conscious consumers enhance the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, scientists have warned.
A major study by Harvard University suggests that ingesting only small amounts of the protein, or avoiding it altogether, increases the danger of diabetes by as much as 13 per cent.
A majority of patients in the United States visited a doctor who received payments from drug companies, but most have no clue about it, according to a new Drexel University study.
Related: Doctors Prescribe More Antibiotics When Expectations are High, Study Says
Policy makers throughout the world, guided by behavioral scientists, are devising ways to steer people toward decisions deemed to be in their best interests. These simple interventions don’t force, teach or openly encourage anyone to do anything. Instead, they nudge, exploiting for good — at least from the policy makers’ perspective — mental tendencies that can sometimes lead us astray.
A controversial new treatment facility in Los Angeles wants to find out if cannabis can help keep opioids from claiming more lives to addiction
Related: Death of Matthew Dawson-Clarke a warning about dangers of ayahuasca tourism
Using marijuana raises the risk of stroke and heart failure even after accounting for demographic factors, other health conditions and lifestyle risk factors such as smoking and alcohol use, according to new research.
Related: Don't smoke it with tobacco: scientists suggest ways to make cannabis safer
Ever witnessed a punch up during a boozy night out? Did you assume that you probably wouldn’t be a reliable witness because you’d been drinking? You may have been right, but our latest research indicates that in some circumstances this is not the case.
A study by Indiana University researchers has identified 24 compounds -- including caffeine -- with the potential to boost an enzyme in the brain shown to protect against dementia.
In a new book, “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” the social psychologist Adam Alter warns that many of us — youngsters, teenagers, adults — are addicted to modern digital products. Not figuratively, but literally addicted.
In the past, we thought of addiction as mostly related to chemical substances: heroin, cocaine, nicotine. Today, we have this phenomenon of behavioral addictions where, one tech industry leader told me, people are spending nearly three hours a day tethered to their cellphones.
The link between playing violent video games and antisocial behavior, such as increased aggression and decreased empathy, is hotly debated. Researchers in Germany used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on long-term players of violent video games and found that they had the same neural response to emotionally provocative images as non-gamers.
Related: Virtual characters that touch you are seen as being warmer and friendlier
From the day in 793 when Viking warriors descended on an isolated monastery in the north of England, the Norsemen became an object of fascination and terror for medieval Europeans. “Never before,” an English monk later wrote, “has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race.”
Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found an eight-metre (26ft) statue submerged in groundwater in a Cairo slum that they say probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
Alt: Egypt archaeologists discover massive statue in Cairo slum
Bird evolution is like a Legend of Zelda puzzle: the pieces may take a while to come together, but once they do, it's next-level.
Paleontologists have created what they claim is the most detailed family tree of meat-eating dinosaurs ever, revealing fresh insights into the origin of birds.
Shaped like a torpedo and about as swift, squids are jet-propelled underwater predators. Together with their nimble brethren, the octopus and cuttlefish, they make for an agile invertebrate armada.
But that was not always the case.
A new study suggests it was the power of the eyes and not the limbs that first led our aquatic ancestors to make the leap from water to land. The researchers discovered that eyes nearly tripled in size before -- not after -- the water-to-land transition. Crocodile-like animals saw easy meals on land and then evolved limbs that enabled them to get there, the researchers argue.
Ichthyosaurs, which are similar-shaped to dolphins and sharks, but are reptiles, swam the seas for millions of years during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They were the first, large extinct reptiles brought to the attention of the scientific world.
The oldest crocodilian eggs known to science have been discovered in the cliffs of western Portugal.
They are so well preserved that they give an insight into the "mother croc" that laid them 152 million years ago.
A team of researchers with members from several institutions in India has found evidence of ostrich relatives living in India as far back as 25,000 years ago. In their paper uploaded to the open access site PLOS ONE, the group describes finding avian eggshells, their DNA analysis of them and why they believe the finding bolsters certain aspects of continental drift theory.
The prospect of resurrecting mammoths is back in the news after Harvard geneticist George Church announced last month that he may be only two years away from creating a mammoth-elephant hybrid fetus. That’s still a long way from a living mammoth — let alone herds of the animals — and scientists are skeptical that Church will be successful with even a hybrid fetus. The scientific hurdles that will have to be overcome are huge. But the problems with de-extinction only start there
At a 50-square mile nature reserve tucked deep in Arctic Siberia, scientists are working on a radical plan to fight climate change by reviving the ancient grasslands of the last Ice Age – and the beasts that once roamed them.
While this period is better known for the glaciers that swathed the continents until 12,000 years ago, the grasslands of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem also dominated much of the surface.
The Earth has known several mass extinctions over the course of its history. One of the most important happened at the Permian-Triassic boundary 250 million years ago. Over 95% of marine species disappeared and, up until now, scientists have linked this extinction to a significant rise in Earth temperatures. But researchers have now discovered that this extinction took place during a short ice age which preceded the global climate warming. It's the first time that the various stages of a mass extinction have been accurately understood and that scientists have been able to assess the major role played by volcanic explosions in these climate processes.
New research has convincingly quantified how much the Earth has warmed over the past 56 years. Human activities utilize fossil fuels for many beneficial purposes but have an undesirable side effect of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at ever-increasing rates. That increase - of over 40%, with most since 1980 - traps heat in the Earth’s system, warming the entire planet.
A new material can absorb up to 90 times its own weight in spilled oil and then be squeezed out like a sponge and reused, raising hopes for easier clean-up of oil spill sites.
This contrasts with most commercial products for soaking up oil, called “sorbents”. These are generally only good for a single use, acting like a paper towel used to mop up a kitchen mess and then tossed away. The discarded sorbents and oil are then normally incinerated.
University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science scientist Mark Donelan and his Norwegian Meteorological Institute colleague captured new information about extreme waves, as one of the steepest ever recorded passed by the North Sea Ekofisk platforms in the early morning hours of Nov. 9 2007.
Oceanic crust lives fast and dies young, usually being dragged down a subduction zone after 250m years or so. By contrast, continental crust lives to a ripe old age, with some of the oldest continental crust on Earth – dating to 4bn years – found in Canada and Greenland.
But geologists have long been puzzled as to why there isn’t more continental crust bobbing around. Now new research indicates that some of it might be hidden underneath ocean-island volcanoes.
Malta's famous Azure Window rock arch has collapsed into the sea after heavy storms.
The popular limestone arch on Gozo island was featured on the first episode of the HBO series Game of Thrones and in several films.
Can a planet be alive? Lynn Margulis, a giant of late 20th-century biology, who had an incandescent intellect that veered toward the unorthodox, thought so. She and chemist James Lovelock together theorized that life must be a planet-altering phenomenon and the distinction between the “living” and “nonliving” parts of Earth is not as clear-cut as we think.
A study of ancient Aboriginal hair samples has revealed distinct Aboriginal populations were present in Australia with little geographical movement for up to 50,000 years.
The discovery of such a long, continuous presence in the those regions emphasised why land was so sacred to Aboriginal people, researchers said.
Alt: Australia was colonized by a single group 50,000 years ago
A memory technique invented by the ancient Greeks can make dramatic and long-lasting improvements to a person’s power of recall, according to research that suggests many of us have extensive untapped memory reserves.
After spending six weeks cultivating an internal “memory palace”, people more than doubled the number of words they could retain in a short time period and their performance remained impressive four months later.
Gentle sound stimulation -- such as the rush of a waterfall -- synchronized to the rhythm of brain waves significantly enhanced deep sleep in older adults and tripled their ability to recall words, reports a new study. The goal is to make the new technology available for home use.
Many expectant parents prepare for the arrival of a new baby by redecorating its intended bedroom in a soothing colour and buying lots of rattles and cuddly toys.
The research could have huge medical and ethical implications for things such as organ donation
Brain activity may continue for more than 10 minutes after the body appears to have died, according to a new study.
HIIT it! We’re often told that exercise is the best medicine, and it now seems that regular high intensity interval training (HIIT), in particular, is great for reversing the declining ability of our cells to generate energy.
HIIT involves short bursts of very intense activity, interspersed with recovery periods of lower-intensity exercise.
Following a Mediterranean diet could help reduce the risk of contracting one of the worst types of breast cancer by 40%, according to a large study for the World Cancer Research Fund.
The Mediterranean diet, which is rich in olive oil, fish, fruit, nuts, vegetables and wholegrains, has well-publicised benefits, including reducing the risk of stroke and heart disease.
The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a fast-growing global population is a myth, according to UN food and pollution experts.
A new report, being presented to the UN human rights council on Wednesday, is severely critical of the global corporations that manufacture pesticides, accusing them of the “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”.
The way environmentalist Craig Cox sees it, streams and rivers across much of the country are suffering from the side effects of growing our food. Yet the people responsible for that pollution, America's farmers, are fighting any hint of regulation to prevent it.
Eating healthier food could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, suggests a new study. As it turns out, some relatively small diet tweaks could add up to significant inroads in addressing climate change.
The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers.
Restoring the function of the organ - which helps control blood sugar levels - reversed symptoms of diabetes in animal experiments.
Parkinson's disease, and medications to treat Parkinson's, have distinct effects on the composition of the trillions of bacteria that make up the gut microbiome, new research shows.
A chemical called BHPF—found in some ‘BPA-Free’ plastics—may cause harmful outcomes in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
Scientists figure out how compulsive scratching spreads in mice, and maybe humans
We’ve all felt it. Sitting in the office, you see somebody reach up and scratch their head, or merely hear someone mention being itchy. All of a sudden, you feel the compulsive urge to itch, too. It
A small team of researchers with members from the University of California and the University of Michigan has found that some personality traits unique to a queen wasp are passed down to her offspring, the worker wasps.
In primates such as humans, living in cooperative societies usually means having bigger brains — with brainpower needed to navigate complex social situations.
But surprisingly, in birds the opposite may be true. Group-living woodpecker species have been found to have smaller brains than solitary ones.
Neanderthals dosed themselves with painkillers and possibly penicillin, according to a study of their teeth.
One sick Neanderthal chewed the bark of the poplar tree, which contains a chemical related to aspirin.
Alt: Neanderthals discovered antibiotics 50,000 years before us: Caveman 'Sid' is found with medicinal plants stuck between his teeth which he used to treat toothache and stomach pains
Now, it's no surprise that Neanderthals didn't brush their teeth. Nor did they go to the dentist.
That means bits of food and the microbes in their mouths just stayed stuck to their teeth. While not so good for dental hygiene, these dental plaques are a great resource for scientists interested in understanding more about Neanderthal diet and lifestyle.
An apparently ordinary rabbit's hole in a farmer's field leads to an underground sanctuary said to have been used by devotees of a medieval religious order - but is everything what it seems?
According to local legend, the Caynton Caves, near Shifnal, in Shropshire, were used by followers of the Knights Templar in the 17th Century.
Archaeologists assessing the damage caused by Islamic State militants to the tomb of the prophet of Jonah have made a surprise discovery.
Experts found a previously untouched palace dating back to 600BC buried under the ruins of Jonah's desecrated resting place.
What do the mythical figures of clairvoyance and clairaudience look like and what weapons do they use? The answers could be found in the world-renowned Dazu Rock Carvings in Chongqing municipality.
At first glance, the headstone looks like any of the others in Fort Bragg's Main Post Cemetery.
But in row after row of markers that resemble evenly spaced white teeth, this one is different.
Moving 400 tons' worth of boulders to make a 65-foot-wide tomb is no easy feat. That's why Israeli archaeologists were impressed to find an ancient burial chamber of that size dating back to the "Dark Ages," more than 4,000 years ago.
A unique trove of bone material from the 9,200 year old coastal settlement Norje Sunnansund in Blekinge, Sweden, has revealed that surpisingly sophisticated hunting strategies were used at the time. One key find was that the early Mesolithic humans practiced so-called selective hunting – seemingly in order to maximize gain and preserve the local population of certain species.
As bumblebees forage for nectar from one flower to the next, at a certain point, they will move to another area once their search for food becomes too inefficient. This behavior, also observed among other animals, conforms to a prevalent model in biology called the "marginal value theorem." In like manner, groups of modern hunter-gatherers relocate their camps to maximize their foraging efficiency
A study of the history and spelling of English suffixes demonstrates that the spelling of English words is more orderly and self-organized that linguistics have previously thought.
The social lives of macaques and baboons play out in what primatologist Julia Fischer calls “a magnificent opera.”
In Monkeytalk, Fischer describes how the monkey species she studies have evolved their own forms of intelligence and communication. Connections exist between monkey and human minds, but Fischer regards differences among primate species as particularly compelling.
It’s a dwarf with big eyes, big ears and a big voice. The newly discovered Angolan dwarf galago belongs to the bushbaby family, members of which are found all over sub-Saharan Africa.
New videos give a look into the daily life of a marbled cat, a critically endangered species in China.
The marbled cat can turn its feet backward, an ability that makes it more agile in trees. The only other cat species with that skill also lives in trees, South America's margay—and it has a similarly lengthy tail.
The mystery of why sheep get horny in the winter might have been solved, according to new research.
Scientists say they have uncovered the key to the mechanism by which changes in the length of the day prompt certain animals to begin breeding, trigger the growth of horns and even change the thickness of their coat.
A large “cat” with a taste for mutton is believed to be roaming the most remote parts of northern Scotland, stripping sheep from their skin and leaving no trace but bones and wool.
Related: Are these the footprints of a Sasquatch?
Related: Bigfoot expedition inspires ban on state-funded searches for mythical creatures
Related: Mysterious "Hairy Blob" Washed Up on Philippines Beach
Related: The Evil Mermaids of Africa
March 13, 1997. It's a date many people will remember, as it is the night the so-called "Phoenix Lights" event took place. 20 years ago. In the two decades since that mysterious night, there have been lots of theories over the light's origins.
Related: 'NASA dimmed the feed': 'Megaship' spotted by space station
Related: Peru: A Dozen UFOs Suspend Flights in Peru's Jorge Chavez Airport (alt)
A new paper uncovers a number of coincidences suggesting that recently discovered radio bursts are consistent with advanced civilizations using light sails for transportation.
Alt: Are Fast Radio Bursts Evidence Of Alien Activity?
The earliest supermassive black holes may have been big to start with. If so, it would help explain the recent detection of such beasts within a billion years of the big bang.
Supermassive black holes take a long time to build, so we expect to see only a few in the early universe. The more of them we find, the less likely it is that they all grew the way most modern black holes do, by devouring dust and gas.
Everybody gets a moon! With the discovery of a small moon orbiting the third-largest dwarf planet, all the large objects that orbit beyond Neptune now have satellites.
Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) spend most or all of their orbits beyond Neptune. Last April, the dwarf planet Makemake became the ninth of the ten TNOs with diameters near or above 1,000 kilometres known to have a moon.
In a mysterious change to their normal behaviour, humpback whales are forming massive groups of up to 200 animals.
Humpbacks aren’t normally considered to be terribly social. They are mostly found alone, in pairs, or sometimes in small groups that disband quickly.
Researchers have for the first time filmed rare True's beaked whales underwater. The deep-diving mammal is so rarely seen that researchers devoting their life to study whales have never seen a True's beaked whale.
Dogs are all honest, loyal and obedient, right? Well, not always. Our pets can be sneaky and manipulative when they want to maximise the number of tasty treats they get to eat.
Brain scans of canine candidates to assist people with disabilities can help predict which dogs will fail a rigorous service training program, a study by Emory University finds.
The journal Scientific Reports published the results of the study, involving 43 dogs who underwent service training at Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) in Santa Rosa, California.
A new study could change scientists' understanding of how the brain works -- and could lead to new approaches for treating neurological disorders and for developing computers that 'think' more like humans.
For most Americans, daylight saving time means only one thing: losing an hour's sleep. So what is the point?
This is actually a reasonable question, according to a growing body of scientific research.
"If you give a donation within three days, an anonymous contributor will donate an additional DKK 10."
This was the message that researchers from the Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus BSS - Aarhus University, sent out via email and text message on behalf of DanChurchAid to approximately 53,000 Danes who had previously donated money.
Roughly 80 percent of people around the globe identify with some type of religion, and scientists have been seriously pursuing insight into the evolutionary benefit of religious practice since the early part of this century. In a new study published today in Nature Human Behaviour, Eleanor Power of the Santa Fe Institute writes that active religious participation may benefit practitioners by strengthening social bonds.
Noise is everywhere, but that’s OK. Your brain can still keep track of a conversation in the face of revving motorcycles, noisy cocktail parties or screaming children – in part by predicting what’s coming next and filling in any blanks.
New data suggests that these insertions are processed as if the brain had really heard the parts of the word that are missing.
A new study has found evidence that a section of our neurons, called the dendrites, aren't the passive receivers we've always assumed them to be.
When it comes to human health and spaceflight, there are a lot of concerns as NASA casts its eye toward deep space. Among the more familiar problems are muscle and bone mass loss due to the lack of gravity. But more recently, scientists have grown increasingly concerned about astronauts returning to Earth with blurred vision, flattened eyeballs, and inflamed optic nerves after long-duration missions.
Training in Antarctica or on the International Space Station won't provide adequate preparation for human settlement on Mars, according to new research.
Bigelow Aerospace's founder believes we could have lunar depots by 2020 if the Trump administration prioritizes the funding and national urgency the project would require.
With Bigelow Aerospace, SpaceX, and Blue Origin at the forefront of the private space industry, space tourism may one day soon be a regular part of life on Earth.
Mars may have been a wetter place than previously thought, according to research on simulated Martian meteorites conducted, in part, at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
Based in Lima, Peru, the International Potato Center (CIP) is dedicated to collecting and altering potato varieties found around the world. The CIP began as an effort to alleviate global hunger by introducing special strains of the hardy vegetable to places with arid soils and harsh environments.
A group of scientists have devised a plan to make Mars a little more hospitable to human life.
A computer modeling experiment suggests that we can use a spacecraft to create a magnetic field around Mars, shielding it from the solar wind that's stripping its thin atmosphere away, oxygen ion by oxygen ion.
This summer, a box the size of an ice chest will journey to the International Space Station (ISS). Once there, it will become the coldest spot in the universe—more than 100 million times colder than deep space itself. The instruments inside the box — an electromagnetic “knife,” lasers, and a vacuum chamber — will slow down gas particles until they are almost motionless, bringing them just a billionth of a degree above absolute zero.
The laws of physics are supposed to be symmetrical in time and space. That means a ball thrown at a certain speed and in a certain direction would always go the same distance, no matter when you throw or where on Earth you throw it (assuming no other factors, like weather, came into play).
One of the Large Hadron Collider's huge experiments has been given what's described as a "heart transplant".
Officials said the replacement of a key component inside the CMS experiment represented the first major upgrade to the LHC - the world's biggest machine.
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have—in just two years—nearly doubled the number of materials known to have potential for use in solar fuels.
They descend on towns and villages, plundering crops and rampaging through homes. They occasionally attack humans. But perhaps most dangerous of all, the marauders carry with them highly radioactive material.
Hundreds of toxic wild boars have been roaming across northern Japan, where the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant six years ago forced thousands of residents to desert their homes, pets and livestock. Some animals, like cattle, were left to rot in their pens.
Satellite-powering technology that was abandoned decades ago has been reinvented to potentially work with traditional power stations to help them convert heat to electricity more efficiently, meaning we would need less fossil fuel to burn for power. A new study in Nano Energy presents a prototype energy converter, which uses graphene instead of metal, making it almost seven times more efficient.
An international team of scientists led by Liang-shi Li at Indiana University has achieved a new milestone in the quest to recycle carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere into carbon-neutral fuels and others materials.
Scientists are developing a practical method to convert water and sunshine into fuel — a key step in someday powering cars with the sun.
Experts have long been experimenting with techniques to create solar fuels, which allow all the advantages of conventional fossil fuels along with the environmental benefits of renewable energy.
Norway, which already boasts the world's highest number of electric cars per capita, said Monday that electric or hybrid cars represented half of new registrations in the country so far this year.