Other Sciences News

Torres del Paine, southern Andes, Chile. Image credit: Miguel Vieira.

New Research Suggests Andes Mountains Older Than Previously Thought

Nov 19, 2015 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the Andes have been a mountain chain for much longer than previously thought. Torres...

U.S. scientists have created UV light-driven, single-molecule submersibles. Image credit: Loic Samuel / Rice University.

Researchers Create Light-Driven Submersible Nanomachines

Nov 17, 2015 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from North Carolina State University and Rice University has created UV light-driven, unimolecular ‘submarines’ that contain...

The different volumes of water stored in the global water cycle. Global volumes of young (less then 100 years old), modern (less then 50 years old) and total groundwater to 2 km depth compared with other fresh water volumes stored in the atmosphere, in surface waters (that is, wetlands, rivers and lakes), within plants or in soils. Image credit: Tom Gleeson et al.

Scientists Produce First Data-Driven Estimate of Earth’s Supply of Groundwater

Nov 17, 2015 by Enrico de Lazaro

According to a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience, the total groundwater volume in the upper 2 km of the Earth’s landmass is approximately...

Hunter-gatherers. Image credit: T.P.S. Dave.

Scientists Discover New Strand of European Hunter-Gatherer Ancestry

Nov 17, 2015 by News Staff

An international group of researchers has sequenced the genomes of Late Upper Paleolithic (13,300 years old) and Mesolithic (9,700 years old) males from...

Porous liquid. Image credit: University of Liverpool.

Scientists Invent Liquid with Permanent Porosity

Nov 12, 2015 by Natali Anderson

An interdisciplinary team of chemists, physicists and material scientists from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Argentina, has invented a ‘porous...

Falkor Seamount. Image credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Newly-Discovered Seamount Named after Research Vessel Falkor

Oct 29, 2015 by News Staff

In November 2014, Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor discovered a seamount, or underwater mountain, 28,500 feet (8,700 m) on the ocean...

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.

Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens Arrived in Southern Asia at least 80,000 Years Ago

Oct 15, 2015 by News Staff

A discovery of 47 human teeth from the Fuyan Cave in the Chinese province of Hunan indicates that anatomically modern Homo sapiens were present in southern...

Babies are able to learn abstract relations before the first year of life. Image credit: Kang Heungbo.

Infants Need Free Tongue Movement to Distinguish Speech Sounds, Say Scientists

Oct 13, 2015 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr Alison Bruderer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, has discovered a direct link between tongue...

Simulation of electrical activity in a virtual brain slice formed from seven unitary digital reconstructions of neocortical microcircuits. Image credit: BBP / EPFL.

Scientists Digitally Reconstruct Section of Rat Brain

Oct 12, 2015 by News Staff

A large international team of researchers from the Blue Brain Project has digitally reconstructed and simulated a slice of a juvenile rat’s neocortex,...

The inner core of our planet has an inner core of its own, with crystals aligned in a different direction. Image credit: Lachina Publishing Services.

Earth’s Inner Core ‘Only’ 1 – 1.5 Billion Year Old, New Study Says

Oct 8, 2015 by News Staff

The Earth’s deepest layer – the inner core – was formed between a billion and 1.5 billion years ago as it ‘froze’ from the surrounding molten...

A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Image credit: John Gurche / Mark Thiessen / National Geographic.

Studies Suggest Homo naledi Walked Upright and Climbed Trees

Oct 7, 2015 by News Staff

Homo naledi – an extinct species of hominin whose fossil skeletons were discovered in a South African cave and introduced to the world last month...

Members of the Kalkadoon Aboriginal tribe, circa 1900. Image credit: Vintage Queensland.

Australian Aboriginal Stories of Ancient Sea-Level Rise Preserved for 13,000 Years

Sep 24, 2015 by News Staff

According to a duo of Australian scientists, Aboriginal society has preserved memories of Australia’s coastline dating back to 11,000 – 5,300 BC. Members...

The Cosgrove hotspot track. Image credit: Drew Whitehouse / NCI National Facility VizLab.

Cosgrove Track: Scientists Discover World’s Longest Chain of Continental Volcanoes

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered the world’s longest known continental volcanic hotspot track — a 1,245 mile (2,000 km) long...

Homo naledi: New Species of Human Ancestor Discovered

Sep 10, 2015 by News Staff

A large, multinational team of scientists has discovered a previously-unknown species of extinct hominin in the Rising Star cave, Cradle of Humankind,...

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

Study: Last Common Ancestor of Humans and Apes Looked Like Gorilla or Chimpanzee

Sep 9, 2015 by News Staff

Humans split from our closest African ape relatives in the genus Pan around six to seven million years ago. We have features that clearly link us with...

Illustration of every day life in the El Portalon cave during the Neolithic and Copper Age. Image credit: Maria de la Fuente.

Ancient DNA Links Early Farmers to Basques

Sep 8, 2015 by News Staff

The Basques are not direct descendants from hunter-gatherers of 10,000 years ago; instead, they have more recent genetic links to early Iberian farmers,...

Sima de los Huesos hominins lived in what is now Spain about 400,000 years ago. Image credit: © Kennis & Kennis / Madrid Scientific Films.

Human Body Has Gone through Four Main Stages of Evolution, Scientists Say

Sep 1, 2015 by News Staff

The evolution of the human body’s size and shape has gone through four stages, says an international group of anthropologists from the United States,...

Jakobshavn glacier, also known as Sermeq Kujalleq and the Jakobshavn Isbræ, is a large glacier in West Greenland and is among the world’s most dynamic glaciers. Radar images from ESA’s Sentinel-1A captured the glacier before and after a massive calving event, which took place between 14 and 16 August 2015. The image composite includes different Sentinel-1A images from 27 July, and 13 and 19 August. The red, green and blue indicate the position of the calving front and other dynamic features on each respective date. Image credit: Copernicus Sentinel data /ESA.

Sentinel-1A Satellite Catches Jakobshavn Glacier Shedding Ice

Aug 24, 2015 by News Staff

Images from European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1A satellite show that Greenland’s Jakobshavn glacier, the fastest moving glacier in the world, shed a...

This false-color image shows carbon nanofibers. Image credit: Stuart Licht.

Scientists Turn Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide into Nanofibers

Aug 20, 2015 by News Staff

A group of researchers led by Dr Stuart Licht of George Washington University has developed a novel method to economically convert atmospheric carbon dioxide...