Wild chimpanzees communicate using similar gestures to humans, according to a Stirling researcher.
Dr Anna Roberts said she had identified about 20 to 30 manual gestures used by chimps, up to a third of which were similar to those used by humans. The chimps' gestures included beckoning to make someone approach or flailing their arms to make someone leave. |  |
Orangutans taught how to order their lunch on iPads - video
Orangutans are being taught to communicate with zoo keepers at a Miami Zoo using iPads.
Linda Jacobs, who is a keeper at Jungle Island Zoo, wants the apes to use apps to tell keepers what they want to eat. Jacobs said: "They have all the intelligence they need to communicate with us. "But what they don't have is developed vocal chords and voiceboxes. This gives them a voice." |  |
Academics say 'no truth' to lying eyes theory
Research by academics at two universities have concluded that the common belief of lying eyes is a myth.
Many psychologists think when a person looks up to their right they are likely to be telling a lie and glancing up to the left is said to indicate honesty. However, the experts from Edinburgh University and Hertfordshire University carried out tests and found the theory to be wrong. |  |
Most Complete Pre-Human Skeleton Found
South African scientists said Thursday they had uncovered the most complete skeleton yet of an ancient relative of man, hidden in a rock excavated from an archaeological site three years ago.
The remains of a juvenile hominid skeleton, of the Australopithecus (southern ape) sediba species, constitute the "most complete early human ancestor skeleton ever discovered," according to University of Witwatersrand palaeontologist Lee Berger. |  |
Growth of Earth's core may hint at magnetic reversal
Lopsided growth of the Earth's core could explain why its magnetic field reverses direction every few thousand years. If it happened now, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of knocking out global communications and power grids.
One side of Earth's solid inner core grows slightly while the other half melts. Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, used numerical modelling to establish that the axis of Earth's magnetic field lies in the growing hemisphere – a finding that suggests shifts in the field are connected to growth of the inner core.
One side of Earth's solid inner core grows slightly while the other half melts. Peter Olson and Renaud Deguen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, used numerical modelling to establish that the axis of Earth's magnetic field lies in the growing hemisphere – a finding that suggests shifts in the field are connected to growth of the inner core.
Japan and Vietnam Join Forces to Exploit Rare-Earth Elements
In an effort to overcome China’s near-monopoly on the supply of rare-earth elements, Japan and Vietnam have launched a joint research centre in Hanoi to improve extraction and processing of the materials.
Rare-earth elements include scandium, yttrium and the 15 lanthanides found towards the bottom of the periodic table. Their unique optical and magnetic properties are used in various high-tech applications, such as motors, catalysts, light-emitting diodes and batteries. |  |
A World Without Coral Reefs
IT’S past time to tell the truth about the state of the world’s coral reefs, the nurseries of tropical coastal fish stocks. They have become zombie ecosystems, neither dead nor truly alive in any functional sense, and on a trajectory to collapse within a human generation. There will be remnants here and there, but the global coral reef ecosystem — with its storehouse of biodiversity and fisheries supporting millions of the world’s poor — will cease to be.
Overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution are pushing coral reefs into oblivion. Each of those forces alone is fully capable of causing the global collapse of coral reefs; together, they assure it. The scientific evidence for this is compelling and unequivocal, but there seems to be a collective reluctance to accept the logical conclusion — that there is no hope of saving the global coral reef ecosystem. |  |
In Vast Effort, F.D.A. Spied on E-Mails of Its Own Scientists
WASHINGTON — A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama, previously undisclosed records show.
What began as a narrow investigation into the possible leaking of confidential agency information by five scientists quickly grew in mid-2010 into a much broader campaign to counter outside critics of the agency’s medical review process, according to the cache of more than 80,000 pages of computer documents generated by the surveillance effort.
What began as a narrow investigation into the possible leaking of confidential agency information by five scientists quickly grew in mid-2010 into a much broader campaign to counter outside critics of the agency’s medical review process, according to the cache of more than 80,000 pages of computer documents generated by the surveillance effort.
Geoscientists discover trigger for past rapid sea level rise
The cause of rapid sea level rise in the past has been found by scientists at the University of Bristol using climate and ice sheet models.
The process, named 'saddle-collapse', was found to be the cause of two rapid sea level rise events: the Meltwater pulse 1a (MWP1a) around 14,600 years ago and the '8,200 year' event. The research is published today in Nature. |  |
1954 Flying Car for Sale
Ever dreamed of owning your own flying car… from the 1950s? If you happen to have $1.25 million lying around, you can make that happen!
It seems every year we see companies like Terrafugia and Moller promise that the flying car will soon be an everyday reality. But people often forget flying cars have been around for over half a century. Greg Herrick, an aircraft collector in Minneapolis, is selling his 1954 Taylor Aerocar N-101D with an asking price of $1.25 million. His flying car of the retro-future sports a yellow and black body and as you can see from the photo above, still works! |  |
First Ever Video of Wild Snow Leopard Mother and Cubs
Snow leopards live in the remote mountains of countries such as Bhutan, China, India, Mongolia and Nepal. They are endangered—a mere 4,000 to 6,000 individuals are spread out over Central Asia—and live solitary lives, usually active just at dawn and dusk. Coupled with their exceptional camouflage, this makes them notoriously elusive—although they figure largely in the mythology of many Asian cultures, wild snow leopards weren’t even caught on camera until the 1970s.
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Remains of 15 found in ancient Mexican settlement
MEXICO CITY — Archaeologists in Mexico City have unearthed the skulls and other bones of 15 people, most of them the children of traveling merchants during Aztec times.
Researcher Alejandra Jasso Pena says they also found ceramic flutes, bowls, incense burners, the remains of a dog that was sacrificed to accompany a child in the afterlife and other artifacts of a pre-Columbian civilization. Jasso Pena said Friday that construction was about to start on five buildings in a Mexico City neighborhood when the National Institute of Anthropology and History asked to carry out an excavation of the site first. |  |
To gather information on violent storms, the National Hurricane Center relies on tools like sensors and satellites. And some badass Air Force Reserve pilots. The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron flies directly into the world’s worst storms to collect meteorological data. And like any dangerous job involving weather and vehicles, they now have a reality show: Hurricane Hunters recently premiered on the Weather Channel.
“What I do is sort of crazy to the rest of the aviation world. Pilots are trained to avoid weather—we’re actually flying into the most extreme storms,” says Sean Cross, a pilot featured on the show who has flown for more than 11 years with the 53rd.
“What I do is sort of crazy to the rest of the aviation world. Pilots are trained to avoid weather—we’re actually flying into the most extreme storms,” says Sean Cross, a pilot featured on the show who has flown for more than 11 years with the 53rd.
Ancient Treasure Unearthed at Crusades-Era Castle
Israeli archeologists this week discovered one of the largest gold stockpiles ever found while digging in an ancient castle that hosted some of the major battles of the Crusades.
The cache — discovered in a broken pottery vessel hidden under a floor tile — contained 108 gold coins which archeologists have estimated to be worth over $100,000. Researchers told UPI that crusaders probably hid the treasure trove from invading Muslim conquerors in the mid 13th Century. |  |
The murky trail of stolen antiquities
When antique dealer Subhash Chandra Kapoor, 61, arrested in Germany and extradited to India for his alleged role in spiriting away 18 temple idols from Tamil Nadu, was produced before the Ariyalur court on Saturday, it marked the second most sensational development of its kind in the country. It also pointed once again to the inscrutable ways of the idol-smugglers and their ruthlessly creative potential.
World's most sensitive dark matter detector set up
The world's most sensitive dark matter detector settled into a new home Friday in an old U.S. gold mine.
And when it starts collecting data later this year, scientists say it could lead to another breakthrough in studies of the universe, on the scale of the recent celebration over the so-called "God particle." "Dark matter presents a much bigger problem to detect," said Tom Shutt, a physics professor with Case Western Reserve University who's working on the Large Underground Xenon detector, known as LUX. "If we find it, it's going to be a much bigger shift in our understanding of physics. |  |
When Curiosity Almost Took Men to Mars
We're less than a month away from one of the most highly anticipated Martian landings of all time.
On Aug. 5 (Pacific Time, Aug. 6 Eastern), NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity will land in Gale Crater. The incredibly sophisticated rover is a mobile laboratory designed to run tests on soil to determine whether or not the Martian environment ever had the conditions to support life. But in the 1960s, the future of Mars exploration looked very different. In many instances, there were men aboard the spacecraft that were designed to fly by the red planet rather than land on it. |  |
Solar storm bombarding Earth today
Space weather experts are keeping close watch for a solar storm expected to reach Earth Saturday, the fallout from a powerful solar flare earlier this week.
The solar storm originated from a massive solar flare on Thursday that included a powerful eruption on the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection. The eruption sent a wave of charged solar plasma toward Earth, which was expected to arrive sometime today, according to forecasts by NASA and the NOAA-run Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado. The CME could amplify Earth's northern lights displays, some space weather officials have said. |  |