Honeybees are also discerning art critics, according to scientists from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute, the UQ School of Psychology and the Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil.
The study, published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A, found honeybees had remarkable visual learning and discrimination abilities that extended beyond simple colours, shapes or patterns. QBI researcher Dr Judith Reinhard said honeybees had a highly developed capacity for processing complex visual information, and could distinguish landscape scenes, types of flowers, and even human faces. |  |
Neanderthals smart enough to copy humans
Fossils and artefacts pulled from the Grotte du Renne cave in central France present anthropologists with a Pleistocene puzzle. Strewn among the remains of prehistoric mammals are the bones of Neanderthals, along with bladelets, bone points and body ornaments belonging to what archaeologists call the Châtelperronian culture. Such complex artefacts are often attributed to modern humans, but a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that Neanderthals created the objects in imitation of their Homo sapiens neighbors.
|  |
Discovered: Unknown Population Explosion of Human Species 40,000 Yrs Ago
DNA sequencing of 36 complete Y chromosomes has uncovered a previously unknown population explosion that occurred 40 to 50 thousand years ago, between the first expansion of modern humans out of Africa 60 to 70 thousand years ago and the Neolithic expansions of people in several parts of the world starting 10 thousand years ago. This is the first time researchers have used the information from large-scale DNA sequencing to create an accurate family tree of the Y chromosome, from which the inferences about human population history could be made.
|  |
VOYAGER 1 DETECTS WEIRDNESS AT SOLAR SYSTEM EDGE
Voyager 1 is the most distant man-made object and is thought to have recently escaped the sun's sphere of influence. The probe, launched 35 years ago, is therefore mankind's first interstellar vehicle careening into the vast expanse of space between the stars.
Needless to say, as one of two deep space probes launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has explored previously unknown regions of the solar system, making groundbreaking discoveries as it went. Now, in a new paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, scientists analyzing data streaming from the spacecraft have uncovered a small mystery right at the solar system's magnetic boundary with the interstellar medium. She may be old, but you can't keep a good probe down. |  |
Leaks Found in Earth's Protective Shield
Our planet's protective magnetic bubble may not be as protective as scientists had thought. Small breaks in Earth's magnetic field almost continuously let in the solar wind — the stream of magnetic, energized plasma launched by the sun toward the planets — new research has found.
"The solar wind can enter the magnetosphere at different locations and under different magnetic field conditions that we hadn't known about before," Melvyn Goldstein, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. |  |
Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover finds soil similar to volcanic sands of Hawaii
In the first inventory of minerals on another planet, Nasa's Mars rover has found soil that bears a striking resemblance to the weathered, volcanic sand of Hawaii, say scientists.
The rover, named Curiosity, uses an x-ray imager to reveal the atomic structures of crystals in the Martian soil. It was the first time the technology, known as x-ray diffraction, was used to analyse soil not on Earth. "This was a 22-year journey and a magical moment for me," said David Blake, Nasa's lead scientist for the rover's mineralogical instrument. |  |
Man in the moon is unmasked as giant asteroid crater
TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Prefecture--Scientists say a flattened section of the moon, 3,000 kilometers wide, was likely caused by a collision with an asteroid the size of Austria.
The moon's Procellarum basin, the dark part as seen from Earth, is what remains of the impact crater, they said. Its vast size is apparent in relation to the moon's diameter: 3,476 km. (The basin is likened in Japanese folklore to the shape of a rabbit pounding rice cakes.). |  |
Private SpaceX Capsule Lands After Historic Mission to Space Station
NASA's first commercial cargo flight ended with a splash today (Oct. 28), when the SpaceX Dragon capsule landed after a landmark mission to the International Space Station.
The unmanned Dragon space capsule, built by the U.S. company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT), ending a three-week visit to the orbiting laboratory. Dragon began its descent with a de-orbit burn at 2:28 p.m. EDT (1828 GMT), after departing the station at 9:29 a.m. EDT (1329 GMT) as both spacecraft sailed 255 miles (410 kilometers) above Burma. The station's crew used the outpost's robotic arm to release the spacecraft. |  |
Psychic pair fail scientific test
A scientific experiment has found that two mediums were unable to demonstrate that they had special psychic powers.
The test by researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, tried to establish whether mediums could use psychic abilities to identify something about five unseen volunteers. The results, carried out under test conditions, did not show evidence of any unexplained powers of insight. |  |
Bananas could replace potatoes in warming world
Climate change could lead to crops from the banana family becoming a critical food source for millions of people, a new report says.
Researchers from the CGIAR agricultural partnership say the fruit might replace potatoes in some developing countries. Cassava and the little-known cowpea plant could be much more important food crops as temperatures rise. People will have to adapt to new and varied menus as traditional crops struggle, say the authors. |  |
Did global warming cause superstorm Sandy?
Climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer stood along the Hudson River and watched his research come to life as Hurricane Sandy blew through New York.
Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns. New York "is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding," he wrote. |  |
Polar bear sanctuary on iceberg
A hitherto unknown polar bear sanctuary in the Arctic has been discovered by the makers of a BBC documentary.
An estimated 20 of the bears were seen on the Peterman Iceberg in Baffin Bay, 50km off the Canadian coast. For most of the year, polar bears live on the frozen sea water where they hunt seals. So the finding challenges received wisdom about where polar bears spend the summer months, when the sea ice melts. |  |
New flying fish fossils discovered in China
New flying fish fossils found in China provide the earliest evidence of vertebrate over-water gliding strategy.
Chinese researchers have tracked the "exceptionally well-preserved fossils" to the Middle Triassic of China (235-242 million years ago). The Triassic period saw the re-establishment of ecosystems after the Permian mass extinction. The fossils represent new evidence that marine ecosystems re-established more quickly than previously thought. The Permian mass extinction had a bigger impact on the earth's ecological systems than any other mass extinction, wiping out 90-95% of marine species. |  |
Ancient Art Tells China’s Modern Tale
AMSTERDAM — For the first half of his career, the artist Qiu Deshu largely rode the seismic shifts of Chinese history.
Mr. Qiu, who was born in Shanghai in 1948, studied traditional Chinese arts, including seal carving, scroll mounting and ink painting, along with Western oil painting. As a teenager in the 1960s, he worked as an artist for the Red Guard, creating propaganda for the Cultural Revolution. In the 1970s, while working in a plastics factory, he gained status as an important “worker-painter.” After the Cultural Revolution, he became the leader of the artists collective Cao Cao Hua She, the Grass Painting Society, to plant new seeds of expression on what he thought was finally terra firma. |  |
Saxon find in Lyminge has historians partying like it's 599
The foundations of a spectacular Anglo-Saxon feasting hall, a place where a king and his warriors would have gathered for days of drinking and eating – as vividly described in the poem Beowulf – have been found inches below the village green of Lyminge in Kent.
There was one last celebration by the light of flickering flames at the site, 1,300 years after the hall was abandoned, as archaeologists marked the find by picking out the outline of the hall in candles, lighting up the end-of-excavation party. Heaps of animal bones buried in pits around the edge of the hall bore testimony to many epic parties of the past. |  |
Ancient town sliced their dead in half and buried them from the pelvis up
Residents of what is thought to be Europe's oldest town cut their dead in half and buried them from the pelvis up, according to archaeologists.
The newly discovered ancient settlement, thought to date back to 4700BC, is near the Bulgarian town of Provadia, about 25 miles from the country's Black Sea coast. Archaeology professor Vassil Nikolov led the dig which focused on the town itself and its necropolis, where the strange and complex burial rituals were discovered. 'Now we can say that the Provadia salt pans location is the oldest town in Europe, [dating from] roughly 4700 to 4200BC,' he told CNN |  |
Northumberland coast's ancient secrets to be saved from sea
When 4,000 years ago the people living on a windy stretch of magnificent Northumbrian coastline looked for a place to bury their dead, they chose a beautiful spot - a low hillock of dry land above marshes and creeks, in sight of the sea but a kilometre safely inland.
Now the sea is lapping at the ancient graves, and the Heritage Lottery Fund will on Tuesday announce a £300,000 grant to excavate the entire site at Low Hauxley, and rescue what remains of its ancient secrets. |  |
Could the Computer Age Have Begun in Victorian England?
A Victorian-era device might have jumpstarted the Computer Age more than 100 years before the first personal computers of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. That century-old dream has inspired a British programmer to launch a crowd-funding effort that can finally make the steam-powered "Analytical Engine" a reality.
The early computer concept — a brass-and-iron machine the size of a small steam locomotive — came from the mind of Charles Babbage, a famed mathematician who tinkered with different designs for the Analytical Engine until his death in 1871. The Plan 28 project aims to build Babbage's machine by raising $8 million (5 million in British pounds) over the next 10 years. |  |
No comments:
Post a Comment