Science

Hundreds of new kinds of animal species surprised international researchers systematically exploring waters off two islands on the Great Barrier Reef and a reef off northwestern Australia — waters long familiar to divers.
The expeditions, affiliated with the global Census of Marine Life, help mark the International Year of the Reef and included the systematic scientific [...]

For the first time in waters surrounding New York City, the beckoning calls of endangered fin, humpback and North Atlantic right whales have been recorded, according to experts from the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
"This is an exciting time for New [...]

Few materials have exercised as much of a hold on the human imagination, or on human history, as has gold.
But for all of its popular uses — money, medals, jewelry and more — gold’s potential as a catalyst lay hidden until the 1980s, when Masatake Haruta and Graham Hutchings independently discovered that gold, which had [...]

Of all environments, space must be the most hostile: It is freezing cold, close to absolute zero, there is a vacuum, so no oxygen, and the amount of lethal radiation from stars is very high. This is why humans need to be carefully protected when they enter this environment. New research by Ingemar Jönsson and [...]

Even scientists define ‘a gene’ in different ways, so it comes as little surprise that the media also have various ways of framing the concept of a gene, according to a new study appearing in the October 2008 issue of EMBO reports.
The study, Frame that gene, is based on the analysis of 300 articles in [...]

The National Academies released amended guidelines for research involving human embryonic stem cells, revising those that were issued in 2005 and updated in 2007. The Academies originally produced the guidelines to offer a common set of ethical standards for the responsible conduct of research using human stem cells, an area that, due to an absence [...]

A simple memory trick has helped show UC Davis researchers how an area of the brain called the perirhinal cortex can contribute to forming memories. The finding expands our understanding of how those brain areas that form memories are organized.
The brain puts together different items — the what, who, where and when — to form [...]

A University of California, Davis research team led by chemical ecologist Walter Leal has discovered a low-cost, easy-to-prepare attractant that lures blood-fed mosquitoes without making humans hold their noses.
The synthetic mixture, containing compounds trimethylamine and nonanal in low doses, is just as enticing to Culex mosquitoes as the current attractants, Leal said, but this one [...]

Shedding some genetically induced excess baggage may have helped a tiny fish thrive in freshwater and outsize its marine ancestors, according to a UBC study published today in Science Express.
Measuring three to 10 centimetres long, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the [...]

What happens when linguistic tools used to analyze human language are applied to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo and a human? The findings, published this month in the Journal of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, indicate that bonobos may exhibit larger linguistic competency in ordinary conversation than in controlled experimental settings.
The peer-reviewed paper was [...]

A double murder investigation that has remained unsolved for almost a decade could be provided new impetus following a forensic breakthrough at the University of Leicester.
A leading detective from America is visiting forensic scientists at the University of Leicester and Northamptonshire Police in a bid to shed new light on the investigation.
He will meet with [...]

Over the past two decades, Michael Dickinson has been interviewed by reporters hundreds of times about his research on the biomechanics of insect flight. One question from the press has always dogged him: Why are flies so hard to swat?
"Now I can finally answer," says Dickinson, the Esther M. and Abe M. Zarem Professor of [...]

Cane toads weren’t allowed to compete in the Olympics, but scientists have raced cane toads in the laboratory and calculated that they would not be able to invade Melbourne, Adelaide or Hobart and are unlikely to do well in Perth or Sydney, even with climate change.
According to research by Dr Michael Kearney, from the Department [...]

A new report from the National Research Council, The Potential Impact Of High-End Computing On Four Fields Of Science And Engineering, looks at scientific advances that could be achieved using high-end computing. The report — which focuses on the fields of astrophysics, atmospheric science, chemical separations, and evolutionary biology — identifies major scientific questions that [...]

Diamonds from Brazil have provided the answers to a question that Earth scientists have been trying to understand for many years: how is oceanic crust that has been subducted deep into the Earth recycled back into volcanic rocks? A team of researchers, led by the University of Bristol, working alongside colleagues at the STFC Daresbury [...]

Imagine an edible optical sensor that could be placed in produce bags to detect harmful levels of bacteria and consumed right along with the veggies. Or an implantable device that would monitor glucose in your blood for a year, then dissolve.
Scientists at Tufts University’s School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that it [...]

The world’s population of critically endangered western lowland gorillas received a huge boost today when the Wildlife Conservation Society released a census showing massive numbers of these secretive great apes alive and well in the Republic of Congo.
The new census tallied more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas in two adjacent areas in the northern part [...]

The world’s smallest species of snake, with adults averaging just under four inches in length, has been identified on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The species — which is as thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to rest comfortably on a U.S. quarter –was discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn [...]

Have you ever wondered what our world would look like stripped bare of all plants, soils, water and man-made structures? Well wonder no longer; images of the Earth as never seen before have been unveiled in what is the world’s biggest geological mapping project ever.
Earth and computer scientists from 79 nations are working together on [...]

A new technique allows pictures which were later painted over to be revealed once more. An international research team, including members from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) and the University of Antwerp (Belgium), has successfully applied this technique for the first time to the painting entitled Patch of Grass by Vincent van Gogh. Behind [...]