Giant tortoise thought extinct is found on Galapagos
Conservationists in the Galapagos Islands have found a giant tortoise from a species thought to have become extinct more than a century ago.
Conservationists in the Galapagos Islands have found a giant tortoise from a species thought to have become extinct more than a century ago.
A Japanese probe is expected to land on a distant asteroid Friday, aiming to blast a "bullet" into the surface to collect clues about the origins of Earth and the solar system.
JILA researchers have made a long-lived, record-cold gas of molecules that follow the wave patterns of quantum mechanics instead of the strictly particle nature of ordinary classical physics. The creation of this gas boosts the odds for advances in fields such as designer chemistry and quantum computing.
Italy's antitrust authority on Thursday slapped fines on low cost airlines Ryanair and Wizzair over their cabin baggage policy.
A rocket will take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's Beresheet spacecraft, which aims to make history twice: as the first private-sector landing on the Moon, and the first from the Jewish state.
Climate change has fueled coral reef bleaching throughout the tropics, with negative consequences for reef ecosystems and the people who depend on them. A new study finds that in the Caribbean, independent island nations such as Cuba and Jamaica are less vulnerable to coral bleaching than island territories like Saint Barthélemy.
When the bathroom starts looking grimy, and it's time to whip out yellow gloves, the only thing that matters is getting the job done quickly.
In the United States, the removal of dams now outpaces the construction of new ones—with more than 1,400 dams decommissioned since the 1970s—and a new study suggests that the ecosystem effects of dam removal can be predicted.
The worlds of engineering and baseball have collided. Researchers at Utah State University are breaking down the physics of a new baseball pitch that's been getting a lot of attention.
As part of his master's project, the chemical engineer Mario Stucki developed a breathable, environmentally friendly membrane for rain jackets. With his colleague Anna Beltzung, he has since founded the spin-off Dimpora to market the membrane commercially.
Did you know that more than half of the drugs currently in use are chiral, potentially resulting in two different responses in the body? Chiral compounds are pairs of molecules that are mirror images of each other, just like a person's right and left hand. Since the body interacts with each molecule differently, a chiral drug may produce the desired effects from one molecule, along with an unwanted side effect from its mirror image. It would be much safer and more efficient to make pure compounds... Читать дальше...
Huge gains can be made by using waste from the food industry for biogas production, no matter whether the biogas is used in vehicles or to produce electricity and heat. This is the conclusion of researchers from the Biogas Research Center at Linköping University, in a recently published article.
In a new study from UBC's Okanagan campus, researchers have discovered a surprising new source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—bicarbonates hidden in the lake water used to irrigate local orchards.
LSU Department of Biological Sciences Professor Naohiro Kato is refining the process to make biodegradable Mardi Gras beads. He has patent applications pending on various formulations and methods of making the biodegradable beads that could help prevent tens of thousands of pounds of plastic Mardi Gras beads from entering the environment every year.
A study of England's farmland has found key earthworm types are rare or absent in two out of five fields and has led to the majority of farmers affected vowing to change the way they farm.
Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague said Thursday they were ready to head into space again next month after their last launch ended in failure.
Artificial intelligence researchers and engineers have spent a lot of effort trying to build machines that look like humans and operate largely independently. Those tempting dreams have distracted many of them from where the real progress is already happening: in systems that enhance – rather than replace – human capabilities. To accelerate the shift to new ways of thinking, AI designers and developers could take some lessons from the missteps of past researchers.
Nuclei in their lowest energy states (ground state) are composed of neutrons and protons. Two protons and two neutrons in a nucleus can cluster together to form alpha particles. When the nucleus gets nearly enough energy to disintegrate into alpha particles, the alpha particles can arrange themselves in the lowest possible quantum energy level, forming a Bose-Einstein condensate. Examples are the ground state of beryllium-8 and the famous carbon-12 "Hoyle" state, named for Fred Hoyle who first postulated... Читать дальше...
It's widely accepted that automated photo enforcement programs targeting speeding help reduce collisions and promote safe driving. Now a new University of British Columbia study suggests they can also significantly reduce crime in the neighbourhoods in which they are deployed.
A comprehensive and multinational review of peppers/chilis (Capsicum species) with academic and scientific input from points across the globe, such as Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, Italy, Hungary, Austria, and the United States sets out to explore various aspects of interest concerning this horticulturally important crop.
Plant researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) are providing new insights into basic cell division in plants. The scientists have succeeded in understanding how pivotal processes are coordinated in properly separating daughter cells during cell division. In The EMBO Journal, they describe the tasks of certain membrane building blocks and how plants are impacted when these building blocks are disrupted.
More than 700,000 Multiple Launch Rocket System submunitions have been demilitarized since the Army started using an automated nine-robot system conceptualized, built and programmed by Sandia National Laboratories engineers.
When money is tight, single mothers spend more of their health care dollars on their children than themselves, while two-parent families are less likely to make changes, according to a Rutgers study.
Food, microbes, and medicine all clump together as they move through our gut. Sticky molecules secreted into our intestines bind the gut particles in the same way that flour holds a ball of dough together. Now a new mice-based study from Caltech is showing that dietary fiber also plays a role in clumping. This is the first time that researchers have shown that fiber—stringy molecules found in foods like vegetables and whole grains—helps to aggregate gut particles.
Lake Van in eastern Turkey is considered a unique climate archive. Several years ago, an international team of scientists led by the University of Bonn raised sediments from the bottom of the lake reflecting the past 600,000 years. An interdisciplinary group of soil scientists and paleobotanists from the University of Bonn has now evaluated the drill cores for residues of early fires—with surprising findings. The fires did not mainly occur during particularly dry periods as assumed, but in comparatively... Читать дальше...