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Most of us aren’t spending our days watching our houseplants grow. We see their signs of life only occasionally – a new leaf unfurled, a stem leaning toward the window. But in the summer of 1863, Charles Darwin lay ill in bed, with nothing to do but watch his plants so closely that he could…
Read More “Sunflowers ‘dance’ to get more sunlight, scientists find” »
Across human history, no single animal has had a deeper impact on human societies than the horse. But when and how people domesticated horses has been an ongoing scientific mystery. Half a million years ago or more, early human ancestors hunted horses with wooden spears, the very first weapons, and used their bones for early tools. During…
Read More “Research rewrites where, when humans first domesticated horses” »
You can imagine that popping maize kernels was first discovered by accident. Some maize probably fell into a cooking fire, and whoever was nearby figured out that this was a handy new way of preparing the food. | Photo Credit: pexels.com You have to wonder how people originally figured out how to eat some foods…
Read More “How was popcorn discovered? An archaeologist explains” »
Neanderthals, the closest cousins of modern humans, lived in parts of Europe and Asia until their extinction some 30,000 years ago. Genetic studies are revealing ever more about the links between modern humans and these long-gone relatives – most recently that a rush of interbreeding between our species occurred in a relatively short burst of…
Read More “The mysterious fate of the Neanderthal Y chromosome” »
It was the kind of task any competent seamstress has completed hundreds of times before: altering denim jeans and jerseys. But there was something different about this piece of work. Though our team of scientists were paying for it, we weren’t her ultimate customers – the clothes were to be worn by dead pigs. The…
Read More “How clothed pig carcasses are revealing the secrets of mummification” »
A motorcycle drives between baobab trees at baobab alley near the city of Morondava, Madagascar, August 30, 2019. | Photo Credit: Reuters The baobab tree is a distinctive sight on the landscape. When its contorted branches are leafless during the dry season, they resemble jumbled roots emanating from a thick trunk, making it appear as…
Read More “Study reveals history and oceanic voyages of remarkable baobab tree” »
People walk on an overpass past office towers in the Lujiazui financial district of Shanghai, China October 17, 2022. | Photo Credit: Reuters Across the world, many cities are slowly sinking. Most are on the coast, including tropical megacities like Jakarta in Indonesia or Manila in the Philippines, or places like New Orleans, Vancouver or…
Read More “More than a third of urban Chinese living in sinking cities, study finds” »
The world just experienced its hottest April on record. File (Image used for representation purpose only) | Photo Credit: Reuters The world just experienced its hottest April on record, extending an 11-month streak in which every month set a temperature record, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service said on May 8. Each month since…
Read More “World’s record-breaking temperature streak extends through April” »
Pfizer’s gene therapy trial for Duchenne muscular dystrophy resulted in a young patient’s death. File | Photo Credit: Reuters A young patient died due to cardiac arrest after receiving Pfizer’s experimental gene therapy being tested in a mid-stage trial for a muscle-wasting disorder called Duchenne muscular dystrophy(DMD), the drugmaker told Reuters on May 7. “A…
Read More “Pfizer reports patient death in Duchenne gene therapy study” »
A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade to 2040. The mission would be the first to try to return rock samples…
Read More “Why NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission has a shaky future” »
