Humankind’s gift of gab is not set in stone, and farming could help to explain why. Over the last 6,000 years or so, farming societies increasingly have substituted processed dairy and grain products for tougher-to-chew game meat and wild plants common in hunter-gatherer diets. Switching to those diets of softer,...
2017 was a good year for worrying about nutrient losses that might come with a changing climate. The idea that surging carbon dioxide levels could stealthily render some major crops less nutritious has long been percolating in plant research circles. “It’s literally a 25-year story, but it has come to...
Every day, it seems like there’s a new natural disaster in the headlines. Hurricane Harvey inundates Texas. Hurricane Irma plows through the Caribbean and the U.S. south, and Jose is hot on its heels. A deadly 8.1-magnitude earthquake rocks Mexico. Wildfires blanket the western United States in choking smoke. While...
Ravens have passed what may be their toughest tests yet of powers that, at least on a good day, let people and other apes plan ahead. Lab-dwelling common ravens (Corvuscorax) in Sweden at least matched the performance of nonhuman apes and young children in peculiar tests of advanced planning ability. The birds...
It’s very handy to have files synchronised with online services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud, Flickr or whatever. You should be able to retrieve most or all of your photos if your smartphone or laptop breaks or is lost or stolen. However, you can never assume that...
Under right conditions, photosynthesis-respiration cycle stems accelerating rise of atmospheric gas Plants temporarily halted the acceleration of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, new research suggests. From 2002 through 2014, CO2 levels measured over the oceans climbed from around 372 parts per million to 397 parts per million. But the average...
With a smartphone, you can look up facts, stream videos, check out Facebook, read tweets and listen to music. But all of those data aren’t stored on your phone. They are kept somewhere else, perhaps half a world away. For now, companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook store those data...
Air pollution is bad for our lungs. It may not be great for our waistlines either, a new study in rats finds. China’s capital city of Beijing has some of the worst air pollution in the world. On really bad days, its air can host more than 10 times as...
Nano bits of eggshells let two biodegradable plastics work better together. An old proverb says you’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. Most people then toss those eggshells out. Indeed, a lot of eggshells end up in landfills, observes Boniface Tiimob. He’s a materials scientist and...
The solar system may host a ninth planet that is about 10 times bigger than Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune, according to a research published recently. Computer simulations show that the mystery planet, if it exists, would orbit between about 200 and 1,000 times farther from the sun than...
Scientists find that many of the fungi killing bananas around the world are clones of one another The fight to save the banana just got more challenging. A fungus that threatens the world’s most popular fruit is spreading, according to a new study. And it’s doing so despite massive efforts to stop...
Connecting with other teens online may be fun. But spending too much time on the Internet could lead to health problems, a new study reports. Heavy Internet use appears able to put teens at serious risk of high blood pressure, it finds. As the term suggests, high blood pressure exerts...
A knock sounded on the door. Arly was sitting at the table with her little brother Sim on her right. Sim was eight, and would have been gone by now if Mama had been normal. Mama sat at the head of the table with the turkey in front of her,...
The air-bike hovered perfectly still and silent a couple of cms above the floor of his apartment. It resembled an old style jet-ski he had seen once but had a toughened clear canopy that completely enclosed the rider. He tapped the console and selected his destination from a list then...
Hummingbirds flit from flower to flower to drink sugar-laden nectar. The birds have a long tongue that lets them lap up their meals. Scientists had thought they understood how the tongues work. Nectar was thought to flow up open grooves in the tongue the way water rises inside thin capillary tubes. But...
The snakes kill by cutting off blood flow, not breath Boa constrictors don’t suffocate their prey so much as break their hearts. A new study finds that these snakes kill like demon blood-pressure cuffs. They squeeze down blood circulation until it stops. Without blood delivering fresh oxygen, the heart, and brain starve. This...
Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers nowadays, by far. However, just like any other browser, if you know all of the tips and tricks, the experience can be improved in a multitude of ways. There are some improvements that can literally make you a lot more productive, while at the same...
They named their dust counter for the child who came up with Pluto’s name The New Horizons spacecraft is hauling the first student-built instrument on a planetary mission. Called the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter, its job is to record impacts from space dust. Students at the University of Colorado,...
At 15, British student may be the youngest person ever to discover another world A student in England may be the youngest person ever to find a planet. Tom Wagg discovered the planet orbiting a star far beyond our solar system. He was just starting a weeklong internship at a...
These are some of the more powerful features of Google’s Gmail alternative app that lurk just below the surface. I’ve lived a frenetic life with my Gmail lately. One day I’d embrace Inbox with its quick snooze and swipe features that help me reach that elusive state of Inbox Zero....
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