When the world's land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't the forbiddingly icy place it is now. But paleontologists have found a previously unknown amphibious…

If Mark Twain thinks golf is "a good walk spoiled", then putting must be a brief pause to make you reconsider ever walking again. With about 50% of our score being determined on the green, we are…

MIT neuroscientists have tricked the visual brain into confusing one object with another, demonstrating that time teaches us how to recognize objects. This discovery, they say, could lead to robots…

We all know that people can be influenced in complex ways by their peers. But two new studies in the September 11th issue of Current Biology reveal that the same can also be said of fruit flies. The…

Depending on if you are pro- or con- on the dinosaur issue, you have good or bad things to say. While dinosaurs dominated land for well over 100 million years and evolved into numerous species, they…

We hear lots of concern about global warming and the world's rainforests, though they have even begun to thrive under warming conditions - but what about ancient rainforests, long before the Dawn of…

Our brains contain their own navigation system much like satellite navigation ("sat-nav"), with in-built maps, grids and compasses, neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers told the BA Festival of Science at…

Prof. Leonid Yaroslavsky from Tel Aviv University believes that humans may have an ability to "see" colors and shapes - with their skin. He outlines his 'optic-less imaging model' in a chapter of a…

Natarajan found that ultra-massive black holes, which lurk in the centers of huge galaxy clusters like the one above, seem to have an upper mass limit of 10 billion times that of the Sun. (Credit:…

Mayo Clinic investigators have demonstrated that stem cells can be used to regenerate heart tissue to treat dilated cardiomyopathy, a congenital defect, according to research published in Stem Cells.…

The University of Southampton is launching the world's largest-ever study of near-death experiences this week. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study is to be launched by the Human…

Yeast, the essential microorganism for fermentation in the brewing of beer, converts carbohydrates into alcohol and other products that influence appearance, aroma, and taste. In a study published…

Arthroscopic surgery is widely accepted as an effective treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee. It's a minimally invasive surgical procedure involving insertion of an arthroscope and other…

The latest in a string of cancer genome sequencing papers is now online at Nature. The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network, a large consortuim of cancer researchers, has searched the genomes of 206…

Tomorrow's issue of Nature discusses the next steps in cancer research (subscription required for the full text): A tumour cell is a genetic disaster area littered with mutations that differ not only…

Burst Alert! March 19th was an exciting day for NASA. We know “why” it was special, but we don’t know “why why” it was special. They finally explain the why why today, and you can read all about it…

It sounds like common sense to say the level of nutrients in soil determines how many different kinds of plants and trees can thrive in an ecosystem, but it's only now that mathematicians have…

Welsh miners’ sons in physics Reading an article Death threat to scientists over Big Bang test, I learn that one of the leading figures behind the experiment is Lyn Evans, the son of a miner, whose…

Contrary to the national "carbon budgets" as outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, a new analysis in Nature suggests that old growth forests are "carbon sinks" and they continue to absorb carbon dioxide…

What do you call a supernova that is not as powerful and doesn't destroy the star? A babynova? Subnova? We'll need to think of something, according to Berkeley astronomer Nathan Smith, because that…