The evolutionary adaptations of ancient lobe-finned fish transformed pectoral fins used underwater into strong, bony structures that enabled emerging tetrapods, animals with limbs, to allow them…

The oldest recorded stone tool found to-date has been unearthed in Turkey. The chance find of a humanly-worked quartzite flake, in ancient deposits of the river Gediz in western Turkey, show that…

Francesco Botticini's The Assumption of the Virgin shows the heavenly hierarchies at play. By Martin Parker, University of Leicester One of the oldest assumptions about organizing comes directly from…

Our Milky Way is part of a cluster of more than 50 galaxies that make up the ‘Local Group’, a collection that includes the famous Andromeda galaxy and many other far smaller objects. And now one…

In the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), British MI6 agent James Bond designed his own martini, comprising three measures of Gordon's gin, one of vodka and half a measure of Kine Lillet…

We might think that Christmas is more commercial now than in the past - and the season certainly starts earlier - but when it comes to one key barometer the 1950s were pretty bad. Though the 1950s…

Windows with transparent photovoltaic modules or façades in which microalgae are being bred to provide the house with its own biofuel are just some of the aspects buildings of the future could…

Metamaterials have long held promise for extraordinary properties when it comes to diverting and controlling waves, especially sound and light: for instance, at the right optical frequency, they can…

Examples of poisonings due to people mistakenly picking and consuming poisonous botanicals in the wild made it clear that, contrary to claims by an alarming number of nutritionists and supplement…

For some Medicare patients, the prognosis was better when cardiologists were away from the hospital attending national cardiology meetings. Anupam B. Jena, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School…

Not So Smart Money In modern English the term 'smart money'  is most commonly used in reference to money invested in the course of business or gambling by people presumed to be knowledgeable…

The grape escape. Shutterstock By Mohit Kumar Jolly, Rice University If you’re a teetotaler, your friends have likely tried to convince you to taste red wine by swearing on its multiple health…

Launched in 1959, named after the inventor’s daughter Barbara, and owned by 99% of 3-10 year old girls in the USA, Barbie has been a popular request on young girls’ Christmas wish lists for 55 years.…

Scam artists often prey on older people and that has fed the perception that when it comes to important financial decisions, getting old means having less competence. Not so, according to new work…

Being obese brings with it a greater risk of heart disease, but patients who are obese before developing heart failure live longer than normal weight patients with the same condition, an 'obesity…

Congress provided a historic victory for the legal marijuana industry with the massive government-funding bill passed Saturday night, December 13. The bill will end the federal government’s ban on…

Mars is a very harsh and hostile environment for future human explorers and like any other known planet it has no breathable air. That could change someday, and it may be soon enough for our…

Use of a light-emitting electronic device like an iPad in the hours before bedtime can adversely impact overall health, alertness, and the circadian clock which synchronizes the daily rhythm of sleep…

Rabbits can strip grasslands bare and chew through young woody trees. John Schilling/Flickr, CC BY-ND By Andrew Bengsen, University of New England On Christmas Day 1859, the Victoria Acclimatisation…

An oil palm system model based on the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) framework and called APSIM Oil Palm is aimed at helping growers of the crop maximize the yields of their…