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Can crabs feel pain? New research on the clawed crustaceans suggests the answer is yes. A group of UK researchers came to this conclusion by examining the reactions of common shore crabs to mild electric shocks in a study released today in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The key to their finding is the distinction…
Although the world produces enough food to feed everyone, two million children die of malnutrition every year. Food insecurity has become a symbol of inequity and remains the most crippling consequence of poverty. Campaigners for food security must include science in their goals — and in return scientists need to heed wider concerns around solutions.
An international research team says it has identified a specific DNA sequence associated with leadership skills. The findings, which appeared online in the journal Leadership Quarterly, suggest that a quarter of the variation among leadership qualities in individuals could be inherited — due to the genotype rs4950. To find this genotype, the team analyzed the…
To humans, all fire ants may look alike. But the tiny, red, stinging bugs known as Solenopsis invicta have two types of social organization, and these factions are as recognizable to the ants as rival football teams are to us. Researchers once thought that the groups’ distinct physiological and behavioral profiles stemmed from a variant…
Last year the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its famous “Doomsday Clock” — which measures the likelihood of global catastrophe — one minute closer to midnight, citing a lack of progress on nuclear disarmament and measures to address climate change. The Bulletin again saw a year of stasis, but opted to keep the clock…
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is investigating ways to store technology, including drones, on the ocean floor until needed by the U.S. Navy. An ongoing challenge for the Navy is anticipating where resources will be needed and distributing them accordingly, knowing it can take days or weeks for its ships to reach a…
Air pollution in China is at an all-time high. The Asian Development Bank together with Tsinghua University recently released the “National Environmental Analysis,” has reported that among the world’s ten most air polluted cities, 7 are in China. They are Taiyuan, Beijing, Urumqi, Lanzhou, Chongqing, Jinan and Shijiazhuang. The NY Times recently reported that the…
The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum. Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced that the rover was now in a virtual “candy store” of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay,…
Soot ranks as the second-largest human contributor to climate change, according to a new analysis, exerting twice as much of an impact as previously thought. The four-year, 232-page study of black carbon, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, shows that short-lived pollution known as soot, such as emissions from diesel engines and wood-fired…
The average global temperature in 2012 was among the 10 hottest since official record keeping began in 1880, with most of the world — from North America to far northeastern Asia — experiencing higher-than-usual temperatures, according to related reports issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Last…