There seems to be little that distinguishes the indigenous Tsimane of northern Bolivia from dozens of other native Amazonian peoples. They still live in small communities, fishing daily, hunting and relying on subsistence farming. They remain relatively isolated from the outside world. They still have large families and fall victim to parasites, worms and infectious…
The climate change we are currently experiencing, while disconcerting and increasingly uncomfortable, is not unprecedented when viewed through the historical prism of life on Earth. A study led by researchers from Texas A&M University’s Department of Oceanography looks back at the water cycle that affected the Western United States in an era dating back some…
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence that the area in Gale crater it is traveling through once had vigorously flowing water for perhaps thousands or millions of years. Scientists don’t know exactly how long ago this river would have flowed but it would likely be billions of years in the past. Several pieces of evidence…
The vast majority of the world’s fisheries are declining but could recover if properly managed, according to a paper published in the journal Science. The statistical analysis marks the first time researchers have assessed the globe’s roughly 10,000 fishing areas, more than 80% of which are unregulated. The group of five American scientists who wrote…
Supermassive black holes appear to occupy the center of almost all galaxies. When they are actively swallowing matter, these black holes can power energetic jets that shine brighter than the entire rest of the galaxy, and can shoot matter free of it. Despite the mass and energy involved, however, the origin of these jets has…
Some women always have men on the brain. And some women literally have men in their brains. A new study in PloS ONE found that quite a few female brains contain male DNA. This genetic material presumably passes into a mother while she is pregnant with a male fetus. Although we already knew that fetal…
Climate change is already contributing to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP, according to a new study. The impacts are being felt most keenly in developing countries, according to the research, where damage to agricultural production from extreme weather…
An ancient Buddhist statue that was recovered by a Nazi expedition in the 1930s was originally carved from a highly valuable meteorite. Researchers say the 1,000-year-old object with a swastika on its stomach is made from a rare form of iron with a high content of nickel. They believe it is part of the Chinga…
A group of Japanese scientists announced that they have finally synthesized the elusive element 113, which has been called ununtrium. If confirmed, the feat would mark the first time Japanese researchers have been first to synthesize an element of the periodic table. It would also be the first time an Asian research team has had…
An 8.7 earthquake that struck west of Indonesia on April 11 was the biggest of its kind ever recorded and confirms suspicions that a giant tectonic plate is breaking up, scientists believe. The quake, caused by an unprecedented quadruple-fault rupture, gave Earth’s crustal mosaic such a shock that it unleashed quakes around the world nearly…