Scientists from the United States have learned that dolphins are able to stay alert and active for 15 days or more at a time by sleeping only one-half of their brain. The experts believe that this ability to stay alert by using only half of their brain is a key to the survival of sea mammals. The scientists believe that the ability helps the dolphin to surface to breathe and remain vigilant for predators such as sharks.
Once upon a time, 3 billion years ago, there lived a single organism called LUCA. It was enormous: a mega-organism like none seen since, it filled the planet’s oceans before splitting into three and giving birth to the ancestors of all living things on Earth today. This strange picture is emerging from efforts to pin…
The total mass of life on Earth may be one-third less than thought, altering how active we think life on our planet is, researchers say. Past estimates of how much life there is on Earth suggested living organisms store about 1 trillion tons of carbon, of which about 30% dwells in single-celled microbes in the…
Rather than kicking off the expected cycles of extinction, periods of warming in Earth’s history were accompanied by increased biodiversity, according to a report. But this does not mean that the mass extinctions that are taking place today, with Earth warming at an unprecedented rate, will be reversed in future. Researchers examined the number of…
In a closely watched case, the Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling allowing human genes to be patented, a topic of enormous interest to cancer researchers, patients and drug makers. The Court overturned patents belonging to Myriad Genetics on genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Scientists say genes carrying…
Some questions about his neuroscientific research on Carmelite nuns.
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of three odd galaxies that may help scientists solve a 13 billion-year cosmic mystery. The galaxies are so old and faint that astronomers nicknamed them “ghost galaxies” in a description. The objects are among the smallest and faintest galaxies near our own Milky Way galaxy, researchers said. “These…