The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) ended with an international agreement on the need for all countries to commit themselves to achieving sustainable development. The agreement immediately came under fire from several quarters for its lack of detail about how this will be done, and the absence of new financial commitments from the…
Not unlike some among their human counterparts, male blue tits lose interest when their mates’ beauty starts fading, staying out longer and neglecting their offspring, a report concludes. Scientists who dulled the bright blue head tinge that crowns the female of the species, subsequently noticed the males skulking off for more alone time and making…
Cities from North Carolina to Massachusetts see waters rising more rapidly
Expanding waistlines are not just tipping scales but may also push the mercury higher around the world, according to a new study. As humanity becomes more rotund, more resources are needed to cool, nourish and transport the extra weight, a trend that can contribute to climate change by requiring the consumption of more fossil fuels…
It’s 20 million years ago in the forests of Argentina, and Homunculus patagonicus is on the move. The monkey travels quickly, swinging between tree branches as it goes. Scientists have a good idea of how Homunculus got around thanks to a new fossil analysis of its ear canals and those of 15 other ancient primates….
It might be possible for human-to-human airborne transmissible avian H5N1 influenza viruses to evolve in nature, new research has found. The findings, from research led by Professor Derek Smith and Dr Colin Russell at the University of Cambridge, were published in the journal Science. Currently, avian H5N1 influenza, also known as bird flu, can be…
Ethiopians’s long-ago genetic mixing with populations from Israel and Egypt is a legacy of the Queen of Sheba and her companions, say researchers.
Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science. Phoebe Zarnetske, the study’s primary author, said the complexity of “species interaction networks” discourages their inclusion in models predicting the effects of climate change. Using the single-species, or…
Neuroscience is new enough, and our desire for brain facts is strong enough, that dubious claims about brain types circulate widely. Take, for example, the latest Neuroscience-of-Religion news item to make the rounds, this one claiming that critical thinking undermines religious belief. Based on two studies from The Journal of Experimental Psychologies and Science, it…
For the 50,000 visitors from 190 countries streaming in for the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the welcome in Rio is a rank reminder of just how hard it will be to balance economic growth and environmental protection elsewhere across the globe. Rio, the host city, suffers from devastating and daunting air and water pollution.