At Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, where excavations helped to confirm Africa was the cradle of humanity, scientists now find the landscape once fluctuated rapidly, likely guiding early human evolution.These findings suggest that key mental developments within the human lineage may have been linked with a highly variable environment. Scientists had long thought Africa went…
Scientists have found that deforestation not only affects the diversity of plants and animals, but is bad news for the forest’s microbes too. While it has long been known that deforestation in the Amazon leads to a net loss in the biodiversity of plants and animals, until now very little has been known about how…
The next time you think about having sex without birth control, The Center for Biological Diversity wants to make sure that you consider how it might affect the greater world around you. Since 2009, the non-profit has handed out 450,000 condoms with endangered species awareness messages on their wrappers. How would your next passionate evening…
From Mayanmar to Lithuania, and Jerusalem to Vatican City, the faithful gathered on Christmas 2012 in churches around the world to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Click through these slides to see Christmas celebrations across the globe:
As darkness falls on Christmas night, check out the east-southeast sky. Shining brilliantly to the upper left of the bright, nearly full moon will be a silvery “star” with a steady glow. But that’s not a star, or Santa returning to the North Pole. Rather, it’s the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, serving…
Some economists dislike Christmas. They allege that it “destroys value,” which is, in Econoland, the first and only sin. The economist Joel Waldfogel, author of Scroogenomics, goes so far as to contend that the winter holiday season is “an orgy of value destruction.” Waldfogel’s main concern is that the value of gifts to their recipients…
When you gather around the Christmas tree or stuff goodies into a stocking, you’re taking part in traditions that stretch back thousands of years — long before Christianity entered the mix. Pagan, or non-Christian, traditions show up in this beloved winter holiday, a consequence of early church leaders melding Jesus’ nativity celebration with pre-existing midwinter…
A poll of nearly 150,000 people around the world says seven of the world’s 10 countries with the most upbeat attitudes are in Latin America. The people least likely to report positive emotions lived in Singapore, the wealthy and orderly city-state that ranks among the most developed in the world. Wealthy countries sat surprisingly low…
Scientists studying how songbirds stay on key have developed a statistical explanation for why some things are harder for the brain to learn than others. “We’ve built the first mathematical model that uses a bird’s previous sensorimotor experience to predict its ability to learn,” says Emory biologist Samuel Sober. “We hope it will help us…
Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified two molecules that play an important role in the survival and production of nerve cells in the brain, including nerve cells that produce dopamine. The discovery, which is published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, may be significant in the long term for the treatment of several…