Jim Yong Kim, the new president of the World Bank, said that dealing with climate change will be one of his priorities. “Since becoming president of the World Bank, I have looked deeply into the data on climate change, and I have to say I was surprised that even in last 6 months to a…
Reducing the risk of extinction for threatened species and establishing protected areas for nature will cost the world over $76 billion annually. Researchers say it is needed to meet globally agreed conservation targets by 2020. The scientists say the daunting number is just a fifth of what the world spends on soft drinks annually. And…
A New York Medical College developmental biologist whose life’s work has supported the theory of evolution has developed a concept that dramatically alters one of its basic assumptions—that survival is based on a change’s functional advantage if it is to persist. Stuart A. Newman, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and anatomy, offers an alternative model…
A meteorite that fell in Morocco last year might contain the freshest evidence for water on Mars, according to a study published in Science. The meteorite, named Tissint after the town nearest its landing site, was identified as a Mars rock in January. Now, Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane and her colleagues report that Tissint contains evidence…
Palaeogeneticists have examined 158 DNA-containing leg bones belonging to three species of extinct giant birds called moa. The bones, which were between 600 and 8,000 years old, had been recovered from three sites within 5 kilometres of each other. By comparing the specimens’ ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has…
If you’ve ever had to make a snap decision between two unfamiliar choices, you may want to thank your subconscious for making it possible. According to new research, the brain’s memory areas link new memories to old associations, providing a roadmap for decision-making we don’t even realize we have. The research, published in the journal…
Like songbirds and humans, male mice have brain circuits and behaviors they may use to learn some of their sounds.
The world’s largest reinsurer has examined the recent rise in the number and severity of natural disasters worldwide, and finds the trend bears the unmistakable fingerprints of climate change. What’s more, America is bearing the brunt of that change. The drumbeat of a warming climate, worsening weather, and the resulting human toll continues, and keeps…
For much of the 20th century, the question of building mind from matter was considered so difficult that consciousness was a topic non grata. The Behaviorist school of thought held that consciousness was an illusion: The brain was to be understood simply as an input-output black box of reflexes, and that’s where the investigation must…
Orbiting a star that is visible to the naked eye, astronomers have discovered a planet twice the size of our own made largely out of diamond. The rocky planet, called ’55 Cancri e’, orbits a sun-like star in the constellation of Cancer and is moving so fast that a year there lasts a mere 18…