With the growth of online science networks, geography and economics no longer dictate how research is undertaken or published. Just as matchmaking sites connect romance-seekers based on their relationship compatibility, new academic social networks are connecting scientists based on their professional research interests. These sites obviously lack the general appeal of Facebook, which topped one…
The simplicity of modern life is making us more stupid, according to a scientific theory which claims humanity may have reached its intellectual and emotional peak as early as 4,000 BC.
Archaeologists argue that drought caused by climate variation played a major role in the decline and fall of Mayan civilization.
Archaeologists say they have unearthed an almost 2,400-year-old golden hoard in an ancient Thracian tomb in northern Bulgaria. The treasure was found near the village of Sveshtari, 250 miles northeast of Sofia. Team leader Diana Gergova said that among the artifacts, dating back to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third…
How do you know when you’re attracted to a new face? Thank your medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region now discovered to play a major role in romantic decision-making. Different parts of this region, which sits near the front of the brain, make a snap judgment about physical attraction and about whether the person is…
The expansion of European settlement in Australia triggered a massive coral collapse at the Great Barrier Reef more than 50 years ago, according to a new study. The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that runoff from farms clouded the pristine waters off the Queensland coast and killed the natural…
A prediction: When all the votes have been counted and the reams of polling data have been crunched, analyzed, and spun, this will be clear: Few scientists will have voted for Republican candidates, particularly for national office. Survey data taken from 1974 through 2010 and analyzed by Gordon Gauchat in the American Sociological Review confirm…
The “remarkable recent economic growth” in many African countries may be able to sustain science through domestic funding (rather than through external sources) — but a lack of scientists and research capacity is threatening to reel back that economic growth, a meeting has heard. The gross domestic product (GDP) of many African countries has been…
We’ve had two once-in-a-century storms within a decade. Hurricane Sandy seems likely to become the second-costliest storm in U.S. history, behind Hurricane Katrina. Lower Manhattan is struggling to recover from an unprecedented flood, and the New Jersey coast is smashed beyond recognition. Will we finally get the message? How, at this point, can anyone deny…
The only modern humans whose ancestors did not interbreed with Neanderthals are apparently sub-Saharan Africans, researchers say. New findings, detailed in the journal PLoS ONE, suggest modern North Africans carry genetic traces from Neanderthals, modern humanity’s closest known extinct relatives. Although modern humans are the only surviving members of the human lineage, others once roamed…