Researchers found that voters were more likely to cast their ballots for candidates with lower-pitched voices, and tended to rate them as more dominant and more trustworthy.
The Kyoto Protocol on climate change used to be a big deal. So big that the future of humanity was said to hinge on its implementation. Did you know it expired on New Year’s Day? We’re guessing you didn’t, but don’t worry. It’s no big deal. Adopted in 1997 and in force since 2005, the…
A new University of Florida study that determined the age of skeletal remains provides evidence humans reached the Western Hemisphere during the last ice age and lived alongside giant extinct mammals. The study published online in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology addresses the century-long debate among scientists about whether human and mammal remains found at…
When an international team of researchers scanned the human genome for “de novo” genes, they putatively uncovered 60, three times more than once estimated. More surprising, many of these genes are active in the cerebral cortex, suggesting that de novo genes might have played a key role in the evolution of the human mind. Author…
A new study indicates that mass extinctions affect the pace of evolution, not just in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe, but for millions of years to follow. The study’s authors, University of Chicago’s Andrew Z. Krug and David Jablonski, will publish their findings in the August issue of the journal Geology. Scientists expected to see…
This was the year climate change vanished from the political agenda – and then suddenly reappeared, after Hurricane Sandy shook the country. It was just a few years ago that President Barack Obama flew to Copenhagen to rescue faltering climate treaty talks amid bipartisan calls for global warming action. But in 2012, there wasn’t a…
In recent years, diseases have ravaged through bat, honeybee and amphibian populations, and now animal experts suspect that shared factors may link the deaths, which are putting many species at risk for extinction. The latest setback affects bats, given this week’s announcement that the deadly fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome has been confirmed in…