Nature Newsblog
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Unprecedented mathematical knowledge found in Bronze Age wall paintings.
A geometrical figure commonly attributed to Archimedes in 300 BC has been identified in Minoan wall paintings dated to over 1,000 years earlier.
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Looking for the point of seemingly pointless research.
"Well-dressed women get better service at clothing stores," says the press-release headline.
For a stylish columnist such as myself, particularly one who is seeking the point of seemingly obvious research, this is like a red rag to a bull. Don't even start me on the way I was treated at stores on Fifth Avenue the other day when I happened to be in my sweatpants. It was worse than that scene from Pretty Woman.
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Mixing subspecies make problems for genetic fingerprinting scheme.
A study of butterflies has highlighted a hotly debated glitch in DNA barcoding - a scheme by which some researchers hope to quickly catalogue vast numbers of species. Biologists sampling Karner blue butterflies have found that genetic scans failed to identify the endangered animals.
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How to get your brain geared up to remember.
Ever struggled to recall something you knew you ought to remember? Part of the problem might be that your brain just wasn’t ready to store the memory in the first place.
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The possible use of illicit substances and practices, such as blood doping, have hung over the Winter Olympics in Turin. news@nature.com takes a look at what has been going on.
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Protein made in goats' milk doesn't make it to market.
An application to market a drug made in the milk of genetically modified (GM) goats was turned down this week. The decision means that, despite more than a decade of work using GM animals to produce drugs, no products have yet been approved for use.
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Large early mammal was first to get furry.
As a Jurassic predator, it was hardly in the big league. But compared with the shrew-like stature of the earliest mammals, it was a fearsome giant.
Japanese Daichi satellite constructs stunning 3-D images.
Japan's sacred Mount Fuji towers here above the towns and rivers of the Kofu basin in one of the first images obtained by the Daichi Earth-observing satellite.
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Quantum computers get the answer without being turned on.
A striking new way to compute the answer of a mathematical problem sounds like a slacker's dream: you turn on your computer, program it to solve the problem, but then don't have to run the program. Provided you are using a quantum computer, you'll have a fair chance of getting the answer anyway.
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Modern humans took over Europe in just 5,000 years.
Advances in the science of radiocarbon dating — a common, but oft-maligned palaeontological tool — have narrowed down the overlap between Europe's earliest modern humans and the Neanderthals that preceded them.
Japanese survey satellite launches.
An infrared space telescope that will make a three-dimensional map of the Universe has just launched. Astronomers plan to study everything from asteroids to galaxies with the telescope.
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Virtual-reality room shows how we can be blind to the size of our environment.
We’ve all heard that seeing is believing, but scientists know that it may be the other way around.
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Physicists are searching for violations to the theory of relativity.
Research on 'relativity violations' is reaching fever pitch, with the number of manuscripts on the subject up ten-fold from a decade ago, physicists heard at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, held in St Louis, Missouri, on 20 February.
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Looking for the point of seemingly pointless research.
A British study has just found "genetic links among men who share surnames". The rarer the name, the more likely the link.
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Gene that helps determine gender linked to Parkinson's disease.
Biologists have proof that men do, in fact, have sex on the brain. A crucial sex-determining gene on the male Y chromosome, called Sry, is known to be expressed in the male brain as well as in the testes.
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Bacteria could be put to use to make environmentally friendly fuels.
A facility built to do some of the heavy-duty processing for the human genome initiative is now cracking into the genomes of microorganisms; not as individuals, but en masse.
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Gorillas, orang-utans and chimpanzees pass down traditions and follow fads.
The evidence is mounting that great apes are a cultured lot, researchers heard at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in St. Louis this week.
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Roughly 1,000 people are still missing, feared dead, following a massive landslide that covered the village of Guinsaugon in the Philippines on Friday 17 February. Here, news@nature investigates the science behind the disaster.
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Experts warn that H5N1 could become entrenched in Europe.
Avian flu is probably here to stay, experts are warning Europe’s governments.
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Research team builds on electronic brooms to help cars stay on the road.
An unusual partnership between Scottish scientists and Olympic curlers has spawned a bit of research that could help cars to grip icy roads.
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Exposure to airborne drugs could increase a doctor's chance of becoming an addict.
Do the faint traces of anaesthetics that waft around operating rooms somehow prime physicians to become drug addicts?
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Greenland's ice is breaking up at an increasing rate.
Greenland's glaciers, which have since the last ice age slipped into the ocean at a sedate, glacial speed, are beginning to pick up the pace.
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Europe is set to refuse Britain's request to emit more carbon dioxide.
The European Commission looks set to refuse Britain's request to emit an additional 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year over an agreed limit, after a more than year-long petition. The refusal will leave UK power plants with a lower limit for emissions than they may have liked.
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Study says unconscious consideration yields most satisfying decisions.
The best way to make a tough decision is to put your feet up and think about something else. So says an investigation of people shopping for cars, clothes and furniture.
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Ecstasy effects may be exacerbated by disco din.
Loud noise appears to fuel the effects of the club-drug ecstasy in the brain. The results add to the debate about the risks of long-term brain damage from the drug.
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Tools set for use in three-dimensional modelling of everything from our anatomy to the Solar System.
Scientists are already using globe-imaging software such as Google Earth and other virtual globes to do amazing things with data about our planet and the things living on it.
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Short cuts bring the globe to your screen without crashing your computer.
The globe-imaging software Google Earth has become a cult web product since its release last June. Using the web-based tool, users can fly around the globe and zoom in on both natural features and whole worlds of information added by other users (see 'The web-wide world').
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Pests are evolving longer legs to speed their invasion.
Need to get somewhere fast? Growing longer legs is the cane toad's answer. The amphibian pest is accelerating its march across the Australian landscape, leaving a trail of ecological devastation.
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Unpredictable cousins of pulsars baffle astronomers.
Astronomers have stumbled upon a bizarre kind of star that stutters out fleeting flashes of radio waves.
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Better water supplies are linked to rise in hungry children in Ethiopia.
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Scientists are just beginning to examine the pieces of a comet brought back to Earth by NASA’s Stardust mission. Mark Peplow tagged along to one lab to watch researchers examine their prize catch.
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Will dextrose injections in a Mexican hotel lead to Olympic golds?
Four US skiers have gone to unusual extremes to ensure they are on form for this year's winter Olympics: they have gone to Mexico to visit a doctor with a history of unorthodox techniques.
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GlobalFlyer achieves longest ever flight despite last-minute power failure.
He almost ran out of runway when taking off in Florida. High over India, turbulence came close to breaking the plane apart. Minutes away from his scheduled landing, a power failure forced an emergency descent. Yet despite these ordeals, aviator Steve Fossett has clocked up another record: the longest ever non-stop flight.
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As demand grows for manufactured snow, so does environmental impact.
The 2006 winter Olympics is highlighting winter-sport enthusiasts' growing reliance on man-made snow, and the toll that this addiction could take on the environment.
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Details on a journey may create an illusion of distance.
The more times we have walked a route, the longer we judge it to be, a UK researcher has confirmed. His studies could help explain why daily commutes can grow to seem interminably long.
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Brain's rewind function argues for taking a break.
Idlers, loafers and layabouts, listen up. A new study suggests that the times when we sit around twiddling our thumbs could in fact be vital for learning.
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Study finds molecules that could control sociability.
A single genetic change can render mice immune to the consequences of hostile bullying, and this may point the way to drugs for social phobias and depression.
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Gassy emissions no longer in suspect dock for melting the last ice age.
Methane escaping from the sea floor to the atmosphere has been a popular suspect for causing rapid climate changes during and at the end of the last ice age. But new data derived from a Greenland ice core have delivered a killer blow to the idea.
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Experts fear poverty and lack of infrastructure may spread disease.
The H5NI avian flu virus has broken out in battery farms of poultry in Nigeria; it's the first time the disease has been reported in Africa.
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Fossil hunters find the first Jurassic specimen of this fearsome family.
Ask any dinner-party palaeontologist and they'll tell you that, despite its star turn in Jurassic Park, Tyrannosaurus rex didn't live in the Jurassic period. But now a team in China has found a tyrannousaur that did, and it gives us valuable clues about the rise of this clan of prehistoric predators.
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Male circumcision protects both women and men from infection.
Male circumcision can protect women, as well as men, from HIV infection, says a study of Ugandan medical records.
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Weedkillers combine in fields to form a deadly brew.
Pesticides used by US corn growers are combining to kill off the country's native frogs. Research shows that commonly used pesticides, fairly harmless by themselves, are mixing to create a toxic soup in runoff water. This stunts the frogs' sexual development and leaves them susceptible to fatal infections.
Weedkillers combine in fields to form a deadly brew.
Pesticides used by US corn growers are combining to kill off the country's native frogs. Research shows that commonly used pesticides, fairly harmless by themselves, are mixing to create a toxic soup in runoff water. This stunts the frogs' sexual development and leaves them susceptible to fatal infections.
Read the whole story here.
Unseen mass looks to be more 'tepid' than thought.
Astronomers have measured the temperature of dark matter for the first time. The discovery should help particle hunters to identify exactly what this mysterious substance is made of.
Continmue reading story here.
Non-governmental commission delivers damning report card.
A non-governmental commission has taken a look at the state of the oceans around the United States and come up with a disappointing conclusion. A little more than a year after recommendations were issued on how to save the nation's waters, the commission has issued the country a D+ on their efforts.
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Circling the globe and beyond will be a test of human endurance.
A strange, sleek bird will take to the skies this month in an attempt to fly further than any aircraft before it.
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Psychologists test long-held theory of emotional cushioning.
Expecting the worst may not make you feel any better when faced with a disappointment, say psychology researchers who have tested the age-old advice.
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Looking for the point of seemingly pointless research.
My computer was so slow today that I punched its lights out, thus landing myself in hospital, where I now lie in agony, scrawling these words with my uninjured left hand.
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Campaigns to change peoples' behaviour to fight AIDS show signs of success.
Strife-torn Zimbabwe may have scored a blow against the deadly virus that causes AIDS.
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One scientist’s complaint of censorhip has put the spotlight on NASA.
Is NASA engaging in censorship, or just running a tight ship? That’s the question regarding allegations published in the New York Times last weekend that NASA tried to prevent one of its foremost climate researchers, James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, from speaking to the press.
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Knowing how spiky glaciers form could give clues about how to slow ice melt.
Researchers have recreated miniature versions of curious spiky glaciers found in the Andes. By studying how these structures form in the lab, they conclude that inducing such spikes in glaciers should help to slow their melting, and perhaps provide a way to preserve glaciers that are under threat from global warming.
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One sniff is enough to point rodents towards dinner.
Researchers in India have discovered that a single sniff is enough for a rat to locate the source of an enticing aroma.
Weather forecasting models could provide early warnings of malaria epidemics.
Today's forecast predicts heavy showers and ... a chance of mosquitoes? That's the hope of scientists who have unveiled a weather forecasting computer model that can provide up to five months warning of malaria epidemics in the most vulnerable countries.
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Large size of 2003 UB-313 fuels debate over what is and isn't a planet.
The recently discovered 'tenth planet' of our Solar System is substantially larger than Pluto, astronomers have found.
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Finding sympathetic pregnancy in monkeys suggests the fat is useful.
Male monkeys gain weight during their partner's pregnancy, and this finding hints at a biological basis for expectant fathers' expanding waistlines.
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