Latest science news in Paleontology & Archaeology
Daylight Saving Time 2011: When and Why We Spring Forward
Why do we spring forward Sunday? Should daylight savings be abolished? Get the facts—and a few controversial takes on changing time.
Giant jellyfish: A gooey invasion looms
Gallery: In the last few years, swarms of giant jellyfish have descended upon coastal waters - and scientists say the problem is getting worse
Museum to return islander remains
LONDON, March 10 (UPI) -- London's Natural History Museum says it is returning the skeletal remains of 138 indigenous people taken from the Torres Strait Islands in the 19th...
Dead Roman soldiers: History's first gas attack casualties?
New evidence suggests gas attack killed 20 Roman soldiers in battle with Persians
New study proves the brain has 3 layers of working memory
Researchers from Rice University and Georgia Institute of Technology have found support for the theory that the brain has three concentric layers of working memory where it stores readily available...
News in Brief: Life
Chimps are righties and orangutans lefties, plus singing mice and chilly dinosaurs in this week's news
Pictures: Prehistoric American Skull Found in Sea Cave?
Divers in an underwater cave in Mexico may have found the skull of one of the earliest Americans—and maybe his or her mastodon leftovers.
Freight train derails near Montana's Glacier park
HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- Nineteen cars of a freight train have derailed near Glacier National Park in Montana, forcing Amtrak to bus passengers around the blocked...
NY Times is the new sponsor of a rock-paper-scissors supercomputer
(PhysOrg.com) -- You probably played at least a few games of Rock-Paper-Scissors as a kid. In this game you pretty much have three options, and each of them has both...
Study of 90 animals' thigh bones reveals how they can efficiently carry loads
The structures inside animals' thigh bones that enable them to support huge loads whilst being relatively lightweight are revealed in research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal...
How the penis lost its spikes
Humans ditched DNA to evolve smooth penises and bigger brains.
Remains found in Bronze Age pots
Two Bronze Age burial pots containing human remains have been found at the base of a standing stone in Angus.
Scientist at Work: Perils of the Rain Forest
Archaeologists working in a rainforest in Guatemala try to avoid mosquitoes, fer-de-lances and flesh-eating leishmaniasis, but they worry most about the trees.
Genebanks Could Be Storing the Wrong Seeds
Scientists at the Netherlands' Center for Genetic Resources have examined the extent of the problem of non-authenticity of old cultivars in genebank collections using a large lettuce collection from a...
Cigarettes to vanish from shelves in England
Cigarettes will disappear under the tobacconist's counter from next year in England under new measures announced Wednesday.
Author Martha Ackmann to Give Hall of Fame Keynote
Author Martha Ackmann of Mount Holyoke College has been tapped to give the keynote address on the first woman to play in the Negro Leagues when the National Baseball Hall...
How I got to know thunder thighs, the dinosaur with a fearsome kick
Dr Mike Taylor explains how his team reconstructed the probable body shape and lifestyle of a dinosaur from scattered bones, and the importance of distinguishing data from informed guesswork"There is something fascinating about...
'Oldest bird in US' raises chick
The oldest known bird in the US, a 60-year-old Laysan albatross named Wisdom, has been spotted with a chick, scientists say.
Scientists dig for Ice Age fossils in Los Angeles
(AP) -- With a dental pick in hand, Karin Rice delicately scraped off a clump of asphalt from a pelvic bone belonging to a horse that roamed Los Angeles...
Philippines to fight invading species
Like some bad science-fiction movie, Philippine fishermen are encountering strange alien creatures: tough, speckled fish with sharp spines that tear and rip their nets.
I Wouldn't Worry About The Latest Mass Extinction Scare
You've seen it everywhere by now - Earth's sixth mass extinction: Is it almost here? and other articles discussing an article in Nature (471, 51–57 doi:10.1038/nature09678) claiming the end of the...
The science behind the cape: How one physiology researcher is using batman to put some POW! Into physiology studies
What do you have when you line up a martial artist, acrobatic gymnast, police officer, firefighter, NASCAR driver, and NFL running back? "Watson," the IBM super-computer that recently routed humanity's...
US probes hacker threat over WikiLeaks soldier
The Pentagon said Tuesday it had requested an investigation into a hacker group's reported cyber threat against a military base that is being used to hold a US soldier suspected...
Tool helps diggers determine where to dig
TEL AVIV, Israel, March 8 (UPI) -- Israel has archaeological sites waiting to be unearthed and a Tel Aviv University researcher says he has just the tool to scratch...
The case for a neoproterozoic oxygenation event
The Cambrian "explosion" of multicellular animal life is one of the most significant evolutionary events in Earth's history. But what was it that jolted the Earth system enough to prompt...
Ecological burial involves freeze-drying, composting the corpse
(PhysOrg.com) -- Ever since the 12th century, the most common way to bury the dead has been to lay the corpse in a casket and then bury the casket several...
Mysteries of Stuttering Are Slowly Resolved
Genetics play a powerful role in deciding who stutters, experts say.
Scientist at Work: Behind the Scenes at Ceibal
Q'eqchi' Maya and ladino workers help archaeologists in Guatemala with their extensive knowledge of local fauna and flora.