Small News

The study of 33 volunteers, to be published in the June 2008 edition of Psychological Science,by U.S. researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Pittsburgh has found that people who feel sad are more prone to spending money, compared directly to people who are not sad.Lead study author Cynthia Cryder, a graduate [...]

In a study,by a group of researchers from Princeton University, Woods Hole Research Center and Iowa State University along with an agriculture consultant said that clearing land to produce biofuels such as ethanol or palms or soybeans, will do more to exacerbate global warming than using gasoline or other fossil fuels.
Tags: Biofuel

Scientists in New Zealand , Crop and Food, and Japan have created a “tear-free” onion using biotechnology to switch off the gene behind the enzyme that causes a person slicing an onion to cry.The breakthrough was featured in the December issue of Onion World, the international onion trade journal.

The bright yellowish-orange “star” poised above the constellation Gemini is actually the planet Mars, and tonight the icy world will make its closest approach to Earth until 2016.
Earth passes Mars every 26 months, overtaking it in an “orbital race” as both bodies go around the sun. (Explore planetary orbits using an interactive solar system.)
Mars Closest [...]

Mammal expert Martua Sinaga holds a 3-pound (1.4-kilogram) rat that may be a species new to science. The rat was found in the remote Foja Mountains of western New Guinea, Indonesia, on a June 2007 expedition, experts announced yesterday.
Researchers from Conservation International and the Indonesia Institute of Science had previously discovered several new species of [...]

Chimpanzee memory has been extensively studied [1, 2]. The general assumption is that, as with many other cognitive functions, it is inferior to that of humans [3]; some data, however, suggest that, in some circumstances, chimpanzee memory may indeed be superior to human memory [4]. Here we report that young chimpanzees have an extraordinary working [...]

A fearsome fossil claw discovered in Germany belonged to the biggest bug ever known, scientists announced Tuesday.
Tags: Giant+Sea+Scorpion+Discovered, Science

According to a US study of 16,000 women and girls, researchers found that women with curvy figures are likely to be brighter than waif-like counterparts and may well produce more intelligent offspring.
Tags: Curvy, Curvy+Women, Science, Small+News

According to Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey, our life expectancy is increasing it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as [...]

Astronomers in the US say they have found a new planet in orbit around a star 41 light years from Earth.

A comet that has unexpectedly brightened in the past couple of weeks and now is visible to the naked eye is attracting professional and amateur interest.

Comet draws scientific, amateur interest – Yahoo! News.

Researchers from Bangor University in north Wales have discovered a clam dredged off the coast of Iceland aged between 405 and 410 years.Scientists said they calculated its age by counting rings on its shell.
Tags: clam, Science, Scientists

UK scientists led by Dr Alan Tunnacliffe of the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge,have solved the mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex.Dr Alan Tunnacliffe, University of Cambridge said to the BBC that “There could be some benefit to millions of years without sex after [...]

You’ve probably heard that line before – no doubt fairly recently, thanks to a bogus e-mail that unfortunately received wide circulation on the Internet this summer with promises of Mars being as big as the full moon.
But this fact is absolutely true: Mars, the only planet whose surface we can see in any detail from [...]

Flexible paper batteries could meet the energy demands of the next generation of gadgets, says a team of researchers.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Paper battery offers future power.

An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest known planet orbiting another star.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Team finds largest exoplanet yet.