Month: March 2017

The grunts, barks and wahoos of baboons contain distinct vowel-like sounds similar to human speech, suggesting language may have begun to evolve 25 million years ago. After analysing 1,335 spontaneous vocalisations produced by 15 male and female Guinea baboons in different social contexts, researchers from Grenoble Alpes University in France found that baboons produce five sounds that have …

The Origin Of Language Can Be Traced Back to Baboon Barks and Grunts Read More »

Let us introduce Thor, Loki, Odin and Heimdall – our microbial ancestors dating back two billion years. A team at Uppsala University, Sweden has discovered several microbes carrying genes that were previously thought to be unique to more complex life forms, including humans. The single-celled microorganisms, called archaea, were discovered in aquatic sediments collected at …

Can Deep-Sea Microbes End the Search For the Origin of Complex Life? Read More »

Step aside, Nanook: NASA has announced a Mars base concept that reinvents the igloo. The variable distance between Mars and Earth means astronauts may have to stay on the surface of the Red Planet for many months. That means living quarters are required to keep the crew safe from wildly varying temperatures and radiation. Dubbed …

Reinventing the Igloo on Mars Read More »

1. A discarded banana peel is extremely slippery. The friction between the peel and a smooth floor is six times lower than between the floor and your shoe. 2. The slipperiness comes from the follicle cells on the inside of the peel. When they are crushed underfoot, they release a polysaccharide gel between the floor …

What Connects … Bananas and Prosthetic Limbs? Read More »

This ‘brown pebble’ found by a fossil hunter in Sussex more than a decade ago has been confirmed as the first known example of dinosaur brain tissue. The brain is thought to have belonged to a species closely related to the Iguanodon, a large plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 133 …

Dinosaur Brain Identified For First Time Ever Read More »

Beneath us all is a seething cauldron of rock, wrapped round an iron-nickel core at temperatures similar to the surface of the Sun. Most of the heat comes from radioactive decay of elements like uranium in the surrounding mantle. As this process will continue for billions of years yet, the Earth is likely to have …

Will Earth’s Interior Ever Become Solid? Read More »