US pledges $97m in emergency aid to drought-stricken Ethiopia

East African country has been especially hard hit by the seasonal warming over the Pacific Ocean – brought on by the El Niño climate phenomenon

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Research integrity: Don't let transparency damage science

Stephan Lewandowsky and Dorothy Bishop explain how the research community should protect its members from harassment, while encouraging the openness that has become essential to science.

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Why a walk in the woods really does help your body and your soul

There's something in the air that actually has health benefits when you take time to walk among the plants and trees. What that is exactly is still being studied by scientists.

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Endangered Ghost Orchids To Grow Again In Native Florida Forests

Researchers have developed a new way to successfully grow and reintroduce endangered ghost orchids to their native habitats. They hope their methods will help save these iconic flowers, which are often poached for their unusual beauty.

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What Does a Parrot Know About PTSD?

An unexpected bond between damaged birds and traumatized veterans could reveal surprising insights into animal intelligence.

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'Hand of God’ The Cloud That Resembles a Fireball in the Sky

This cloud was recently observed over the Portuguese island of Madeira, but why does it look like a fireball?

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Cave Artists of Sulawesi

A red-hued hand stencil made by spraying wet pigment over a hand laid flat on the cave wall—was recently confirmed as the oldest known hand stencil image anywhere in the world: It was painted at least 39,900 years ago.

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Watch the world's biggest jumping spider make a leap

Hyllus giganteus is the largest jumping spider known to science. In this slow-motion video, it demonstrates how it leaps across huge gaps.

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German Forest Ranger Finds That Trees Have Social Networks, Too

IN the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben had found what he was looking for: a pair of towering beeches. “These trees are friends,” he said, craning his neck to look at the leafless crowns, black against a gray sky. “You see how the thick branches point away from each other? That’s so they don’t block their buddy’s light.”

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The Mysterious Physics of the World’s Fastest Carnivorous Plant

Scientists are trying to figure out how the bladderwort is capable of inhaling its prey at over 600 times the force of gravity.

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Gardens: drug therapy for plants

How aspirin and cinnamon can help stave off infections and boost root growth.

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Indigenous Leaders Fight Bill Promoting Citizen Archaeology: "Do Not Disturb the Spirits of the Water"

A bill pending in the Florida Legislature would let anyone pay $100 for a so-called "citizen archaeology permit" and then be able to dig up historical artifacts from submerged lands like riverbeds and lakes — and keep what they find.  Collectors are psyched about the bill. Archaeologists say that only they have the expertise to collect and catalog such artifacts. And some Native Americans say leave the artifacts the hell alone. Passage of the bill, they warn, would result in looting.

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An ancestor of the rabbit connects Europe and Asia

The species Amphilagus tomidai was recently discovered - an ancestor of the rabbit which lived in present-day Siberia during the Miocene, about 14 million years ago.

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Stanford scientists discover how Pangea helped make coal

The consolidation of the ancient supercontinent Pangea 300 million years ago played a key role in the formation of the coal that powered the Industrial Revolution and that is still burned for energy in many parts of the world today. This contradicts a popular hypothesis, first formally proposed in the 1990s, that attributes the formation of Carboniferous coal to a 60-million-year gap between the appearance of the first forests and the wood-eating microbes and bacteria that could break them.

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The archaeology of childhood

A sledge made from a horse’s jaw, the remains of a medieval puppet, the coffin of a one-year-old Roman child, and the skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon girl will all go on display in Cambridge today as part of a unique exhibition illuminating the archaeology of childhood.

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Inside a 24 hour kitten nursery. Your cat approves

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Oslo trash incinerator starts experiment to slow climate change

Oslo's main waste incinerator began the world's first experiment to capture carbon dioxide from the fumes of burning rubbish on Monday, hoping to develop technology to enlist the world's trash in slowing global warming. BY Alister Doyle.

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Carbon dioxide captured from air can be directly converted into methanol fuel

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that CO2 captured from the air can be directly converted into methanol (CH3OH) using a homogeneous catalyst. The benefits are two-fold: The process removes harmful CO2 from the atmosphere, and the methanol can be used as an alternative fuel to gasoline.

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Marietta Police K-9 to be auctioned off despite handler's request to keep him

A Marietta police officer who retired earlier this week wants his partner to retire with him. Instead, the city says Ajax, his K-9 partner for the last four years, will be auctioned off.

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UK weather: Storm Henry to Batter Britain, Met Office Warns

Severe gale force winds could disrupt transport and power supplies across the country

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World's oldest tea remains discovered on ancient trade route

Residues found in burial pits near tomb of Han dynasty emperor Liu Qi shows plant was being transported along Silk Road route over 2,000 years ago. The oldest physical remains ever discovered previously were hundreds of years younger than the new find – dating from the northern Song Dynasty (AD960-AD1,127).

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In Japan, small shakes presage big quakes

Clusters of slow-slip events linked to risk of larger ones.

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What's The Best Way To Keep Mosquitoes From Biting?

Mosquitoes have quirky olfactory preferences. For example, many of them, especially the Aedes variety that transmits the Zika virus, love the smell of feet. Researchers who need to avoid mosquito bites tell what works and what doesn't for them.

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Cyclone Stan Powers Up Off Pilbara,Australia

Tropical cyclone Stan has slowed, but is expected to cross the east Pilbara coast as a category 3 cyclone at midnight.

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'Snake Bird' and 'Mountain Echo': What Traditional Names Teach Us About Birds

In the Indian state of Kerala, citizen birdwatchers are building their first atlas, which includes both English and Malayalam names.

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'This is system collapse': Fire ravages world heritage area

The first images to emerge from within Tasmania's fire-affected World Heritage Area illustrate the level of destruction caused by bushfire.

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Lemurs Get High on Their Millipede Supply

There could be a reason why the lemur King Julien XIII and his cronies acted so erratically in the film Madagascar, and why they liked to party so much: they were high.

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Study: Future for charismatic pika not as daunting as once feared

The American pika is thought by many biologists to be a prime candidate for extirpation as the planet continues to warm. But a new study, published this week in the journal Global Change Biology, paints a different, more complex future for this rock-dwelling little lagomorph. Pikas may survive, even thrive, in some areas, the researchers say, while facing extirpation in others. The research is important because pikas are considered a sentinel species for climate change impacts.

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Dog Flu Virus Spreading Across The United States

One strain of dog flu causing outbreaks in the U.S. appears to be especially contagious, making it likely more dogs than usual will get sick, veterinarians say. Still, 90 percent of cases are mild.

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Diving between two tectonic plates

The Silfra fissure, under Þingvallavatn lake in Iceland's Þingvellir, or Thingvellir, valley was formed as the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates move apart by around two centimetres a year. This movement, which builds up pressure in the earth above the crack, results in a major earthquake every 10 years or so. They result in further cracks and fissures, but none are as large as Silfra.

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Ancient extinction of giant Australian bird points to humans

The first direct evidence that humans played a substantial role in the extinction of the huge, wondrous beasts inhabiting Australia some 50,000 years ago -- in this case a 500-pound bird -- has been discovered by a University of Colorado Boulder-led team.

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In Fragments from Fustat, Glimpses of a Cosmopolitan Old Cairo

Its 2015 exhibition A Cosmopolitan City: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Old Cairo introduced the urban world of Islamic Egypt, a world much closer to our own today yet often overlooked amid the spectacular wonders of the country’s deep Pharaonic past. The show focused on the now-obscure medieval city of Fustat through artifacts of daily life and items highlighting the art and literature of the period—many of which were brought newly to light out of the Institute’s own storerooms.

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The Tree Farm

‘I was going north to find a tree farm, in a land where there are no trees.’ Cal Flyn on Scottish forestry.

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Earth is actually two planets, scientists conclude

The early Earth was mixed with a baby planet called Theia following a head on collision 4.5 billion years ago, scientists have found. By Sarah Knapton.

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Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth about global temperature data

How thermometer and satellite data is adjusted and why it must be done. By Scott K. Johnson.

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Did the Vikings use crystal 'sunstones' to discover America?

A bold theory suggests the Vikings may have used a mysterious method of studying sunlight to navigate the oceans. This article even delves into the physics of how these objects might have worked.

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Who Needs A Shovel? Paramus Family Melts Snowfall Away

PARAMUS, N.J. — Unlike most New Jerseyans, the Parikh family of Paramus couldn't wait for Winter Storm Jonas -- it let them try out their one-of-a-kind geothermal/solar snow-melt system for the first time.The snow might have climbed over two feet in some parts of Bergen and Passaic counties, but the heated driveway and walkway outside the Parikh house melted an inch and a half an hour.

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We're the Only Animals With Chins, and No One Knows Why

The lower jaw of a chimpanzee or gorilla slopes backwards from the front teeth. So did the jaw of other hominids like Homo erectus. Even Neanderthal jaws ended in a flat vertical plane. Only in modern humans does the lower jaw end in a protruding strut of bone. A sticky-outy bit. A chin.

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Storm Gertrude: Warnings as Scotland Battered

A danger to life warning is issued and winds of 101mph recorded as Storm Gertrude batters Scotland, causing major disruption.

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The US just banned salamander imports, hoping to stave off disaster

A fungus could wipe out our nation's salamanders.

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Global heating and the dilemma of climate scientists

In private conversations, many climate scientists express far greater concern at the progression of global warming and its consequences than they do in public.

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Scientists produce the most realistic lab-grown liver tissue yet

While we're far from a future where you can get a replacement liver to-order, these types of artificial tissues will be invaluable for investigating biological processes and new drugs before they're used in transplants.

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Rare falcon egg seized from smuggler hatches and is returned to wild in Chile

Four albino peregrine eggs were seized from a convicted wildlife trafficker at an airport in Brazil. One survived to be returned to a nest on a Patagonian cliff face

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Ancient Babylonian texts 'earliest evidence of mathematical astronomy'

An analysis of five ancient tablets reveals the Babylonians calculated the position of Jupiter using geometric techniques almost 1,500 years earlier than first thought.

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Shocking NASA Satellite Photos Reveal Large Area Covered in Black Smoke Caused by Oil Fires

NASA’s Terris MODIS camera reveals how much black smoke is being pumped into the air because of the oil refinery fires in Libya. According to NASA, the fires were “started by attacks on oil terminals in Libya in very early January.” That’s a hell of a lot of smoke.

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This shrimp is carrying a real-life working stun gun

A snapping shrimp can click its claws together and knock out its prey - without ever touching it

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300 Scientists Want NOAA To Stop Hiding Its Global Warming Data

Hundreds of scientists sent a letter to lawmakers Thursday warning National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists may have violated federal laws when they published a 2015 study

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What drives dinosaur collectors to covet big bones?

Dinosaur collecting isn't just for museums any more – film stars and sheikhs do it too. What drives a man to covet big bones?

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Potent storm likely to Fuel Severe Weather from Louisiana to Illinois on Groundhog Day

A potent storm is likely to fuel a significant severe weather outbreak over part of the southern Plains and Mississippi Valley early next week, including on Groundhog Day.

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Florida mayors to Rubio: We’re going under, take climate change seriously

"Our cities and towns are already coping with the impacts of climate change today." Flooding at high tides, severe storm surges, and the intrusion of saltwater into municipal water supplies are all problems these cities face. Those issues come thanks to 20cm of sea-level rise over the previous century. Studies project that the area could see up to another 30cm rise by 2050,

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