An investigation has revealed that plants, like animals, they also have a war between the sexes when it comes to creating new offspring.

The discovery could open new avenues of research that would lead to increased yields and improved food security for a global human population constantly growing.

In the animal kingdom, mothers tend to spend more resources than parents to create new offspring. Read the rest of this entry »

For if the concern about global climate change is not enough, the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an even more resounding example of the desirability of abandoning fossil fuels and use others that are renewable, can be produced in a sustainable and do not put the environment at risk.

Liquid fuels derived from biomass plants have the potential to be used as direct substitutes for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuels, as long as they can have cost-effective means of commercial production. Read the rest of this entry »

A process using carbon-14 dating has enabled an international team of researchers to establish for the first time an absolute chronology of Dynastic Egypt (approximately between 2700 and 1100 BC). The analysis of short-lived organic samples, archaeologically attributed to a specific period or reign in Egyptian history, has confirmed previous chronological estimates, but has also questioned other estimates. Read the rest of this entry »

An international team of scientists from the MINOS experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) announced the most accurate measurements to date of the parameters that govern the oscillations of antineutrinos, or antineutrinos transformations from one type to another.

This achievement provides crucial information on the mass difference between different types of antineutrinos. Read the rest of this entry »

Using images taken from satellites hundreds of kilometers above the earth’s surface, a team of researchers are exploring the risks of flooding in some of the largest regions in the world. It is expected that the data used may be freely available for use in every task undertaken to provide more immediate responses to natural disasters. Read the rest of this entry »

A team of scientists at University College London and the University of Cambridge has developed codes of machine learning, modeled on certain characteristics of the human brain, which can be used in computers to classify the galaxies with precision and efficiency remarkable.

Notably, the new method is so reliable that coincides with human classifications in more than 90 percent of the time.

There are thousands of millions of known galaxies in the universe. Most of them contain between ten million and a billion stars. The galaxies show a wide range of shapes, the elliptical and spirals from there until they have more irregular structures. Thanks to several monitoring projects on a large scale, it is getting photographed and mapped a large number of galaxies. Read the rest of this entry »

New research reveals that the splitting in two of part of the earth’s crust does not always cause huge volcanic eruptions. The study explains why some parts of the world suffered horrendous volcanic eruptions since millions of years ago and others are not.

The Earth’s crust is divided into plates that are in constant motion over millions of years. Occasionally, the plates collide and merge, or divide to form new ones. When the latter happens, it can raise a column of hot rock from deep within the Earth, which can cause an enormous volcanic activity on the surface. Read the rest of this entry »

The University of Bristol has been involved in the proposed revision of a murder case in the context of a scientific program to apply modern techniques of DNA identification by reviewing old crimes in which such techniques were not used and on which there is reasonable doubt that the convicted person might actually be innocent.

The case in question is that of Neil Hurley, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Sharon Pritchard. Read the rest of this entry »

There has developed a new technique for manipulation of particles that may be useful for medical diagnostics, to detect possible contamination of food and water, and coroners investigating of the scene of a crime.

The technique uses a combination of light and electric fields to the desired position as tiny droplets containing biological particles such as bacteria, viruses and even DNA, and also to position such particles in the required location within the drop. Read the rest of this entry »

The type of delivery with a baby comes into the world has great impact on microbial communities has at birth, as is clear from the results of a reinvestigation. These effects on the types of initial microbial communities may have important implications for the health of young as they grow and develop.

The study, led from the University of Puerto Rico, shows that babies born vaginally examined bacterial communities were similar to those of its mother’s vaginal bacteria, while infants whose birth had been by caesarean section were similar to bacterial communities of the common skin. The researchers believe that many different microbial communities that reside in human beings, each unique to one person, can help protect the individual against various diseases. Read the rest of this entry »