Plants regrown after 400 years in 'freezer'

After four centuries in nature's freezer, ancient plants uncovered by the rapid retreat of Canadian glaciers have been regenerated by scientists.

Alien material on the Moon

Unusual minerals found in craters on the Moon may be alien, a new study suggests.

Allosaurus ate more like a falcon, T. rex more like a croc

Mighty T. rex may have thrashed its huge head sideways to dismember prey, but a new study suggests its smaller cousin Allosaurus was a more dexterous hunter and tugged at prey more like a falcon.

Mammoths may have died after impact from space

Dinosaurs aren’t the only animals that might have gone extinct after disasters such as the crash of a space rock in­to Earth. New research suggests wooly mammoths, the gigantic cousins of modern elephants, al­so died out as a result of climate change following a cosmic impact—and that blast may have shocked human populations as well.

Rejuvenated Asteroidal Belt Comets

Astronomers have found a group of comets that have risen from the dead.

“Tantalising hint” of dark matter particles

A new analysis of some old data has turned up what a scientist calls a “tantalising hint” of particles theorised to make up dark matter, a mysterious component of the universe.

DNA of “living fossil” decoded

Researchers have decoded the genome of a fish often seen as the most famous “living fossil”: the African coelacanth.

“Earth-like,” possibly habitable planets identified

Researchers say they have identified the first fairly Earth-sized planets in a Sun-like star’s “habitable zone.”

Co-operating and cheating go hand in hand

Lying, cheating and other forms of Machiavellian skulduggery seem to be the inevitable evolutionary consequences of living in co-operative communities, suggest UK scientists.

Human Frontal Cortex Did Not Evolve Fast Relative To Other Brain Regions

The commonly-held belief that human brain evolution was driven by large frontal lobes is a myth, an anthropological study has found.

The superiority of human intelligence isn’t due mainly to the large size of the front part of our brain — contrary to decades of scientific thinking, say scientists.  New research concludes that this brain area, called the frontal lobes, isn’t disproportionately enlarged in humans. So other, supposedly more primitive brain areas may have been just as important.

Linguistic Super-Family

In a study Professor of Evolutionary Biology Mark Pagel and his team used statistical methods to show that certain words have changed so slowly over long periods of time as to retain traces of their ancestry for up to 10,000 or more years. These words, they say, point to the existence of a linguistic super-family tree from which the seven major language families of Eurasia (Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Dravidian, Chuckchee-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut) have evolved.

Apollo rocks put new spin on Moon's magnetic past

A new study of Apollo 11 lunar rocks has revealed that the Moon's magnetic field lasted some 160 million years longer than previously thought.

Cloud mystery in Saturn's rings solved

Faint clouds detected just above Saturn's rings are caused by meteoroid debris slamming into the rings, a new study has found. The research could help explain some of the ring's characteristics such as their colour and age, as well as providing new clues about the meteoroids inhabiting the outer solar system.