Geologists have long assumed that the Hawaiian Islands owe their existence to a “hotspot” – stationary plumes of magma that rise from the Earth’s mantle to form Mauna Loa, Kilauea and Hawaii’s other massive volcanoes. But a new study posted on the online version of the journal Science disputes that long-standing paradigm by concluding that the fixed hotspot in the Pacific was not stationary after all.

“Our research suggests that the Hawaiian hotspot actually drifted southwa

Scientists at Harvard Medical School have cleared up some of the mystery surrounding a key structure in the developing brain that helps form the visual circuits. Their findings, which appear in the July 25 issue of Science, could provide new insight into early brain defects that are linked to conditions like cerebral palsy and learning disabilities.

During development, nerve cells in the eye send messages to the thalamus, a region located deep within the brain. The thalamus then passe

Astronomers from the University of Cambridge, UK, have found for the first time the true outer limits of a galaxy. They have also shown that the dark matter in this galaxy is not distributed in the way conventional theory predicts.

The team – Professor Gerry Gilmore, Dr Mark Wilkinson, Dr Jan Kleyna and Dr Wyn Evans – presents its results today at the 25th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Sydney, Australia. The work could provide the key to understanding how

Three years before he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Eugene Wigner published an article entitled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” (1960). He marveled at how often physicists develop concepts to describe the “real” world only to discover that mathematicians–heedless of that real world–have already thought up and explored the concepts. His own experience of the uncanny applicability of mathematical insights to the physical reality of quantum mechanics led

A study of microbes that thrive in hot, acidic conditions has overturned a long-held view that species of micro-organisms do not differ by geographic location like other forms of life. The research by the University of Cincinnati and the University of California-Berkeley has just been published online by the journal Science.

When it comes to plant life and animal life, a species usually shows genetic differences in different parts of the world. For the tiny form of life known as micro-org

Some thirty million species now live on Earth, but their spatial distribution is highly uneven. Biologists since Darwin have been asking why. Now, scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), have discovered part of the answer: how plant and animal communities originally assembled is a predictor of future biodiversity and ecosystem productivity.

“Despite its importance, species diversity has proven difficult to understand, in large part because multiple processes operating at