Global warming isn’t what it used to be.
“Some people will tell you that the planet has warmed in the past and that species always managed to adapt, so there’s no cause for alarm. Unfortunately that’s not the case,” said Johannes Foufopoulos, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Foufopoulos says new research illustrates major differences between global warming today and past natural climate fluctuations as they relate to spec
The genetic signal that makes a honeybee male or female has been identified by researchers in Germany, the U.S. and Norway. The finding, published in the August 22 issue of the journal Cell, shows how male bees can have no father, a scientific puzzle going back over 150 years and the explanation for why bees, ants and wasps often form colonial societies. It could also make it easier to breed honeybees.
The researchers found that female bees have two different versions of a gene called csd,
Researchers at the Universities of Essex and Bristol will soon be launching a ground-breaking project to develop a ‘conscious’ robot.
The aim of the project, which involves computer scientists and neuropsychologists, is to advance the technology of intelligent machines, while also extending the understanding of human consciousness.
Owen Holland, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, who will lead the three-year project at Essex, explained: ‘Consciousness is perhaps the last r
If you’re hunting for illegal drugs, you don’t have to leave your computer desk to find them. A simple internet search will turn up dozens of websites that let you order your drug-of-choice for home-delivery.
In fact, if you search for “no prescription codeine” through one of the standard computer-search systems, the odds are almost fifty-fifty that the first site you hit will provide an instant opportunity to buy drugs illegally.
That finding by researchers at the University of
Europe is going to the Moon for the first time! In just over two weeks the European Space Agency’s (ESA) lunar probe, SMART-1, begins its journey to the Moon. Due to be launched from Kourou in French Guiana on 3rd September (12.04 a.m. 4th September BST) SMART-1 will be powered only by an ion engine which Europe will be testing for the first time as the main spacecraft propulsion. Onboard will be D-CIXS, an X-ray spectrometer built by scientists in the UK, which will provide information on what the
Today, (August 14th), sees the start of data collection on the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) detector, situated in the Soudan iron mine, Minnesota, USA. UK particle physicists, working within an international collaboration, will use the MINOS detector to investigate the phenomenon of neutrino mass – a puzzle that goes to the heart of our understanding of the Universe.
Neutrinos are pointlike, abundant particles with very little mass. They exist in three types or ‘flavour