LED street lights save millions each year

Posted Thu, 10 May 2012 19:16:22 GMT by Adrian Bishop

Eco-friendly LED street lights are saving million of dollars each year in town and city power bills and are reducing carbon emissions.

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The Dwarf Mammoth of Crete: Mammuthus Creticus

Posted Tue, 08 May 2012 23:09:00 GMT by Dave Armstrong

The smallest species of mammoth that ever existed lived on Crete. Fossils of Mammuthus creticus, a dwarf mammoth, were discovered on the Greek island.

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They're after Iceman Oetzi's 5300-year-old blood!

Posted Wed, 02 May 2012 21:18:15 GMT by Dave Armstrong

Oetzi the iceman should not have had any blood preserved for the length of time (5,300 years) he has been lying in the mountains. But, as ever with this persistent man, Oetzi has come up trumps.

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Fossil fish: Rebellatrix the 'rebel coelacanth'

Posted Wed, 02 May 2012 19:00:00 GMT by Adrian Bishop

A 'rebel' coelacanth (Rebellatrix) killer fish fossil found in Canada dating back 240 million years has been described for the first time.

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Groundwater resources mapped in Africa

Posted Sat, 21 Apr 2012 08:47:02 GMT by Dave Armstrong

Groundwater storage in Africa has been mapped. Authors of a new study argue that groundwater has to be crucial for Africa's future water supplies.

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The Game of Life

Posted Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:21:00 GMT by Paul Robinson

Advanced social behaviour of higher primates, cetaceans and a few others are investigated in a unique experiment with 96 undergraduates in a Sims-like virtual world.

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Biological community building

Posted Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:08:00 GMT by Dave Armstrong

Scientists have approached the community of plants and animals that builds in a natural habitat from a novel direction in a new study. Using caves as isolated, extreme habitats for a community, they worked out whether the organism's niche acts as a mechanism to keep the community operating in an ecosystem.

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Island diversity using hosts

Posted Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:57:41 GMT by Dave Armstrong

An international group of scientists have researched an age-old problem of genetic diversity on islands.

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Bonaparte the bird-like dinosaur - Bonapartenykus ultimus

Posted Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:30:46 GMT by Dave Armstrong

Fossils from a new bird-like dinosaur species have been discovered in Patagonia. At 70 million years old, 'Bonaparte' or Bonapartenykus ultimus has fascinated palaeontologists and closely resembles Patagonykus.

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Amazonian Solutions from 1200 A.D.

Posted Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:40:00 GMT by Dave Armstrong

The black soils or 'tera preta' of the Amazon forests were created by burning and composting, in an Pre-Columbian farming style that is still much admired. A study has looked at how these ancient farming techniques may be used to help reduce deforestation.

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The Ice Age Elephant - Mammuthus primigenius

Posted Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:45:01 GMT by Dave Armstrong

Yuka, a young mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), was found preserved in the permafrost of Siberia. Was this mammoth killed by lions or humans and why did the mammoth become extinct? Over 10,000 years later, scientists search for answers.

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Feathered dinosaur discovered in China - Yutyrannus huali

Posted Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:03:00 GMT by Dave Armstrong

A new species of feathered dinosaur has been discovered by palaeontologists in China. Yutyrannus huali or 'beautiful feathered tyrant' is the largest feathered dinosaur species discovery to date.

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Burgess Shale - Life and death as they knew it

Posted Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:37:51 GMT by Dave Armstrong

The Burgess Shale fossils are one major example of the Cambrian carbonaceous compressions of small bodied animals in mud.

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Water fleas swap infection for reproduction

Posted Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:00 GMT by Adrian Bishop

A Daphnia freshwater flea trades reproduction for resistance to a deadly parasite, say American scientists.

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Fishy modelling

Posted Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:08:00 GMT by Dave Armstrong

Modelling and hydrodynamics. If locomotion drove evolution in the same way as it seemed to drive the industrial revolution, ignoring the efficiency of an animal's metabolism, these models of marine animals could almost be the real thing.

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Capsule to combat radioactive drinks

Posted Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:45:00 GMT by Adrian Bishop

Scientists have created a capsule that can eliminate 15 radioactive substances from contaminated drinks.

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