science
Dinosaurs may have survived extinction events by having a huge range of body sizes
A single dinosaur species contained a huge amount of diversity in terms of the size that the animals grew to, a new study has found. This sets dinosaurs apart from birds, which lost these broad ranges in size within a species or genus, according to a paper published in the journal PNAS. In the study the authors focused on the...
A facial recognition feature has been added to an app for smartphone
Blippar, the AR (augmented reality) startup aiming to build a visual catalogue of every object in the world, has added real-time facial recognition technology to its mobile app, allowing users to create “Augmented Reality Face Profiles.” The new technology enables users to scan or “Blipp” faces —...
Lascaux cave paintings still hide secrets more than 70 years after their discovery
Lascaux cave paintings are perhaps the greatest masterpiece of parietal art ever found. They have fascinated generations of people and puzzled prehistorians since their discovery in September 1940, by a group of four local boys and their dog. Beautiful, colourful depictions of animals as well as mysterious symbols and...
Mystery of 20 million years of missing fossils solved with five new species
Researchers have found fossils of five new species that date from a period that previously represented a large gap in the fossil record, filling in crucial details of the first stages of animals that walked on land on four legs. The gap was more than 20 million years, just after a mass extinction event about 358 million years...
Elon Musk’s OpenAI unveils new virtual playground to train computers to use apps like a human would
Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $1bn non-profit OpenAI has unveiled a new virtual world called Universe that trains an artificial intelligence (AI) agent to use computers and applications the way a human would. Announced on Monday (5 December), the tool will include a thousand different environments and will focus on reinforcement...
The Sahara Desert used to be lush and full of vegetation – researchers find clues to what killed it
The Sahara Desert was a vast, rich grassland with plenty of rainfall just 6,000 years ago. Then it suddenly turned into the bleak and arid desert it is today. This transition was due to a shift in the circulation in the tropical atmosphere, researchers say. A new model of how tropical rain belts shift over time shows that a...
Cloning ancient extinct bison sounds like sci-fi, but scientists hope to succeed within years
Russian and South Korean scientists are collaborating on the ambitious project of bringing back to life the extinct steppe bison. They plan to extract DNA from an ancient bison tail, which remained preserved in Siberia's permafrost for years, in order to create clones of the animals. The steppe bison is thought to have...
Professor wins $1M philosophy prize for work in Canada
A Montreal professor has been awarded $1 million for his philosophical work on unifying Canada and the value of forging lasting human relationships. Margrave Taylor of McGill University was chosen as the first annual recipient of The Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, an award for an individual who has made “a positive...
Australian police has been handed a jellyfish mistaken for a breast implant and possible evidence of crime
Police feared a woman had been murdered when a man handed in what he thought was breast implant. But the squidgy circle proved to indicate something much less sinister. A concerned man raised the alarm with cops in Queensland, Australia, last week after upon stumbling upon a translucent disk he believed to be a prosthetic...
Major Tom, can you see me? Here’s why astronauts suffer from eye problems after long missions
Scientists have discovered why many astronauts who come back from lengthy space missions often suffer from visual impairment. Eye problems may be triggered by changes to the volume of clear fluid that cushions the brain and spinal cord. Astronauts who spend a lot of time in space can experience a range of health problems....
Mars lander smashed into ground at 540km/h after misjudging its altitude
A tiny lander that crashed on Mars last month flew into the red planet at 540km/h (335mph) instead of gently gliding to a stop, after a computer misjudged its altitude, the European Space Agency has said. Schiaparelli was on a test-run for a future rover meant to seek out evidence of life, past or present, but it fell silent...
Nasa’s ‘impossible’ EmDrive could work, study says
The so-called 'impossible' hypothetical EmDrive thruster, that was designed to propel craft through space using electromagnetic waves, is scientifically possible, physicists have said. Since the theory behind the EmDrive was released in 2006, the potential thruster has proved controversial. Until now, a lack of...