Science

NEW DELHI: People with no high BP, diabetes or smoking habit lived nearly 13 years longer without dementia than those with all three risk factors, a long-term US study has found. Those without any of the three lived an average 30 years without dementia from age 55, compared with 17.5 years among those with all…

An ecosystem collapse in Montana remains a lasting lesson in how well-intentioned wildlife management can have devastating consequences. When state wildlife officials introduced a non-native, tiny crustacean into nearby lakes in 1968, the goal seemed simple. They believed stocking the opossum shrimp, Mysis diluviana, would provide an extra food source and help increase populations of…

The four-hectare barley field was abandoned in 1961 after researchers harvested its final crop, allowing nature to take over without further human intervention. In 1961, researchers at Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire harvested a final crop of barley from a four-hectare agricultural plot known as Stocking Close, ploughed the soil and walked away. They did not…

Brain-to-Brain communication between humans. Image Credit: PASIEKA/Science Photo Library/Corbis Scientists have demonstrated direct brain-to-brain communication using a system that transmitted information between people without speech, typing or physical gestures. The research led to ‘BrainNet,’ a system that connected three people and allowed them to collaborate on a task using brain signals. Electrical activity was recorded…

For millions of years, birds have been changing in ways that are difficult to see from the present day. A skeleton in a museum may look like a fixed record of one species, but taken together, thousands of specimens can reveal how bodies changed across vast stretches of time. That is what a team at…

The gopher tortoise is a land-dwelling reptile native to the southeastern United States that digs deep burrows used by hundreds of other animals. More than two decades after two Mississippi landowners began restoring their land to help an endangered tortoise, their work has now created a new home for one of North America’s rarest amphibians….

Seth NabatPhoto: Society for Science Every year, nearly 1,900 of the nation’s most promising high school seniors submit original research to the Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS), the oldest and most prestigious science and mathematics competition in the United States. According to the Society for Science, which runs the competition, the Regeneron STS recognises…

Joel Sartore started the project with a simple but powerful idea: to photograph animals one species at a time, creating a visual record before they are gone. (Image: Instagram/joelsartore) In a world where species can disappear before most people even know they exist, photographer Joel Sartore has spent two decades making sure wildlife is seen….

Jane Goodall spent decades studying chimpanzees in the wild before becoming one of the world’s most recognisable voices for wildlife conservation and environmental protection. Her work changed how scientists understood chimpanzee behaviour and helped demonstrate the importance of protecting animals and their habitats. One of her most widely shared messages is simple: “Every individual matters….

The study began with an unusual marine worm, Olavius algarvensis. The little animal has neither a mouth nor a digestive tract. Long before humans learned how to turn petroleum into bottles and bags and packaging, nature had already invented her own plastic. These natural polymers have been made for hundreds of millions of years hidden…