Latest science news in Paleontology & Archaeology
Brazilian man says needles meant to kill stepson
A jailed Brazilian admitted in a television interview that he shoved nearly three dozen sewing needles into his two-year-old stepson because he wanted to kill the boy to spite his...
What's his name again? How celebrity monikers can help us remember
Famous mugs do more than prompt us into buying magazines, according to new Universite de Montreal research. In the December issue of the Canadian Journal on Aging, a team of...
Do-it-yourself bed-bug detector
With bed-bug numbers on the rise in North America, researchers test homemade bug finders
Scientists get to the root of ancient case of sour grapes
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in Cambridge have discovered that a lowly grape variety grown by peasants - but despised by noblemen - during the Middle Ages was the mother of many...
COPENHAGEN (AP) -- Obama says US and Russia 'quite close' to new arm...
COPENHAGEN (AP) -- Obama says US and Russia 'quite close' to new arms control treaty....
Spanish archeologists fail to find Federico García Lorca's grave
The poet and playwright killed by death squads during civil war was thought to have been buried in AlfacarOne of the greatest mysteries of recent Spanish history will remain unsolved for the...
Study shows loss of 15-42 percent of mammals in North America
If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, then North...
Monument lifted from Cleopatra’s sunken city
Archaeologists on Thursday hoisted up a 9-ton temple pylon that was part of the palace complex of the fabled Cleopatra before it became submerged for centuries in the harbor of...
Stone age pantry: Archaeologist unearths earliest evidence of modern humans using wild grains and tubers for food
The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to an archaeologist who has found the oldest example of...
Valley in Jordan inhabited and irrigated for 13,000 years
You can make major discoveries by walking across a field and picking up every loose item you find. One researcher succeeded in discovering – based on 100,000 finds – that...
Ancient pygmy sea cow discovered
A near-complete skull of a primitive "dugong" has been discovered, illuminating a virtually unknown period in Madagascar fossil history.
Video: DNA Clears Man after 35 Years
After spending over three decades in prison, 54-year-old James Bain was set free after DNA evidence proved that he could not have raped a boy in 1974. Jim Axelrod...
Sea level rise may exceed worst expectations
Seas were nearly 10 metres higher than now in previous interglacial period.
IBM Reveals Five Innovations that Will Change Cities in the Next Five Years (w/ Video)
Today, IBM unveiled a list of innovations that have the potential to change how people live, work and play in cities around the globe over the next five to ten...
Clinton moves Copenhagen talks forward
By STEFAN NICOLAUPI Europe CorrespondentCOPENHAGEN, Denmark, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton instilled the stalled Copenhagen climate negotiations with new hope Thursday when she...
Ardi named 'breakthrough' of 2009
The journal Science has named the discovery of Ardi, a partial skeleton of a ground ape that lived 4.4 million years ago, as the scientific breakthrough of the year.
UNSW students sequence genome of the Wollemi Pine
(PhysOrg.com) -- UNSW students have sequenced the chloroplast genome of the ancient Wollemi Pine - a world first that could reveal how a "dinosaur" of the tree kingdom survived 200...
World's oldest known DNA discovered
It won't make Jurassic Park a reality, but scientists have discovered 419 million-year-old DNA intact inside ancient salt deposits. DNA - Jurassic Park - Forensic science...
Human Stone Age diet included processed grains
A Canadian archeologist exploring a cave in Mozambique has found the earliest evidence of prehistoric humans using and processing wild grains for food.
Stone Age campers set up separate activity areas
Hominids displayed advanced organizational thinking almost 800,000 years ago
Bones find from abandoned village 'shows tough life of medieval women'
Skeletons from Wharram Percy have much larger bones than those of city contemporariesThe fearsome northern woman of legend and cliche, broadchested and with a frying pan poised to whack sense into her man,...
Seeing is believing at Vesuvius
The serenity surrounding Naples, and the tectonic turmoil underneath it, is the perfect metaphor for the unreliability of our eyesThe other day I looked at Joseph Wright of Derby's spectacular 18th-century painting of...
Microsoft, Google in battle to win over students
As they plunged into a project on ancient Egypt this fall, Jay Martino's Cupertino (Calif.) Middle School students probably didn't realize they were on the front lines of a high...
New Study of Meteorite Provides More Evidence for Ancient Life on Mars
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1996, when scientists examined a meteorite from Mars previously uncovered in Antarctica, they were intrigued by what looked like microscopic fossils of ancient Martian life forms. Now,...
Old DNA shows slow extinction
A research team has recovered mammoth DNA from frozen dirt, finding that their extinction was probably slow and gradual.
Soap opera in the marsh: Coots foil nest invaders, reject impostors
The American coot is a drab, seemingly unremarkable marsh bird common throughout North America. But its reproductive life is full of deception and violence...
Looking to the past for new antibiotics
Taking a page from Jurasic Park, new research being conducted by Aloha Medicinals Inc. focuses on reanimating ancient organisms found in ancient coal deposits to find treatments for diseases of...
Men think their dance moves improve with age
Men may shuffle on to the dance floor this Christmas, but once there, they will be impressed by their moves, according to new research.