German researchers have demonstrated chimpanzees make choices that protect their self-interest more consistently than do humans.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig studied the chimp's choices by using an economic game with two players. In the game, a human or chimpanzee who receives something of value can offer to share it with another.

Microbes can survive trapped inside ice crystals, under 3 kilometres of snow, for more than 100,000 years, a new study suggests. The study bolsters the case that life may exist on distant, icy worlds in our own solar system.

©Dorothy Cheney

At the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana, Barbara grooms her older sister, Amazon, while another sister, Domino, and her baby watch.

Royal is a cantankerous old male baboon whose troop of some 80 members lives in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. A perplexing event is about to disturb his day.

An excavation in the Famagusta district has unearthed animal remains including tiny elephants and hippopotamuses dating back some 250,000 years.

The recent findings in an area close to Ayia Napa revealed the skeletal remains of dwarf elephants (Elephas Cypriotes) and pygmy hippos (Phanourios minutis) as well as remains of ancient rats and bats.

NASA's second female commander and her six crewmates flew into the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday for training and a rehearsal for a planned October 23 liftoff.

©REUTERS/Scott Audette

Space shuttle Discovery Commander Pam Melroy (L) and Pilot George Zamka walks to the space shuttle training aircraft at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida October 7, 2007.

Did a comet kill the mammoths and destroy a civilization 12,900 years ago? S.C. site could provide evidence

A plant-like micro-organism mostly found in oceans could make the manufacture of products, from iridescent cosmetics, paints and fabrics to credit card holograms, cheaper and 'greener.'

The tiny single-celled 'diatom', which first evolved hundreds of millions of years ago, has a hard silica shell which is iridescent -- in other words, the shell displays vivid colours that change depending on the angle at which it is observed. This effect is caused by a complex network of tiny holes in the shell which interfere with light waves.

©Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

A small organism with big potential: a diatom magnified by scanning electron microscope.

A tiny galaxy, nearly halfway across the universe, the smallest in size and mass known to exist at that distance, has been identified by an international team of scientists led by two from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

©Marshall & Treu (UCSB)

Color composite image of the gravitational lens system, made from Hubble (blue and green) and Keck (red) data. The blue ring is the tiny background galaxy, stretched by the gravitational pull of the foreground lens galaxy at the center of the image.

The scientists used data collected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. This galaxy is about half the size, and approximately one-tenth the "weight" of the smallest distant galaxies typically observed, and it is 100 times lighter than our own Milky Way.

Could the exploitation of space solve the earth's environmental crises?


The Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I fifty years ago on October 4th, marking the beginning of our use of space for political, military, technological, and scientific ends. Since then we have launched hundreds of satellites, space probes, telescopes, moon missions, and planetary landers. Now, political scientist Rasmus Karlsson suggests that space could provide us with a sustainable future not possible from an earthbound only perspective.

Writing in the October issue of Inderscience publication, International Journal of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Karlsson, a researcher at the University of Lund, Sweden, explains that over the years, two strands of thought on sustainable development have emerged. They are ecologism and environmentalism. Ecologism offers a solution by emphasizing the need for major socioeconomic reform aimed at a post-industrial era. Environmentalism, in contrast, focuses on the preservation, restoration, and improvement of the natural environment within the present framework.

It can take your pulse, check your body fat, time your jogs and tell you if you have bad breath. It even assesses stress levels and inspires you with a pep talk. Meet your new personal trainer: your cell phone.

The prototype Wellness mobile phone from Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc. (DCM) targets users with busy lives who want a hassle-free way of keeping track of their health, according to company spokesman Noriaki Tobita.