How Many Plants To The Gallon ?

An American ecologist has calculated how much prehistoric plant and animal matter has gone into each gallon of petrol that we burn today. According to Jeff Dukes, from the University of Utah, a staggering 98 tons of prehistoric plant material (about the equivalent of ...

Cone Snails Under Threat

We may have become immune to the cries from environmentalists urging us to "save the rainforests" but scientists are now warning of serious consequences for medical research in the future unless we halt the destruction of natural habitats. Researchers workin...

Our Poles Are Melting

There’s grim news this week for the north and south poles… both of which are melting. In the north, Polar bears face an uncertain future as longer summers are causing thinning of the sea ice on which they rely for hunting seals. Scientists have used satell...

Lefties Have Been With Us For Thousands of Years

Researchers studying 30,000 year old cave art left behind by our ancestors have made an interesting observation – that the proportion of left handers amongst the artists is the same as it is today – just over 20%. Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond and th...

Right Flippered Walruses

News last week was released that Walruses are right handed or should I say flippered, and prefer to use them to forage for clams on the sea bed. Apparently the bones in the walrus’ right limb are longer than the left, just like we see in right handed people. Thi...

Vibrating Insoles To Help Wobbly Grannies

As people get older, they get a bit wobblier on their feet, especially if they have had a stroke or suffer from diabetes. This can cause accidents like falls, which in the brittle-boned elderly can be serious and disabling. Scientists have now developed vibrating inso...

Mobile Phone Health Risk Debate

Mobile phones give off electromagnetic radiation. Although these radiation fields are quite weak, we use our phones a lot so we have a high level of exposure. In Finland, 80% of people have a mobile, so researchers looked into the health risks, testing the effects of ...

American Scientists Find Napthalene Eating Bugs

Scientists in America announced this week that they have found a strain of bacteria that might help to clean up toxic residues from old industrial sites. Polaromonas naphthalenivorans can break down napthalene in coal tar contamination. Although naphthalene is not the...

Reseachers Discover How Baby Dolphins Keep Up

Young dolphins swim alongside their mothers in the open sea for up to 3 years, but it has always been a mystery how they manage to keep up. It turns out that the young calves use much the same trick that cyclists use on the Tour de France – they exploit their mo...