Ravens use gestures to grab each other's attention

Ravens use gestures to grab each other's attention

How do you capture a raven's heart? Arrest its attention by showing it a twig or stone. Ravens use referential gestures – one of the foundations of human language – to initiate relationships.

Researcher creates neurons that light up as they fire

Researcher creates neurons that light up as they fire

In a scientific first that potentially could shed new light on how signals travel in the brain, how learning alters neural pathways, and might lead to speedier drug development, scientists at Harvard have created genetically-altered neurons that light up as they fire.

What Is the Future of Knowledge in the Internet Age?

What Is the Future of Knowledge in the Internet Age?

In the December issue of Scientific American, author David Weinbergerreports from the frontiers of knowledge. His story "The Machine That Would Predict the Future" explores the promise of theFuturICT project, an attempt to build a computer model of all the social, economic, ecological and scientific factors at play in the world. Weinberger is one of our most incisive thinkers about the digital age, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the author of books such as Small Pieces Loosely Joined (Basic Books, 2002), Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (Times Books, 2007), and the upcoming Too Big to Know (Basic Books). Technology editorMichael Moyer caught up with him at theForum d'Avignon (by phone, sadly) to talk about his upcoming book, his December article and the future of knowledge.

Study Looks at the Nature of Change in Our Aging, Changing Brains

Study Looks at the Nature of Change in Our Aging, Changing Brains

As we get older, our cognitive abilities change, improving when we're younger and declining as we age. Scientists posit a hierarchical structure within which these abilities are organized. There's the "lowest" level -- measured by specific tests, such as story memory or word memory; the second level, which groups various skills involved in a category of cognitive ability, such as memory, perceptual speed, or reasoning; and finally, the "general," or G, factor, a sort of statistical aggregate of all the thinking abilities.

US 'Materials Genome Initiative' takes shape

US 'Materials Genome Initiative' takes shape

More details have emerged about the intriguingly named Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), a US$100-million materials-research programme under which a variety of US science-funding agencies are working to halve the time it takes for newly discovered materials to reach the market.

New Evidence Links Stonehenge To Ancient Sun Worship

New Evidence Links Stonehenge To Ancient Sun Worship

Researchers have reportedly uncovered new evidence that supports the theory that Stonehenge had been used to worship the sun before the legendary stones were erected at the location.

According to a report published online at the MyFoxHouston.com website Monday, representatives from the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection have confirmed that a team of experts representing both institutions had discovered a pair of large pits that were “positioned on celestial alignment.”

Pigeons are more living helicopters than flying rats

Pigeons are more living helicopters than flying rats

Video: How pigeons turn in flight

The humble pigeon could provide the unlikely inspiration for a flock of small military drones that can navigate enclosed spaces. It turns out the common birds can redirect their flight path with the agility of a helicopter. Ivo Ros of Harvard University and colleagues let three pigeons loose in a corridor that incorporated a sharp 90-degree turn. They placed 16 markers on each pigeon's body and set up nine synchronised high-speed cameras along the corridor to track the birds' position as they flew around the bend.

Bacterial genes tell the tale of an outbreak’s evolution

Bacterial genes tell the tale of an outbreak’s evolution

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Children’s Hospital Boston have retraced the evolution of an unusual bacterial infection as it spread among cystic fibrosis (CF) patients by sequencing scores of samples collected during the outbreak, since contained. A significant achievement in genetic pathology, the work also suggests a new way to recognize adaptive mutations — to see evolution as it happens — and sheds light on how our bodies resist infection.

Banishing consciousness: the mystery of anaesthesia

Banishing consciousness: the mystery of anaesthesia

I WALK into the operating theatre feeling vulnerable in a draughty gown and surgical stockings. Two anaesthetists in green scrubs tell me to stash my belongings under the trolley and lie down. "Can we get you something to drink from the bar?" they joke, as one deftly slides a needle into my left hand.

I smile weakly and ask for a gin and tonic. None appears, of course, but I begin to feel light-headed, as if I really had just knocked back a stiff drink. I glance at the clock, which reads 10.10 am, and notice my hand is feeling cold. Then, nothing.

Biology’s big bang had a long fuse: Animals started evolving long before showing up as fossils

Biology’s big bang had a long fuse: Animals started evolving long before showing up as fossils

A new effort to date the early history of modern animals finds a lot of evolutionary dawdling.

The last common ancestor of all living animals probably arose nearly 800 million years ago, a multidisciplinary research team reports in the Nov. 25Science. From that common ancestry, various animal lineages diverged and evolved on their own paths. Yet the major animal groups living today didn’t arise until roughly 200 million years later, in an exuberant burst of forms preserved in fossils during what’s called the Cambrian explosion.

Indian Ocean cocktail party leaves trail of party hats behind

Indian Ocean cocktail party leaves trail of party hats behind

 Scientists have unexpectedly found traces of the supercontinent Gondwana in the Indian Ocean - in the process solving a mystery behind a large group of ocean 'mountains' known as seamounts, including Christmas Island.

St Andrews scientists ask if whales have 'dialects'

St Andrews scientists ask if whales have 'dialects'

Members of the public are being asked by scientists at the University of St Andrews to help them investigate the way whales communicate.

Predators Drive Evolution Of Poison Dart Frogs’ Skin Patterns

Predators Drive Evolution Of Poison Dart Frogs’ Skin Patterns

Natural selection has played a role in the development of the many skins patterns of the tiny Ranitomeya imitator poison dart frog, according to a study that will be published in an upcoming edition of American Naturalist by University of Montreal biologist Mathieu Chouteau. The researcher’s methodology was rather unusual: on three occasions over three days, at two different sites, Chouteau investigated the number of attacks that had been made on fake frogs, by counting how many times that had been pecked. Those that were attacked the least looked like local frogs, while those that came from another area had obviously been targeted.

At Meeting on Climate Change, Urgent Issues but Low Expectations

At Meeting on Climate Change, Urgent Issues but Low Expectations

With intensifying climate disasters and global economic turmoil as the backdrop, delegates from 194 nations will gather in Durban, South Africa, starting Monday to try to advance, if only incrementally, the world’s response to dangerous climate change.

Archaeologists Race Against Sea Change in Orkney

Archaeologists Race Against Sea Change in Orkney

Archaeologists are trying to understand how erosion affects the Orkney Islands' abundance of coastal archaeological sites. Hundreds of coastal sites from Orkney's 10,000-year human history are endangered by climate change. Archaeologists can't fight the ocean so, like the people whose climate adaptation they study, modern researchers continue to adapt themselves. They take advantage of the fact that destructive storms can reveal and even excavate sites, though they're not the most delicate of diggers. And, by adopting new techniques such as 3D laser scanning, they can record, if not save, sites before they are taken by the sea. For Orkney, whose dense archaeology is covered with shell sand that preserves both stone and bone unusually well, the dangers from storms and sea level rise are especially acute because of its northern latitude.

Researchers make the case that modern life sprang from early mega-organism

Researchers make the case that modern life sprang from early mega-organism

 A lot of work has been done over the years to nail down the origins of life, with much speculation given to whatever first bit of “life” appeared from what was before, nothing but non-living material. Unfortunately, evidence of such life has long vanished leaving researchers to try to piece together what might have happened afterwards by rewinding the genetic tape so to speak.

Life's diversity snowballed when Earth froze

Life's diversity snowballed when Earth froze

Ancient animals may have started their drive toward explosive diversity back when the Earth was a giant snowball, new research suggests. A startling expansion in the diversity of life forms began about 540 million years ago, early in the Cambrian period. During this apparently sudden outburst, known as the Cambrian explosion, all the major groups of animals seemed to materialize rapidly. Scientists have debated the causes of this great flowering of life for centuries.

Searching for signs of picky, competitive mating in a whole other kingdom

Searching for signs of picky, competitive mating in a whole other kingdom

The term “bar fight” does not actually appear in Saila Varis’ recent paper in the journal Trees or in her Ph.D. dissertation on the Scots pine. But she’s a good sport about discussing whether her research suggests that tree pollen grains have their own versions of nose-punching brawls over female favor. After all, pollen grains from genetically different trees of the same species appear to be able to sabotage each other’s race to a mate, says Varis, of the Finnish Forest Research Institute near Helsinki. Though it is not exactly like a bar fight, she says, there are hints of male-versus-male competition

Sudden stress shifts human brain into survival mode

Sudden stress shifts human brain into survival mode

In threatening situations, the brain adapts within seconds to prepare for an appropriate response. Some regions are temporarily suppressed. Others become more active and form temporarily alliances for fight or flight. Noradrenaline is driving force behind this reorganization

United Nations report global drop in HIV infections

United Nations report global drop in HIV infections

GREAT news just in time for World AIDS day on 1 December: new infections of HIV have fallen dramatically thanks to surging availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARTs), which reduce the chances of people passing on the virus.

A report published this week by UNAIDS, which coordinates the fight against HIV and AIDS, shows that new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have both fallen by a fifth since their peaks in 1997 and 2005 respectively.