University of British Columbia and Berkeley researchers have used a sophisticated new computer system to quickly reconstruct protolanguages — the rudimentary ancient tongues from which modern languages evolved. The results, which are 85 per cent accurate when compared to the painstaking manual reconstructions performed by linguists, will be published next week in the Proceedings of [...]
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Women who are obese before they become pregnant are at higher risk of having children with lower cognitive function – as measured by math and reading tests taken between ages 5 to 7 years – than are mothers with a healthy prepregnancy weight, new research suggests. In this large observational study, prepregnancy [...]
Who hasn’t dreamt of floating on a cloud? Whether we are looking up at the sky or gazing out of an airplane window, those giant beds of fluff are irresistible. New York designer Tiago Barros is on the same wavelength and created an incredible, cloud-like balloon that takes travelers for a floating ride around the [...]
The recovery of a mysterious wooden pole at the bottom of Lake Huron is fuelling excitement among U.S. and Canadian researchers that they have found more evidence of a “lost world” of North American caribou hunters from nearly 10,000 years ago. The scientists believe that these prehistoric Aboriginal People – who would have been among [...]
Iraq is home to some of the world’s most important artefacts of human history. Yet in Nineveh, archaeological sites are being sold off for residential compounds, used as refugee camps or for military bases. The doors are closed and the entire building is in darkness. Inside, there are only echoes. Even the red lights one [...]
It is the greatest journey in history, and now the story of how the first members of our species walked out of their African homeland to colonise almost every corner of the world is being told by reading the DNA of their living descendents. Half a million people from around the globe are participating in [...]
The new year is bringing new controversy over teaching evolution in public schools, with two bills in New Hampshire seeking to require teachers to teach the theory more as philosophy than science. Meanwhile, an Indiana state senator has introduced a bill that would allow school boards to require the teaching of creationism. New Hampshire House [...]
The Ministry of Communications and Works, Department of Antiquities, announces the completion of the eighteenth excavation season at the Medieval Sugar Mill of Kolossi, in Limassol District. The excavations, which lasted for four weeks, from 31st of October until 25th of November 2011, were under the direction of the Curator of Antiquities, Dr. Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, [...]
UNESCO has recently collaborated with a Tunisian association, Atlel, to set up an action program for the protection and preservation of neglected Roman sites in Deguech, Tozeur. Deguech is located in southwestern Tunisia on the edge of Chott el Jerid, an endorheic salt lake in the middle of the Sahara desert. It is an oasis [...]
The mayor of the Sicilian city of Agrigento said Thursday that he would not sell one of Italy’s prime archaeological treasures even for 40 billion euros after it reportedly attracted the interest of Russian industrialist Mikhail Prokhorov. The precious-metals billionaire, who plans to run in this year’s presidential elections in Russia as an independent candidate, [...]
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