Monthly Archives: July 2011
BlueSci gets Creative
The BlueSci committee are pleased to announce that from now on we will be placing all material published by BlueSci, both in our magazines and online, under a Creative Commons licence. One of the founding principles of BlueSci was that it should provide engaging science stories in a way that is accessible to as many [...]
Posted in News, Science and Policy, Technology Leave a comment
Symptoms of climate change become apparent in European oceans
A species of plankton, Neodenticula seminae, has returned to the North Atlantic for the first time since going extinct 8 million years ago. This is the latest example of how changing climate conditions cause species to move or change their behaviour. As the Arctic warms and polar ice melts, a passage has opened that has [...]
Posted in Earth & environment, Life sciences, News Leave a comment
Turtles finally find their place in the evolutionary tree
A genetic analysis of turtles has shown that they come from the same branch of the tree of life as lizards. The morphology of fossils and living animals has been used in the past to look at the evolution of and relationship between different species, but for turtles this has led to some confusion. Most [...]
Posted in Archaeology, Life sciences, News Leave a comment
Eye test could be used to detect Alzheimer’s disease
A simple eye test could help detect Alzheimer’s disease in its earliest stages, Australian scientists report. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting 820,000 people in the United Kingdom. Dementia often develops slowly and it is not always obvious in the early stages, but early diagnosis is important to allow patients to [...]
Posted in Medical & clinical, News Leave a comment
Spearheads and minds sharpened by humans 200,000 years ago
Archaeologists at Lund University in Sweden have found that the development of spearhead technology played an important part in the advancement of human thinking and behaviour 80,000 years ago. Although evidence from fossils and DNA mutation rates has shown that members of the Homo sapiens sapiens species resembled contemporary humans in physique 200,000 years ago, modern [...]
Posted in Archaeology, News Leave a comment
A genetic history of coconuts
A new genetic analysis shows that modern coconuts were brought into cultivation in two independent regions, and discusses how human trade and travel has influenced genetic diversity in coconut populations. The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) has long been an important source of food, water, oil, and construction materials for people throughout the tropics. Many researchers [...]
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Enceladus plumes come from underground ocean
Direct sampling of water plumes jetting into space from Saturn’s moon Enceladus suggest that liquid water exists in large underground reservoirs. The Cassini-Huygens mission was launched in 1997 as a joint venture between NASA and the European and Italian space agencies to study Saturn and its many natural satellites. While the Huygens probe was released [...]
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Genome of the potato sequenced