Category: Innovations

By Melissa Hogenboom An analysis of a Neanderthal’s fossilised hyoid bone – a horseshoe-shaped structure in the neck – suggests the species had the ability to speak.

By Simon Redfern Scientists from the University of Lyon have discovered a new way to split hydrogen gas from water, using rocks.

By Jonathan Amos The coldest place on Earth has been measured by satellite to be a bitter minus 93.2 Celsius (-135.8F).

by Mike Wall NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected water in the atmospheres of five planets beyond our solar system, two recent studies reveal.

“We were asking the question of whether the brain was processing the meaning of the objects that are on the outside of these silhouettes,” Sanguinetti explained in the statement.

By by Miriam Kramer There are many reasons to cast your eyes skyward this month.

Music helps us get through hard, physical work. Think of the songs produced by soldiers marching or chain gangs building railroads. But does simply hearing the music account for the effect? Or is there a bigger boost when the workers…

By By Charles Q. Choi The brain may be an even more powerful computer than before thought — microscopic branches of brain cells that were once thought to basically serve as mere wiring may actually behave as minicomputers, researchers say.

By Rebecca Morelle An international team of astronomers has detected the most distant galaxy yet.

Social media has lit up with earthquake rumours after a giant oarfish washed up on a California beach – the second such discovery in several days.

By By Tanya Lewis When it comes to learning from mistakes, humans and rats think alike, research suggests.

By James Morgan Diamonds big enough to be worn by Hollywood film stars could be raining down on Saturn and Jupiter, US scientists have calculated.

Professor Peter Higgs: “She congratulated me on the news and I said ‘oh, what news?’”

By Jonathan Amos Astronomers have detected the tell-tale signs of a shattered asteroid being eaten by a dead star, or white dwarf.

The Nobel Prize in chemistry has gone to three scientists who “took the chemical experiment into cyberspace”.

Ancient, well-preserved human remains aren’t exactly a common thing to find, which makes the discovery of a 4,000-year-old brain in western Turkey pretty noteworthy.