"Scientists say strange cloud formations could alert nations to impending earthquakes, according to a report today.

The theory comes after two distinctive cloud formations were observed above an active fault in Iran, each before two large earthquakes occurred.

According to the New Scientist, geophysicists Guangmeng Guo and Bin ... Read More »

"By Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Gazing into the majestic Grand Canyon, awe-struck visitors inevitably ask: "How old is it?"

Far older than generally thought, says new evidence that scientists culled from caves lining the canyon's red limestone cliffs.

The Grand Canyo ... Read More »

"Deep in the basement of a dusty old library in Edinburgh lies a small black box that churns out random numbers. At first glance the box looks profoundly dull, but it is, in fact, the ‘eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours ... Read More »

"The stream of stories about the Large Hadron Collider's operation is getting genuinely weird. Nineteen-sixties, little-green-monster, B-movie sci-fi weird. Not, mind you, that that's an entirely bad thing.

Latest is a group of stories that spin off from a paper published in October by pair of Russian physicists, who – in a display of serious, ... Read More »

What if the Big Bang wasn't the beginning of the universe, but only one stage in an endlessly repeated cycle of universal expansion and contraction?

So suggests mathematical physicist and string theorist Neil Turok. He thinks there may be many universes, at once interpolated but separate, like a mixture of gases. These universes are attracted to each other; ever ... Read More »

 For a decade, scientists have puzzled over a surprising phenomenon: Supernovae stars viewed at extreme distances seem to be moving away from us faster than those nearby.

Most researchers have assumed that the stars have somehow accelerated – or that, more precisely, the rate of the expansion of the post-Big Bang universe itself has accelerate ... Read More »

Researchers have discovered genetic evidence that human evolution is speeding up -- and has not halted or proceeded at a constant rate, as had been thought -- indicating that humans on different continents are becoming increasingly different.

"We used a new genomic technology to show that humans are evolving rapidly, and that the pace of change has acce ... Read More »

NASA's fleet of THEMIS spacecraft, launched less than 8 months ago, has made three important discoveries about spectacular eruptions of Northern Lights called "substorms" and the source of their power. The discoveries include giant magnetic ropes that connect Earth's upper atmosphere to the Sun and explosions in the outskirts of Earth's magnetic field.
Read More »

The intensities of strange, long-lasting tremors in North America's Pacific Northwest ramp up and quiet down with the rise and fall of the ocean's tides, according to a new study. These so-called nonvolcanic tremors are very faint seismic signals that were not discovered until 2002. Their exact cause remains a mystery. Read More »

The mystery illness that has bedeviled U.S. beekeepers since 2006 may stem from a bee virus that apparently spread to the U.S. from Australia three years ago, according to a new study that marks the first big break in the puzzling case of the disappearing bees. Read More »

This is the workings of a great science fiction story. If life may have been 'seeded' on Earth via meteors then life may also be vulnerable via microbial pathogens transported to Earth via meteors. Read More »

A series of monumental volcanic eruptions in India may have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, not a meteor impact in the Gulf of Mexico. The eruptions, which created the gigantic Deccan Traps lava beds of India, are now the prime suspect in the most famous and persistent paleontological murder mystery, say scientists who have conducted a slew of new investigations honing down eru ... Read More »

 You may not know it, but you're part virus.

Some of your genes come from viruses that slipped their DNA into the genes of our primate ancestors millions of years ago.

The DNA remnants of these ancient retroviruses, distant relatives of today's HIV, account for an estimated 8 percent of the human genetic code and may have enab ... Read More »