Science

Cave paintings in Lubang Jeriji Saléh, a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, have been dated to at least 40,000 years ago. A rock painting of a wild bovid from Borneo. Image credit: Pindi Setiawan. Figurative cave paintings from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi date to at least 35,000 …

Hongyacha, a new type of wild tea plant from the mountains of southern China, contains little or no caffeine, according to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Leaves and young shoots of hongyacha. Image credit: Ji-Qiang Jin et al, doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.8b03433. “Hongyacha is a wild …

Orangutans spontaneously make hook tools out of a straight piece of wire, using them to ‘fish’ for food. Laumer et al show that orangutans can spontaneously innovate a hook tool out of a straight piece of wire to solve a novel problem. Image credit: Laumer et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34607-0. Orangutans …

Exposure to blue light significantly decreases systolic blood pressure and increases heart rate, lowering the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, a study led by University of Surrey’s Professor Christian Heiss has found. Whole body irradiation with visible blue light improves blood pressure. Image credit: Daniel Reche. “Previous studies have shown …

Geologists have discovered a set of 28 footprints left behind by an ancient reptile approximately 310 million years ago in what is now Grand Canyon National Park. Geologists Professor Stephen Rowland and Dr. Mario Caputo discovered that a set of 28 footprints left behind by a reptile 310 million years …

An Indonesian species of parrot known as the Goffin’s cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana) can tear a cardboard sheet into long strips as tools to reach food, but fails to adjust strip width to fit through narrow openings, according to a new study published online this week in the journal PLoS ONE. …

A team of researchers from Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Exeter, UK, has created the soundtrack of the Martian sunrise captured by NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity, using data sonification techniques to create a two-minute piece of music. Photograph of the 5,000th sunrise over Mars captured by NASA’s Opportunity …

    Python Children Supported by Snake Mother in First-Ever Footage At lengths reaching up to 16 feet, cold-blooded southern African pythons are not the kind of moms you want to mess with. Heat-sensing lip scales that can identify warm blood to treat on may not shout maternal impulse, however …

Archaeologists have made an amazing finding of a human drawing that goes back more than 70,000 years, making it the oldest human drawing ever found. The finding, published in Nature, was made in Blombos Cave, which lies on the southern coast of South Africa. The research was led by Teacher …

There are thousands of known exoplanets, but we can only detect a small fraction of planets in the cosmos. Currently, the bright light of stars blots out the meager light from exoplanets, and aliens looking our way would have a similar problem. A study from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and …