Oldest human North American footprints Scientists have used new methods of analysis to trace human footprints, the earliest known fossilized human footprints in North America, in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park. Researchers examined quartz grains under the tracks using optically stimulated luminescence dating to determine that the layers were at least around 21,500 years […]
Throughout the past 500 million years, our planet has experienced a total of five mass extinctions. One of these – the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event – led to the demise of roughly 90% of Earth’s species. Most of these events have coincided with the formation of a supercontinent, where Earth’s tectonic plates slowly come together […]
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerabilities of our society to infectious diseases and the limitations of the tools available for viruses detection. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and antigens tests have been useful to monitor and contain the extension of the last pandemic, however it demonstrated to have severe limitations. PCR is a highly […]
One of the biggest challenges of medical imaging technologies is actually resolving the structures of interest, be it a tumour, a lung or a blood vessel, without the “noise” from other bodily parts like skin or muscle. A new imaging technique allows for visualisation inside intact animals at higher resolution than ever before. A team […]
Where do you think life is more peaceful? Here you have two options: i) in the middle of Madrid, surrounded by all the hustle and bustle of people commuting, shopping, or visiting; or ii) isolated in a monastery at the heart of the Alps. I do not think I need to answer the question, right? […]
Galaxies from the early Universe are more like our own Milky Way than previously thought, flipping the entire narrative of how scientists think about structure formation in the Universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of researchers has discovered that galaxies like our own Milky Way dominate throughout the universe and […]
Emotional Authors: Anna Hatzidaki, Assistant Professor and member of the Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics (BiPsy) Lab, Dept. of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA); Mikel Santesteban, Senior Researcher and member of The Bilingual Mind research group, Dept. of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Our brain is […]
Global energy demand is expected to rise around 30% by 2040 according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Hydrogen (H2) produced by the electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity, the so-called green hydrogen, has emerged as a promising energy vector to respond to this increasing energy demand with the potential to decarbonize transportation, heating, and […]
pantanal Author: Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti, Lecturer in Environmental Anthropology, University College London “How can we use nature in a sustainable way?” That is a question I, together with colleagues from different parts of the world, have sought to answer for a decade. We are dedicated to studying issues related to the sustainable use of natural […]
Music is not only a pleasure for our brains, it seems that learning it at an old age can help prevent grey matter loss. This non-medicinal intervention would be a very interesting way of delaying the onset of dementia and loss of cognitive abilities associated with ageing. Recently, a team of researchers recruited a group […]