For centuries, explorers and treasure hunters have searched in vain for the ancient lost White City the legendary home of a long lost Central American civilization. Now American and Honduran researchers think they’ve finally found the pre-Columbian settlement deep in the Honduran rain forest. The ruins of La Ciudad Blanca were first identified in 2012 by an aerial survey that […]
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Scaphism was a method of torture that caused its victims to be eaten to death by bugs. It’s even more horriffic than it sounds. Scaphism, also called “the boats,” was an ancient Persian method of torture and, inevitably, execution. The victim would be placed in a boat, and then another boat would be placed on top. The victim’s feet, head […]
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Ocean temperatures first collected during one of the great 19th-century voyages of exploration confirm one of the consequences of climate change: humans have managed to warm even the deepest parts of the ocean. A new study in Nature Climate Change calculates that the amount of heat absorbed by the ocean has doubled in the last 18 years. A third of […]
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Second-generation biofuel made from natural grass species challenges ethanol derived from maize crops as the US seeks to reduce its fossil fuel use. LONDON, January, 2016 – In tomorrow’s world, it won’t be just the corn on the great American plains that is as high as an elephant’s eye. It will be the elephant grass as well. To deliver on […]
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We’ve heard a lot about the negative effects of climate change in the arctic and subarctic. But some Alaskans, like farmer Tim Meyers, are seeing warming temperatures as an opportunity. Now that potato harvest is underway at his Bethel farm, Meyers uses a giant potato washer, like a washing machine for root vegetables, to clean California white potatoes. They’re some […]
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Diet pop might not have the sugar and calories found in normal sodas, however individuals who drink it every day frequently wind up with fatter stomachs. A study in the Diary of the American Geriatrics Society followed 749 individuals over the age of 65 for nine years, and found that regular diet soda consumers picked up about three times as […]
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The US could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation by 80% below 1990 levels within 15 years just by using renewable sources such as wind and solar energy, according to a former government research chief. The nation could do this using only technologies available right now, and by introducing a national grid system connected by high voltage direct current […]
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Scientists from the University of Delaware’s Bartol Research Institute in the Department of Physics and Astronomy have discovered very-high-energy gamma rays in the Cigar Galaxy (M82), a bright galaxy filled with exploding stars 12 million light years from Earth. The gamma rays observed by the team have energies more than a trillion times higher than the energy of visible light […]
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Buried deep in the Antarctic ice, an observatory has spotted ghostly, nearly massless particles coming from inside our galaxy and points beyond the Milky Way. Finding these cosmic neutrinos not only confirms their existence but also sheds light on the origins of cosmic rays, the researchers said. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is made up of 86 shafts dug 8,000 feet […]
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Ghana is being pressured to sell out it’s global agribusiness. The U.S. and the global seed industry are trying to strong-arm Ghana into adopting the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, known as UPOV. The treaty confers intellectual property rights on huge seed companies such as Monsanto and locks farmers into a limited selection of […]
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