The Three Policies That Can Counter Global Warming (Op-Ed)

 Posted on February 27, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1241 words  |  Trudie Dory

Jeffrey Rissman, policy analyst at Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology, contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. A wide variety of policies have been proposed to help cut emissions and stabilize the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. This profusion of options can make it difficult for policymakers to decide what to do: Which policies can achieve emissions cuts on a meaningful scale and at a reasonable cost? [Read More]

Tibetans Lived in Himalayas Year-Round Up to 12,600 Years Ago

 Posted on February 27, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  709 words  |  Trudie Dory

Thousands of years ago, people living on the high mountains of the Tibetan plateau waded into a steamy hot spring, leaving behind footprints in the soft mud. These footprints, which were discovered in 1998, have proved invaluable to modern-day researchers, who recently dated them to between 7,400 and 12,600 years ago.  Based on earlier analyses of other human sites, it was thought that the plateau's earliest permanent human residents had settled there no earlier than 5,200 years ago, the researchers said. [Read More]

'Guilty Dog' Look Is a Myth

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  547 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Dog owners have no one to blame but themselves when they think their canine pals give them that familiar "guilty look." You see guilt, but the dog doesn't necessarily feel it, a new study shows. By setting up conditions where the owner was misinformed as to whether his or her dog had really committed an offense, researcher Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard College in New York uncovered the origins of dogs' allegedly downcast mugs. [Read More]

'Lost' Letters Reveal Twists in Discovery of Double Helix

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1164 words  |  Trudie Dory

Rediscovered letters and postcards highlight the fierce competition among scientists who discovered DNA's famous double-helix structure and unraveled the genetic code. Francis Crick and James D. Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins for their work on revealing the structure of the DNA molecule that encodes instructions for the development and function of living beings. But formerly lost letters kept by Crick add more color to the well-known rivalries between Wilkins and the Crick-Watson duo. [Read More]

240 million-year-old 'crocodile beast' was one of the largest of its kind

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  604 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

About 240 million years ago, a fearsome archosaur with "very powerful jaws and large knife-like teeth" stalked what is now Tanzania, a new study finds. Measuring more than 16 feet (5 meters) long from snout to tail, this newly described beast — called Mambawakale ruhuhu, which means "ancient crocodile from the Ruhuhu Basin" in Kiswahili — "would have been a very large and pretty terrifying predator," when it was alive during the Triassic period, said study lead researcher Richard Butler, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. [Read More]

Floating Free: New Levitation System Uses Sound Waves

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  607 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Hold on to your wand, Harry Potter: Science has outdone even your best "Leviosa!" levitation spell. Researchers report that they have levitated objects with sound waves, and moved those objects around in midair, according to a new study. Scientists have used sound waves to suspend objects in midair for decades, but the new method, described today (July 15) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, goes a step further by allowing people to manipulate suspended objects without touching them. [Read More]

Greatest Mysteries: What Happens Inside an Earthquake?

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1188 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Editor's Note: We asked several scientists from various fields what they thought were the greatest mysteries today, and then we added a few that were on our minds, too. This article is one of 15 in LiveScience's "Greatest Mysteries" series running each weekday. When a sizable earthquake strikes, experts can explain exactly where it started and what type of fault is involved and maybe even predict how long aftershocks will last. [Read More]

In Photos: Wildlife of Afghanistan

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  2 minutes  |  264 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

On the ProwlA leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), one of the wildlife species living in the conflict-plagued eastern province of Nuristan, Afghanistan. The animal was captured by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society using camera-trap surveys. A camera trap is an automated camera used to take photographs of wild animals. Yellow-Throated MartenA yellow-throated marten, one of the wildlife species living in the conflict-plagued eastern province of Nuristan, Afghanistan. The animal was captured by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society using camera-trap surveys. [Read More]

Mysterious 7,000-year-old stone structures may be part of prehistoric cattle cult

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  4 minutes  |  767 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Sprawling rectangular structures scattered across northwest Arabia and dating back more than 7,000 years may have been part of a prehistoric cattle cult, researchers have found. More than 1,000 of the mysterious structures, referred to as mustatils (an Arabic word meaning "rectangle"), have been documented in Saudi Arabia. While their appearance varies, they are usually rectangular in shape and often consisting of two platforms connected by two walls. Archaeological work indicates that some of the mustatils had a chamber in the center made of stone walls surrounding an open area with a standing stone in the center. [Read More]

New Drug Gives Skin a 'Natural Tan,' Without the UV Rays

 Posted on February 26, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  509 words  |  Patria Henriques

A new drug can give human skin a "natural" tan — it activates the same process that causes skin to darken in the sun, without exposure to harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, according to early research. In the study, researchers applied this drug to human skin samples in a lab dish and found that it darkened the skin, because it spurred production of the pigment melanin. And the drug doesn't damage DNA as the sun's UV rays do. [Read More]