The human language pathway in the brain has been identified by scientists as being at least 25 million years old — 20 million years older than previously thought. Previously, a precursor of the language pathway was thought by many scientists to have emerged more recently, about 5 million years ago, with a common ancestor of…

A researcher has developed a way to predict the future health of the planet’s coral reefs. He has been studying the ecosystems of the world’s endangered reefs. Working with scientists from Australia’s Flinders’ University and privately-owned research firm Nova Blue Environment, biology doctoral student Bruno Carturan has been studying the ecosystems of the world’s endangered…

The renewable proportion of petrol is set to increase to 20 per cent over the coming years, meaning the discovery of a new production pathway for these additives could help in the fight to cut carbon dioxide emissions and tackle climate change. Engineers propose a process to generate one such additive, solketal, using waste from…

Researchers have uncovered a way to improve the efficiency of a type of grid-scale storage crucial for a global transition toward renewable energy. Moving toward net-zero carbon emissions means dealing with the intermittent, unpredictable nature of green power sources such as wind and solar and also overcoming supply and demand mismatches, said OSU’s Nick AuYeung,…

Diverse microbes discovered in the clay-rich, shallow soil layers in Chile’s dry Atacama Desert suggest that similar deposits below the Martian surface may contain microorganisms, which could be easily found by future rover missions or landing craft. Diverse microbes discovered in the clay-rich, shallow soil layers in Chile’s dry Atacama Desert suggest that similar deposits…

Scientists have found that 269 airports are at risk of coastal flooding now. A temperature rise of 2C — consistent with the Paris Agreement — would lead to 100 airports being below mean sea level and 364 airports at risk of flooding. If global mean temperature rise exceeds this then as many as 572 airports…

Researchers report the first ever clear images of nanojets — bright thin lights that travel perpendicular to the magnetic structures in the solar atmosphere, called the corona — in a process that reveals the existence of one of the potential coronal heating candidates: nanoflares. In pursuit of understanding why the Sun’s atmosphere is so much…

A digital twin of our planet is being designed to simulate Earth’s climate system reaching into the future. It is a tool to support policy-?makers in taking appropriate measures to better prepare for extreme events. Observational data will be continuously incorporated into the digital twin in order to make the digital Earth model more accurate…

Chimpanzees and humans ‘overlap’ in their use of forests and even villages, new research shows. Scientists used camera traps to track the movements of western chimpanzees — a critically endangered species — in Guinea-Bissau. Chimpanzees used areas away from villages and agriculture more intensively, but entered land used by humans to get fruit — especially…

The origins of a pretty smile have long been sought in the fearsome jaws of living sharks which have been considered living fossils reflecting the ancestral condition for vertebrate tooth development and inference of its evolution. However, this view ignores real fossils which more accurately reflect the nature of ancient ancestors. New research led by…