A report examining the impact of a global biofuels program on greenhouse gas emissions during the 21st century has found that carbon loss stemming from the displacement of food crops and pastures for biofuels crops may be twice as much as the CO2 emissions from land dedicated to biofuels production. The study, led by Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Jerry Melillo, also predicts ...

With a very lucky shot, scientists have captured a one-second image and the electrical fingerprint of huge lightning that flowed 40 miles upward from the top of a storm. These rarely seen, highly charged meteorological events are known as gigantic jets, and they flash up to the lower levels of space, or ionosphere. While they don`t occur every time there is lightning, they are substantially larger...

For the past 2 million years, the size of the human brain has tripled, growing much faster than other mammals. Examining the reasons for human brain expansion, University of Missouri researchers studied three common hypotheses for brain growth: climate change, ecological demands and social competition. The team found that social competition is the major cause of increased cranial capacity. To test...

When it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be more important than what you eat, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined the relationship between beverage consumption among adults and weight change and found that weight loss was positively associated with a reduction in liquid calorie consumption and liquid calorie intake had a str...

A type of brain cell that was long overlooked by researchers embodies one of very few ways in which the human brain differs fundamentally from that of a mouse or rat, according to researchers who published their findings as the cover story in the March 11 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that human astrocytes, cells that were long...

Biologists analyzing DNA in search of the molecular underpinnings of life have consistently favored species with small genomes, which are cheaper to sequence and lack the repetitive "junk" that clutters bigger genomes. But a new study by Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists suggests that when it comes to figuring out how genes are controlled, bigger genomes are much more useful. An...

Overweight people who are between the ages of 20 and 55 may have a higher risk of experiencing migraine headaches, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology`s 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009. For the study, abdominal obesity was measured by waist circumference or the total size around the waist. Total body obesity was al...

Observing and betting on cricket fights has been part of Chinese cultural tradition since at least the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1278). This ancient practice has resulted in quite a detailed list of characteristics that Chinese practitioners think make for champion fighters. "Because money was involved, there was a strong incentive for the practitioners of this sport to observe their cricket fig...

Extremes are exciting. Does anyone really think dinosaurs would capture our imagination the way they do if they hadn`t been so huge? You don`t see natural history museums vying for fossil skeletons of prehistoric rodents. It`s the Tyrannosaurus rex fossils they salivate and squabble over. And would the Hollywood glitterati cart around those little teacup pups if they weren`t so dang tiny and cute?...

Shocking new research shows size isn`t always an advantage in the animal world, shattering a widely-held belief that bigger is better. Michael Kasumovic, a former University of Toronto Scarborough PhD student, examined Australian Redback male spiders to determine whether the larger ones had an edge in achieving mating success and producing offspring. Surprisingly, Kasumovic found the large spiders...