Carbon dioxide in the ocean acts like alcohol on fish, leaving them less able to judge risks and prone to losing their senses. New Scientists reports Around 2.3 billion tonnes of human-caused CO2 emissions dissolve into the world’s oceans every year, turning the water more acidic. Philip Munday and colleagues at James Cook University in [...]

The sins of the father are indeed passed onto the children. High fat diets cause tiny changes in sperm that may lead to metabolic disorders in pups. The discovery brings us closer to understanding how lifestyle choices affect the health of future generations. New Scientist reports Maria Ohlsson Teague and Michelle Lane at the University [...]

Penguins drenched in oil from New Zealand’s Oil Spill have something to look forward to – a slick new wardrobe. Over a thousand oil-soaked birds, including 22 little blue penguins, have died since the 236 metre cargo vessel ran aground on the 5th of October dumping at least 350 tonnes of fuel into the Bay [...]

New Scientist reports The world’s first high-rise factory will be built in Nanjing, China. The 24-storey industrial and commercial building, to be completed in 2024, will dwarf today’s tallest factories. According to the project architect Robert Caulfield of CK Designworks, based in Melbourne, Australia, existing factories don’t rise above eight storeys. The high-rise’s footprint is [...]

New Scientist reports IF MODERN medicine cannot provide an answer to multidrug-resistant microbes, perhaps ancient animals can. Biologists have resurrected a mammalian antimicrobial compound that was last seen on Earth 59 million years ago when mammals were recovering from the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. Even now it is potent enough to destroy [...]

New Scientist reports Google continues to allow us to virtually go where no archaeologist has gone before. The latest finds, in the Arabian peninsula, are of spectacular stone structures that rival the Nazca lines of southern Peru in their intricacy. The ruins are known to local Bedouin groups as “the works of the old men”, [...]

THE cars of the future could be powered by electrified roadways. Such technology would allow electric cars to forgo their heavy batteries, which not only add to a vehicle’s weight, increasing the energy needed to move it, but also force it to sit idle while recharging. New Scientist reports that the idea has been around [...]