Topic: Science & Technology

Climate change could have a major impact on the environment of Costa Rica, upsetting delicate mountain cloud forests, and causing a decrease in plant and animal species in a region famous for its biodiversity. Regional climate models predict that the area will become warmer and drier as climate change accelerates.

While melting Arctic sea ice and glaciers have become a symbol of climate change, new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst indicates that highland forests in Costa Rica could also be seriously affected by future changes in climate, reducing the number of species in a region famous for its biodiversity.

The first "Virtual Step Pyramid" is to be used by architects, restorers, and archaeologists as part of efforts to save and restore the Step Pyramid in the face of threats from centuries of erosion and the fragility of the stone and clay body of the pyramid, exposed after the protective outer casing was removed by stone robbers in ancient times.

Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Inc., the premier non-profit organization conducting original archaeological research and educational programs in Egypt, has collaborated with Egyptian and Japanese research and technology teams to generate the first 3-D model of Egypt's oldest pyramid, the Djoser Step Pyramid in Saqqara.

Some meteorologists are claiming that the global warming we've been experiencing is part of a natural recurring cycle that began around 1900 and we're soon going to enter a phase of "global cooling." Wait until Al Gore hears about this!

New findings released in the "peer reviewed" book Global Warming - Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found, meteorologist and climate researcher David Dilley utilizes nearly a half million years of data linking long term gravitational cycles of the moon as the cause for the present global warming, rises in carbon dioxide levels, and for 2200 global warming cycles during the past half million years.

North Carolina State University scientists have figured out one reason why pregnant yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti), one of the most important disease transmitters worldwide, choose to lay their eggs in certain outdoor water containers while eschewing others.

In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, North Carolina State University researchers show that certain chemicals emanating from bacteria in water containers stimulate the female mosquitoes to lay their eggs. The female mosquitoes sense these chemical cues and decide that the water container is a preferable environment for their larvae to develop.

Did you ever see a mouse in the kitchen, then find yourself seeing mice in every dust ball and dark corner? According to researchers, this is normal and is part of how the brain works.

Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery - what we see with the "mind's eye" - directly impacts our visual perception.

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Mental imagery is commonly referred to as seeing with the mind's eye. This image shows a graphic, yet literal representation of the the minds eye, by showing an eye peering out of the brain.

Can you hear what a person looks like? A growing body of research suggests so.

“The mere sound of a person’s voice contains important, embedded biological information,” says Susan Hughes, assistant professor of psychology at Albright College in Reading, Pa., who has researched vocal attractiveness and body symmetry. In her latest study, she finds a relationship between voice quality and another important biological marker: digit ratios. “The ratio of the second (index) finger to the fourth (ring) finger – the 2D:4D ratio – is an indirect measure of prenatal sex hormone exposure,” she says.

California's native plant species are so vulnerable to global climate change that two-thirds of them could suffer 80 percent reduction in their geographic range by the end of the 21st century.

Two-thirds of the plants native to the state of California could suffer more than an 80 percent reduction in geographic range by the end of the century, according to a recent study.

You can follow along online as Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and her team of graduate students, artists, conservators and photographers expand their investigation of Luxor's Mut Temple this summer, turning their attention to the temple's Sacred Lake.

Follow along online as Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and her team of graduate students, artists, conservators and photographers expand their investigation of Mut Temple this summer, turning their attention to the temple's Sacred Lake. Bryan and her crew are once again in Luxor, Egypt, sharing their work via "Hopkins in Egypt Today," their popular digital diary offering a virtual window into day-to-day life on an archaeological dig.

Researchers have developed the first detailed chemical analysis revealing what processing is needed to transform pig manure derived 'crude oil' into fuel for vehicles or heating. Mass production of this type of biofuel could help consume a waste product overflowing at U.S. farms, but it will require a lot of refining.

After a close examination of crude oil made from pig manure, chemists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are certain about a number of things.

When researchers observe natural changes in clouds and temperature, they have assumed that temperature change caused the clouds to change, and not the other way around. This can lead to overestimates of how sensitive Earth's climate is to greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate experts agree that the seriousness of manmade global warming depends greatly upon how clouds in the climate system respond to the small warming tendency from the extra carbon dioxide mankind produces.