$100 mn Ebola pledge from Microsoft co-founder Allen
Washington (AFP) Oct 23, 2014 -
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen said Thursday he was boosting his donations to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to $100 million.
Allen, who has made earlier donations to the health effort, said his latest pledge would include funding the development and manufacture of two medevac containment units to allow the US State Department to evacuate medical professionals f ...
more
New study, video detail chimpanzee raids in Uganda
Kabarole, Uganda (UPI) Oct 23, 2014 -
As human development in Africa expands, the natural habitat of chimpanzees is shrinking across much of the continent. As a result, food sources are less abundant and contact between humans and chimps is more frequent.
Sometimes, that contact is obvious (and insidious) - chimps caught in human snares. Sometimes, however, that contact happens in the dark of night unbeknownst to the peopl ...
more
Scientists reconstruct genome from 45,000-year-old skeleton
Leipzig, Germany (UPI) Oct 23, 2014 -
Scientists have reconstructed the oldest known human genome after finding the bones of a 45,000-year-old man in Siberia.
The findings allowed scientists to further confirm that early humans and Neanderthals mixed and had children, said the researchers of the study published in Nature.
"What's exciting about this paper is that it's looking at a very ancient modern human who would ...
more
Ice Age people in Peru's Andes lived at extreme highs
Washington (AFP) Oct 23, 2014 -
Ice Age people were able to survive at high elevations in the Peruvian Andes 12,400 years ago, almost a millennium earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday.
At an elevation of 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) above sea level, hunter-gatherers made their homes despite low oxygen, frigid weather and high solar radiation.
The discovery of tools, a rock shelter and human and anim ...
more
Hong Kong protests: saving the movement's art
Hong Kong (AFP) Oct 23, 2014 -
A band of Hong Kong art guardians are on constant standby at the city's sprawling protest site. Their mission: to swoop in and save a vast array of creative works - including the towering "Umbrella Man" statue - if the police move in.
Over nearly a month of protests calling for greater democracy in the southern Chinese city, a kilometre-long stretch of highway opposite the government headq ...
more
Seaweed engineers build crustacean homes
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 24, 2014 -
On the tidal mudflats of Georgia and South Carolina, the red Japanese seaweed Gracilaria vermiculophylla is gaining a foothold where no native seaweeds live.
Only debris and straggles of dead marsh grass used to break the expanse of mud at low tide. Crabs, shrimp, and small crustaceans mob the seaweed in abundance. What makes it so popular? Not its food value.
On mudflats near Savann ...
more
Resolving the Karakoram glacier anomaly
Princeton NJ (SPX) Oct 24, 2014 -
Researchers from Princeton University and other institutions may have hit upon an answer to a climate-change puzzle that has eluded scientists for years, and that could help understand the future availability of water for hundreds of millions of people.
In a phenomenon known as the "Karakoram anomaly," glaciers in the Karakoram mountains, a range within the Himalayas, have remained stable ...
more
