Reports

The plague pathogen originated in or near China. Then it evolved and emerged multiple times to cause global pandemics. And it spread far and wide, an international team of scientists has found using DNA fingerprinting analyses. Researchers from Ireland, China, France, Germany and the United States, examined the past 10,000 years of global plague disease events. Their collaborative research traced the roots to somewhere in or around present-day China. The plague spread over various historical...

This is bad news for males. Female boa constrictors can produce babies without mating. Scientists have found that the babies produced from this asexual reproduction have attributes previously believed to be impossible. Males are not needed anymore. This is the first time that asexual reproduction, known in scientific terms as parthenogenesis, has been attributed to boa constrictors, according to scientists from the North Carolina State University (NCSU). They have published their findings online...

A painting said to be of Sir Sean Connery posing for an art class wearing only a thong is slated to go on public display soon. Robert Webster, known as Rab, painted the actor in 1951 while a student at the Edinburgh College of Art. The previously unseen oil painting shows bare back of Sir Sean, now 80, with his head turned to one side and wearing a thong. Webster died last month aged 83, according to BBC News. The painting was made long before Dr No (1962) was to make Connery a film legend. Nick...

It's discovery season in Egypt. Archaeologists have unearthed the upper part of a statue of Pharaoh Amenhotep III at Luxor. The statue is around 3,400 years old. Amenhotep III is believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamun. The find – part of a double statue featuring King Amenhotep III with the falcon-headed sun god Re-Horakhti – was made on Thursday at the pharaoh's funerary temple on Luxor's west bank. The team also found a granite colossus featuring Thoth, the god of wisdom...

The spectacle of Vesuvius's explosion over Pompeii spawned legends that gradually became myths over time ― like the belief that people died of ash suffocation. But scientists now have refuted this widely accepted contention. Recent research found that people didn't suffocate; they died of heat surges. Pictures of the lifelike poses of many victims at Pompeii—seated with face in hands, crawling, kneeling on a mother's lap—have left a lasting impression on many, giving rise to speculations...

Big trees provide shade and improve air quality. But new study insists that they can fight crime as well. Large trees in urban areas are associated with lower crime rates. Conversely, smaller trees around homes were associated with higher crime rates. The claim comes from a US Forest Service study. Geoffrey Donovan led the research for the US Forest Service's Pacific Northwest and Southern Research Stations. The results have been published in the journal Environment and Behavior. The study says...

The universe is getting more crowded by the day. New telescopes and technologies are allowing astronomers to discover new astronomical objects all the time, such as ten new galaxy clusters found recently by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). An international team of scientists led by Rutgers University astrophysicists have discovered these 10 new massive galaxy clusters from a large, uniform survey of the southern sky. They found the galaxies using a breakthrough technique that detects...

The Al-Qaeda threat to Egypt's Coptic Christians has run into all-round opposition ― from the country's powerful Muslim Brotherhood political group to the press. The threat had been issued by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an Al-Qaeda outfit in Iraq. The Opposition Muslim Brotherhood, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report, said Muslims must protect Christian houses of worship. "The Muslim Brotherhood is stressing to all, and primarily Muslims, that the protection of holy places of...

The Singapore High Court on Wednesday found a British author guilty of insulting the city-state’s judiciary in a book on the death penalty in Singapore. Alan Shadrake, 75, would be sentenced for contempt of court next Tuesday. The Briton is likely to face a possible jail term, a fine or both. "This is a case about someone who says among other things the judges in Singapore are not impartial... (and are) influenced by political and economic situations and biased against the weak and the poor,"...

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a 3400-year-old enclosure wall around Giza's Sphinx, presumably erected to protect the celebrated landmark from desert winds. It was probably one of the earliest tries at architectural conservation. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Culture, two sections of the enclosure wall were discovered, one 86 metres long and 75 cm high and the other 46 metres long and 90 cm high. In the statement, Supreme Council for Antiquities Secretary-General...