Reports

Biases in eyewitness identifications in police line-ups have been observed empirically. Now scientists would be finding out more about these biases to determine if people avoid pointing the finger at someone they like in a police line-up. Eyewitness misidentification is the biggest cause of wrongful convictions the world over. In the US alone, more than 75 percent of convictions have been overturned through DNA testing. Till now, however, no one has studied this aspect of human behaviour...

Most of the world's last remaining tigers – long decimated by overhunting, logging, and trade – are now clustered in just 6 percent of their available habitat, wildlife researchers have found. They have identified 42 'source sites' across Asia. These sites are now the last hope and greatest priority for the conservation and recovery of the world's largest cat. The strategies to save the tiger must focus on protecting these remaining concentrations of tigers, the scientists have said. These 42...

Even some of the most advanced technology in medicine couldn't get Clarisse to give up all her secrets. After all, she's kept protected them for more than 50 million years. Clarisse is a snake, found in the Fossil Butte region of Wyoming, perfectly fossilised in limestone and the only one of her kind known to be in existence. Palaentologist Hussan Zaher travelled to Houston at the invitation of the Museum of Natural Science to study her. He brought the precious find to the Methodist Hospital and...

Researchers in the UK have demonstrated nature’s talent for cross-breeding plants to create new flowers. These findings may help explain the rich biodiversity of the natural world. DNA analysis of wild evergreen rhododendrons in the Himalayas has suggested that hundreds of species of the plant could be derived from hybrids — cross-breeds between different species. These findings may help explain the rich biodiversity of the natural world. The study by researchers from the University of Edinburgh...

A week ago an unsettling incident occurred in Assam that went largely unnoticed in the Indian media. Over a thousand suspected illegal migrants crossed the Dhansiri river and, with impunity, took over parts of Orang National Park in Darrang district in the early hours of May 6. They came from the innumerable chars (riverine islands) that dot the Brahmaputra river. They did not come empty-handed – they brought along building materials and cattle. They apparently had come to stay. For good. By the...

Here's something that everyone knows except those in the fashion industry and the ardent adherents of their myths: men like curves, and thin is not really in. Fully 80 per cent of men aged 18-50 want a voluptuous woman, according to former model Nancy Hayssen, who has written a book every woman could love based on the title alone: 101 Sexy Secrets: How to Be Hot, Sexy & Beautiful at ANY Size! Another 15 per cent men prefer a woman of average size, while just 5 per cent opt for a super skinny...

For the little girl who grew up in war-ravaged England in the 1940s, the stories of Tarzan and Dr Dolittle, who lived in the jungles of Africa with their wild companions, were to change her life forever. Determined to share a forest home with African animals, she grew up to be Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost authority on chimpanzees today.Goodall’s observations and discoveries are now intemationally heralded. Her research and writing have made, and are making, revolutionary inroads into...

With the stage set for the February 15 Assembly polls in the Northeast, a surfeit of names crop up that extend from the ordinary to the bizarre. There are namesakes and names for names' sake. Adolf Hitler, for once, is not a member of the German National Socialist Party. He is not a protagonist of Nazism either for anybody to be alarmed of but just the Congress(I) nominee for the Rangsakona (ST) seat in Meghalaya. Adolf Hitler R Marak is his full name. The Great Dictator of the Third Reich is...