Earth

The corpus delicti is a plain flacon from among the possessions of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who lived around 1450 B.C., which is on exhibit in the permanent collection of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn. For three and a half millennia, the vessel may have held a deadly secret. This is what the Head of the collection, Michael Hoeveler-Moeller and Dr. Helmut Wiedenfeld from the university's Pharmacology Institute just discovered.

City people may make fun of the country but they do it while breathing in dog poop.

Bacteria from fecal material -- in particular, dog fecal material -- may constitute the dominant source of airborne bacteria in Cleveland's and Detroit's wintertime air, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

The CU-Boulder study showed that of the four Midwestern cities in the experiment, two cities had significant quantities of fecal bacteria in the atmosphere -- with dog feces being the most likely source.

But by implementing complete smoke-free rules throughout their properties, owners of California multi-unit rental buildings could save up to $18 million a year statewide on the cost of cleaning apartments vacated by tenants who smoke. These policies can also protect their other tenants from the secondhand smoke that seeps between units.

Fluorinated hydrocarbons are potent greenhouse gases, emission of which must be reduced under the Kyoto Protocol. If you rely on the official reports of the participating countries, the output of trifluoromethane (HFC-23) in Western Europe is indeed significantly decreasing. However, pollutant measurements carried out by Empa now reveal that several countries under-report their emissions. For instance, Italy emits 10 to 20 times more HFC-23 than it officially reports.

Worries that first responders will shirk duties in a disaster are overblown, but they do need assistance with family matters, University of Delaware study shows.

New research uncovers how intimate partners believe they directly and indirectly contribute to one another's unhealthy habits.

A growing body of recent research indicates that there is no temperature 'tipping point' beyond which polar sea ice cannot recover if temperatures come back down. The cycle has happened too many times in the past for a permanent thaw to be convincing.

New University of Washington research indicates that even if Earth warmed enough to melt all polar sea ice, the ice could recover if the planet cooled again.

A team of University of Pennsylvania physicists has shown how to disrupt the "coffee ring effect" -- the ring-shaped stain of particles leftover after coffee drops evaporate -- by changing the particle shape. The discovery provides new tools for engineers to deposit uniform coatings.

The research was conducted by professor Arjun Yodh, director of the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter; doctoral candidates Peter Yunker and Matthew Lohr; and postdoctoral fellow Tim Still, all of the department of Physics and Astronomy in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences.

The continuing increase in the level of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" in the Earth's atmosphere has been identified as a cause for serious concern because it may radically accelerate changes in the Earth's climate. Developing an effective strategy for managing the planet's greenhouse gases is complicated by the many and varied sources of such gases, some natural, some man-made, as well as the mechanisms that capture and "sequester" the gases.

Bumble bees use complex problem-solving skills to minimize the energy they use when flying to collect food, according to new research from Queen Mary, University of London.

While the early bird might catch the worm, it's the quick bird that lands the ladies, according to new research into the running performance of an Arctic cousin of the grouse.

In the first study of its kind, researchers have used tools of paleontology to gain new insights into the diversity of natural plant chemicals and have shown that during the evolution of these compounds nature doesn't settle for the 'low-hanging fruit' but favors rarer, harder-to-synthesize forms; insight that could help in the search for potent new drugs.

Despite being 70 years old, radar is still finding new ways to stay relevant.

The tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11 was picked up by high-frequency radar in California and Japan as it swept toward their coasts, according to US and Japanese scientists. This is the first time that a tsunami has been observed by radar, raising the possibility of new early warning systems.

Today, oxygen takes up a hefty portion of Earth's atmosphere: Life-sustaining O2 molecules make up 21 percent of the air we breathe. However, very early in Earth's history, O2 was a rare — if not completely absent — player in the turbulent mix of primordial gases. It wasn't until the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE), nearly 2.3 billion years ago, when oxygen made any measurable dent in the atmosphere, stimulating the evolution of air-breathing organisms and, ultimately, complex life as we know it today.

As hurricane season ramps up, < a href="http://myweather.com/" target="_blank">MyWeather.com is offering critical information to those at risk of tropical storms and hurricanes by revealing the science behind the storms and by debunking common myths.