Flirting helps in the fish world, even if it is with another fish of the same sex, a new study by German scientists indicated.Researchers from the University of Frankfurt found some male Poecilia Mexicana -- a tropical fish otherwise known as Atlantic Molly -- are able to attract female partners by demonstrating homosexual tendencies.According to the findings they published in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters, the female tropical fishes evaluate a potential partner’s virility by his ten

An asteroid approached the Earth closely on Dec. 11. If it crashed into the Earth, it could have destroyed an area more than three times the size of Seoul, experts say.The 36-meter-wide asteroid named “2012 XE54” passed just 230,000 kilometers from Earth -- 156,000 kilometers closer than the moon. An asteroid of a similar size hit Siberia in 1908 and flattened 2,000 square kilometers.As the cycle of the asteroid “2012 XE54” is 2.72 years, scientists said it would be back, once more close to the

Epigenetics -- how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches called epi-marks -- appears to be critical in determining sexuality, U.S. researchers say.Study co-author Sergey Gavrilets of the Working Group on Intragenomic Conflict at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis and a professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and colleagues said the study solved the evolutionary riddle of homosexuality. The finding that “sexually antagonistic” epi-marks, which

  An Australian anthropologist has created what she says is an evidence-based image of the tiny "hobbit" species known as Homo floresiensis.With a background in forensic science, Susan Hayes was able to flesh out the face of a 3-foot tall, 30-year-old female based on remains uncovered in the Liang Bua cave on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.Homo floresiensis, nicknamed hobbits because of their diminutive size, lived on the Indonesian island of F

Renewable energy has the potential to power a large electric grid fully 99.9 percent of the time economically by 2030, U.S. researchers say.A study by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College suggest a well-designed combination of wind power, solar power and storage in batteries and fuel cells would nearly always exceed electricity demand at costs comparable to today‘s electricity expenses, a university release reported Monday.“These results break the conventional wisd

British scientists say they are almost ready to begin an attempt to reach and analyze the water of an Antarctic lake buried under 2 miles of ice.The cold waters of Lake Ellsworth -- 9 miles long, nearly 2 miles wide and 525 feet deep -- have remained in the dark for up to half a million years, they said.Scientists say they hope a study of the ice-covered lake will help them understand the limits of where life is possible.Despite the high pressure of the lake‘s water and the absolute absence of s

Attention wealthy nations and billionaires: A team of former NASA executives will fly you to the moon in an out-of-this-world commercial venture combining the wizardry of Apollo and the marketing of Apple.For a mere $1.5 billion, the business is offering countries the chance to send two people to the moon and back, either for research or national prestige. And if you are an individual with that kind of money to spare, you too can go the moon for a couple days.Some space experts, though, are skep

Korean scientists have discovered a way to restore DNA in human cells damaged by ultraviolet radiation from the sun, chemical and toxic agents, and smoking that can potentially lead to aging and cancer.A team led by professor Kang Tae-hong of Dong-A University Department of Biological Science said nucleotide excision repair, or NER, holds the key through the modulation of enzymes to prevent diseases such as skin cancer, developmental disorder and progeria.NER has been widely known to play a vita

Recent research from the University of Granada in Spain found that people’s emotions could be detected through thermographs, especially when they lie. The team claimed that when people lie, their nose and the orbit muscles around the eyes show a higher temperature than other parts of the face. The insula (a part of brain that is in charge of consciousness, detection and regulation of body temperature) may have some link to this temperature difference. In addition, the team has discovered that th

A medical sensor that attaches to the skin like a temporary tattoo could help doctors detect metabolic problems, researchers at the University of Toronto say.The sensor that comes in a thin, flexible package shaped like a smiley face could also help coaches fine-tune athlete‘s training routines, they said.The sensor can detect changes in the skin’s pH levels in response to metabolic stress from exertion during exercise, but can also give clues to underlying metabolic diseases such as Addison‘s d

NASA says the Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a region at the edge of the solar system, a final frontier it has to cross before reaching interstellar space.Scientists have dubbed the region a “magnetic highway” where charged particles where our sun‘s magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines, the space agency said.The Voyager science team said it consider this region as still being inside our solar system because the direction of the magnetic field lines has not ch

NASA is headed to Mars again.The space agency said Tuesday it plans to launch another mega-rover to Mars in 2020 that will be modeled after the wildly popular Curiosity. To keep costs down, engineers will borrow Curiosity's blueprints, build from spare parts where possible and use proven technology including the novel landing system that delivered the car-size rover inside an ancient crater in August.The announcement comes as NASA reboots its Mars exploration program during tough fiscal times.``

The Mars rover Curiosity has offered a tantalizing sign that there might have once been life on the Red Planet, but scientists said it was too soon to make much of the first soil analyses. NASA’s Sample Analysis at Mars instruments have been sending back information as it hunts for compounds such as methane, as well as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, that are the building blocks of life.Researchers detected simple organic compounds in the soil scooped up from a crusted dune. But they cautioned th