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Here's some useful advice for the world's ants: Whatever you do, stay away from the "bone-house wasp." Scientists said on Wednesday they have identified a new species of spider wasp in southeastern China with grim conduct unlike any other creature. It crams the outermost chamber of the nests it builds for its offspring with piles of dead ants. The female wasps do not hunt the ants for food, instead using the carcasses apparently to frighten off nest invaders. "Most of the ant specimens belong to a big ant species with a powerful sting. So the female wasp has a certain risk of getting injured or killed," said Michael Staab, a biologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany, whose study was published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. Centuries ago, the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican civilizations erected in their cities massive skull racks displaying stacks of the severed heads of sacrificial victims as well as sculpted skulls - monuments certain to

An unmanned Delta 2 rocket blasted off from California on Wednesday, carrying a NASA science satellite to survey where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas tied to climate change, is moving into and out of Earth’s atmosphere, a NASA Television broadcast showed. The 127-foot-tall (39-meter) rocket lifted off at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT/0956 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, located about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Los Angeles, and headed south over the Pacific Ocean. The launch was timed so that NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO, would end up at the front of a train of polar-orbiting environmental satellites that cross Earth’s equator every afternoon. A launch attempt on Tuesday was called off because of a problem with the launch pad’s water system, which is needed to mitigate high temperatures and suppress acoustic vibrations of launch. Technicians replaced a failed valve, clearing rocket manufacturer United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Bo

How do Tibetans thrive in high-altitude, low-oxygen conditions that would make others wither? Well, they may have received some help from an unexpected source. Scientists said on Wednesday many Tibetans possess a rare variant of a gene involved in carrying oxygen in the blood that they likely inherited from an enigmatic group of extinct humans who interbred with our species tens of thousands of years ago. It enables Tibetans to function well in low oxygen levels at elevations upwards of 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) like the vast high plateau of southwestern China. People without this variant would be apt to develop thick blood, leading to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, low-birth-weight babies and higher infant mortality. This version of the EPAS1 gene is nearly identical to one found in Denisovans, a lineage related to Neanderthals - but is very different from other people today. Denisovans are known from a single finger bone and two teeth found in a Siberian cave. DN

The launch of an unmanned Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was called off less than a minute before liftoff on Tuesday when the pad’s water system failed, a live NASA Television broadcast showed. The rocket, built and flown by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, was due to lift off at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT, 0956 GMT) from a launch pad that had not been used in nearly three years. The pad’s water system is needed in case of a fire and to help suppress potentially damaging acoustic vibrations from launch. The rocket carries NASA’s $465 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory. Built by Orbital Sciences Corp, it is designed to measure where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas tied to climate change, is moving into and out of the atmosphere. United Launch Alliance had just 30 seconds to get the rocket off the launch pad to properly position the OCO satellite at the front of a train of polar-orbiting spacecr

Scientists studying the effects of the psychedelic chemical in magic mushrooms have found the human brain displays a similar pattern of activity during dreams as it does during a mind-expanding drug trip. _0"> Psychedelic drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms can profoundly alter the way we experience the world, but little is known about what physically happens in the brain. In a study published in the journal Human Brain Mapping, researchers examined the brain effects of psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, using data from brain scans of volunteers who had been injected with the drug. "A good way to understand how the brain works is to perturb the system in a marked and novel way. Psychedelic drugs do precisely this and so are powerful tools for exploring what happens in the brain when consciousness is profoundly altered," said Dr Enzo Tagliazucchi, who led the study at Germany's Goethe University. Magic mushrooms grow naturally around

So you say all you want to do is to take a few minutes to sit down and think without anyone or anything bugging you? Maybe that is true. But you might be in the minority. A U.S. study published on Thursday showed that most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous. In fact, some of the volunteers, men in particular, in one of the 11 experiments led by University of Virginia researchers preferred to administer mild electrical shocks to themselves rather than sit and do nothing. "Many people find it difficult to use their own minds to entertain themselves, at least when asked to do it on the spot," said University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study appearing in the journal Science. "In this modern age, with all the gadgets we have, people seem to fill up every moment with some external activity." Nearly 800 people took part in the study.

Methanol, a fuel used to power light aircraft and racing cars, is being tried out as alternative for ships, highlighting its potential in an industry under pressure to cut emissions. From next year, shipping firms will have to cut polluting sulphur emissions in vessels going to parts of Europe and North America, sparking a race for alternatives to standard diesel between fuel sources such as methanol and liquefied natural gas. As well as being considered a green fuel, methanol is potentially cheaper and more plentiful than diesel or LNG. But it is trickier to handle than some fuels, such as diesel, due to its lower flashpoint -- the temperature where it vaporizes and could ignite -- so needs care to prevent fires. "Compared with LNG as an alternative shipping fuel we see methanol in an early stage of development," said Thomas Wybierek, a shipping analyst at Norddeutsche Landesbank. Methanol is currently more costly than diesel and less efficient to burn, though prices