Anthropomorphism is overlooked as a powerful tool for promoting low-profile species that are either endangered or require urgent attention, say the authors of a new paper.

As has been noted in the past, it also helps to use cute animals.

At present, anthropomorphism in conservation is limited to social, intelligent animals, such as chimpanzees, polar bears and dolphins but the authors say we shouldn't imply that other species are not worthy of conservation because they are not like humans in the 'right' ways.

It is well known that there are a lot of knobs turning in climate. Current models are assumption-based, with a set of fixed parameters and a solution that involves converging on an answer, and the assumptions impact the value that model accuracy has versus actual accuracy.

To get a good climate model for the future, we first have to have good climate models about the past. Researchers with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel recently managed to successfully 'hindcast' climate shifts in the Pacific. These shifts also have a profound effect on the average global surface air temperature of the Earth and the most recent shift in the 1990s is one of the reasons that the Earth's temperature has not risen further since 1998.

Breast-feeding is back. When it comes to early establishment of gut and immune health for babies, 'breast is best' according to a new study of how 'good' bacteria arrive in babies' digestive systems.

How babies acquire a population of good bacteria can also help to develop formula milk that more closely mimics nature.

Our early ancestors developed a taste for spicy food at the time they were beginning to transition to agriculture.

The researchers discovered traces of garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), along with animal and fish residues, on the charred remains of pottery dating back nearly 7,000 years. The silicate remains were discovered through microfossil analysis of carboniszed food deposits from pots found at sites in Denmark and Germany. The pottery dated from the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture.

On August 21st, 2013 at 1:24 am EDT, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection - CME - a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of particles into space and reach Earth one to three days later.

These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground.

Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 380 miles per second, which is a fairly common speed for CMEs.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a wildly successful pathogen, if your goal is to infect up to two billion people in every corner of the world, with a new infection of a human host every second.

A new analysis of dozens of tuberculosis genomes gathered from around the world has shed some light on how it evolves to resist countermeasures - it that marches in lockstep with human population growth and history, evolving to take advantage of the most crowded and wretched human conditions.

The analysis reveals that tuberculosis experienced a 25-fold expansion worldwide in the 17th century, a time when human populations underwent explosive growth and European exploration of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania was at its peak.