In the rush to solve mainstream media stories about airline passengers sitting on the place on the tarmac for hours and hours, the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2010 Tarmac Delay Rule glossed over concerns that it would lead to more delays and cancellations - exactly what has happened.

As a result, it takes most air passengers far more time to reach their destination for all pasangers than ever occurred for a few during lengthy tarmac delays, according to a study in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.

Trophy hunting shouldn't be banned but instead it should be better regulated to ensure funds generated from permits are invested back into local conservation efforts, according to a new paper co-authored by a leading University of Adelaide conservation ecologist.

Professor Corey Bradshaw, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute, along with Enrico Di Minin from the University of Helsinki and Nigel Leader-Williams from the University of Cambridge, argue that banning trophy hunting would do more harm than good in African countries that have little money to invest in critical conservation initiatives.

Leading on from The Genome Analysis Centre's (TGAC) previous announcement of their new bread wheat genome assembly, the landmark resource is now publically available to download at the European Bioinformatics Institute's (EMBL-EBI) Ensembl database for full analysis.

The Ensembl Plants pre-site has issued the first release of the genome assembly of Triticum aestivum cv. Chinese Spring, generated by TGAC. This is the most complete and accurate bread wheat genome assembly to date with 91 per cent (98,974 genes) of the total genome annotated and assembled -- a total sequence length of 13.4GB.

Scientists are continually unearthing new facts about Homo sapiens from the mummified remains of Ötzi, the Copper Age man, who was discovered in a glacier in 1991.

Five years ago, after Ötzi's genome was completely deciphered, it seemed that the wellspring of spectacular discoveries about the past would soon dry up.

An international team of scientists have now succeeded in demonstrating the presence of Helicobacter pylori in Ötzi's stomach contents, a bacterium found in half of all humans today. The theory that humans were already infected with this stomach bacterium at the very beginning of their history could well be true. The scientists succeeded in decoding the complete genome of the bacterium.

EUGENE, Ore. -- Jan. 7, 2016 -- All it took was one mutation more than 600 million years ago. With that random act, a new protein function was born that helped our single-celled ancestor transition into an organized multicellular organism.

That's the scenario -- done with some molecular time travel -- that emerged from basic research in the lab of University of Oregon biochemist Ken Prehoda.

The mutation and a change it brought in protein interactions are detailed in eLife, an open-access journal launched in 2012 with support of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University researchers have figured out how a developmental disease called microcephaly produces a much smaller brain than normal: Some cells are simply too slow as they proceed through the neuron production process.

Published online Jan. 7 in the journal Neuron, the findings provide not only a new mechanistic explanation for microcephaly, but they could also aid understanding of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders that are thought to arise from disruptions in the proper balance of neurons in the brain.

Take any religion that claims to be about peace and it will have a violent history. And while Islam is the most violent religion claiming to be peaceful today, Christians commit plenty of hateful acts - and Buddhists have extremists in their ranks as well.

How more than 1,000 tree species may occur in a small area of forest in Amazonia or Borneo is an unsolved mystery. Their ability to co-exist may depend on how trees get along with their neighbors. A new study based, in part, on data from the Smithsonian's Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) network shows that trees worldwide compete in some of the same ways, making simpler models of forest response to climate change possible.

James Cook University researchers have found sex sells when it comes to luring male mosquitoes.

Senior Research Officer Brian Johnson and Professor Scott Ritchie set out to make a cheap and effective audio lure for scientists collecting male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes -- the species that carries dengue and yellow fever.

They found a tone of precisely 484 Hertz, the frequency of a female Aedes aegypti's wings, brought 95 percent of male mosquitoes to the trap.

Mr Johnson said the device cost around $20 and could be run by itself for weeks. "We started with a cheap mobile phone and moved to an even cheaper MP3 player. There are no harmonics, it's a pure tone and very simple to produce."