Archaeologists at the University of York, leading a large international team, have revealed surprising new insights into why pottery production increased significantly at the end of the last Ice Age - with culture playing a bigger role than expected.

Investigating the use and expansion of hunter-gatherer pottery in Japan, home to some of the earliest pottery in the world, researchers analysed 143 ceramic vessels from Torihama, an ancient site in western Japan.

Pottery is thought to have originated in Japan around 16,000 years ago, but the numbers produced vastly increased 11,500 years ago, coinciding with a shift to a warmer climate. As resurgence in forests took place, an increase in vegetation and animals led to new food sources becoming available.

Heatwaves from Europe to China are likely to be more intense and result in maximum temperatures that are 3°C to 5°C warmer than previously estimated by the middle of the century - all because of the way plants on the ground respond to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This projected temperature increase found by Australian researchers and published in Nature Scientific Reports is more than half the change forecast by the IPCC under the business-as-usual model. The biggest temperature changes were projected to occur over needleleaf forests, tundra and agricultural land used to grow crops.

Groundbreaking research at Griffith University is leading the way in clean energy, with the use of carbon as a way to deliver energy using hydrogen.

Professor Xiangdong Yao and his team from Griffith's Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre have successfully managed to use the element to produce hydrogen from water as a replacement for the much more costly platinum.

"Hydrogen production through an electrochemical process is at the heart of key renewable energy technologies including water splitting and hydrogen fuel cells," says Professor Yao.

"Despite tremendous efforts, exploring cheap, efficient and durable electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution still remains a great challenge.

A new study has shown that people who reverse their Type 2 diabetes and then keep their weight down remain free of it - even if they have had it for up to 10 years. The study in Diabetes Care is part of a growing body of evidence showing that people with Type 2 diabetes who successfully lose weight can reverse their condition because fat is removed from their pancreas, returning insulin production to normal.

PISCATAWAY, NJ - Many people believe a glass of wine with dinner will help them live longer and healthier--but the scientific evidence is shaky at best, according to a new research analysis.
The findings, published in the March 2016 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, may sound surprising: Countless news stories have reported on research tying moderate drinking to a range of health benefits--including a lower heart disease risk and a longer life.

But the new analysis took a deeper look at those studies, 87 in all. And it found that many were flawed, with designs suggesting benefits where there were likely none.

Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan have discovered that the benefits of stimulating the brain with direct current come from its effects on astrocytes -- not neurons -- in the mouse brain. Published in Nature Communications, the work shows that applying direct current to the head releases synchronized waves of calcium from astrocytes that can reduce depressive symptoms and lead to a general increase in neural plasticity -- the ability of neuronal connections to change when we try to learn or form memories.