Articles

Angels have been a staple of spiritual beliefs for millennia, but is there any truth behind them ?The typical idea of an angel usually points to a tall, winged being bathed in light who acts as the bringer of good fortune, healing or salvation. Angels make common appearances in greetings cards, decorations and in popular media during the holidays. While the word "angel" means "messenger" in Hebrew, these days they have been regarded more as guardians. Some peoplehave attributed their recovery from a serious illness or survival of a car accident to angelic intervention.A 2007 survey found that on average more than half of those who identify themselves as religious believe that they have had an experience with an angel.

Despite there being no concrete evidence to support the existence of such beings they are nonetheless well established both in popular culture and the general consciousness of both the spiritual and non-spiritual alike. Angels can take many forms, usuallyappearing as human or a glowing light or aura. Often - especially in cases of averted tragedy or disaster - angels will not be seen at all, but instead recognized by their actions.  

View: Full article |  Source: Live Science  

The Kepler space telescope has once again identified a promising Earth-like world around a distant star.The newly discovered planet is only 1.5 times the diameter of the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone, the region in which the temperature is sufficient to allow liquid water to exist on the surface. The planet takes 242 days to orbit its star and is abit closer to it than the Sun is to the Earth."It"s a big deal," said astrophysicist Mario Livio.

"It"s definitely a good candidate for life." Kepler astronomer Natalie Batalha was also enthusiastic about the discovery. "This was very exciting because it"s our fist habitable-zone super Earth around a sun-type star," she said. A possible alien planet discovered by NASA"s Kepler space telescope is themost Earth-like world yet detected beyond our solar system, scientists say.  

View: Full article |  Source: Space.com  

An early bird species called Sulcavis geeorum had a set of teeth evolved to support a special diet.The unusual set of gnashers would have helped the species consume creatures with hard exoskeletons such as insects or crabs. Sulcavis geeorum is believed to have lived during the Early Cretaceous period between 121 million to 125 million years ago. It"s discovery highlights ecologicaldiversity that had been previously unrecognized by experts."While other birds were losing their teeth, enantiornithines were evolving new morphologies and dental specializations," said lead study author Jingmai O"Connor.

"We still don"t understand why enantiornithines were so successful in the Cretaceous but then died out - maybe differences in diet played a part." An early ancestor of today"s birds had teeth -- and not just anyteeth, but ones evolved for a special diet, U. S. paleontologists say.  

View: Full article |  Source: UPI  

New Met Office figures have suggested that global warming has stalled over the last two decades.While the results don"t contradict long-term climate change, they do indicate that by 2017 temperatures will have remained practically the same for 20 years. Scientists have pointed out however that factors such as ocean current patterns are likely to be responsible for this stagnant period and that in the long-term temperatures are still set to rise."As with allareas of science, our knowledge is continually increasing and it is therefore not surprising that our models and predictive skill will continue to improve," the Met Office has stated.

"The fact that the new model predicts less warming, globally, for the coming five years does not necessarily tell us anything about long-term predictions of climate change for the coming century." A new scientific model has revised previous figures for the next five years downwards by around a fifth. The forecast compareshow much higher average world temperatures are likely to be than the “long-term average” from 1971-2000.  

View: Full article |  Source: Telegraph