We've known for a long time that smaller bodies of water like ponds and lakes absorb carbon. What we didn't know until recently was that they do the feat in dramatically faster ways than oceans and trees do. This discovery can have some good applications when you consider the kind of problems that the global community is facing today. Learn more about it in the full article up next.

Bees make honey, everyone knows that. But more often than not, everyone overlooks their other, more important function in the food chain: natural and effective pollinators of plants. If bees were not around to pollinate, the world would definitely be a hungrier place - and such is the reason why we should be scared that plants are bees are now currently being killed off. The details in the full article.

There's a possibility that the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS detector might be able to reveal extra dimensions. But for now the only thing it is able to unveil is the fact that it's facing a lawsuit right now. Fermilab and CERN's project has been put to a halt due to worries and fears by critics. Read more on this in the full article.

After a long delay, space shuttle Atlantis has finally received the go signal from NASA to liftoff this coming Thursday. The mission will deliver Europe's first permanent space laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS).

However, meteorologists are now saying that Thursday is not a good day for launch due to weather disturbances. The full story after the jump!

General belief holds the Black Death as an indiscriminate killer that cut down anyone it took hold of regardless of sex, age, or health level. A new study by a pair of anthropologists have revealed, however, that the pandemic was actually more selective than previously thought. More in the full article.

Someone finally found a practical use for heat-scorched deserts: use them to gather solar power. That's Europe's plan right now, and it's willing to spend GBP 5 billion (US$ 10 billion) to build enough solar power stations in Africa and the Middle East to provide the continent with a sixth of its power. Read more in the full article.

Due to the lack of fossil evidences in Africa, it is a common belief among experts that the common ancestors of great apes and humans left the region for Europe and Asia around seven to 13 million years ago. A recent finding, however, suggests otherwise. A 10 million year old jawbone of a great ape has just been found in the Nakali region of Kenya.

The team believe that the jawbone belongs to an entirely new species of the great ape. Click the "read more" link for the full story.

Evolution isn't always for our benefit: studies show that the avian flu virus - otherwise known as H5N1, the bird flu - has evolved to be able to infect the cells of the upper respiratory system in mammals. This evolution may become the means for the virus to become a human epidemic.

The virus first occurs among birds, but humans in close contact with infected animals may become infected as well. While human infections are special cases, virologists believe that the virus may soon evolve to allow human-to-human infection and cause a pandemic. The process may take time, maybe years, but it is a possibility.

The evolution that researchers have observed is only a small change, but it is enough to see where the process is ultimately headed for. By evolving to be able to infect the upper respiratory system, the virus can more easily spread among mammals, which of course includes us.

The head of the research team, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, explains:

The viruses that are in circulation now are much more mammalian-like than the ones circulating in 1997. [The change] may provide a platform for the adaptation of avian H5N1 viruses to humans and for efficient person-to-person virus transmission. [...] This change is needed, but not sufficient. There are other viral factors needed to cause a viral pandemic.

What would I give if I could live out of these waters? What would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand? Bet'cha on land they understand, bet they don't reprimand their daughters. Bright young women, sick of swimmin', read to stand.

So pines away Ariel in Disney's "The Little Mermaid". Well boohoo for the red-headed, finned underwater princess for not being content in her waterdom. You'd think her fishy highness would have better appreciation of the deep, but no! Some folks would even go to great lengths just to survive out there. Like them water spiders. Yeah, maybe Ariel could learn a thing or two from the perseverance of these arachnids.

It has been recently found that these water spiders have to use a kind of external lung just so they could bask in the blue of King Triton's embrace. And they make it themselves, too. The water spider's air bell, also dubbed as their "scuba tank", serves a variety of uses. For one, it is a home - a place to keep safe from predators, and a nursery of sorts to house the eggs and the spiderlings. Apart from this, it is also a kitchen for those unfortunate preys.

The "scuba tanks" are created from trapped air bubbles from under the water's surface, which are then  carried back by the spiders on their abdomen and leg hairs. There is then a specially designed underwater reservoir made of silk that is filled with air to "take on a bell shape and a silvery sheen." They sure aren't scrimping up on this one.

What makes the study - conducted by the scientists at the University of Bern, Switzerland - significant, however, is the discovery that these arachnids actually also use these air bells to help them breathe. They do, after all, spend their entire lifetime underwater, usually in ponds throughout northern and central Europe. The findings were made after a series of experiments were made involving water spiders and different variables of gases put in the air bell (pure oxygen and pure carbon dioxide).

Those put in the carbon dioxide air bell group had to surface more frequently and persevered more with building the air bell. What this suggests is that the water spiders monitor the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air bells, and if there is an increase in concentration, then there isn't enough support from the silk structure for the air bell. It was thereby concluded that they "depend on the bubbles for underwater respiration."

See? Some folks would do just about anything to be under the sea. But Princess Ariel? Pfft...

Here's a motivational story to all of you aspiring paleontologists out there: an amateur in the said practice recently unearthed what could be the largest dinosaur mass grave in Switzerland.

Quite interestingly, the grave was found while our guy was looking at a construction site for a house in the village of Frick, near the German border. According to professional paleontologists, the bones belonged Plateosaurus, massive herbivores that existed during the late Triassic Period around 216 to 199 million years ago.

"It could be that the area extends for 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) and in that case, you could certainly say it's the biggest site in Europe", commented Germany-based paleontologist Martin Sander from University of Bonn.

Prior to this, similar mass graves were found in Germany. However, scientists are unable to verify the exact size of these areas because one is covered by the town of Halberstadt and the other by a forest near the town of Trossingen.