Cooking skills may have emerged millions of years ago

New research suggests that chimps have most of the mental capabilities needed to cook food. This suggests that the ability to cook food is deep seated and may have arisen in human ancestors millions of years ago. The conclusions also indicate that humans may have developed the ability to cook very soon after they learned how to control fire. The study has been published in one of the journals of the Royal Society. Humans must have adopted cooking fairly early in their evolution Dr Felix Warneken, Harvard University Surprising as it may seem, even boiling an egg requires advanced mental skills. Whereas other animals tend to start eating whatever food they find or hunt straight away, humans can store and cook their food, even if we are fairly hungry, because we know that if we wait what we eventually eat will taste better. It seems that our ability to smack our lips at the prospect of a delicious, well prepared meal requires a similar inspired leap of the imagination as producing art, developing language and creating the technologies that make us uniquely human. So when your mind wanders and thinks of a nice meal when you should really be paying attention to something else, be assured that it is this foodie forethought that makes us human. Masterchef-READ MORE-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32976352

Seven tiny frog species found on seven mountains

Seven new species of tiny frog have been discovered on seven different mountains in south-eastern Brazil. The cool "cloud forests" of this region have a unique climate, separated by warmer valleys that isolate the peaks like islands. That isolation has produced 21 known species of Brachycephalus frog - and the new arrivals push that count to 28. They are all less than 1cm long and many have colourful, poisonous skin to help them avoid becoming tiny meals. The newly discovered species, reported in the open-access journal PeerJ, are the fruit of five years of expeditions into the wilderness. Marcio Pie, a professor at the Federal University of Parana in nearby Curitiba, said he had climbed more mountains than he can remember. "It's really exhausting," he told the BBC. "The mountains are not that high - most of them are 1,000m to 1,500m - it's just that the trails are not particularly well marked." Guessing game These high forests near Brazil's southern Atlantic coast are a fertile place for ecologists to explore, Prof Pie said, yielding more different species per square km than the Amazon.READ MORE -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32991586

Fake orca used to scare sea lions out of Oregon port

Port officials in an Oregon city have gone to creative lengths to see off hundreds of sea lions from their docks - by shipping in a fake orca whale. The 32ft-long fibreglass whale was brought to rid Astoria's port of the sea lions after they failed to leave as expected once the weather got warmer. Officials say the sea lions are putting thousands of jobs in the city at risk. First attempts to use the fake orca ran into trouble on Thursday, after its motor became flooded. Officials say they may try again on Friday.READ MORE -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33018086

Whitby sauropod dinosaur fossil is UK's oldest

Britain's oldest sauropod dinosaur has been identified from a fossil bone discovered on the North Yorkshire coast, experts have revealed. Its veterbra was discovered after it fell from a cliff face onto a beach near Whitby. Tests by University of Manchester scientists indicate it is about 176 million years old, dating from the Middle Jurassic period. The fossil is to go on display at the Yorkshire Museum from 8 June. Sauropods, often referred to as brontosaurs, included some of the largest plant-eating dinosaurs to have walked on Earth. They had long necks and tails, small heads, a large body and walked on all fours. Some species, such as the Argentinosaurus, grew up to 115ft long and possibly weighed as much as 80 tonnes.READ MORE-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-32958324

RED WEALS INVADE SEA SIDE TOWN-NEWHAVEN

RED WEALS-BROWN TAIL MOTH.LARVAE CATERPILLARS WERE FOUND NESTED IN THOUSANDS IN NEWHAVEN,EAST SUSSEX.HAIRS FROM THEM CAUSE PAINFUL RASHES,SERIOUS PROBLEMS FOR PEOPLE WITH RESPIRATORY PROBLEMS,HAY FEVER.RESIDENTS OF THE SEA SIDE TOWN HAVE BEEN ADVISED TO KEEP THEIR WINDOWS SHUT,EXPERTS ARE UNSURE WHY THE INCH-LONG CATERPILLAR ARE BECOMING SO ACTIVE.

CENTROIDES TECOMANUS SCORPION MAY HELP FIGHT CANCER AND PARKINSONS

SCORPION VENOM MAY HELP FIGHT CANCER AND PARKINSON'S DISEASE.SCIENTISTS FOUND THE VENOM FROM THE CENTROIDES TECOMANUS  SCORPION DESTROYED  CELLS.IT ALSO BOSTED  DOPINE -THE MOVEMENT-CONTROLLING CHEMICAL WHICH IS REDUCED IN PARKINSONS,THE RESEARCH WAS CARRIED OUT BY COLIMA UNIVERSITY,MEXICO.

New species' of ancient human found

A new species of ancient human has been unearthed in the Afar region of Ethiopia, scientists report.

Researchers discovered jaw bones and teeth, which date to between 3.3m and 3.5m years old.

It means this new hominin was alive at the same time as several other early human species, suggesting our family tree is more complicated than was thought.

The study is published in the journal Nature.

The new species has been called Australopithecus deyiremeda, which means "close relative" in the language spoken by the Afar people.READ MORE -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32906836