Mystery object at the centre of our galaxy may be larger previously thought

Controversy over what is happening at the centre of our Galaxy has taken a new twist. The team that discovered an object labelled G2 are still insisting it is a gas cloud, but that it is even bigger than thought before.

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Linguistic family tree reveals the roots of Nordic languages

This family tree illustrates the lineages of Indo-European and Uralic languages though-out human history, and how some of the world's most-used languages came to be. And it's pretty enough to put on your wall.

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Scientists make enzymes from scratch

Experts say they have achieved a scientific milestone - creating enzymes out of artificial genetic material that they made in their lab. The synthetic enzymes functioned just as well as real ones. The work, in Nature journal, not only provides clues to the building blocks of life but also points to a new way to make therapeutic drugs for humans. The UK Medical Research Council team now hopes to make more complex structures that rival nature.

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Brain folding study defines two distinct groups of mammals

Programs that control the production of neurons during brain development determine how the brain folds, researchers report. The researchers analyzed the gyrencephaly index, indicating the degree of cortical folding, of 100 mammalian brains and identified a threshold value that separates mammalian species into two distinct groups: Those above the threshold have highly folded brains, whereas those below it have only slightly folded or unfolded brains. The research team also found that differences in cortical folding did not evolve linearly across species.

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Google May Have Got It Wrong On Driverless Cars... Automated Buses Are The Real Future

Sorry, Google. Some public transport experts believe the driverless buses — not robotic cars — are the future. The advantages of unmanned buses over the car equivalents is discussed by public transit planning consultant Jarrett Walker in a post on his blog ” Human Transit” and is based on a letter from Luca Guala, of transport thinktank Mobility Thinklab.

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Discovery Channel's The Science of Interstellar HD

This is The Discovery Channel special on the actual HARD SCIENCE behind the concepts of wormholes and quantum singularities explored in the upcoming science fiction epic Interstellar from.The Science of Interstellar Discovery Channel Documentary.

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The father of DNA is selling his Nobel prize because everyone thinks he’s racist

James Watson, known to many as one of the "fathers of DNA" for his scientific discoveries, is putting his Nobel prize on the auction block this Thursday with a reserve price of $2.5 million. Why part with the prestigious award now, over 50 years after winning it? After all, no living recipient of the award has ever sold it before.

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