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Miners in northwestern Canada have discovered ice age camel bones whose DNA is forcing scientists to redraw the family tree of the now-extinct species. Grant Zazula, a paleontologist with the Yukon's Department of Tourism and Culture, said three fossils recovered from a gold mine in the Klondike in 2008 are the first western camel bones found in the territory or Alaska in decades. Scientists had believed western camels that once lived in North America were related to llamas and alpacas common to South America, but they now have genetic proof that the animals are more closely tied to the camels...

A big change is happening inside your wallet. U.S. banks, tired of spending billions each year to pay back fleeced consumers, are in the process of replacing tens of millions of old magnetic strip credit and debit cards with new cards that are equipped with computer chips that store account data more securely. By autumn, millions of Americans will have made the switch from the old magnetic strip cards. That 50-year-old technology, replaced in most of world, lingers on the back of U.S. cards and is easily copied by thieves, leaving people vulnerable to fraud. Roughly half of all credit...

A team of researchers from the University of Twente has found a way to 3D print structures of copper and gold, by stacking microscopically small metal droplets. These droplets are made by melting a thin metal film using a pulsed laser. Their work is published on Advanced Materials. 3D printing is a rapidly advancing field, that is sometimes referred to as the 'new cornerstone of the manufacturing industry'. However, at present, 3D printing is mostly limited to plastics. If metals could be used for 3D printing as well, this would open a wide new range of possibilities. Metals conduct electricity...

A married Army general on Tuesday introduced his spouse at a Pentagon event that featured lots of top brass, including Defense Secretary Ashton Carter as the keynote speaker. What made this seemingly routine introduction noteworthy is that Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor introduced his husband, Lucas. “My husband Lucas is sitting up front here,” Gen. Taylor said of the man in the same row as Mr. Carter, Army Secretary John McHugh and other senior officials. He said Lucas has subjugated his own career to support the general’s frequent moves over an 18-year relationship.

The operation to remove hundreds of tiny stones took doctors around two hours Doctors in China have removed 420 kidney stones from a man's body, blaming an excessive amount of tofu in his daily diet. Mr He from Zhejiang Province in eastern China, checked into the Dongyang People's Hospital complaining of intense pain in his abdomen last month. A CT scan revealed that his left kidney was packed full of stones, most of them tiny. Doctors operated on Friday in an agonising procedure that lasted about two hours. Mr He said he had a history of suffering from kidney stones....

XENIA — KEY POINTS Semi hauling 2,200 piglets crashed on U.S. 35 Monday, many ran into nearby wooded areas Between 300-400 piglets were killed in the crash About 1,500 were rounded up, taken to the Greene County Fairgrounds U.S. 35 closed for eight hours, opened at 3 a.m. UPDATE @ 3:15 a.m. (June 9): The Greene County Sheriff’s Office says U.S. 35 reopened shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday, after being closed for about eight hours. UPDATE @ 10:06 p.m. (June 8): The number of dead piglets has been increased to as many as 400, Xenia Twp. Fire Chief Dean Fox...

A 2,500-year-old predecessor of DC Comics’ Wonder Woman super heroine has emerged on a vase painting kept at a small American museum. Drawn on a white-ground pyxis (a lidded cylindrical box that was used for cosmetics, jewelry, or ointments) the image shows an Amazon on horseback in a battle against a Greek warrior. Much like the fictional warrior princess of the Amazons, the horsewoman is twirling a lasso. “It is the only ancient artistic image of an Amazon using a lariat in battle,” Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar at Stanford University’s departments of classics and history of science, told Discovery...

A rare and elusive rabbit has been found, held and photographed by a researcher from the University of East Anglia (UEA). The Annamite Striped rabbit, found in the forests of Laos and Vietnam, was first documented by rabbit expert Dr Diana Bell and colleagues from UEA’s School of Biological Sciences in the journal Nature in 1999. It has rarely been seen since. Researcher Sarah Woodfin, who is studying for a Masters in Applied Ecology and Conservation at UEA, set out on a three-month expedition to track the recently-discovered rabbit and study its habitat. But she didn’t expect to see one...

A Montana camper saved a newborn moose, only to have it blown up by park authorities, together with its dead relatives. Josh Hohm was camping at Gallatin National Forrest late last month when he spotted the orphaned calf. The calf’s mother had died after giving birth to twins, according to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. One of the twins lay dead alongside its mother. Hohm found the calf that survived, took a few photos with it, and sought help. “The camper called the sheriff and they called us, and our warden went up to euthanize the animal,” Montana FWP...

If you live in the United States, you've probably seen an odorous house ant (Tapinoma sessile) – one of the most common ants in the country. And for more than 50 years they've been described as smelling like rotten coconut. But Clint Penick thinks they smell like blue cheese. And he can prove he's right. Penick is postdoctoral researcher at NC State. Most of his work revolves around ants, and for years he's been fascinated by the fact that you can identify some ant species by smell – such as T. sessile. In grad school he heard that T. sessile...

A new joint study by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, both at McGill University, has cast some light on the brain mechanisms that support people's voting decisions. Evidence in the study shows that a part of the brain called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (LOFC) must function properly if voters are to make choices that combine different sources of information about the candidates. The study found that damage to the LOFC leads people to base their vote on simpler information, namely the candidate's good looks. Healthy individuals and those with brain...

Researchers in the U.K. aim for a new commercial potato that resists many of the worst vulnerabilities of potato crops around the world. Super spuds are coming. A genetically modified potato that could resist destructive blight, defend itself against parasitic worms, avoid bruising, and cut down on the accumulation of a suspected carcinogen during cooking would be worth many billions of dollars per year to potato producers across the world. It could also serve as a model technology for addressing issues that affect many different crops and are increasingly likely to cause concerns about global food security as the population...

About 10 years ago, Peter Hews stumbled across some bones sticking out of a cliff along the Oldman River in southeastern Alberta, Canada. Now, scientists describe in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 4 that those bones belonged to a nearly intact skull of a very unusual horned dinosaur—a close relative of the familiar Triceratops that had been unknown to science until now. "The specimen comes from a geographic region of Alberta where we have not found horned dinosaurs before, so from the onset we knew it was important," says Dr. Caleb Brown of the Royal Tyrrell Museum...

A fossilized skull and teeth from a newly described species of beaver that lived 28 million years ago have been unearthed in eastern Oregon. The fossils worked their way out of the soil within a mile of the visitor center at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, said the monument's paleontologist, Joshua Samuels. The find is significant, he said, because unlike the other species of ancient beavers found at the monument, this one appears related to the modern beaver, a symbol of Oregon found on the state flag. The others all went extinct. The species is named Microtheriomys brevirhinus....

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — Coming into close contact with cats can spread a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) – also dubbed the “cat poop parasite” – which are linked to schizophrenia and other mental disorders that affect humans. The cat-carried parasite is the most common in developed countries and can infect any warm-blooded species, according to the Schizophrenia Bulletin. Although most humans don’t suffer any symptoms from the widespread parasite, it can cause the illness T. gondii, which is linked to weeks of flu-like symptoms, blindness and even death, CBS News reports. Two new studies have now linked the...

Texas doctors say they have done the world's first partial skull and scalp transplant to help a man with a large head wound from cancer treatment. MD Anderson Cancer Center and Houston Methodist Hospital doctors announced Thursday that they did the operation on May 22 at Houston Methodist. The recipient - Jim Boysen, a 55-year-old software developer from Austin, Texas - expects to leave the hospital Thursday with a new kidney and pancreas along with the scalp and skull grafts. He said he was stunned at how well doctors matched him to a donor with similar skin and coloring. "It's...

They're not likely to start barbecuing in the rainforest, but chimpanzees can understand the concept of cooking and are willing to postpone eating raw food, even carrying food some distance to cook it rather than eat immediately, scientists reported on Tuesday. The findings, based on nine experiments conducted at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in Republic of Congo and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that chimps have all the brainpower needed to cook, including planning, causal understanding, and ability to postpone gratification. They do lack the ability to produce fire. But if they were given a source of...

Interpol issued wanted-person notices Wednesday for six people accused by the Department of Justice of being involved in a vast corruption network surrounding soccer's FIFA governing body. The so-called "red notices" — which do not have the power of an international arrest warrant — were issued at the request of U.S. authorities, Interpol said in a statement. Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner and former FIFA executive committee member Nicolás Leoz were the top names on Interpol's list, followed by Alejandro Burzaco, Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis, all heads of marketing businesses based in Argentina, and José Margulies, who runs...

Florida has a big lizard problem. Between lion fish and Burmese pythons, Florida has a lot of invasive species problems -- and the newest is massive Nile Monitor Lizards. Nile Monitor Lizards can grow to be almost 6 feet in length and weigh 33 pounds. They're mostly found in Northern Africa, but some households take them in as pets. The "pets" are often let loose after getting too big, so they wind up on the streets. But that's not the only problem -- they start eating things, like neighbors' cats.

In a new study published Monday in the journal Current Biology, Stony Brook University researchers working with Florida scientists discovered seven endangered sawfish living in two rivers conceived through a process called parthenogenesis — the production of offspring without sex or male sperm, or in simpler terms, “virgin birth.” So ladies, take a bow. Apparently we can do it all. Scientists have long known that insects, crabs and other invertebrates can reproduce without partners. Female birds, reptiles and sharks in captivity have also occasionally surprised scientists with virgin births. But until now, researchers never knew whether the behavior happened in...