New SARS-like virus spreading

LONDON (Reuters) - A third patient in Britain has contracted a new SARS-like virus, becoming the second confirmed British case in a week and showing the deadly infection is being spread from person to person, health officials said on Wednesday.

The latest case, in a man from the same family as another patient, brings the worldwide number of confirmed infections with the new virus - known as novel coronavirus, or NCoV - to 11.

Weird 'hood ornament' spotted on Mars

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has photographed a shiny, metallic-looking object that bears a passing resemblance to a door handle or a hood ornament.

Tasmanian Tiger Wiped Out By Human

Humans alone were responsible for the Tasmanian tiger's extinction in the 20th century, according to a new study that shoots down claims that disease also doomed the meat-eating marsupial.

More officially known as thylacines, Tasmanian tigers (Thylacinus cynocephalus) looked somewhat like striped coyotes and were found throughout most of the Australian island of Tasmania before Europeans settled there in 1803.
Starting at the end of the 19th century, the Tasmanian government paid bounties for thylacine carcasses, as the animals were believed to prey on farmers' sheep and poultry. (A recent study, however, showed that the carnivores' jaws were so weak they likely couldn't have taken down anything larger than a possum.) Humans eventually hunted thylacines to extinction in the early 1900s; the last known individual died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936.

10-year-old's science fair project turns heads

A detective provided his daughter with drug-sniffing dogs, like the one pictured here. (Getty Images)

In an early bid for Father of the Year, a Miami police detective allowed his 10-year-old daughter to use three drug-sniffing dogs and an ounce of cocaine for a science fair project, according to the Miami Herald.

Young penguin swims into 'jaws of death'

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  Photo Captures Penguin Swimming Into 'Jaws of Death' (ABC News)

A young penguin swam into the "jaws of death" of a leopard seal in Port Lockroy, on the Antarctic Peninsula, in this photo by underwater photographer Amos Nachoun.

Surfer's delightful penguin encounter

A globetrotting surfer seeking to catch waves in the frigid seas of Antarctica instead encountered a welcoming committee of penguins. Lots of penguins. Kepa Acero from the Basque Region of Spain eased into the water, climbed aboard his surfboard, and paddled toward a colony of penguins hanging out on an iceberg. A couple of times, he found himself in the water surrounded by jumping penguins. "For a moment," he said on the video, "they were everywhere." Take a look at Acero's incredible encounter:

Acero is undertaking a project called 5 Seas in which his quest is to surf virgin surfing spots in five different seas. Antarctica is his fourth destination aboard the Pakea Bizkaia after surfing in the Sea of Angola, the

Giant fish loses head, baffles experts

The pristine waters off Kona, Hawaii, teem with big game and spawn many exciting fish tales. But this tale is unlike any other, a mystery involving a giant slender fish discovered on the surface minus its head and tail, making it nearly impossible to identify.

Sea Strike Capt. Dale Leverone poses with giant headless mystery fish found recently off Kona, Hawaii. In below image, first mate Jack Leverone lies beside the 7-foot-long denizen. Credit: the Leverones

NASA Discovers 461 Alien Planets

NASA has announced the discovery of 461 new planets, and among the 461 planets found, four could potentially hold liquid water. Now some NASA scientists say finding a planet much like Earth is just a matter of time.
NASA’s Kepler mission, whose goal is to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, has found 461 new potential planets, NASA announced Monday. The data were collected by Kepler between May 2009 and 2011, and more observations are needed to confirm the findings.

Christopher Burke, from the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., was the lead scientist in charge of

Mysterious Human Ancestor Discovered in African Genes

We are not alone. An unknown group of archaic humans interbred with our more modern species in Africa thousands of years ago, contributing DNA that is still with us, according to a new scientific paper. These ghosts within our genome are revising the history of Homo sapiens, which once was thought to have crushed any humanlike competitors on its way to inheriting the earth. In reality, we had sex and had kids with these extinct groups.

In fact, this is the third population of archaic humans—groups slightly different from the modern mold—that we consorted with. Within the last two years, scientists have pulled ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones and learned that it matches some of ours. And a finger bone from a cave in Siberia, belonging to a 30,000-year-old group called the Denisovans, has yielded a different set of DNA that we carry as well. Now comes evidence of these unknown Africans. But this time the hints of an ancient dalliance don’t stem from fossils but from DNA alone.

Hadza archers in Tanzania

They are small stretches of genetic material that turned up in three hunter-gatherer groups: Pygmies in western Cameroon, and the Hadza and the Sandawe in Tanzania. The material doesn’t look as if it originated with those groups, but because it is common to all three, it seems to have been introduced prior to 40,000 years ago, when the groups split apart. (If the DNA entered three populations after the split, it would be unlikely to be so similar in all three of them.)

Essental Fact To Help Deal With Leg Discomfort That Wakes Me up in the Night

What you likely have is called restless leg syndrome, a type of involuntary movement disorder that causes itchiness, tingling, prickling, and other vague symptoms that prompt sufferers to feel they have to move their legs. There are many ways to treat it, depending on the factors that might be triggering it.

One of the first things to consider is whether your problem might be related to another health issue. People who have restless leg syndrome often suffer from some other condition, such as diabetes, arthritis, peripheral neuropathy, iron deficiency anemia, vitamin B deficiency, thyroid disease, or kidney problems.

If you know you have one of these other conditions, make sure you're getting good treatment to keep it under control. And be sure to mention to your doctor that you're also experiencing restless leg syndrome, since the conditions could be related.

Many medications can also cause restless leg syndrome, so you'll need to discuss with your doctor whether you should change medications or dosages to help you sleep better. Some antidepressants, some antihistamines, and lithium, for example, are known to bring on restless leg syndrome.

Diabetes Review

Type 2 diabetes touches many lives but is particularly prevalent among older, overweight, sedentary adults. Fortunately, this chronic disorder can often be managed through lifestyle changes in combination with medication and regular health checks. But left untreated or poorly managed, diabetes can cause numerous health problems.

7 Astonishing Reasons Why You Wake Up Tired

When you can't sleep, you know it. But what about when you can, yet you wake up feeling tired and achy or you're groggy again a few hours later? What's that about? All too often, it turns out, the problem is one that doesn't keep you awake but does sabotage your sleep in more subtle ways, so the hours you spend in bed don't refresh and revitalize you the way they should. Here are seven signs that you have a sleep problem that's secretly stealing your rest.

1. You sleep poorly and wake with a bad taste in your mouth.

What it's a symptom of: "Morning mouth" can be a signal of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or asymptomatic heartburn. Recent sleep studies have shown that up to 25 percent of people who report sleeping poorly without a diagnosed cause have sleep-related acid reflux. But because they don't have obvious heartburn symptoms, they're unaware of the condition.

How it interrupts sleep: Acid reflux causes the body to partially awaken from sleep, even when there are no symptoms of heartburn. The result of this "silent reflux" is fitful, uneven sleep, but when you wake up digestion is complete and you can't tell why you slept poorly.