Scripting a new tale of success with successful launch of its moon mission Chandrayaan-1 last year, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is now looking to turn its focus on the study of oceans. The ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair on Wednesday said that ISRO is planning to start its study of oceans, the driving force for monsoons, which play important role in the national food production.

Melbourne, Apr 30 : Females of an Australian species of lizard rely on testosterone when they want to put off a male from copulating with her, according to researchers at University of Melbourne.

Evolutionary ecology Dr Devi Stuart-Fox of the University of Melbourne, and colleagues studied the female Lake Eyre dragon lizard (Ctenophorus maculosus) and found that she displays a bright orange belly and throat during parts of her breeding season, which researchers think is driven by the hormone testosterone.

They found that the colour features prominently when the female wants to keep amorous males off their back.

Hong Kong, April 30 : A team of scientists has refuted claims made by a research group that the puzzling symbols that were found on Indus Valley seals are proof of a written script of a language from an ancient civilization, and therefore a literate culture.

According to a report in Asia Times Online, the claims have been challenged by historian Steve Farmer and Harvard University Indologist Michael Witzel.

Washington, Apr 30 : Duke University bioengineers and surgeons have developed a new animal model for the painful nerve condition, known as sciatica, which could offer insights to help researchers diagnose and treat it.

Sciatica is characterised by numbness or pain from the lower back to the feet, radiating leg pain or difficulty in controlling the leg.

It is often caused by compression, or pinching, of any of the five nerve roots that combine to make up the sciatic nerve. These roots are the parts of the nerve that pass through openings in the spine to the spinal cord.

Washington, Apr 30 : A new research has revealed how tiny mites living on the surface of cockroaches may prove to be advantageous to humans with allergies.

Mites, who thrive on the surface of Madagascar hissing cockroaches help decrease the presence of a variety of moulds on the cockroaches'' bodies, which in turn reduces allergic responses among humans who handle the popular insects.

Washington, April 30 : Archaeologists have found an ancient temple in Turkey, filled with broken metal, ivory carvings, and stone slabs engraved with a dead language, which would cast new light on the “dark age” that was thought to have engulfed the region from 1200 to 900 B. C.

Written sources from the era, including the Old Testament of the Bible, Greek Homeric epics, and texts from Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III, record the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age as a turbulent period of cultural collapse, famine, and violence.