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Climate change is behind wiping out ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles that were the rulers of the oceans for 157 million years, as suggested by a study of fossils.

Some 30 million years back, the dolphin-like animal died prior to the mass dinosaur extinction towards the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years back.

Vertebrate paleontologist Dr. Valentin Fischer, who headed the research, said that the extinction of ichthyosaurs, which were quite familiar to oceanic life, has been a long-standing enigma. The research has recently appeared in journal Nature Communications.

Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin is planning its first crewed test flight next year. The company founder revealed the new plan near Seattle while having a tour of venture's research and development site.

Bezos said that many individuals have shown interest in having a commercial space flight. But Blue Origin has not yet started taking deposits from interested people, so it is still unclear whether those individuals will pay for a space trip.

NASA will not launch an unmanned mission to Mars before 2018, as per an announcement made by the US space agency on Wednesday. The decision has been taken citing a leak in a key component of the agency’s Mars spacecraft.

The Mars InSight mission, also known as Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, may have a launch window in May of 2018, NASA announced. The agency also stated that if everything goes as per plan, the spacecraft will land on the Red Planet in November 2018.

NASA’s InSight Mars mission will be launched with an aim to understand the deep interior of the planet. The space agency believes data collected by the spacecraft may reveal how solar system’s rocky planets, including our earth, have formed.

Harvard University evolutionary anthropologist Daniel Lieberman chewed raw goat meat smacked with a rock for the sake of science as well as to get first-hand experience how our ancestors did so for survival.

Lieberman said the raw meat was a challenge to eat and once put in mouth, there was a need to chew and chew and chew and chew, but still nothing happened.

The anthropologist found that modern humans, unlike wolves and other wild animals who have sharp teeth that are designed for slicing through elastic muscle almost like a pair of scissors, lack the ability to break the chunks of raw meat into pieces that are small enough to swallow.

Scientists have for the first time enabled an amputee to feel the texture through artificial fingertips of his phantom hand. This was made possible by connecting the fingertip surgically to nerves of the upper arm of the amputee.

The amputee was able to make distinction between rough and smooth surfaces 96% of the time. The discovery will help in developing bionic prostheses, enhanced with sensory feedback.

"The stimulation felt almost like what I would feel with my hand. I still feel my missing hand; it is always clenched in a fist. I felt the texture sensations at the tip of the index finger of my phantom hand," said Dennis Aabo Sorensen who received the experimental fingertips.

Many people in the world might be unhappy with their body size and weight. Every time when you stand in front of mirror watching your tiny or larger than normal figure, you must feel a bit annoyed. Some researchers now claim that shorter height in men and higher body mass index (BMI) in females could also lead to low chances of success in life. Their findings were published in the BMJ Wednesday.

The results were collected after analyzing genetic and socio-economic data from more than 120,000 people in Britain, ages 37 to 73. From the data, the researchers concluded that shorter men are less likely to receive opportunities, such as level of education, income and job class.