Washington, Sept 28 : Pennsylvania State University researchers have sequenced the DNA of 10 woolly mammoths that died 50,000 years ago, using a technique that could revolutionize genetic testing of extinct creatures.

In their study, ‘Whole-Genome Shotgun Sequencing of Mitochondria from Ancient Hair Shafts’, the scientists describe how the hair shafts of extinct animals can provide an ideal source of ancient DNA.

Washington, Sept 28 : Carbon dioxide did not cause the end of the last ice age, according to new study by a University of Southern California geologist.

Deep-sea temperatures rose 1,300 years before the rise in atmospheric CO2, ruling out the greenhouse gas as driver of meltdown, Lowell Stott said in his study published online Sept 27 in Science Express.

Washington, Sept 28 : A new NASA funded research has pushed back the timeline for presence of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere by 50-100 million years before the Great Oxidation Event.

The event happened between 2.3 and 2.4 billion years ago, when many scientists think atmospheric oxygen increased significantly from the existing very low levels.

As part of their study, the scientists analysed a kilometre-long drill core from Western Australia, representing the time just before the major rise of atmospheric oxygen.

Washington, Sept 27: Experimental drug axitinib has been found to have potential to bring respite to patients with advanced kidney cancer, whose options run out after their tumour fails to respond to the cutting edge therapy.

The study, led by Dr Brian I. Rini an associate professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and a paid member of the Pfizer scientific advisory board, demonstrated that the drug shrank tumours, and delayed the disease’s progression.

Washington, Sept 27 : Scientists at Yale University have achieved two major steps towards putting quantum computers into real practice – sending a photon signal on demand from a qubit onto wires, and transmitting the signal to a second, distant qubit.

Over the past several years, the research team of Robert Schoelkopf and Steven Girvin have explored the use of solid-state devices resembling microchips as the basic building blocks in the design of a quantum computer.

Washington, September 27 : The symptoms of the brain development disorder autism can improve with age, says an assistant professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis.

The new finding is based on a study whose first author Paul T. Shattuck worked on it as a graduate student and post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Waisman Center.