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To have the most children, men should find a partner six years younger and women a mate four years older, Austrian researchers say.
It is no surprise to hear that men pick younger women to bolster their reproductive fitness and that women choose older partners for security, which the scientists say would hold evolutionary advantages.
But the study is the first to quantify the age difference that results in the most children, says research leader Dr Martin Fieder, an anthropologist from the University of Vienna.
Age difference key to having most kids - 29/08/2007
University of Minnesota astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies and gas, as well as the mysterious, unseen “dark matter.” While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all.
Astronomers find gaping hole in the Universe
Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered what might be the oldest human footprint ever found. The outline was found imprinted in mud, which has since turned to stone, at Siwa oasis in the western desert.
Egypt footprint 'could be oldest'
Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's neighbourhood - a dead star with some unusual characteristics. The object, known as a neutron star, was studied using space telescopes and ground-based observatories. But this one, located in the constellation Ursa Minor, seems to lack some key characteristics found in other neutron stars. Details of the study, by a team of American and Canadian researchers, will appear in the Astrophysical Journal.
Rare dead star found near Earth
Could extraterrestrial life be made of corkscrew-shaped particles of interstellar dust? Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space are revealed today in the New Journal of Physics. The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks. They also point to a possible new explanation for the origin of life on earth.
Life on earth is organic. It is composed of organic molecules, which are simply the compounds of carbon, excluding carbonates and carbon dioxide. The idea that particles of inorganic dust may take on a life of their own is nothing short of alien, going beyond the silicon-based life forms favoured by some science fiction stories.
'It might be life, Jim...', physicists discover inorganic dust with lifelike qualities
In the 25 March issue of Science, a team led by Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University in Raleigh describes finding flexible and elastic blood vessels, and possibly intact cells, in the 68 million-year-old skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Tyrannosaurus Blood Vessels Found
Astronomers have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a giant planet outside our Solar System. The detection in the extrasolar planet HD 189733b was made using Nasa's powerful Spitzer Space Telescope and is reported in the journal Nature. The team looked for the signal of water absorption in starlight poking through the edges of the atmosphere when the planet passed in front of its star. It is only the second time water has been detected on an exoplanet.
HD 189733b orbits very close to its parent starWater vapor found on exoplanet
Roboticists are using the lessons of a 1930s human physiologist to build the world's fastest walking robot.
Runbot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein.
"Getting a robot to walk like a human requires a dynamic machine," said Professor Florentin Woergoetter.
Runbot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human.
Robot unravels mystery of walking
