A recent study by NASA has indicated the presence of methane gas on Mars, suggesting microbic life underground. Well, Methane is powerful greenhouse gas on the Earth, but its presence on Mars could be indicator of life that originates from biological processes.

So, if methane is on Mars, there's possibility of life as well, but according to the study, methane on Mars could be coming from changes in rocks.

Washington, Jan 16: In a first ever estimate, a study has determined that the total fish biomass in the world's oceans is about two billion tonnes.

A team of international scientists, which included University of British Columbia fisheries researcher Villy Christensen, conducted the study.

It was also discovered that fish play a previously unrecognized but significant role in mitigating climate change by maintaining the delicate pH balance of the oceans.

Washington, Jan 16: In a new research, scientists have determined that by carefully selecting which varieties of food crops to cultivate, much of Europe and North America could be cooled by up to 1 degree Celsius during the summer growing season.

Temperatures going down by 1 degree Celsius are equivalent to an annual global cooling of over 0.1 degree Celsius, almost 20 percent of the total global temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution.

The growing of crops already produces a cooling of the climate because they reflect more sunlight back into space, compared with natural vegetation.

London, Jan 16: In the most sensitive measurements yet made of the Martian atmosphere, scientists have determined that methane gas in the environment of the Red Planet is concentrated in three specific regions.

Since methane was first discovered on Mars in 2003, three teams have found signatures of the gas using ground-based telescopes as well as Europe's Mars Express orbiter.

Some observations hinted that the gas was not distributed evenly across the planet, but the source of the methane remained unclear.

Washington, January 16 : Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden say that the prime reason behind the bewildering diversity in coat colour among domestic animals like pigs and dogs, as compared to their wild counterparts, appears to be the act of cherry-picking and actively selecting for rare mutations by humans.

The researchers say that the process, through which humans have actively changed the coat colour of domestic animals, has been going on for thousands of years.

Washington, Jan 16 : A new study has suggested that the moon, in its ancient past, had an Earth-like core, which may explain its mysterious magnetic field.

Magnetic moon rocks picked up on the Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s surprised scientists, who thought no such field existed on the moon.

Since then, two competing theories have emerged for the moon's magnetism: shockwaves locking in magnetic fields generated by meteors slamming into the heavily cratered surface, or the movement of heat inside a molten metallic core.