In the search for life on other planets, scientists are looking beyond single-celled organisms and are developing techniques that would help them detect multicellular life. In a recent study published in the journal Astrobiology, researchers are proposing a particular mathematical technique to detect tree-like multicellular structures on extrasolar planets.

"This...

The Sahara, the world's largest desert, was once fertile grassland. This fact has been common knowledge in the scientific community for some time, but scientists are still grappling with historic data to determine whether that transition took place abruptly or gradually.

At the European Geosciences Union General Assembly held in...

The ongoing internal conflict within the main opposition United National Party (UNP) is now unfolding in public with party members sending contradictory messages via the media. The independent statements, accusations and denials have highlighted the party's fragmentation and catapulted this internal struggle onto the national stage.

At a press...

If life does - or did - exist on Mars, signs of such life might well be found in a region in the northern plains called Acidalia Planitia, according to a new study.

The region appears to be dotted with what scientists believe are geological structures known as mud volcanoes,...

Astrobiology Magazine

In 2006, a team of scientists studying the migration of organisms at hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean stumbled upon a volcanic eruption at one of the study sites. This event on the seafloor has made way for a new discovery that challenges existing beliefs about...

A Tamil politician in Sri Lanka claimed this week that the army has destroyed the childhood home of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Speaking to the BBC, army spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said, "We completely deny this allegation." So it is...

Astrobiology Magazine

The search for water on other planetary bodies has taken a giant leap forward in recent months. In November, NASA announced that it had found substantial quantities of water on the Moon. Earlier this month, the Cassini spacecraft obtained data about one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus,...

Spending Christmas and New Year in the Holy Land was to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But in December of 2008, there was little to celebrate in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. As I landed on Christmas Day, tension between Israel and Hamas had escalated to the point where an official...

For decades, T. Sritharan, general secretary of the Eelam Peoples' Revolutionary Liberation Front-Pathmanabha wing (EPRLF-P), engaged in politics covertly. Under the watchful eye of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), he and his political party struggled to get their politically moderate message across to the people of the north...

Sri Lanka's former foreign secretary Palitha Kohona is currently in New York, accepting his new post as Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United Nations. Less than one week before leaving the country, Kohona gave a wide-ranging interview to journalist Ranjit J. Perera of Sri Lanka News Network. In it,...

At a farewell gathering for a long-time employee, Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne, founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, approaches the podium dressed in his trademark white sarong, knee-length shirt and sandals. Speaking in both Sinhala and English, Ariyaratne first apologizes for rarely praising his employees.

"The greatest enemy that each...

Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan is Sri Lanka's Minister of National Integration and Reconciliation. It is an unlikely post for a man who many, including the Sri Lankan government, considered a terrorist not too long ago; a man human rights groups have accused of recruiting child soldiers; and a man who used to...