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Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The society of Carthage was dominated by an aristocratic trading class who held all of the important political and religious positions, but below this strata was a cosmopolitan mix of artisans, labourers, mercenaries, slaves, and foreigners from across the Mediterranean. The city’s population at its peak was somewhere around 400,000, and the international blend of skills and cultures was a recipe for success which led Roman writers to describe Carthage as the richest city in the world....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. In May 2010, after years of intense discussions surrounding possible fossils of mixed Homo sapiens and Neanderthal descent floating around the scientific community, a team led by Svante Pääbo of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, published the results of their pioneering journey towards retrieving ancient Neanderthal DNA....

MARCH 1956 COMBAT STRESS–“Military commanders must have a thorough understanding of the effects of combat stress to make the most efficient use of their manpower. With such knowledge they could judge whether a unit was prepared for battle, how long it could fight effectively and how much rest it should be given before being sent into action again. During the Korean war the U.S. military services made a study of combat stress–a first step in a long-range program....

If you’re suffering through a cold as you read this, with all the mucus, throbbing of temples and listlessness that come with it, let a new study cheer you up: Researchers have created the first mice susceptible to the one of the most common human cold viruses, bringing the world a step closer to a cure—or at least a better understanding of the disease that costs Americans an estimated $40 billion and 22 million missed school days a year....

Across the globe, many people and institutions suffered large costs from the 2008 financial meltdown. Among the victims is the financial sector itself—whose reputation has been questioned after scandals involving the manipulation of interest rates and fraudulent deals. In trying to make sense of the crisis, some have pointed the fingers to individual bankers and banks, others to institutional pressures. But new research suggests that one important cause may reside elsewhere: in the banking culture itself....

President Biden didn’t blink on climate change. In his first joint address to Congress, Biden last night outlined a transformative vision of muscular government, with climate policy driving both domestic and international affairs. He cast decarbonization as an engine of his economic plans. And he framed competition with China as a struggle over the future of clean energy. “We are at an inflection point in history,” Biden said. “If we act to save the planet, we can create millions of jobs and economic growth and opportunity....

Junk DNA: A Journey through the Dark Matter of the Genome by Nessa Carey Columbia University Press, 2015 ($29.95) When the human genome was first sequenced, 98 percent of it was dismissed as “junk” because it did not code for proteins and thus seemingly lacked purpose. Yet in recent years researchers have realized that these stretches of DNA are also important: for one thing, changes to them can lead to serious diseases....

In 1974 Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes are not black but slowly emit thermal radiation. Hawking’s prediction shook physics to its core because it implied that black holes cannot last forever and that they instead, over eons, evaporate into nothingness—except, however, for one small problem: there is simply no way to see such faint radiation. But if this “Hawking radiation” could somehow be stimulated and amplified, it might be detectable, according to some astrophysicists....

By David Cyranoski of Nature magazineThe largest-ever study of the genetics of depression is set to go ahead in China, after a major survey found that the condition largely has the same triggers and symptoms there as in the West – albeit with a few startling exceptions.Previous studies on twins in Sweden have shown that genetics explains about 40% of a woman’s risk of depression, and about 30% of a man’s....

Facebook Look Back. (Credit: Facebook) Facebook turns 10 on February 4 and is celebrating by giving its audience of 1.23 billion a way to relive their digital history on the network with a special release called Look Back. Look Back is meant to be a sentimental experience. It lets members on the Web or mobile either watch a personalized movie, view a collection of their top photos, or read a “thank you” card from the company, depending on how much content they have posted to the service....

Members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agreed on one thing at Tuesday’s meeting: the Internet does not need to be fixed. Despite this shared sentiment, the FCC’s commissioners are divided on whether the government should act in anticipation of potential problems as the Internet matures. The panel voted 3–2 in favor of the Open Internet Order, designed to ensure what has commonly been referred to as “net neutrality”. Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn joined FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in passing the order, whereas commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker strongly dissented, disagreeing with the government’s involvement in enforcing conduct on the Internet....

Glowing new images of the mouse brain represent the most comprehensive mapping yet of the mammalian cortex. Using fluorescent injections, researchers tracked the connections between regions of the mouse cortex, the outermost, wrinkled layer of the brain. The project is important because the mouse brain is structured basically like other mammal brains — including humans’, said study leader Hong-Wei Dong, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California. Understanding how healthy brain structures chat back and forth should help researchers figure out how to fix problems when something goes wrong....

Americans scrapped 4 million more cars and trucks last year than they purchased, the first significant drop in the U.S. auto fleet in more than four decades, according to a new report. The United States scrapped 14 million vehicles last year while buying only 10 million new ones, dropping the nation’s fleet from an all-time high of 250 million to 246 million, according to the Earth Policy Institute. Lester Brown, the author of the report, said the drop – the first significant shrinkage the U....

The Man in the Moon has an enormous right eye: the crater known as the Imbrium Basin, which is 1,200 kilometers across. The cavity was created roughly four billion years ago during a collision with something big. How big? “About the size of New Jersey,” says Peter H. Schultz, a planetary geoscientist at Brown University who published a new estimate of the object’s heft in Nature. To figure out the impactor’s dimensions, Schultz and his colleague David A....

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. prices for the world’s 20 top-selling medicines are, on average, three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried out for Reuters. The finding underscores a transatlantic gulf between the price of treatments for a range of diseases and follows demands for lower drug costs in America from industry critics such as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The 20 medicines, which together accounted for 15% of global pharmaceuticals spending in 2014, are a major source of profits for companies including AbbVie, AstraZeneca , Merck, Pfizer and Roche....

By Gwyneth Dickey Zakaib One thing is certain about the human costs of the radiation leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan: they will pale in comparison to the catastrophic consequences of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the crisis. Nevertheless, experts are tracking radiation levels worldwide to learn more about the accident and to assess the possible impacts on health. Radioactive vapor and particles released from the plant have spread across the region and followed prevailing winds across the Pacific (see “Plume projections”)....

By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - Soaring temperatures and recent rains have hastened the run-off from Colorado’s melting snowpack, causing widespread flooding concerns across the Rocky Mountain state, authorities said on Tuesday. The National Weather Service has issued flood warnings or advisories for more than a dozen counties, ranging from engorged mountain streams to downstream rivers and tributaries on the high plains of eastern Colorado. Temperatures reached the low 90s on Tuesday in the east of the state, and waters from the melting snow are roaring down the mountainsides....

Humans, and the microbes that live inside us, could be the source of the next generation of antibiotics. German researchers just discovered an antibiotic produced by bacteria that inhabit our noses. This new antibiotic can kill MRSA, the poster child for drug resistance and the culprit behind the most pernicious hospital-acquired staph infections. “Our study can help to understand what we can do to eradicate these pathogens from the microbiota of healthy people,” said Andreas Peschel, lead author of the study, published Wednesday in Nature....

PHILADELPHIA—Billionaire climate advocate Tom Steyer believes young Americans will cast more votes this year based on rising temperatures than in past presidential elections. In an interview with ClimateWire last night, the founder of NextGen Climate also downplayed the idea of placing a price on carbon dioxide and dismissed the notion of swapping the Clean Power Plan for a carbon tax. “That’s a huge wedge issue,” Steyer said of young voters’ concern about climate change....

An effort to mimic the conditions of planetary gas-giant interiors in the lab might have solved the mystery of why Saturn is so much hotter than its larger next-door neighbor, Jupiter. Both are pretty similar, as planets go: They are both composed of mostly hydrogen and helium and are roughly the same size. But given Saturn and Jupiter’s initial temperatures and how these planets are expected to radiate energy into space, Jupiter appears to have cooled off normally whereas Saturn has held onto its heat....