MADRID (Reuters) - Larks sing better when they live in thriving groups and their song suffers when they are under threat, according to a study by Spanish scientists.

The four-year study in Spain's Ebro River Valley showed the complexity of song by male Dupont's Larks was correlated to how long a colony had been established and how many chicks had been born.

Deep ocean hydrothermal vents have long been suggested as possible sources of biological molecules such as RNA and DNA but it was unclear how they could survive the high temperatures and pressures that occur round these vents.

Professor Peter Coveney and colleagues at the UCL Centre for Computational Science have used computer simulation to provide insight into the structure and stability of DNA while inserted into layered minerals. Computer simulation techniques have rarely been used to understand the possible chemical pathways to the formation of early biomolecules until now.

This is a viper made with keys recycled from discarded computer keyboards. It was created by the Korean painter Choi Jung Hyun.

LONDON (Reuters) - Birds start singing in the spring because of a biological response to longer days, researchers said on Wednesday.

When birds are exposed to light for longer periods, certain brain cells trigger a series of hormonal reactions telling them to find a mating partner, which they do by singing, a team of Japanese and British researchers reported in the journal Nature.

Changes in the growth and species composition of tropical forests cannot be fully explained by global environmental changes, say researchers.

Recent studies in the Amazon rainforest have suggested that changes such as the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (see Carbon emissions 'may alter forest growth patterns') and other factors such as nutrient deposition, temperature, drought frequency and irradiance are increasing the productivity and biomass of forests.

HOUSTON, March 20, 2008 -- Hydrogen could be a clean, abundant energy source, but it's difficult to store in bulk. In new research, materials scientists at Rice University have made the surprising discovery that tiny carbon capsules called buckyballs are so strong they can hold volumes of hydrogen nearly as dense as those at the center of Jupiter.

The research appears on the March 2008 cover of the American Chemical Society's journal Nano Letters.

LONDON (Reuters) - Gas-belching volcanoes may be to blame for a series of mass extinctions over the last 545 million years, including that of the dinosaurs, new evidence suggested on Thursday.

A series of eruptions that formed the Deccan Traps in what is now India pumped huge amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere 65 million years ago, with likely devastating repercussions for the Earth's climate, scientists said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than 60 teams from nine countries have lined up to chase a $10 million prize for making a green supercar that smashes records for fuel efficiency, organizers of the competition said on Thursday,

The initial list of teams signed on for the Automotive X Prize competition range from California-based electric car start-up Tesla Motors to Cornell University in New York.

There hasn’t been a lot of good news in the general economy lately; from a complete collapse of sub-prime mortgage loans, to slumping property values, whip-sawing stock markets, $110+ barrels of oil and colossal brokerage houses that suddenly run out of cash — it isn’t pretty.