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There’s few things I can think of that sound scarier that a genetically modified version of herpes simplex virus type 1, but apparently that’s exactly what researchers used to shrink tumors of the deadly skin cancer melanoma in a clinical trial, according to Amgen, which is developing the experimental cancer treatment. The virus is actually […]
Almost always I happen to discuss global warming, something that often comes up. Still, the Earth was hotter in its history, like say right after the Cretaceous, so what’s the problem? In this article, we’re gonna clarify the aspects that differentiate those geologic periods from nowadays. Some sixty million years ago, there was virtually no […]
This is not really news, but it’s so awesome I just had to share it. Astronomers in England have discovered a “singing” black hole in a distant cluster of galaxies. But wait a minute, you’re gonna say; just hold on a second there. How can sound escape a black hole, and what does it propagate […]
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have found a layer of liquefied molten rock in Earth’s mantle that may be acting as a lubricant for the sliding motions of the planet’s tectonic plates. This discovery has very far reaching implications, which can solve some of the long standing geological puzzles, as […]
I always find it funny when something says “zero fat”, but has tons of sugar in it. Sugar is addictive, it’s teeming in your cereal, it’s in your soda, it’s almost everywhere – and we need to get off of it; not to say we shouldn’t eat any sugar, but we really need to lower […]
Researchers find out new species all the time, but really, when do they ever find a creature that looks like it was spawned by the fiery volcano of Mordor? Coal-black with orange-tinted toes, the new crocodile newt was identified as a different species when biologists spotted a series of differences to nearly related species. “I […]
The fearsome monster that inspired Greek and Norse mythology was once driven almost to extinction, facing a genetic bottleneck event that marked their evolution as a species. The finding comes from an analysis of tissue samples from 43 giant squid (Architeuthis spp.) from around the world. The analysis were mostly concluded on specimens which were […]
If you still don’t know what graphene is, you’d better learn pretty soon – because it’s the stuff of the future. Graphene is a substance composed of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern similar to graphite, but in a one-atom thick sheet. Ok, so what’s so special about it? Well, due […]
To boldly go where no man has gone before: a spacecraft launched from Earth, Voyager I has pushed into the great unknown, leaving behind our solar system. For years, astronomers have been discussing about when Voyager will finally leave the solar system – and it’s actually pretty hard to draw a line and say that […]
Recently, a big drop in swallow road-kill numbers was observed, without humans changing anything on their part. So biologists set out to see what swallows have been doing differently that allows them to be so much better at avoiding cars. They discovered that roadside nesting cliff swallows have evolved shorter, more manoeuvrable wings that gives […]
Researchers have managed to take skin cells from monkeys, reverse engineer them into stem cells, and then transplant into the monkeys’ brain where they successfully became brain cells. This technique holds massive promise for treating mental degenerative diseases. The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) opens up the possibility for personalized cell therapy. Using […]
I really liked New York’s mayor Bloomberg campaign of limiting sugary drink consumption, but that didn’t really work out as good as we were hoping. Another, better idea that has a lot of potential however is conveying the food’s calories into walking. So a regular burger would give you some 250 calories, which you can […]
I had the chance to witness, on several occasions, how bears change their behaviors when people feed them (which they really shouldn’t!). Bears, who usually just avoid people, or if they feel threatened display some sort of aggressive behavior, just started to beg for food, much like a dog around Thanksgiving dinner. This dramatically altered […]
Way back before clocks were a thing, people had another natural way of waking up: the rooster’s crow. Now, a new study shows that they are so exact, that they don’t even need the light of a new day to know when it’s dawn – they just rely on their internal clocks. Nagoya University […]
According to a research published by researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis, interbreeding was pretty common with our ancestors. They based their case on an approximately 100,000-year-old skull from Xujiayao in the Nihewan Basin of northern China, which has a rare congenital disorder caused by interbreeding. Enlarged parietal foramen […]
For the first time in history, researchers have found microbes living deep inside Earth’s oceanic crust – the black basalts that make some 60% of our planet’s surface – potentially the largest habitat on our planet. Engineering and microbes Microbiologist Mark Lever is on board the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s research vessel JOIDES Resolution to […]
A NOAA paper published 4 years ago showed, almost beyond the shadow of a doubt, that climate change is irreversible for approximately for approximately 1000 years. Despite this and several other papers that had pretty much the same conclusions, people still believe that climate change is reversible in the near future; it’s not. We’ve reached […]
A new theory based on a simple but viable geologic model claims that over 80 percent of all commercial gold deposits were formed in a flash. Gold seams are formed when mineral-rich waters flow through networks of cracks in rocks some 5-30 km deep. But the exact mechanism through which the gold is deposited is […]
The Mariana trench is the deepest point on Earth; now, an international team of researchers found that the very bottom of the Mariana Trench, which lies almost 11 km beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, has high levels of microbial activity. No more than 30 years ago, we had a very different idea about […]
When a lion hunts a gazelle, he is actually hunting the weakest of the herd, the one which is the slowest. Repeating the hunt, in time only strengthens the herd. The drunken version of this is that the same things happen with alcohol and neurons: sure, alcohol destroys some neurons, but it’s only the weaker […]
The study, led by the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), has managed to eliminate mouse lung tumours by inhibiting Myc, a protein which acts as a regulator gene that codes for a transcription factor. That’s just a fancy way of saying that if Myc mutates, cancer will probably occur. Furthermore, their results showed that […]
A few months ago, we were telling you about the mind boggling properties the new material called graphene has, and how practical uses will not take long to follow. Apparently, things moved even faster than we expected them – Berkeley researchers have created the first ever graphene audio speaker: an earphone. Their quality, even in […]
NASA space observatory sends back a couple of mind blowing eye dazzling images of the Sun. I guess I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I’m really loving these pics. The people working at NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) had another of their periodic “wow” moments when the latest transmissions from space turned up a couple […]
It is indeed a war of manipulation and misdirection, but the main actors are not the ones you may think about first. As a new study concluded, some 3 out of every 4 climate change denial books have direct, easily verifiable connections to conservative organizations. A research conducted by Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State […]
Despite all the magnificent advancements in the field, we are still in the infancy of our research on extraterrestrial planets, so it shouldn’t really surprise anybody if a new type of planet is found. Mysterious dense bodies outside the Solar System which have puzzled astronomers for quite a while may in fact be remnants of […]
You often hear discussions about how much oil there is still left in the world’s underground. Listen to oil companies they’ll tell you there’s plenty to go around, absolutely no need to worry; listen to fanatic environmentalists and they’ll tell you that in two decades, we’re pretty much screwed. So why not listen to someone […]
Ok, so big news on the horizon: alien life forms have been found in a meteorite that recently crashed in Sri Lanka, on December 29, bringing along a new perspective on how we view the origin and movement of life. But… have they really? Well, sorry to burst your bubble ladies and gentlemen, but in […]
Apparently, every month brings forth a new theory on the demise of the Neanderthals – the cookies one being that bunnies were the main culprit. This month’s theory claims that the Neanderthal skull has larger eye sockets than the human one, therefore it had bigger eyes, therefore the brain spent more of its processing power […]
Imagine if the chip in your phone of laptop could not only defend, but also repair itself on the fly, recovering from simple scratches or battery issues to total transistor failure. It may sound like science fiction, but it is exactly what a team from CalTech has done. The team working at the High-Speed Integrated […]
A new analysis of data from NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) shows that molten rock created by lunar impacts has been around for much longer than previously believed. During its earliest days, the Moon was covered in an ocean of molten rock, pretty much like every planet out there. As that lunar magma ocean […]
A pair of newly discovered stars is the third-closest star system to the Sun – the closest astronomers have found a star system since 1916. The discovery was made by Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University. Both stars in the system are brown dwarfs – not exactly stars, […]
Researchers have for the first time conducted a remote reconnaissance of a distant planetary system with a new telescope imaging system. Peeking at other planets Project 1640 is a dedicated high contrast imaging program at Palomar Observatory with the goal of obtaining images and spectra of brown dwarfs and planetary mass companions to nearby stars. […]
You’d be tempted to think that clogged arteries are a problem of the modern world, with all the lack of exercise and unhealthy eating; but as ancient mummies revealed, even when we were hunter-gatherers, people still had arterial issues. “There’s a belief that if we go back in time, everything’s going to be OK,” says […]
The inevitable 2012 title was ‘Human population reaches 7 billion‘, surpassing anything anyone could have imagined 100 years ago. Now, we’re approaching a very worrying milestone – CO2 levels in the air will reach 400 ppm (parts per million), for the first time in human existence. CO2 levels have risen at a quick, steady pace […]
We’ve been telling you on and on – millions and millions of sharks are perishing each year, mostly due to shark finning – people fish sharks, cut off their fins, them let them go, only to suffer a slow, painful, humiliating death, unable to move at the bottom of the ocean. Shark fin soup is […]
MIT researchers have published a detailed analysis of all the factors that could limit the efficiency of such a system, basically laying a roadmap for a research program to improve the efficiency of so-called artificial leafs. An artificial leaf has to produce a storable fuel, such as hydrogen, instead of electricity for immediate use; the […]
With the continuous advancements in medicine, it’s easy to forget that not only are we adapting to new species of germs, but they are adapting to our medicine as well – sometimes even much faster than us. The danger posed by growing resistance to antibiotics should be ranked along with terrorism, the government’s chief medical […]
Creating glasses that don’t fog or freeze up could not only bring a world of comfort to millions of people, but it could also have a myriad of applications in cameras, microscopes, mirrors and refrigerated displays – to name just a few. While there have been many advancements in this field, so far, the main problem […]
Just a few days ago, we were telling you about the exciting new findings in lake Vostok – a new bacteria unlike anything else found so far retrieved from the lake sealed beneath 2 kilometers of ice for 1 million years. Now, the head of genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics […]
About a decade ago, researchers started paying closer attention to the much hailed healthy properties of red wine. Particularly, a compound found in red wine (resveratrol – also found in the “anti-cancer beer”) was shown by some to provide a healthier and longer life. However, while the claim was supported with evidence by several teams, it […]
The mystery surrounding Stonehenge is still actual, puzzling archaeologists for decades; how was it built, why there, and most interesting, what purpose does it serve? Now, after dating some bone fragments of men, women and children, a team of researchers believe they have the answer. Centuries before the imposing monument was raised, the site started […]
Paleontologists spend a majority of their working years studying fossils with only one objective – to unearth a discovery that will further benefit mankind’s understanding of dinosaurs. One such recent discovery established the presence of a hitherto unknown herbivore dinosaur. This discovery was made possible thanks to efforts by Clint Boyd of the South Dakota […]
A single molecular switch can make the transition between the active, malleable brain of an adolescent and the mature, stable brain of an adult; yep, a single gene can turn us back to the childlike curiosity we exhibit as adolescents. Researchers have known for quite a while that adolescent brains are typically more malleable (or […]
Life finds a way – the red alga Galdieria sulphuraria gives a really good argument to support that statement. In the hot springs of Yellowstone Park, it uses photosynthesis to produce its necessary nutrients. But in dark, murky, toxic mineshafts in drainage that are about as acidic as battery acid, not only does it survives, […]
Ever since the days of the ancient Greek, people were puzzled by the fact that apparently, hippos sweat blood; this belief propagated for more than a millenium. Now, we know that the thick red substance, which oozes from glands all over its skin, is one of the hippo’s many ingenious survival tools. Thing is, hippos […]
3D printing is the stuff of the future – today. It’s one of the most stunning pieces of relatively accessible technology; most notably in medicine, the precision offered by 3-D printing can make tiny surface details on the replacement part that encourage the growth of cells and allow the bone to attach more easily. In […]
By observing several indicators, a team of researchers from Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences concluded that in as few as 87 years from now, temperatures are expected to be bigger than anytime in the existence of the human species. Paleoclimatic research is providing a more detailed look on how the […]
A while ago, we were telling you about the very exciting environment that is lake Vostok. The lake has been sealed under ice for more than a million years; researchers believed that it still harbored life, possibly bacterian life that evolved on a parallel evolution line. Now, Russian researchers believe they confirmed that hunch, finding […]
You may understand that all people are different, but it takes a lot of genetics to understand just how different humans really are. Albert Perry for example has something spectacular in his genome: his Y chromosome is so distinct, so easily identifiable that it basically revealed new information about our species. Working their way around […]
To be quite honest, there are moments when I feel that I don’t understand quantum mechanics at all – the phenomena involved in the field are so complex and counter intuitive one can only stop and wonder if God does in fact play dice with the Universe… but at any rate, the advancements produced by […]
