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Paleontologists from the University of Florida have unearthed remarkably well-preserved fossils of two crocodilians and a mammal previously unknown to science during recent Panama excavations that began in 2009. The animals lived during the Miocene, a period that lasted from about 23.03 to 5.332 million years ago; the flora and fauna from the Miocene was […]
Within the next 50 years, numerous lizard species could become extinct due to global warming, a research by Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln (UK) concludes. Not all lizards lay eggs – some are viviparous, and develop their embryos inside the mother’s body as opposed to an egg. […]
If you were to lick the surface of Jupiter‘s icy moon Europa, you would actually be sampling a bit of the ocean beneath – at least that’s what a new paper by Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and Kevin Hand from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory concludes. Their […]
Researchers have, for the first time, calculated the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy neighboring the Milky Way. Care to take a guess? According to these calculations, it’s just 163.000 light-years away. For measurements inside our solar system, researchers use a technique called parallax. Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent […]
The veined wing of the clanger cicada kills bacteria is able to destroy bacteria by its structure alone – one of the first structures ever found that can do this. The clanger cicada is an insects that looks like something between a fly and a locust; its wings are covered with a vast hexagonal array […]
I’m an absolute fan of the Cassini spacecraft – this is hands down my favorite mission. I mean, it’s been providing us incredibly valuable information for years now, in a very interesting area of our solar system, the Jupiter-Saturn area. This mission is one of the main reasons why we now believe places like Europa […]
A new study that may bring a smile to the face of teenagers concluded that not all zit bacterias are bad – on the contrary, some can make your skin glow. Everyone’s skin is crawling with this type of bacteria – everyone’s! The thing is, only about 1 in 5 people develop acne, and why […]
Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the United States Apollo program and the third to land on the Moon. Here, we present a stunning photo album with the shuttle, the crew, and the Moon.
Climate change deniers were ecstatic – our planet wasn’t warming as fast as models predicted it; ha! Everything crumbles down, global warming is a hoax and all is good in the world, right? Wrong. The main question in science is “Why?”, and researchers started asking the question. Are all the models wrong, is there something […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover has been put into “safe mode” after some files which it relies on running have defected. Exactly what damaged the files on the robot’s flash memory is not known. “We’re still early on in the process,” said project manager Richard Cook.”We have probably several days, maybe a week of activities to get […]
In what may very well become a historic day, Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University described the first documented case of a child cured of HIV. Dr. Persaud, an amfAR grantee, detailed the case of a two-year-old child in Mississippi diagnosed with HIV at birth; the child was immediately put on antiretroviral therapy for […]
Braving the weather in rough conditions is standard biker procedure, but it’s always more fun when the weather is fine – and with spring on the way, we don’t have too long to wait. But before you renew your motorbike insurance and get back in the saddle, sit your ass back down and check out […]
Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have obtained what is likely the first direct observation of a forming planet still embedded in a thick disc of gas and dust. If the finding is confirmed, it could significantly boost what we already know about forming planets. An international team led by Sascha Quanz (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) […]
A ring of radiation that scientists knew nothing about fleetingly surrounded our planet last year, before being blown away by a powerful interplanetary shock, researchers say. Astronomic intuition Usually, whenever NASA launches a spacecraft, they wait weeks or even months to finely tune all its instruments. It’s a rite of passage that all shuttles (and […]
NASA has, for the first time, released a global map of ocean salinity. The first thing that popped up for me was the pulse of freshwater gushing from the Amazon, but other major features are worth noticing. An invisible seam divides the salty Arabian Sea from the fresher waters of the Bay of Bengal and […]
Chris Hadfield, quite possibly my favorite current astronaut has snapped a spectacular photo of Italy’s Mount Etna volcano streaming ash toward the sea early this morning. Mount Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe, and in an almost constant state of activity, regularly spewing gas, ash, and lava from the four craters at its […]
As you sit in the morning and have your daily coffee or tea and enjoy your breakfast, take a moment to think where that food actually comes from. Odds are, it’s not coming from your local farm; nope, odds are, it comes from a handful of companies. Three companies now account for more than 40 […]
Just one of the many reasons why I love geology – paleontologists have unearthed extraordinarily preserved fossils of a 520-million-year-old sea creature, one of the oldest animal fossils ever found. The animal in case is an arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid – you may remember him from this post, in which I described a lovely book […]
In New Orleans, a landmark trial began to assess whether BP was grossly negligent during the 2010 BP oil spill. Ethically speaking, not only was BP grossly negligent, but the spill was just grossly… gross! Estimates show that 4.1 million barrels of oil were spilled into the gulf of Mexico, making it the largest accidental […]
When you hear most discussions about healthcare, they almost always revolve around cost-cutting and saving money, as if the purpose of the health industry is to make money – newsflash, it isn’t. It’s about having healthy, long lived people, and that’s an investment that will more than pay for itself in the long run. But […]
International treaties to protect the elephants are not working – that’s the sad truth. There is no real, practical way of enforcing them, and as a result, whatever few elephants are left are still being tracked down and hunted, mostly for their tusks. Researchers estimate that tens of thousands of African elephants are now being […]
Japan will never stop its annual hunt for whales, a government minister has reportedly said, despite recent clashes between whalers and environmental organizations. “I don’t think there will be any kind of an end for whaling by Japan,” Yoshimasa Hayashi, the Japanese minister for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said in an interview with the French […]
Using nothing more than sunlight, researchers and students from the MIT are trying to change how medical equipment is sterilized in remote clinics which don’t have many alternatives; they’ve started a pilot project in Nicaragua, one that’s working out pretty fine for them. Nicaragua is a mostly rural country of six million is served by […]
If you think weather forecasts are bad enough as it is, then I’ve got some bad news for you – according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the weather monitoring network is in a lot of trouble. The main concern is that U.S.-owned satellites are aging, and there are serious concerns […]
A Mediterranean diet high in olive oil, nuts, fish and fresh fruits and vegetables helps prevent strokes and other heart issues. Now before you put on your “Captain obvious” t-shirts, you should know that while (many other) previous studies have suggested that people who eat a Mediterranean-like diet have healthier hearts, they haven’t ruled out […]
For thousands of years, rainbows were an enigmatic phenomenon that was out of reach to humans.
Despite having brains that are still “under construction”, babies are able, even three months before full term, to distinguish between different syllables. It was recently shown that full born babies, even just a few days after they are born, display remarkable linguistic sophistication: they can distinguish between two different languages [1], they can recognizes their […]
It’s a good day to be Irish! The Irish government this morning outlined details of a €300-million package of research funding that will establish seven new hubs where industry will collaborate with academic researchers. Areas which will receive the most funding will be data analytics, marine renewable energy, biomaterials, perinatal research, nanotechnology, functional foods, photonics […]
Here’s another consequence of global warming: our planet’s increasingly hot, wet climate has cut the amount of work people can do by 10% in the past 6 decades. Basically, hotter air tends to retain more humidity, and as anyone who’s worked in high humidity conditions can tell you – that’s not pleasant. When it’s not […]
Evidence of drowned remnants of an ancient microcontinent have been found in sand grains from the beaches of a small Indian Ocean island, according to a new research. Zircons and volcanoes This evidence was found in Mauritius, a volcanic island 900 kilometres east of Madagascar which serves as an exotic destination for many tourists. Basaltic […]
Most of the time, when you’re sick, you want to deliver drugs and imaging agents to diseased cells or tumours where they’re needed most – that’s a problem researchers have solved quite a while ago, we can get particles pretty much wherever we want to. The thing is, most of the time, these agents are […]
The longest creatures to ever walk the Earth were the long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs known as the sauropods. But why did these huge vegetarians grow such huge necks, reaching up to 15 meters? That’s six times longer than that of the current world-record holder, the giraffe. “They were really stupidly, absurdly oversized,” said researcher Michael […]
The dangers of prescription drugs A while ago I wrote a post on the dangers of prescription drugs; the next day, I woke up to see many concerned emails regarding responsible medication, self medication, and other related topics. I tried my best to reply to each and every one of them, but I figured since […]
A metal poor star located in the Milky Way galaxy, “just” 190 light years away from our Sun is 14.46+-0.80 billion years old – nearly as much as the age of the Universe! All stars follow a stellar evolutionary path; by knowing some parameters about the star (such as mass, luminosity, and surface temperature), astronomers […]
I had no plans whatsoever for this Sunday evening. To be quite honest, I didn’t feel like writing an article as I was enjoying my tea and yogurt cake. But then, I came across this; and I just had to get on it as fast as possible, because this is big news people. The Obama […]
According to a new study, the generally accepted theory on lunar formation may have to be reexamined. A relatively recent study has found water in the Moon’s original crust, which means that water found in those rocks didn’t come from an outside source, but was already there when the Moon was formed – something impossible, […]
A new study conducted by US researchers has found that a protein called Jagged-1 stimulates stem cells to differentiate into bone-producing cells, possibly saving or improving the qualify of life for millions of people. The fact that their research was peer reviewed and accepted for publishing in the Stem Cells journal definitely backs the validity […]
Millionaire Dennis Tito, 72, is widely known as the first private citizen to fly into space in 2001. But being the entrepreneurial spirit he is, he wants to go even further – he plans to send two astronauts to Mars in 2018. We’re still awaiting for the next week conference in which he will announce […]
As the search for life on Mars intensifies, it’s good to remember that there are other places in our own solar system that are much more likely to host life. This may be a “captain obvious” moment for some, but may come as quite the surprise for others. Europa, despite its frozen surface, is thought […]
Jean-Lou Chameau, the president of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena announced that he will be leaving his post at an unspecified time to head the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. I think this is important not because of the move itself, but rather what it symbolizes. […]
A new type of lake monster has been found, in the depths of Lake Tahoe: gigantic goldfish; and as cute as they are, their influence is just disastrous for the local ecosystem. The goldfish is an invasive species for that environment, adapting to the situation so well that it pretty much annihilated its competition, growing […]
Particles and unparticles Ok, we know a lot about particles – from electrons and neutrons to the more elusive quarks and leptons, and to the holy Graal of the Standard Model – the Higgs boson; but what’s an unparticle? Well, the Standard Model is just a theory, and there are other theories out there. Unparticle […]
Pollination is the game, “summon bees” is the spell, and electricity is the mana – that’s how I’d try to explain it to a gamer. A little more on the serious side, flowers advertise presence of nectar to bees using electrical signals, basically indicating if they’ve been visited by another bee or not. Usually, plants […]
In a promising discovery for students and party aninals all over the world, a team of researchers led by UCLA engineers has identified a method for speeding up the body’s reaction to alcohol consumption – practically elimining the hangover. Researchers take their hangovers really seriously – in a paper published online Feb. 17 in the […]
3D printing is like a piece of future in the present – the number and extent of applications are just staggering. Recently, researchers from Cornell University have reated an artificial ear using 3-D printing and injectable molds that works pretty much just like the real thing. In a study published in PLOS One, Cornell bioengineers […]
What you see in this picture is two black spots on the sun, known as sunspots, which appeared quickly over the course of Feb. 19-20, 2013 and have grown quickly over the past couple of days. Sunspots are temporary phenomena on the Sun that appear visibly as dark spots compared to surrounding regions; they are […]
NASA’s Kepler telescope is on a roll – recently, astronomers working on it discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found orbiting a star similar to our sun. A similar star, a different system The planets are located in a system researchers call Kepler-37, just over 200 light years, […]
In 2010, prescription drug overdoses killed 23,000 Americans, while cannabis continued its over 10.000 year history of not killing anyone by overdose. Actually, there is no physical way to overdose on smoked or ingested cannabis, making it basically one of the safest, most natural, non-toxic painkillers, sleeping aids, and stress relievers on the planet. However, […]
Despite some initial worry, Curiosity’s drill worked out just fine, and now, the rover has revealed historic images that confirm it has obtained the first samples from the inside of another planet. No other rover or device has drilled to another planet and collected a sample from its interior. “Seeing the powder from the drill […]
The common caddisfly is, as the name calls it, common. They’re usually found near lakes, streams, ponds and rivers, and often used as a bait for trout fishermen. Their larva are aquatic and they create protective silk cases which incorporate bits of material from their surroundings, such as gravel, twigs or small pieces of shell. […]
