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Paleontologists have found evidence of animal life dating back at least 635 million years. Those animals acted much like today’s sponges, stuck in the sea floor, filtering water particles for useful nutrients in the sea. But just over 100 million years later, during the Cambrian explosion, life really started to pump its engines. All sorts […]
The massive, global risk that global warming poses has once again been highlighted by researchers – this time, by geologists studying fossil records. It’s good to learn from your mistakes, but it’s even better to prevent than treat, and learn from the past (even though it’s not your past) – and paleontology is really good […]
A new study led by an international team of biolgoists has shown just some brain chemicals allow seals to sleep with only half of the brain. “Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. […]
Researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University have identified a biological marker in the immune system that (starting from about age 22), predicts the probability of getting a common cold. They found that telomeres play a big part in this likelihood. Telomeres are regions of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromatid, which protect […]
Every bottlenose dolphin makes its own distinctive sound, a high-pitched “eeee” through which they announce their presence. However, dolphins are also great at mimicking sounds, being able to copy even intricate computer generated sounds; this made researchers curious to see if dolphins can in fact mimic each other’s sound, and how they use this ability […]
The giant armadillo, Priodontes maximus by its scientific name, or the tatou, as it is colloqually called was once found widely throughout the tropical forests of eastern South America, but now, thanks to deforestation and human city expansion, it faces extinction. It’s quite a rare sight to see one, but with patience and knowledge, Brazilian […]
During a chance encounter with an unusually strong blast of solar wind at Saturn, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft detected particles being accelerated to ultra-high energies (like those at the LHC); this acceleration is similar to that which takes place around distant supernovas and provides a valuable in-situ study environment. The Cassini spacecraft is an absolutely stunning […]
Based on a massive set of data collected from Houston by Rice University researchers, there is a direct correlation between out-of-hospital heart attacks and levels of air pollution and ozone. Rice statisticians Katherine Ensor and Loren Raun announced their findings today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston – […]
NASA’s really trying to step up their social media game, and this is definitely good news. This week, NASA’s social media followers and their guests will have the unique opportunity to talk to three of the six crew members aboard the International Space Station, as well as the scientists and engineers involved in the project. […]
Paleontologists have long believed that complex organic molecules couldn’t survive fossilization; but to contradict this long standing belief, some 350-million-year-old remains of aquatic sea creatures uncovered in Ohio, feature exactly that type of molecules. The animals i n case are called crinoids, but are probably better known today as “sea lilies”; they are absolutely […]
Kansas State University researcher Richard Rosenkranz, assistant professor of human nutrition concluded that there is a direct connection between how much you sit and how likely you are to suffer chronic diseases; he conducted the study on middle-aged Australian males and published it in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. He worked […]
If you’re in a biology class in Europe, and you say that humans appeared on the Earth a few thousand years ago, or that they lived side by side with dinosaurs – you’re gonna get an F. It doesn’t matter if you’re from France, Spain, Russia or Albania, you’re gonna get an F; but in […]
As Niels Bohr once pointed out, to fully understand how a living organism works, you’d have to take it apart in the smallest of parts; since this is not something you can actually do, organisms, which represent systems of very high complexity, are impossible to track and understand in all their details. The few and […]
A British academic has stumbled upon a 500 year old warrant for one of the most famed people in history: Niccolo Machiavelli. Prof Stephen Milner from Manchester University discovered the historic document almost by accident, as he was browsing through town criers and the proclamations in the Florence archives. The 1513 proclamation, which called for […]
Look at this map; take a good, long, hard look at it. William Smith created it in 1815, 200 years ago. It’s the first nationwide geologic map, which is why he is sometimes referred to as the father of British geology, and it’s pretty darn accurate! His story and absolutely stunning work has a sour […]
Your smartphone amateur photos could be instantly converted into professional-looking pictures at the touch of a button, thanks to a chip developed by MIT researchers. The chip, built by a team at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory can perform a number of tasks, including creating a more realistic environment or enhanced lighting in a shot without […]
A new, probably significant discovery will be published in two weeks, the leader of a space-based particle physics experiment said Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Why this is important Dark matter is every bit as mysterious and cool as it sounds; from what we know so […]
So, remember that Higgs boson discovery we got all excited about a while ago? You know, validated the Standard model, proved our understanding of the subatomic world not wrong, and all that? Turns out, that same data could very well be an obituary for our Universe – at least that’s what Joseph Lykken of the […]
This week, the Obama administration has announced plans to pursue a 10-year, $3 billion research effort aimed at mapping the human brain in “its entirety”. The project, called the Brain Activity Map, is designed to help scientists better understand how the ~100 billion neurons interact in our brains. Initially, the announcement was met with applause, […]
I just swear, science is just like fashion sometimes – some treands just reappear time and time again over periods of time. What am I talking about? Well, this is one of the first posts I’ve ever written on ZME Science, all the way back in 2007 (man this brings out memories!). Basically, back then, […]
Highschool students whose friends have higher grades than them have a significant tendency to raise their own grades over the course of a year, a study conducted by Hiroki Sayama from Binghamton University and his collaborators from Maine-Endwell High School in Endwell, New York, including 4 high school students. Previous research had already shown that […]
A study conducted by Dr. Juliane Kaminski of the University of Portsmouth’s Department of Psychology concluded that when humans forbid dogs to eat foods, dogs are 4 times more likely to steal the food in the dark, when they think humans can’t spot them. It’s interesting to see how dogs actually adapt to what they […]
According to a new research, the ozone layer has hit a new record low – but this is not necessarily a good thing. It is actually believed that hotter temperatures help the layer, and record high temperatures brought the hole to the lowest size observed in the past decades. The hole, located above the Antarctic […]
Well we all use disposable tissues, dishes, I’ve heard of disposable tails of even limbs, but a disposable penis? Talk about taking things to the next level… But that’s exactly what this sea slug has. After mating, it simply discards its penis, grows a new one, and can even have sex again the same day. […]
As I keep telling people, water isn’t an infinite resource – if you consume it at a high enough rate, it will run out. This is what NASA warns is already happening in the Middle East, where due to overconsumption and bad water management, an amount of freshwater almost the size of the Dead Sea […]
Two researchers from Indiana University have developed a computer model they say can identify significantly better and less-expensive treatments than can doctors acting alone. If true, this research could have a significant impact on the healthcare system, but at the same time, rises some extremely important questions. The idea Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser had […]
Everything is connected on our planet; things you do on one side have completely unexpected but related effects on the other, and there is nothing truly isolated. Here’s a good example of just that: For most of the year, the Arctic is frozen. Hard ice and tundra is all you’re going to see there most […]
The Rosetta Stone may actually come in the form of a computer – one that can speak virtually any language, if programmed well enough. Languages have evolved, changed, adapted, mingled, disappeared – they’re way more dynamic than you would think; and for some of them, we have really limited information to study them on. This […]
MIT engineers have created genetic circuits in bacterial cells that not only perform logic functions, but also remember the results, encode them in the cell’s DNA and pass it on for generations to come. Biotechnology The circuits, which are described in Nature Biotechnology could have a swarm of appplications, most notably long-term environmental sensors, efficient […]
The long debated idea of women and men being ‘just friends’ has been given a serious blow, as a new study suggests that men’s relationships with their female friends may be fuelled by an undercurrent of sexual attraction regardless of whether they are single or not; the feeling, however, is not mutual. University of Wisconsin […]
Australia seems poised to become one of the global leaders in terms of renewable energy; after a study showed that the country could realistically go 100% renewable energy in just 10 years, now, a different study concluded that wind energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels. The research was led by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, […]
Society treats the sky like an “open sewer” – pumping carbon waste into the air the same way it pumped waste into waterways, and with the same results. People are getting sick, Gore explained, comparing the climate crisis to 19th-century cholera epidemics, including one in London where the outbreak was traced to a single water […]
Hunters are having a blast in northern California, with a simple purpose: hunt as many coyotes as possible. As you could guess, the event’s organizers tried to keep it as secretive as possible, but the local press estimated over 200 hunters participated in the (more or less) annual event. Opponents of the hunt – which […]
NASA’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission spacecraft aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is cleared for flight, and with the weather forecasts remaining excellent, it seems everything is set for the launch. The Landsat satellite operations began all the way back in 1972, providing a huge amount of useful satellite information. This eight generation […]
A lot of worry was spurred when a malfunction at Curiosity’s drilling mechanism jeopardized the entire mission, but now, everything seems to be working out just fine; the rover conducted its first test drill without any negative events. However, the real work is just beginning, as the first drilling-sampling operation took place. This is the […]
The apparently evergrowing consumption of coffee and caffeinated products continues to worry scientists, and until now, a maximum safety level had not been established. A common story When Matthew Penbross woke on a morning in August 2007, he wanted to be prepared. A natural desire, considering he was competing in the motocross races near Port […]
A new study has shown that children develop an interest in animals very early – toddlers toddlers prefer to look at an animal (even a snake or spider) than play with a pile of attractive toys. The paper was published by a team led by Vanessa LoBue from Rutgers University, and it investigates young children’s […]
Overfishing is a dramatic problem in most areas of the oceans, and many people are desperately trying to protect what’s left of the ecosystems; thankfully though, the European Union has approved a major reform by an enormous majority. The European Parliament was having its say in the on-going attempt to shake up Europe’s controversial Common […]
Our galaxy is teeming with billions of planets very much like our own, a new research suggests – many of them circling a star similar to our Sun. Earlier research suggested that if you want to find planets like our own, you must first find stars like our own; but a fresh analysis from the […]
It’s a big day for math wizzez around the world – the largest known prime number has just shot up: (257,885,161 – 1) breaks a four year dry spell in finding new prime numbers. Prime numbers are numbers that can only be divided by themselves and 1. Going up from 2, the prime numbers are […]
It was a mystery that kept astronomers scratching their heads for years, but now, it finally seems to be cracked: particles from inside the solar system bounce off a “ribbon” of energy boundary and neutral atoms from that collision stream inward. Why and how this happens remained a mystery for quite a while. Basically, this strange […]
A massive earthquake struck Wednesday east of Kira Kira in the Solomon Islands, with several already confirmed victims and injuries. “At 12 minutes past midday, a 7.9 earthquake in the Santa Cruz Islands (near the Solomon Islands) occurred. A shallow event.” He said. “The nearest part from our location estimate is an island called Ndeni, […]
William Kennewel wasn’t a big fan of water – drinking soda instead of it pretty much all the time; now, he has become living proof of the damage soft drinks can cause to your teeth. “I’m told a normal person has about 23 teeth, but … I only had 13 left and they had to […]
A while ago, I was telling you about the big garbage island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, and why you should use and reuse canvas bags instead of going for the plastic bags. But here are some quick facts about reusing bags. An average reusable bag requires the same amount of energy as […]
Her name is Wisdom, and she’s absolutely awesome! She’s the world’s oldest known living wild bird, at 62, and she produced a healthy living chick, surprising the entire world. It’s remarkable enough that she reached this age, with the lifespan for the typical albatross being somewhere between 30 and 40 years, but giving birth, and […]
British researchers from the University of Newcastle have discovered by mistake (how else?) that a species of sea urchin has the ability to use nickel and CO2 and turn it into shell. The natural ability of the sea urchins to absorb CO2 could be a model for an effective carbon capture and storage system. Lately, […]
Contrary to what you might think, this is not some rainbow slime dripping on the rocks – this is the wicked opal. Opal has quite some unique properties in the geological world; it doesn’t have a crystalline structure so you can’t really say that it’s a mineral, but a mineraloid, yet somehow you see it […]
Gold prospecting’s future may very well lie in a Petri dish – a species of bacterium forms nanoscale gold nuggets to help it to grow in toxic solutions of the precious metal, according to a new study published in Nature Chemical Biology. The bacteria could be used to collect gold from mine waste, says Frank […]
Iapetus is the third largest moon of Saturn, with a radius of about 42% that of our moon, and a mass that weighs up to only 2.5%. But Iapetus has a number of shocking features, unique throughout the entire solar system. The Walnut Moon This is the equatorial ridge that runs along the center of […]
The (still debated) asteroid that slammed into the Earth 65 million years ago and played a crucial role in wiping dinosaurs out, may have actually been a binary system- 2 asteroids engaged in an orbit around each other. Double trouble The surprising claim comes from analyzing the proportion of asteroid craters on Earth that were […]
