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Doctors in Pittsburg are stunned by the ability of a patient who reached a never seen before mental control level of a robotic arm. The human part Jan Scheuermann, 53, who is paralyzed neck down, was able to move, grasp and release a variety of common household items with the same ability as with a […]
The National Climatic Data Center have released their monthly report for November 2012, which means we have an almost perfect picture of the temperatures in 2012, and the situation is pretty bleak: 2012 will almost certainly be, with a comfortable margin, the warmest year on record in the US. November itself wasn’t extremely warm, being […]
Researchers had already known that dogs can sniff out hospital superbug Clostridium defficile from stool samples of patients, but now, a really cute beagle has been trained to sniff out the bacteria from the air in the hospital. C. difficile infection generally occurs in patients who have been recently admitted in hospitals and were previously […]
Looking for the inspiration to go that extra mile, or just stuck on a problem you can’t solve? A walk in the park is your solution – at least according to a new study conducted by US researchers. According to the research, which was a joint effort by University of Utah and University of Kansas […]
Popular weight loss aid Alli has been available since 2009; you take it three times a week for 12 weeks, and if everything goes according to plan, you lose 10 percent of your body fat. Over 12 million people worldwide use it, because, as it turns out, it’s actually quite good. But according to a […]
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 some 142 kilometers off the coast of Baja, California. The earthquake had its origin at approximately 10 km below surface level and so far, no tsunami warning has been issues. Tectonic setting Sitting ontop of three of the large […]
As I was telling you in a previous article, researchers from NASA have created a high-res gravity map for the Moon, using two twin man-made satellites – Ebb and Flow. The satellites have done their mission well, shedding light on many of the Moon’s features, but NASA isn’t planning a safe return for them: they […]
Women who go into pregnancy overweight risk giving birth to children with lower IQs, a new study published in the journal Pediatrics claims. While the findings don’t necessarily suggest that maternal weight affects children’s mental abilities, researchers stand by their conclusions, which is that heavy mothers tend to have a somewhat lower IQ than their […]
If you want to find out if you’re sitting on a gold mine, you should get some termites, a new experiment conducted in Australia suggests – it concluded that termites “mine” and stockpile the precious metal while they’re collecting subterranean material for their nests. For the study, entomologist Aaron Stewart, with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and […]
It may not be the Pandora, but James Cameron dove into one of the most fascinating environments from our planet: the Mariana trench, the deepest point on the face of the Earth. The scientists involved in the project presented the first results at the American Geophysical Union meeting (where else?) in San Francisco. They explained […]
Polish researchers have found the earliest evidence of prehistoric cheese-making from a study of 7,500-year-old pottery fragments that are perforated much like today’s modern cheese strainers. When early men figured out how to make cheese, it was a big thing; at that time, livestock was too precious to use just for the meat, and mankind […]
Using the evergreen Hubble telescope, astronomers from NASA have been able to uncover a previously unseen population of ancient galaxies, observed as they appeared only 350 million to 600 million years after the big bang, when the Universe was still in its infancy. The galaxies are located in a patch of the sky called the […]
Scientists operating the Cassini spacecraft have observed what seems to be a miniature, extraterrestrial replica of the Nile river on the surface of Titan, one of Saturn’s many moons. An extraterrestrial hydrocarbon river The valley stretches more than 400 kilometers from it’s “spring” to a large sea; this is the first time such a system […]
While we all have to recognize the huge potential that solar energy brings us, we also have to say that sadly, so far, we’re not very effective at harnessing this energy. The best modern silicon and indium-tin-oxide-based solar cells are approaching the theoretical limit of 33.7% efficiency. A big breakthrough The team led by Stephen […]
I’ve received lots of emails from you people regarding climate change; as it turns out, some of you are mad at us because we accept that man-caused global warming is a scientific reality. I’d like to express my thoughts in a simple pie chart: Bear in mind, peer-reviewed articles are the absolute standard for a […]
Living quite close to Serbia and knowing how they feel about this, I have to say this is really amusing. People from all over the world are flooding to a pyramid-shaped peak in Serbia in the hope that its mystical properties will somehow protect them from the impending doomsday. Hundreds of reservations are pouring in […]
Scientists trying to pinpoint the origin of life have been looking at it the wrong way, a new study claims. A new perspective Instead of recreating the chemical building blocks that led to the emergence of life 3.7 billion years ago, they argue scientists should use key differences in the way that living creatures store […]
If you’re a woman who just can’t give up smoking, but you’ve toned it down, even to just one cigarette per day, then don’t think you’ve eliminated the risks; according to a new research published in the Journal of American Heart Association, even very light smoking doubles the risk of heart failure in women, while […]
If you ever been unlucky enough to feel the wrath of a porcupine, then you’ve probably noticed two things: it hurts like hell, and the quills are really hard to pull out. But don’t be mad – something really good could come out of your pain. Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital now […]
The mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago also terminated most of the lizards living on our planet at the time – including a newly identified creature that’s been named Obamadon gracilis in honor of President Barack Obama. This is when you know you’ve made it big – when you’ve already […]
Negotiating an official climate change pact is an extremely high-stake game, not only due to the threats posed to our entire civilization, but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will redirect a massive, multi billion dollar sum towards different sources. Of course, behind all the “save the planet” rhetoric lies the […]
In a significant blow to people who believe climate change predictions are just blowing hot air, an international study established that climate change predictions made over 20 years ago, in 1990, were actually pretty accurate. What the report did was to compare predictions from the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report, published […]
Some of the human waste we flush out each day could become valuable research material – a potent source of brain cells to analyze, something extremely important for neurodegenerative diseases studies. The technique, described in Nature Methods doesn’t involve embryonic stem cells, which have serious drawbacks when transplanted such as the risk of developing tumours. […]
As a geologist, I tend to see the Earth as a dynamic setting, with all sorts of processes taking place; however, for me, 100.000 years is a really short period. For other, normal people, over the course of decades and centuries, the Earth is really static, with mountains and valleys seemingly anchored firmly in place. […]
Europe’s largest minority group, the Romani people have migrated from northwestern India, a new genetic study shows. The Romani, also known as the Roma, or Romi (depending on the language) have been originally called “gypsies” in the 16th century, because of their widely spread origin and because they were thought to come from Egypt. However, […]
If current climate change trends continue, rising sea levels could prove devastating for low lying coastal areas around the globe, placing the biodiversity at extremely high risks. Islands are especially threatened by rising sea levels, and this study conducted on the Hawaiian islands offers the most detailed and multifaceted assessment available of how island biodiversity […]
After the thrilling success of SpaceX, which is currently the best option to ship equipment and supplies in and out of the International Space Station, another company tries to fill in some big shoes: Golden Spike announces plans to offer manned space flights to the surface of the moon by 2020. The private US company […]
A strong earthquake with an epicenter off the northeastern coast of Japan shook buildings all the way to Tokyo, leading to a tsunami warning for coastal areas of the northeast. The first estimate of the magnitude was 7.4, but was then lowered to 7.3. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) explained there is no risk […]
It was a warm, drought plagued year – in July 2012, farmers in the U.S. Midwest and Plains regions watched crops wither and falter, after a series of unusually high temperatures and low precipitations. However, as the lack of rain continued to make its mark scientists observed another indication of drought in data from NASA […]
Scientists working at NASA and NOAA have released an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite shows the firefly-like glow of the human built establishments across the planet in greater detail than ever before. […]
The Ebb and Flow satellites, known together as the Grail mission are mapping the slight differences in gravity across the Moon. The results show that the Moon received a much bigger battering than previous expected. A troubled past Beneath its surface, the Moon’s interior bears clues from the very early solar system – unlike the […]
French people are among the healthiest nations in the world, but even so, their sperm is sinking, not swimming, according to a recent study. The study analyzed the little swimmers from 26.600 men, taken in a span of 17 years, and they found a significant decrease in quality as time passes – both in concentration […]
The North Star (or Pole Star) has been a guiding light for generations of navigators. But a new study conducted on it claims that the distance from the star to Earth has been grossly overestimated – by 30 percent, actually. Polaris is about 323 light-years away from our solar system, an international team explained, 30 […]
If things continue to move in this direction, a few decades from now, we will be living in a world with only a handful of tigers: just over 3000 tigers remain in the wild today! But if you think other species have it much better, then, you’d better take a seat. Africa’s lions have lost […]
Nyasasaurus parringtoni may have not been revered by other dinosaurs, but according to a new study published in Biology Letters, he is the oldest dinosaur to walk the face of the Earth, surpassing the previous record holder by 10-15 million years. It walked on two legs, measured 2-3 m in length, had a large tail […]
Did you know that the Navy trained dolphins to find mines which often blow up? Apparently, it was a cost effective method; now, the Navy are preparing to replace the dolphins with robots, not because they were doing a bad job or because they want to do a more humane job, but because, guess what? […]
Debunking conspiracy theories Oh boy, it’s this time of the year again: grab your supplies and head on to the bunker, cause the world is ending – again. The popular Mayan conspiracy theory that the world is ending on December 21 has made a surprisingly high number of adept, and NASA had to step in. […]
Data shows that CO2 emissions in 2012 hit 35.6 billion tonnes, showing a 2.6% increase since 2011, and 58% above 1990 levels. Putting this new data into context, it becomes increasingly clear that global warming will not be kept below an increase of 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels, researchers claim. The research by the […]
Researchers from the US have developed a hybrid printer that is able to print cartilage which might one day be implanted into injured patients to help them re-grow lost cartilage in vulnerable areas, such as joints. The innovative 3D printer is a mix of a mix of a traditional ink jet printer and an electrospinning […]
After no less than 48 hours of negotiating in Naples, Italy, the 20 European nations that support the European Space Agency (ESA) have finally agreed on a budget for the agency and a set of priorities which, while not delightful, doesn’t disappoint, despite the tight economic situation Europe is in at the moment. ESA’s activities, […]
Sharks are in a dire position right now, with their numbers decreasing by the millions each year. However, conservationists failed to win new protections for threatened sharks in the Atlantic Ocean at the annual meeting of a major international fisheries commission; they still have hope for following years though, because for the first time, the […]
Most physicists believe that space is not smooth, but it is rather composed of incredibly small subunits, much like a painting made of dots. This micro-landscape is believed to host numerous black holes – black holes, that is, smaller than a trillionth of a trillionth of the diameter of a hydrogen atom, popping in and […]
A few days ago, the Curiosity rover staff made an announcement that sent echoes throughout the entire scientific community – and not only. They announced that they have made a discovery ‘for the history books’, one that is so spectacular they want to quadruple check before they publish it, just to make sure it’s not […]
One of the biggest mysteries scientists are trying to figure out is how the brain encodes thoughts, perceptions and memories – at a molecular level. Nobody knows how this assembly truly works. But a study from MIT and Boston University might shed some light on that matter; the team, led by Earl Miller, the Picower […]
Autism is a condition we’re just starting to learn about, and currently, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects up to 1 in 110 people. The problem here is that while some drugs do treat some symptoms, none can deal with the social deficits common to ASD in humans. As it turns out, mice, can be autistic […]
The Curiosity rover is spending Thanksgiving on Mars, but its plans don’t involve eating turkey or watching football. The rover will spend the day scouting for possible sites to begin its first time drilling. “Thanksgiving isn’t so different on Mars. I had a long drive & plan to take photos. No pie, though,” the Curiosity […]
There’s already a heating debate about legalizing MDMA (the active substance) in ecstasy, especially since it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the substance can be used in therapeutic purposes – particularly in treating post-traumatic stress. Hundreds of veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq suffering from post-traumatic stress (PTS) are seeking help from a married couple who […]
It’s the already a clichee: the big, international company wants to do some highly profitable operations, threatening the native wildlife and environment. This time, the corporate behemoth is Northern Dynasty Minerals, of British Columbia, who teamed up with other companies, and now name themselves the Pebble Partnership. In the other corner lies native groups, […]
A study conducted by researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science concluded that both Earth and Mars got their water from the same source chondritic meteorites. However, unlike Earth, Martian rocks containing atmospheric volatiles such as water don’t get recycled into the planet’s deep interior. The origin, history, and evolution of Martian water are […]
Greenhouse gas emissions are growing, growing and growing; the level of CO2 emitted by humans grew to 390.9 parts per million (ppm) – 40 percent above the levels in the pre-industrial age. Fossil fuels are the biggest are the biggest contributor to this volume, responsible for 375 billion metric tonnes (413.37 billion tons) of carbon […]
