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The natural world sometimes has a magnificent way of dealing with its own problems – and this is exactly the case here. Coral threatened by toxic seaweeds emit a chemical signal which draws fish to eat away the danger. When Acropora nasuta corals come into contact with the toxic seaweed Chlorodesmis fastigiata, they scream for […]
Is light a wave, or is it made of particles? This question has puzzled since the dawn of modern physics, because somehow, light seemed to behave preferentially, depending on the situation – it was either a wave or a particle, but never both at the same time. This new quantum experiment seems to show that […]
This spike-headed dinosaur roamer a much warmer Canada 78 million years ago, making it the earliest horned reptile ever. “In terms of large-bodied ones that look like Triceratops, this is definitely the oldest,” said biologist Michael Ryan, lead author of the new study describing the dinosaur, published online Thursday by the Canadian Journal of Earth […]
Tiaras, snake-head bracelets and buttons – all made of gold, were found in the Getae burial site near northern village of Sveshtari, Bulgaria. Bulgaria really seems to be an archaeological paradise at the moment; after finding the oldest European prehistoric town, archaeologists have stumbled upon another great treasure, in a different area. The artefacts have […]
“We found that adding low amounts of physical activity to one’s daily routine, such as 75 minutes of brisk walking per week, was associated with increased longevity: a gain of 1.8 years of life expectancy after age 40, compared with doing no such activity,” explained Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine I-Min Lee. 75 minutes […]
The new architecture, depicted in the picture below can exceed a 40 percent conversion efficiency, and even when irradiated from the side it generates solar conversion efficiencies that rival, and may eventually surpass, even the most ultra-efficient photovolataics. The new cell was developed by researchers working on the David Ben-Gurion National Solar Research Center, and […]
Pack your bags and save the children ladies and gents, it’s the end of the world! A group of researchers suggests that the odds are wild Arabica coffee will go extinct well by the end of the century, dealing a devastating blow to the coffee industry. The study was conducted by researchers from the Royal […]
Your ear is a fascinating place – seriously, that’s not some psychotic pick up line. Deep in the inner ear of mammals lies a natural battery, a place filled with ions that produces an electrical potential which drives your neural impulses. Now, a team of researchers have shown this battery can power a device without […]
As far as black holes go, Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way is pretty boring. It emits about the same energy as the sun, despite being 4 million times more massive. Sagittarius A* Astronomers have observed that about once a day, the black hole awakes, emitting a brief […]
New tests conducted by MIT researchers working at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies showed nanomaterials could lead to better armor against pretty much everything, from all sort of bullets to micrometeorites. Go small to go big In the good old days, if you wanted a good armor, you had to bulk up. First it was […]
Named after the almost all-powerful dark spirit from the Lord of The Rings, the Sauron dinosaurs roamed Africa some 95 million years ago. The species was named Sauroniops pachytholus, which more or less means “The eye of Sauron”, and it was identified so far from a single fossil found in Morocco. The fossil had only […]
Why would a dinosaur with a body built for running have not two, but four wings, as well as a feathered tail? There seems to be only one real reason: flying. But why would it need to fly in the first place? Paleontologists have long wondered about it, but now it seems, they’ve finally found […]
This week, there’s not going to be a picture, but rather a series of picture, because you just can’t sum up the beauty of columnar basalts in a single picture. Basalt is one of the more common extrusive igneous (volcanic) rocks. But how can these hexagonal columns take form? There’s no photoshop, no cutting, so […]
The great pics from Hubble just never end! This time, the brave telescope offered an impressive view of the center of globular cluster NGC 6362. The image of this spherical collection of stars takes a deeper look at the core of the globular cluster, which contains a high concentration of stars with different colors. Seeing […]
The entire Indian population depends on good crops to survive, and good crops depend on the monsoon; according to a research conducted by a Potsdam University team, the monsoon could fail frequently and catastrophically over the next 200 years – as a result of global warming. There is already a noticed 40 to 70 average […]
For researchers working with the bird, it came as a shock that Figaro was able to learn how to use a tool at all – let alone learn it by himself. While a hook-like twig might not be the most complex tool in the world, it still did the job, allowing the bird to grab […]
This article has nothing to do with science, it is just an offbeat post, and some ranting may occur. Proceed at your own risk. Mexican firm Fernando Romero EnterprisE (FREE) will design a chapel in Miami with plans modeled on the pleated fabric gown of religious figure the Lady of Guadalupe. The structure looks absolutely […]
An increasing number of people are starting to take their breakfast in the form of a sandwich, be it pork roll, bacon and eggs, sausage, or even a hamburger. While tasty and full of energy, this breakfast is a ticking bomb for your body, a tremendous amount of fat which makes your body very unhappy. […]
Researchers from Environment Canada (EC) and the University of Alberta have published a study in which they showed contaminants accumulated in the snow near oilsands operations, despite what oil companies are claiming. They also discovered contaminants in precipitation from testing in the region. Perhaps even more disturbing is that fact that researchers were discouraged […]
Back in the prehistoric, and even Antiquity days, man didn’t understand a lot of things; he took every such phenomena and said well, this god did it, or that spirit did it, or some entity did it and that’s just how it goes. Same goes for fossils – whenever somebody stumbled across a fossil, they […]
Curiosity took a break from its usual rock sampling activities and instead focused on the air, trying to figure out how Mars lost the biggest part of its atmosphere, leaving it with 100 times less than what Earth has. Researchers believe in the distant past, Mars was a pretty different sight from what we […]
Researchers have shown that it’s genes, and not the Sun which increases the risk of melanoma in redheads. Doctors previously believed that their pale skin, often covered with freckles just didn’t provide as much protection towards UV’s, but new research showed that genetic factors of the skin pigment are the real culprits here. “We’ve […]
I gotta say, sometimes it absolutely baffles me to see the kind of complex studies astrophysicists do, and this is definitely one of them. The light from the first stars in the Universe is still lingering around in the cosmos, and researchers have found a new way to capture it: using ultra-bright galaxies that act […]
Archaeologists working in Bulgaria have unearthed what they claim to be the remains of the oldest prehistoric town in all of Europe; they believe the settlement existed since between 4700 and 4200 BC. Excavation of the site has been in progress since 2005, when two story homes and three meter high walls surrounding the town […]
Felix Baumgartner, the supersonic man who jumped from about 40.000 meters above ground is definitely a man up for new thrills and new conquests, so you’d expect him to be all for space exploration. But in a recent interview, he takes the totally opposite stand, claiming that any Mars missions are a waste of money […]
If you think about tsunamis, you’ll probably think about Japan, Indonesia, maybe America… the last place you’d image would be the Alps, right? Well, you might have to go back to that. About 1500 years ago, a massive flood took place in Geneva, Switzerland, wiping out everything in its path, crippling the local community. Now, […]
I recently came across a great article written in the Washington Post which really gives some insight about the economics behind wind power and coal power. If you happen to listen to the more politicized or economic discussions, you’ll probably notice that the ball is thrown into the field of natural gas: many believe that […]
Asthma is a chronic, inflammatory disease that causes the airways of the lungs to swell and narrow, leading to wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing. It affects millions of people worldwide, and despite the fact that treatment exists for it, getting the right dosage and regime requires extremely detailed information about the disease […]
Well it may be a bit of overreaction, but with the Halloween and all, you just have to call it: 70 million year old mammal had long, oversized, blood-red teeth, scurrying at the feet of dinosaurs. The discovery of a new skull now gives new insight into his diet and habits. Barbatodon transylvanicus lived in […]
Vesta is “peppered” with carbon materials which researchers believe were left behind by asteroids gently striking its surface. Vesta is an asteroid itself – but one so large that some astronauts were actually thinking about declaring it a planet, or at least a protoplanet. It is the second largest asteroid in our solar system, second […]
The largest branch of animals in the tree of lifes are the protostomes – historically defined by the order in which they develop a mouth and an anus as embryos. But new gene-expression data conducted on “penis worms” suggests otherwise. The mouth and the anus Biologists will have to rename and rethink the protostomes, explains […]
Biologists working in Brazil have discovered nine new species of orange, purple and pink tarantulas lurking around in the trees. The haul of new spider species came from a lengthy study conducted in the Amazon by tarantula specialist Dr Rogerio Bertani of the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo. He described these new findings in the […]
Hurricane Sandy continues to ravage North America, going strong at 150 km/h winds, and is expected make landfall near the New Jersey-Delaware border Monday night, threatening the entire Eastern Seaboard, with numerous people already being evacuated or preparing for this dire event. Before discussing matters further, I’d just like to express my entire sympathy to […]
SpaceX has gone where no private company has gone before – and safely returned. They are now officially the only company able of space flight, after successfully delivering cargo to the International Space Station and now, returning, with some rather dubious cargo. Of the total 907 kilograms of experiments and gear it holds, the […]
What’s halfway between 1 and 9? If you’re like most people, you’d answer 5 or 4.5 – which is fine. But if you take a 6 year old kid on the other hand and ask him the same question, the odds are he’ll answer 3. According to a recent study, the great majority of children […]
The general consensus was that a star called Fomalhaut doesn’t host any planet. But astronomers, the thorough people they are, decided to take another look at it using the Hubble Space Telescope – and the results contradicted the everything, claiming that Fomalhaut does in fact have a planet, and furthermore, this planet (Fomalhaut b) is […]
Three new members have now embarked on the International Space Station, after docking the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft to the Poisk module. After NASA retired their sub-orbital space flight program, the Soyuz shuttles are currently the only way to get people in and out of the ISS. For Commander Sunita Williams and Flight Engineers Aki Hoshide […]
The Cassini spacecraft recorded the aftermath of the largest, hottest gas vortex ever recorded in our solar system, making astrophysicists think there’s much more to Saturn’s atmosphere than meets the eye. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft (often just called Cassini) is a robotic ship sent out to monitor the Saturn system. It sent out surprising, valuable data […]
Scientists in Canada have made a remarkable discovery: they have unearthed the first fossils of a feathered dinosaur ever found in the Americas. Their research, which was published in Science, includes 75 million year old specimens, including a juvenile and two adult ostrich-like creatures which go by the name of ornithomimids. Until now, the only […]
The long held belief that women are better multitaskers than men seems to finally be debunked, according to a new Swedish study. “On the contrary, the results of our study show that men are better at multitasking than women,” Timo Maentylae, a psychology professor at Stockholm University, said. Surprising or not, the female ability to […]
Most people perceive China as a greatly polluted, overcrowded country, with little to no interest in renewable energy and a sustainable future. But that legacy is changing. Chicago-based architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill have unveiled plans for Chengdu Tianfu District Great City, a self sustainable satellite city which offers insightful solutions to the crowded […]
I’m not necessarily a big fan of Ikea, but you have to admire this kind of initiative. The Swedish corporation announced they will go for a sustainable business model, one which features €1.5 billion investments in solar and wind power. The furniture company has remained true to its initial model, which involved doing things as […]
The hole in the ozone layer is the second smallest in twenty years, data from NASA and NOAA shows, but it’s not all good news. In fact, it could signal things taking a turn for the worst. Warmer air temperatures high above the Antarctic led to the hole shrinking, now covering an area of about […]
The European Southern Observatory has captured and analyzed an image of the center of our galaxy which, if printed at normal resolution, would measure 9 x 7 meters. The enormous 9 gigapixel image features the very center of the Milky Way and was created not to be a background for huge screens, but to help […]
Some people never forget a face, some people do it all the time; and then there’s the people who actually can’t differentiate between one face and another, suffering from a condition called facial blindness. For the first time, researchers have managed to pinpoint two places in the brain (in the fusiform gyrus) which are responsible […]
In 1989, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made a sensational claim that would have forever changed the world we live in – if it had been true. They claimed to achieve nuclear cold fusion at room temperature using a relatively simple device, thus creating a safe, clean source of energy. The cold fusion dream, revisited […]
Humanity has long dreamed of a mission to Mars, but the boots which would take the first steps on the Red Planet could be stomping on all Martian life. Despite any decontamination process, a swarm of 100 trillion microbes will accompany every astronaut who lands on Mars – as a part of their system. This […]
Strangely enough, it was computer simulation that provided the mathematical support for the grandmother hypothesis – a famous yet controversial theory which suggests adult humans have longer lifespans as a result of grandmother babysitting. Longevity genes The simulation indicates that without any estimate of the brain size, an animal with a chimp-like lifespan can evolve […]
Nope, this is not the Mars chocolate I’m talking about – NASA’s Curiosity rover is digging in at Rocknest – a patch of Martian sand the robot has been exploring for the past week. If you look at the picture above, taken by one of Curiosity’s camera, you can actually see three bite-like marks, left […]
Sunita Williams is an Indian-American astronaut who currently holds the record for longest space flight time among female space travelers (over 200 days). She recently declared she’s not missing gravity at all and that she finds the experience of floating around in imponderability priceless. “I love being up here and I love floating around,” 47-year-old […]
