gear Push settings
The world’s longest kidney transplant chain which just ended at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, USA was possible thanks to the people who just ‘paid it forward’. The chain started when Rick Ruzzamenti, a man who describes himself as being “impulsive” decided to donate his kidney, after being motivated by a friend who had […]
For decades, classrooms were caught in a debate between creationism and evolution, and now, teachers will once again be caught in a somewhat similar discussion regarding climate change. Planting the seeds of ignorance Recently leaked documents from The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, revealed plans to pay a non-climate scientist to create school curricula […]
Unexpected new findings from University of Maryland researchers show that a portion of our planet’s mantle survived Earth’s rough formation, including a collision with a planet-sized body which many believe led to the creation of the Moon, as we see it today. “It is believed that Earth grew to its current size by collisions of […]
It looks like not all is going bad for Italian researchers, after the trial of the seismologists: physicists from Italy have discovered the first evidence of a nucleus that doesn’t exist in nature and survives only for 10-10 seconds when created in a laboratory. Strange matter Hypernuclei contain all sorts of protons and neutrons, but […]
Alan Turing is considered by most to be the father of the computer; the British mathematician had one of the most tragic fates ever suffered by scientists. Aside from defining concepts such as ‘algorithm’ and ‘artificial intelligence’, he also put up an idea that repetitive biological patterns are generated by a pair of morphogens that […]
I will take the risk of being quite subjective: the trial against the Italian seismologists just got a lot more absurd. Six seismologists and one government official are charged with manslaughter after telling the public there is no major risk of an earthquake, right before the deadly temblor in 2009. Yesterday, the much anticipated and […]
Perhaps the most famous thing left behind on the Moon is a footprint, a boot-shaped impression in the moon dust, photographed and viewed by millions of people. If everything goes according to plan, in the future, many people visiting the Moon will look at it and refer to it as ‘the first’. But about 100 […]
After two decades of drilling in the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, Russian researchers have finally managed to drill down to lake Vostok, which has been sealed under kilometers of ice for over 15 million years. When they first announced they reached the water, biologists were ecstatic; not only did they get a unique chance to […]
The speed at which someone walks and the likelihood of dementia don’t have absolutely anything in common at a first glance, but according to a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2009 there is a ‘strong association’ between the two. They also said at a conference that grip strength in middle-aged men was […]
Some black holes are just meant to survive, regardless of what they go through. This is probably the case with the HLX-1 black hole, 20.000 times more massive than the Sun, which is practically floating on the outskirts of a galaxy. The problem with this supermassive black hole is that judging by its size, should […]
When we started putting satellites on orbit, few could have pondered the idea of space junk, and even fewer would have guessed that a time will come when we will have to clean up after our spatial enterprises. But the time came, and really soon, and space junk is a real problem. This is why […]
Researchers successfully tested gene therapy in rats to stimulate the production of a chemical which naturally occurs in the brain and stops seizures from taking place. About 3.000.000 people are suffering from epilepsy in the US alone, and a major characteristic of this lifelong disease is uncontrollable seizures which prevent sufferers from normally carrying on […]
Four hundred of the most popular lipsticks in the US contain trace levels of lead, according to tests conducted by the federal government – a number much bigger than what was expected. Five of the L’Oreal and Maybelline lipsticks ranked among the top 10 most contaminated brands, as well as two Cover Girl and two […]
Seropositive volunteers participated in what can turn out to be a revolutionary test, conducted in Belgium, at the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp University Hospital and Antwerp University, involving a new therapeutic vaccine that uses cells from their own bodies; the cells are then charged and reinjected into their system. A cure for AIDS […]
Life on Earth started out in a ‘small little pond’, just like Darwin, the father of evolution, proposed more than 140 years ago, according to a provocative new study. According to this study, the primordial cells were ‘created’ (though germinated would be a better word) in pools of condensed vapor which appeared as a result […]
Based on how the tectonic plates are moving now, no later than one hundred million years, Asia and the Americas will merge into one huge supercontinent, named Amasia. Geophysicists have long theoretized this, but a team of researchers from Yale University offered a new view on how Amasia will be formed. Continental drift Continental drift […]
NASA is trying to push an idea that has been around for quite a while: a “human-tended waypoint” near the far side of the moon, a mission perfect for an international partnership and with a huge scientific value. I really, really recommend going to NASA’s page for a lovely inside scoop. NASA declared that they […]
The financial problems for NASA continue to deepen, as the Obama budget slashes another $226 million from the US space agency’s Mars exploration program, relying on a possible but uncertain partnership with Europe; and this is not the worst news. The biggest budget cuts are aimed at robotic exploration. The budget stated that “support for […]
Kenneth Boehr was doing the usual chemistry class, not expecting more than you would from any other ten year old students. The same for Clara Lazen, one of his students, who started working on a molecule building kit, while looking at the periodic table she was handed; she handed her teacher a model constructed from […]
Have you ever seen a model of the solar system? They’re just great! But most of them have one big fault – they’re not to scale. But that’s not the case with the biggest model in the world, located in Sweden, which stretches around the entire country and represents everything to scale. The Sun is […]
No less than 1 million birth control pills have been taken from the shelves by big pharma Pfizer in the United States because they might not contain enough contraceptive to prevent pregnancy. Whoa! Wait just a moment there. They might not have enough contraceptive? As in, if I took the pills, I might get pregnant? […]
For the first time, a NASA spacecraft has detected matter from outside our solar system – matter that drifted from some other part of our galaxy right to us. This interstellar material was spotted by Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a spacecraft with the purpose of studying the outskirts of our solar system from its orbit […]
In the not so distant future, scientists could be able to eavesdrop on a patient’s inner monologues or communicate with those who cannot speak, thanks to a breakthrough made by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. They have astonishingly managed to crack the ‘code’ of a brain wave by decoding electrical activity in a […]
We were telling you a few days ago about a solar storm set to hit Earth, but as it turns out, this isn’t all bad news. In its way towards our planet, the storm also hit Mars, with the NASA Mars rover, revealing some interesting information regarding the amount of radiation an astronaut would be […]
Monday marks the beginning of the new Chinese Year, the Year of the Dragon and Chinese communities all around the world are preparing for the extravagant festivities which will take place, including vibrant parades and huge manifestations. However, along with the joy of a new year, the dragon also brings a warning, regarding population growth […]
Graphene is starting to show its really interesting and exciting properties; recently, scientists have managed to put together two separate properties which usually don’t go together: it is iridescent like a butterfly’s wing, and superhydrophobic, like a rose petal or this material. The engineered surface could have applications in liquid transportation and analysis, or due […]
According to a new report released by the Chinese authorities, global warming “threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods“. China, the world’s second largest economy and biggest polluter understands that “greenhouse gases from industry, transport and shifting land-use poses a long-term threat to China’s prosperity, health […]
There has been a lot of fuss lately about shale gas, which has become increasingly important in the past decade, particularly due to hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), a modern technique used to extract it from the underground. Many have proposed natural shale gas as a supposedly clean bridge fuel, fit to address climate change and […]
Federal regulators have designated almost 42,000 square miles of ocean as critical habitat for the leatherback turtles, the largest turtles in the world; even though this is a much welcomed initiative, the surface is far, far less than environmentalists and biologists were expecting. A haven for turtles This protected area is the first of its […]
Ever since researchers started studying the Earth’s spin, they noticed that the spin isn’t perfect. Many believe this is a result of the different elements in the Earth’s core, mantle and crust, which have different densities and generate different friction. Most researchers studying this wobble agreed that the mantle would have to respond to the […]
An artificial brain has taught itself how to estimate the number of objects in an image without actually counting them, showcasing abilities displayed by many animals, as well as humans. Due to the fact that the model wasn’t preprogrammed with numerical abilities (it can’t count), it is believed that this skill emerged as a result […]
A nurse’s tender loving really does ease the pain during a medical procedure, and grandma’s cookies really do taste better when they’re made with love. This new study conducted by researchers from the University of Maryland might have numerous real-world applications, from medicine to parenting and business. “The way we read another persons intentions changes […]
Using a technique called ‘gravitational lensing’, astronomers were able to spot a dwarf galaxy, some 10 billion light years away, which they believe is made out mostly of dark matter. It is only the second ‘black dwarf’ ever found – why there are so few of them is one of the biggest questions in astronomy. […]
A team of archaeologists from Egypt and Switzerland unearthed the 3100 year-old tomb of a female singer in the valley of the kings – a woman not related to the ancient Egyptian royal families ever found there. This was published on numerous sites with faulty information, reporting that the tomb was 1100 years old (like […]
The increasing amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in oceans is literally driving fish crazy, according to an Australian researcher. Professor Phillip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University explains that the CO2 interferes with their ability to hear, smell, and swim – the most important things for […]
An international team of scientists showed that simple, inexpensive measures to cut emissions of two common pollutants will significantly slow global warming, boost crop production throughout the world and save many lives in the process. The climate change debate is traditionally centered around carbon dioxide emissions – one of the major problems and causes of […]
The Phobos Grunt probe, which was supposed to head for Phobos, a satellite of Mars but instead got stuck on Earth’s orbit, found its inglorious ending, crashing into the Pacific, marking an ill-fated bid of restoring the glory to the Russian space program. Russian officials declared they will find and punish the officials responsible for […]
Measuring only a fraction of a coin, these tiny frogs were discovered hopping around in the tropical forests of Papua New Guinea. But small as they are, they have really big names: Paedophryne amauensis and Paedophryne swiftorum are the smallest vertebrates found so far, according to the report published in PLoS one. Until now, that […]
This is truly one of the days when you could feel ashamed to be human. According to reports, loggers in Brazil captured an 8 year old girl from one of the Amazon’s last tribes and burned her alive, in an attempt to force tribes out of the territory. Indigenous people from the Amazonian basin have […]
It seems more and more evidence points towards marijuana not being such a bad thing; now, a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco disproved one of the major concerns regarding smoking some ‘belvedere’, concluding that it doesn’t harm the lungs in any way. The study, which was published in the Journal […]
A team of researchers predicted the next big thing in the world of particle physics: super symmetry, or Susy. The Higgs boson is the standing stone of modern particle physics, but it is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding our Universe, and according to Howard Baer, Homer L. Dodge Professor of […]
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists agreed that the world is less safe than it was two years ago – just 5 minutes to midnight. Let me tell you what this is about. When the atomic bomb was created, by people in all levels of academia and research, people were stunned by the amount of […]
Galaxy clusters are the biggest stable structures in our Universe that we know of, typically containing 50 to 1000 galaxies. El Gordo Seven billion light years away and two million billion times heavier than our Sun lies El Gordo – which is Spanish for ‘the fat one’. Astronomers reporting at the 219th American Astronomical Society […]
Astronomers have created the most accurate and comprehensive map yet of the universe’s dark matter, finding it spread in a spider web around areas which would otherwise seem not interesting. It has long been theoretized that the Universe is made out of 85% dark matter, because judging only by the amount of visible matter… the […]
Found in the tropical landscapes of Brazil (where else?), Philcoxia minensis has developed quite an interesting mechanism to feed: it uses sticky underground leaves to trap tiny roundworms. This rare plant has a few leaves above the ground as well, but most are below; until now, biologists were unaware that plants could actually feed like […]
Germany keeps setting a right example of how renewable energy should be treated by the authorities, as opposed to the US, for example. In Germany, one of the world’s leading countries in this field, 51% of all renewable energy is owned by citizens and farmers, who use it for themselves or even sell it back […]
Scientists publish papers to tell the world about what they’ve done. Sharing your results with the world is especially important in the pharmaceutical industry, so people will know if/how the drug in case worked and how good it is. But a team of scientists found that statistically, for studies funded by the US government, more […]
Moore’s law states that the processing power of computers doubles approximately every two years; as prices fall and manufacturing technology increases, researchers have now shown that wires just a few nanometres wide conduct electricity in the same way as their larger counterparts, rather than being affected by quantum mechanics – a result which surprised many […]
Life on the ISS has its ups and downs, its perks and downsides; but in February, something which seemed a fantasy two decades ago is about to happen: the first private spaceship will ‘visit’ the International Space Station, marking the start of a new era in spaceflight. The private spaceflight company SpaceX plans to launch […]
It’s been a fantastic year, and another one that ended too quickly, if you ask me. For science, it was absolutely fantastic, and some mind blowing discoveries were made, including earth-like planets, the hunt for the Higgs boson, fight against cancer, earthquakes, and many, many more. Here’s just a quick sum up of the things […]
