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It never ceases to amaze me how this kind of idiotic, or perhaps even intentionally wrong studies are published and accepted by the world. What am I talking about ? Well, you know those pamphlets and promotional stuff that show your brain with holes in it when you take ecstasy, or that you will get […]
The sad loss of over 10.000 people caused by the M8.9 earthquake and the tsunamis it generated is not the only problem Japanese people will have to deal with; this major disaster is also the most costly in world history, a “title” previously held by Katrina in the US, with an estimate of £77 billion […]
In the aftermath of the earthquake that violently struck Japan and the tsunamis it generated, the small, industrial city of Hitachi emerged unscathed from what Prime Minister Naoto Kan has described as Japan’s “worst crisis since the Second World War”, making it somewhat of a refuge for the hordes of refugees that flooded from many […]
It’s no mystery for anybody that the earthquake in Japan is one of the largest ever to be recorded in history, and it’s no mystery for anybody that Japan is an area with numerous seismic events, but the magnitude of this one exceeded greatly all expectations, even the most pessimistic one. The 8.9 magnitude (or […]
This picture, created by a computer model at NOAA displays the expected heights of the tsunamis created by the 8.9 earthquake in Japan (which may be “upgraded” to 9.0 – calculating magnitudes is a pretty delicate issue). Of course the largest wave heights are expected near the epicenter, off the coast of Sendai, Honshu, Japan. […]
The damage caused by the 8.9 earthquake in Japan is far from being over – asa matter of fact, unfortunately, it may very well just be starting. The earthquake and the tsunamis it created cut down power supply throughout a major part of Japan, and so the cooling system of several power plants was unable to […]
The earthquake that occured yesterday near the coast of Japan, the 4th most powerful earthquake ever to be recorded, is causing even more problems, after the direct damage, the aftershocks, the tsunamis, and the fire tsunamis; this time, things can get way, way bigger and worse, and the disaster toll keeps rising. An explosion at […]
The earthquake that struck Japan is much worse than original estimates ! The original 7.9 magnitude actually just got upgraded to 8.9, which makes it 10 times more powerful, and the 4th most powerful earthquake in the past 100 years. Sadly, reports of injured and killed people keep coming in, and will likely not stop […]
The Opportunity Rover is one brave little guy – he managed to defeat even the most optimistic of predictions, functioning several years after its primary objective was fulfilled. But now, he is little more than a bluish speck on this picture of the Santa Maria crater on the surface of Mars, taken by the Mars […]
Oh, it’s this topic again ! It seems for some reason, which eludes me, more and more people are buying and drinking bottled water, even if the tap water is usually perfectly fine – and 1900 (!) times cheaper. About 2.7 million tons of petroleum-derived plastic is used for making bottles every single year only […]
It’s been a busy tectonic month, and things aren’t about to chill down. A massive 7.9 magnitude Earthquake has just hit the Northern coast of Japan, triggering a more than four meter tall tsunami that wiped down cars and other property along the coastline, but it’s still unclear how many people were injured or killed. […]
To be touched by a careful nurse, and to feel taken care of is very important, and often neglected; having that sense of comfort and tranquility might just be what gives that extra boost to the patient. Touching patients can lead to a numerous of responses, from calmness to discomfort, from intimacy to even aggression. […]
Pancreatic cancer, also known as pancreatic carcinoma, is an aggressive type of cancer that invades the pancreas, an important organ near the stomach and the liver. While some pancreatic cancers can be caught and treated early, the prognosis for this disease is usually not good; the National Institutes of Health report that about 80% of […]
It’s been quite a while since we published anything about the Cassini mission, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been active. The information it keeps sending back to Earth is priceless, and at some points, totally surprising. This was also the case of the Saturn Moon Enceladus, which appears to give out much more heat […]
Ironically, the Medical and Pharmaceutical industry isn’tclean at all; the huge sums of money involved, and the interests that revolve around them often lead to unpleasant and unwanted consequences, such as inaccurate studies or overpriced meds. Also, despite the numerous efforts to make medical journals disclose funding sources for what they publish, the results have […]
It’s been long theoretized by most women, and not only, that there is a connection between the penis and the brain – and research done by Gill Bejerano, a biologist at Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues seems to support that theory, at least in a way. Let’s look at our close relatives, the […]
The Dalai Lama announced today that he plans to retire as the political head of the Tibetan exiled movement, and leaving room for a democratically elected leader. “Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power,” the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said in a statement. “Now, we […]
Sharks are some of the most fascinating creatures to ever have “walked” the face of the planet; the best argument for this claim would be that they stand alons on the top of the food chain, with no natural enemy, other than humans, of course. Among the species of sharks, a few stand out as […]
Iceland is definitely one weird country; it is extremely rich in geothermal and volcanic energy, and has access to a significant quantity of fish, but other than that, resources are extremely scarce. At the end of 2008, the economy collapsed, with all major banks going bankrupt. Since then, they have been desperately trying to rise […]
We probably all know (especially thanks to the abundancy of TV series) what Crime Scene Investigators (CSI) are. Probably not so many people know exactly what geophysics is. As the name says it (geo=earth), geophysics studies the phyisical properties of the Earth, such as gravity, electromagnetism, plate tectonics, and extremely numerous other ones; it is […]
The joint exploration by NASA and ESA, encompassing joint efforts from the American and European space agency seemed like a dream come true for astronomers from both sides. Especially after the European side designed and started building the Mars Rover, everything appeared to go in the right direction. But the issues NASA is facing at […]
This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve come across lately, and it shows just how much lack of responsibility and sheer ignorance people can have. A bengal tiger from the Turkish capital of Ankara killed a lion that was in a cage next to him, after finding a gap in the fence separating […]
Well, it is the best, or the worst attempt ever actually, depends on your point of view. First, a little bit on the background: the attacking force was composed of an unemployed French nuclear physicist, André “mad scientist” Gardes. The defending team was a small island south of Britain named Sark, with a population of […]
Usually, we tend to think of Neanderthals as being our bigger and stronger but not-so-intelligent cousins, but that may very well not be true; it has been shown on several occasions that Neanderthals were quite smart, and they could figure out a whole lot of things by their own, without immitating humans. In recent years, […]
They came from Mars; they invaded our planet billions of years ago. But they were small, and came with rocks instead of spaceships. At least that’s what Christopher Carr from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) thinks. He claims that sheltered within meteorite rocks, microbial Martians could have survived the cold dark space, and make […]
As I told you yesterday, the Discovery shuttle is preparing for a well deserved retirement, after 365 days spent in space, during which it traveled more than 150 million miles. All systems are go for landing at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, thus concluding its 13th and final mission. The shuttle left the International Space Station […]
Elephants are absolutely amazing animals, from numerous points of view; they are extremely loyal and loving creatures, they have evolved up to the point where they have almost no natural enemy (except man), and they are smart – very smart ! Joshua Plotnik, a comparative psychologist at the University of Cambridge in England and head […]
Whenever you hear about chemical warfare, modern times come to mind; if someone were to ask you when chemical warfare did its first victims, what would you say ? The 20th century, maybe late 19th ? Probably something like this. After all, it would be almost impossible to consider something like this 2000 years ago […]
It’s another bad omen for life on Earth, as a colony of imperial penguins from the Antarctica peninsula has disappeared, probably due to the warming of ice caused by global warming. It was expected that penguins would greatly suffer from the warming, but this is the first documented case ever of the disappearance of a […]
They're big, they're bad, and they'll burn your house down.
When launched in 1984, Discovery was top notch; it was the best available around, and only the third operational orbiter; now, after 3 flights, over five thousand orbits and no less than 365 days spent in space, during which it traveled 150 million miles Discovery left the International Space Station (ISS) for the last time; […]
In case you have no idea who Carl Sagan is… well, you should, basically. Carl Sagan is one of those men who brought science to the people, making numerous fields such as astronomy, astrophysics, exobiology, and many, many more accessible for the masses. He published more than six hundred research papers and popular science works, […]
Two days ago, the whole world was teeming with excitement, after some NASA researchers reported finding traces of alien life in meteorites; now, even their employer distances itself from them, and the whole scientific world seems to frown upon this work. However, in what is a very unusual move, NASA has denied any involvement with […]
As I was telling you just earlier, the Kilauea volcano erupted, with a fissure throwing lava up more than 20 meters towards the sky in a dazzling display of volcanic power. The Hawaii eruption took place just after one of the volcano’s floors collapsed, thus creating the necessary conditions for lava to come out to the […]
Hawaii isn’t all warm breezes, mojitos and surfing; it’s what geologists call a hot spot, one of the most active volcanic regions on the face of the planet, so it was little surprise when Kilauea erupted; after all, it is one of the most potent volcanoes in the world, being in a constant eruption since […]
A new study conducted by the German Medical Association reported that about half of the doctors in Germany have prescribed placebo at some point, and no less than 88% of GPs in Bavaria have sent patients home with placebo treatments. Placebo’s are still a matter of debate throughout the medicine world and not only, and […]
NASA is going through a whole lot during period: discussions about budget cuts, problems with launches, even with Hubble, and many, many more smaller or bigger problems are denting one of the finest organizations in the world. But a pair of costly satellite crashes mean dealt an even more severe blow to the space agency, […]
Whenever Boeing and NASA team up, you can bet your sweet lasers something wicked is going to happen; actually, the first logical thing that would come to mind is a space plane – and this is what they did. The US X-37B is now in orbit, after a successful launch that took place without any […]
Wherever it’s possible, life finds a way; the old saying seems to be more and more actual these days, with NASA and other space agencies reporting interesting discoveries that point towards life existing in many more other places other than our own planet. After rewriting the biology books with the arsenic eating microbe, NASA researchers […]
The whole city of Minneapolis knew about the Titian exhibition that was about to take place; even if they weren’t interested in the once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of the most esteemed and beautiful paintings in the world, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts stirred some interest with a big sign – what […]
With each passing year, science is becoming more and more visual, and the pictures we get to see are more and more spectacular; from horror movie viruses, to nanolandscapes or computer simiulations, these are the winners of the 2010 Science and Engineering Visual Challenge.
As we were telling you recently, the biggest solar flare in the last 4 years is upon us, and while this doesn’t pose any direct danger for us, but the flare is making an impact throughout the world. Radio communications were disrupted, especially in China, but concern was generated everywhere throughout the world. However, experts […]
Bears are some of the most amazing and loved animals out there, and to find out that up until a few months ago nobody made a thorough study about their hibernating was really sad for me. Until this, almost everything we knew about hibernating was that… well, bears do it’; they go into their dens […]
Nowadays Brits may be some of the most civilized people on Earth, but 15.000 years ago, things were really different. Ancient Britons devoured their dead and made ritualic goblets from their skulls, a study conducted by London’s Natural History Museum concluded. The gruelsome discovery was made in Southern England, more specifically in Gough’s Cave in […]
First of all, there’s no need to panic; solar blasts can cause geomagnetic perturbances, but they pose no direct danger for humans or any other inhabitants of our planet in a direct manner. The biggest such flare in the past four years erupted on Monday, and it’s sending jets of charged particles that will reach […]
The fight against Alzheimer’s is a harsh and rugged one, and despite numerous advancements, there still isn’t a definitive cure for the disease around – or a fail proof way to detect it in the early stages.. Still, if you can’t defeat it, it’s still better to slow it down a little, and that’s exactly […]
After six years of loneliness, this Valentine’s day was the charm for one of the veteran comet-chasing spacecrafts. As Stardust briefly met with the comet nicknamed Tempel 1, the spacecraft took dozens of pictures of the comet’s icy surface; but this was no random encounter – the purpose of it was to see how a […]
After months of anticipation, three death defying astronauts set foot on Mars; well, actually, in a dark sand-filled room designed specifically to simulate walking on Mars. The explorers make up half of the team behind the Mars500 mission, a project started with the goal of showcasing the psychological effects a walk on the red planet […]
The Canadian olympics of 2010 will forever be stained with the blood of 100 husky dogs who were brutally killed with a knife and a shotgun, because they were no longer profitable. For Canadians and tourists, the blue eyed huskies who took them on sleds were nothing less than icons; but for Outdoor Adventures, the […]
The Voynich manuscript is perhaps one of the most mysterious manuscripts of all time; it contains 240 pages written in an unknown languages, with strange drawings, and with no clues of an author. It has been studied by some of the world’s sharpest minds in code breaking, but it defied all deciphering attempts. Recently, researchers […]
