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Remember the days when cigarettes didn’t have to feature labels of all the bad things that can happen if you smoke ? Well, I don’t; but then again, maybe in a few decades people won’t remember the days when cigarettes used to have such ‘light warnings’. Practically, in just a generation or so, things have […]
Worms are definitely a tough bunch; you may see them as soft and vulnerable, but they can resist in conditions that would make even Les Stroud go ‘wow’. For example, a new study concludes that worms can live in up to 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers) down. The worms from hell They have been rightfully named […]
It’s a black period for Brazil’s environment, and things will get even worse in days to follow; the government just applied a reform of the forestry code which will make it extremely easy to cut down massively on the rainforests in Brazil. Money money money After several delays and a desperate, but outnumbered resistance, the […]
Topping this week’s absurd news by far, this is one of the most preposterous things I’ve read in all my life. Seven seismologists are charged with manslaughter after they failed to predict the 2009 L’Aquila that made 300 victims. Earthquake prediction and other fairytales At the moment, and in the forseeable future, it is impossible […]
Our perception of size and distances is basically a product of how the brain interprets different visual signals, like for example the size of an object on the retina or its movement across the visual field. Now, if you were shrinking to the size of a doll in your sleep, when you woke up, the […]
Much like humans, monkeys too exhibit signs of regret, and they wonder themselves what might have been, according to a recent study published by researchers from Yale. The study, published in the Neuron journal, suggests that aside from regrets, monkeys often wonder about how different actions would lead to different outcomes; as researchers state, aside […]
Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have found that more and more young adults are suffering from a condition that has traditionally been the problem of older adults – high blood pressure. The researchers believe that general problems, such as an unbalanced diet, coffee, and obesity are the main causes for this surge […]
NASA announced that it will launch an unmaned ship to a nearby asteroid, in an attempt to figure out more about both the asteroid itself, and how life started on our planet. The mission, named Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer – or, as always, with an easier more manageable name, Osiris-Rex was chosen to take place […]
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) continues on its quest to find out exactly what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang, unveiling what is the densest material known so far to man. Exotic densest substance Known as the quark-gluon plasma, this amazing exotic substance can exist only at incredibly high temperatures or pressures, […]
Graphene is probably the ‘substance of the century’, and it will probably be for us what plastics were in the 1900s. Now, a flower-like defect in the material that can occur during the fabrication process could have a significant effect on graphene’s already impressive mechanical, magnetic, and electrical properties. Amazing graphene Graphene is practically a […]
Anomalocaridids were extremely weird animals, by today’s standards; but by the standards of the Cambrian, they were the hot guys. They had a long spiny head, powerful limbs which were probably used to snag prey and a series of blade-like filaments in segments across the animal’s back, which could have functioned as gills. During the […]
There are still many things we still don’t understand about the electron; only recently, a team from the Imperial College London concluded that the electron is actually incredibly round, thus making the most accurate estimate of its shape. The experiments, which spanned more than a decade, suggest that the electron differs from being round by […]
If you ask me, one of the most interesting things regarding animal evolution is sex; the animal kingdom has expanded sex to such heights, that it is often unbelievable the kind of things some animals do. Such is the case with the androgenetic clams of the genus Corbicula. Just males – and doing fine Most […]
Not one, not 2, or 3, 5, 10 – but 17 new pyramids were found by a new Egyptian satellite survey. A dozen and a half pyramids The survey also detected 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements, using infrared images to detect the underground buildings; the satellites were equipped with cameras that could pinpoint objects […]
Taken at distances as small as 1 kilometer, these pictures of Grimsvotn (the volcano that erupted recently in Iceland) reveal how beautiful and terrifying at the same time volcanic eruptions can be. Blending smoke and ash with lightning, the pictures are truly breathtaking. They were taken by Johann Ingi Jonsson, an amateur photographer […]
Paper is just paper, right ? Nothing fancy, nothing special, just plain old paper that we see and probably use every single day. Well, for Charles Kazilek at ASU, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth; incredible colours, from orange and purple to vibrant green, amazing textures, all of these were obtained from […]
For most bacteria, a fresh supply of air is pretty much the best thing that can happen; however, for some, that is quite unbearable. Basically, they can’t stand it. They’d do anything to get rid of it. These little guys can be the key to a process so efficient that in the end will not […]
An extremely old spider has showed its face for the first time in almost 50 million years; buried in a large chunk of amber, this Huntsman spider has descendants which live in the tropics and Southern Europe today. They can grow up to 30 centimeters, but they’re not aggressive and not poisonous for humans, despite […]
Japan shows us yet again that they are leading the world in terms of renewable energy, in taking a plan that would make solar panels mandatory for all buildings no later than 2030. The plan, expected to be unveiled at the upcoming G8 Summit in France, aims to show Japan’s resolve to encourage technological innovation […]
Even though Facebook is already filled with underage children, and acording to a facebook depression study, kids are often negatively affected by the social media site, their intention is to spread their wings even further, and catch a whole new segment of the market (as they put it). CNN Money reports that Facebook founder Mark […]
A recent NASA operation (who knew they do this stuff ?) busted a woman who was trying to sell what she claimed was a piece of the Moon for the meager price of 1.7 million dollars. This came as a result of months of targeting her, after rumour spread that she was selling such […]
Spacewalking isn’t all fun and games – things can go bad at any moment, and in the latest spacewalk, this is exactly what happened: Mike Fincke, one of NASA’s most experienced spacemen, reported that while they were lubricating a joint in the life-sustaining solar power system of the International Space Station, they lost one bolt […]
A testament to how even a garbage dump can become something beautiful.
Finding new planets is interesting an remarkable, but finding a whole new class of planets – that’s definitely something extraordinary. University of Notre Dame astronomer David Bennett described just that – a class of planets without stars or a solar system, just wandering around the galaxy all by themselves. The most likely theory is that […]
Confirming what teenage boys and mysoginistic men already knew, a 2002 study confirms the fact that semen might have in fact antidepressant qualities for women. This is not news at all, but still, definitely worth spreading the word. Semen carries with it more than just sperm; it’s a whole cocktail of substances, out of which […]
Time is money, time is of the essence, it’s time for time to be given its just attention; clocks are already incredibly precise, but with this new improvement, they will be just incredible ! Researchers from America and Russia announced that they have eliminated a source of error that came from temperature variation and they […]
Touch is revolutionizing everything these days – first, it was the touch screen, then it was the touchpad, and it seems tomorrow – it will be the touch keyboard. The thing with aesthetic keyboards is, everyone likes it some other way; some want a bigger distance between buttons, some have smaller fingers, some need certain […]
The stage seems finally set for the Endeavour launch that was delayed so long, and aside from the usual crew, the space shuttle will carry with it an unexpected passenger: a baby squid. All for the sake of science No, it’s not because astronauts have changed their menu, and it’s not just for the laughs […]
Since 1995, over 500 planets that don’t orbit our Sun have been discovered, with the numbers increasing more and more in the past years. But only recently did astrophysicists observe that in some of these cases, the star seems to be spinning in one direction, and the planet orbits it in the totally opposite direction […]
New analysis from NASA’s Galeileo spacecraft shows that there is an ocean of molten (or partially molten magma) beneath the surface of Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. The finding was published today, May 13, in Science magazine. Volcanic Io Io is the most active volcanic object in our solar system, and this confirmation of a […]
Giving birth is definitely not something you see everyday, but an octopus giving birth – that’s something you may never see. However, thanks to the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, you get a chance to see just that: a species of Caribbean Octopus vulgaris giving birth. They took the […]
Of course, it is always better to prevent than to treat, but if prevention is no longer an option, than it is much better to start drug therapy as soon as possible after being detected HIV positive; this could help both the patient and it is also far less likely to pass on the virus […]
HIV research has been in a state of disarray, especially since the economic crisis, which put a lot of research on hold, as well as slowed down the prevention rate. However, there have been several reports of breakthroughs in this field, especially regarding a vaccine for HIV, and Bill Gates has agreed to sponsor the […]
Twitter prides itself in connecting the world and sharing everybody’s thoughts from every corner of the world, especially when it comes to news. But is this really true, or is this just a branding and marketing stunt ? According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Twitter accounts […]
Lately, I’m feeling quite skeptical about the studies I read regarding coffee consumption, especially since it’s known that sometimes a major industry (like oil, or tobacco, or coffee) tends to… influence certain researchers to publish favorable results. I just recently wrote about how 9 out of the top 10 climate change deniers are influenced by […]
Poor dandelions – they never even get a chance. If they shop up on your front lawn, you’re probably gonna go and buy some weed killer and wipe them out. If they show up at a picnic, they never even get creditted as flowers. Even animals don’t like them. But a Ford is taking them […]
China’s attempts to move towards nuclear and renewable energy is admirable, but the US will be the driving force behind innovations and development, in the field of clean energy – that’s what Bill Gates told a sold out crowd at a Seattle breakfast, where the topic was climate change. “China is very important and can […]
If you think that the recent outbreak of tornadoes are bad, boy are you in for a shocker. An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics has found that enormous storms of molecular gas are sweeping entire galaxies, destroying everything they come across until they wipe the galaxy clean. Galactic […]
Astronomers from the the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland declared that a recently discovered asteroid has been following our planet in the past 250.000 years, and it may be in fact closely related to Earth. Two months after it was discovered with the WISE survey satellite, the asteroid caught the attention of two scientists: Apostolos […]
Bacteria and small plants at the bottom of the ocean require significant quantities of iron to survive and grow, just like us humans do. But their situation is extremely different, and they can’t just opt for an iron rich diet. So where does their iron come from ? Pyrite, or fool’s gold (as it […]
Titan is one strange place; it’s a satellite, but it’s bigger than Mercury, and it’s also the only satellite known to have a dense atmosphere. Furthermore, aside from Earth, it’s the only place where evidence of liquid has been found on the surface. Now, after studying some abnormalities in the rotation of Saturn’s largest moon, […]
In a world where accusations like this fly by like pigeons in the park, it was about time someone but some work into research before making a claim such as this one. This is not some unsubstantiated assertion, or some crazy scientist’s statement – this is backed up by numbers. Let’s look at the matter […]
A while ago, I wrote about Severn Suzuki (video here), a woman who at the age of 12 held a speech at the UN Earth Summit in 1992 that got a standing ovation from the members. As the years passed, she became an active environmentalist, wrote a few books, and even had her own TV […]
If you don’t remember Gliese, it is the long talked about earth like planet, located in the Goldilocks area. Last time we checked, there was a chance that this could be the first habitable planet encountered so far, at least according to research conducted by a team from the University of Paris. A super earth […]
Autism is still yet poorly understood, and researchers are just starting to figure out the mechanisms behind this strange condition which seems to affect more and more children (and not only) with each passing year. A 6 year autism study The ambitious six year effort attempted to gauge the rate of autism in a South […]
New amazing yet gruelsome details have emerged, regarding how a fungus can control an unfortunate ant. Basically, the fungus infects the ant’s brain, and then tells it what to do, in a somewhat similar fashion to what a Goa’uld would do. Zombies in Thailand Venturing deep in the Thai forest, researchers have found a species […]
An intriguing hypothesis was brought up by Professor Bernard Carr from Queen Mary University in London and Professor Alan Coley from Canada’s Dalhousie University, who claims that some of the black holes we see today may actually be remnants of a past universe that collapsed into itself after a Big Crunch. I don’t know about […]
It’s still unclear if it was all about a stellar meal or if it was simply gas, or some other relatively unimportant phenomena that awoken the sleeping giant, but for the first time, astronomers have observed the awakening of a sleeping supermassive black hole. The sleeping giant It appeared to be a day just like […]
Researchers from the University of Texas and Yale infected a computer with schizophrenia in order to find out more about how the human brain behaves and understands things. Human behaviour from a computer Computers can show some signs of virtual schizophrenia too, if they can’t ‘forget’ fast enough. So researchers used a virtual computer model, […]
Viagra isn’t just for grown ups, not anymore. As a matter of fact, few people know that at first, viagra was used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and treating erectile dysfunction was just a bonus; of course, the huge advantages that the ‘bonus’ provided made it into the most effective and sold medicine out […]
