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Immortality - just 20 years away

Raymond Kurzweil is one of the most prolific inventors and futurists; he’s the one who developed text to speech synthesis and a synthesizer that develops and even creates poetry, among others. He has also predicted new technologies that would appear and some directions that our society would take, and he got it right. Now, the […]

AIDS vaccine shows success for the first time

AIDS is one of the most dangerous diseases nowadays, being a pandemic for many years now, and there’s been quite little development for a cure or a vaccine. However in the past few years researchers have been getting closer and closer to pinning down a solution. Yesterday, a team formed of Thai and US scientists […]

Electricity from trees

You're not going to power too many devices with electricity from trees. But it is a very interesting phenomenon.

Huge dust storm chokes Sydney

  A significant part of Australia’s east coast, including country’s biggest city, Sydney, has been engulfed by a shroud of red dust blown mostly from the desert outback. Visibility was so bad that most if not all flights were delayed, and of course, there were the usual folks who started screaming that this is the […]

8 examples of photometeors w/ pics

The response to the awesome phenomena article was amazing, I’d really like to thank you all! I was really surprised to see how many of you actually contributed and sent me more pictures of awesome phenomena, so I’ll definitely do a follow up in a few days, mentioning who gave me the tip, so keep […]

The rebirth of Hubble - Hubble's first pics since Servicing Mission 4

Hubble has had a lot of problems in recent days, but now the telescope we love the most is up an running, and in a great shape too. “This marks a new beginning for Hubble,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “The telescope was given an extreme makeover […]

Gecko tail has a mind of its own

The (awesome) ability of geckos and other related reptiles to shed their tale when endangered by predators has been known for a long time, but scientists know little about the movement, and especially what controls the movement of the tail once it’s separated from the tail. Anthony Russell of the University of Calgary and Tim […]

Mars makes a once in a lifetime approach on 27 August

Planet Mars will be the brightest we’ll (probably) ever have a chance to see it, and it will be as large as the moon, even for the naked eye ! I can’t even imagine what it will be like, but I bet the Red Planet will be absolutely spectacular, and it’s something you definitely don’t […]

Devil's Claw brings new hope for arthritis

Deep in one of the warmest places on the planet, in the Kalahari desert, there lies the ‘Devil’s Claw’, a plant that may hold the key to effective treatment to arthritis, tendonitis and numerous related illnesses that affect millions and millions each year. Despite being a ‘desert plant’ the Devil’s Claw doesn’t thrive in extreme […]

Mermaid sightings in Israel lead to 1.000.000$ reward

Locals, fishermen and tourists in the Israelian town of Kiryat Yam have been reporting repeated sightings of what they believe to be a mermaid, the mythological creature most often describe as half female, half fish. Shlomo Cohen is one of the first who reported such a sighting. Here’s what he had to say: “I was […]

Researchers find marijuana spreads and prolongs pain

We’ve all endured some kind of physical pain, more or less intense. When you hit your finger while hammering, for example, the pain is really intense, but passes away (at least mostly) in just a few moments. So scientists were trying to find out why is it that some intense pains pass so quickly and […]

New insight on water's strange properties

The paradox of water is that everybody knows it, but no one really understands it. It’s the most fascinating substance we have come across so far, and it still has many secrets for us. For example, the molecular structure of water still eludes scientists, and as a result, water still has many properties which we […]

8 totally awesome natural phenomena you probably didn't know about

The Maelstrom When you hear a name like maelstrom, you just know it’s about something wicked. Introduced in English by Edgar Allan Poe from the Nordic languages, from which it came from the Dutch word maelstrom (maalstroom in modern spelling), it literally means crushing current, which is quite a very good description. A maelstom is […]

Sex without condoms makes people happier

Well, it seems all we’ve been writing about lately is sex and jelly fish (there’s a connection somewhere, I just can’t put my finger on it, so to speak). A recent controversial study conducted by Scottish psychologist Stuart Brody concluded that sex without condoms significantly boosts both men and women’s mental state, making them happier […]

The deadliest creature in the world

So, microorganisms and other humans aside, what do you think is the deadliest creature in animal kingdom? A snake, perhaps a lion or bear, a scorpion perhaps? Neah, not even close. The deadliest creature in the world is actually called a sea wasp. Specialists use the term ‘deadliest’ when they refer to venomous creatures, that […]

Ants - more rational than humans

Researchers from Arizona State University and Princeton University conducted a study that goes to show that our ‘multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed‘ selves come way behind ants when it comes to ration. That doesn’t actually mean that we are dumber than ants, but rather that we sometimes make irrational decisions, especially when faced with very […]

39 unbelievable underwater pictures that will blow your mind

First of all, I don’t know for sure if any of these are shopped or tampered in any way; underwater photography is really peculiar and has its own ways of manipulating light and perspective. But let’s not worry about that for the moment. Let’s just sit back, relax, and enjoy our planet’s wonderful waters.     […]

Invisibility cloak to give buildings protection against earthquakes

The surface waves. Not the Love wave you want to be in.Researchers from the University of Liverpool conducted a study that shows it is possible to create what they have called an ‘invisibility cloak’ that would in fact protect buildings from earthquakes. This would come just in time, as a major earthquake threat seems more […]

9 reasons why there wasn't stress in the good old days

Turns out, heroin was much easier to get a few decades ago.

Half of ALL americans use vibrators

Ladies and gents (really, stay away from this one kids; trust me, save whatever is left of your innocence), I’ve got to admit this: I thought I forgot how to read. I read the study about 7-8 times, believing it was about half of all women. No, fail. It includes men. After the awe faded […]

Haiti needs water

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with it’s dazzling 70% unemployment rate and more than 3 quarters of the people living in extreme poverty.  To top it off, water, what you need the most for survival, is polluted. The World Bank pretty much summed it up in a few words: Haiti has […]

Girl that doesn't age baffles scientists: a 16 year old is an infant

Physiologically speaking, Brooke Greenberg is an infant with the mind of toddler. Only thing is that she turned 16 just this Janary. It’s hard to estimate the parents opinion, especially as I wasn’t able to find almost any constructive data. “Why doesn’t she age?” Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. “Is she the fountain […]

Meet the magnetic superatoms

Virginia Commonwealth University managed to discover what they have called a ‘magnetic superatom‘, a stable cluster of atoms that can ‘impersonate’ various elements from the periodic table, that could be put to use in numerous fields, especially for biomedical purposes and to create molecular devices for the next generation of computer memory.A team from the […]

The swine flu - now a pademic

The swine influenza is now, officially, the 4th flu pandemic in the last 100 years. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization made an official move and declared the first global influenza pandemic in the last 40 years, for the A(H1N1) virus. However, it’s still unknown if this decision will actually change something […]

Tiny frozen microbe could shine light on extraterrestrial life

A new bacteria that has been named Herminiimonas glaciei, found in the heart of Greenland, trapped under more than 3 km beneath the ice, probably holds significant clues regarding what life forms may exist on other planets, according to Dr Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and a team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University. They published this finding […]

Volcano eruption could have caused global extinction

A previously unknown volcanic eruption was uncovered by scientists at the University of Leeds. It’s believed that this massive eruption took place 260 million years ago in South West China and released half a million cubic kilometers of lava covering a land mass the size of Great Britain and destroying marine life everywhere throughout the […]

The neurobiology of music

Music has traditionally been something scientists have found hard to characterize – it is basically a form of social communication between individuals, and whether you’re humming the song from a commercial or soloing around Hendrix style you are communicating, expressing something. If done by parents around infants, it attaches the little ones to them and […]

Top 10 new animals of 2008

Every year, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists announce the top 10 new species described in the past year, and this year was a good one. We have among others the bacteria that lives in hairspray, the oldest known vertebrate (fossilized), an insect 56 cm […]

1911 : the year Niagara froze

A while ago I wrote a post about what I believe the most spectacular waterfalls in the world are, but you guys gave me some excellent feedback and I fould out about more amazing waterfalls, so thanks a whole lot!! I’ve kept researching waterfalls and I found something that really totally took me by surprise: […]

Neanderthals were fearless and calculated hunters

Even among some scientific circles, Neanderthals are considered to be the ‘stupid’ cousins of the modern humans (although some claim that’s the hobbit). However, new research shows they were able to hunt really large animals which required more than power to be taken down, pointing that neanderthals were far from stupid (as hobbits were too, […]

Brain solves problems when we daydream

As an old saying goes, time spent wishing is time wasted. I’m guessing day dreaming goes into the same category, right?? Wrong. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences activity in numerous brain regions actually increases when our mind wanders off to a different place. The study led […]

Chronic ankle pain may be more than a sprain

If I were to guess, I'd say each and every one of us suffered at least an ankle sprain and we all know how much they suck, basically. They're very common at all ages, in every environment. Also, approximately 40 percent of those who suffer ankle sprains experience chronic pain even after being treated for the condition.

5 pandemics that plagued mankind before COVID-19

In late 2019, weird reports of a virus started emerging from a city most people have never even heard of (Wuhan). It didn’t cause a wave at first. Most people were just going about their lives, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen: a pandemic that would take the whole world by storm, causing […]

Marine researchers back with news from underwater volcanic eruption

The researchers who have just returned from the underwater volcano eruption report that the volcano is still active and it has grown considerably in size in these past three years. It supports a unique ecosystem thrives despite the constant eruptions. “This research allows us, for the first time, to study undersea volcanoes in detail and […]

Researchers find out why swine flu is harder on some than others

Despite the fact that some researchers claim the swine flu is already declining, we are still on the verge of a pandemic that threatens to spiral out of control if we don’t take action. However, the major problem was to understand the virus, because there are still many things we have yet to find out […]

Fossil magnetism proves mass extinction theory

The mass extinction theory is… a theory, because there are still some blanks left in to fill by scientists; of course, there are those who try to fight it and find other theories and those that try to back it up and fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. Now, the latter camp recorded […]

The most distant object in the universe found so far

ESO’s Very Large Telescope has shown something that scientists concluded is the signature of the explosion of the object furthest away from Earth we have found so far, a redshift of 8.2; it’s estimated that the explosion took place more than 13 billion years ago (!!), just 600 million years after the Big Bang. They […]

Current flu vaccines inactive against the Swine flu

For some reason, many people believed the current flu vaccine will be effective against this swine flu that’s already expanding and very difficult to control. Still, even some researchers claimed that it will be at least somewhat effective. Guess what – it won’t. Or at least the vast majority of scientists claim it won’t. The […]

Could humans have learned from Hobbits?

There has been a lot of debate around the whole ‘hobbit issue‘ and I’ve been watching that pretty closely. It was especially interesting to see how creationists adapted to the situation. The thing is every answer raises even more questions. Recently, researchers discovered thousands of small, sharp-edged objects made from volcanic tuff or chert in […]

Friday Round-up

Because of insufficient time and man power (if you want to help, just look at the banner in the right), we can’t tackle all the topics; but there’s so much going on in the world right now, something just had to be done. So I’m going to start this weekly round-up, in which I’ll just […]

How house ants pick their dream home

Seeing all the available houses in the neighborhood and then choosing is not necessarily the best option, at least if you’re an ant. These house-hunting rock ants manage to make a decision together even without going through the options they have. In this recent study conducted by Dr Elva Robinson and colleagues from the Bristol […]

US and Brazil scientists team up to show we're all pot heads deep down

It seems you can blame everything on drugs, as researchers show that the human brain manufactures proteins that act on specific receptors in the same way that marijuana does; those receptors are actually situated in the brain itself. This discovery was published online in the FASEB journal, and Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the journal […]

Zooming in on Mars: 3d pictures of the red planet

Get your 3D pictures on and join the show; hundreds of amazing pictures made by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have been made, and despite the fact that this is not the first mission to take 3D pictures, HiRISE is by far the most powerful camera to do this, due to […]

Earth Hour 2009

Earth Hour is an initiative started by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund) that asks people everywhere in the world to turn off the light and other unnecessary household appliances for one hour, to raise awareness towards the need to tackle global warming and other environmental problems. The “grandfather” was an idea […]

Bioengineered proteins: Trial confirms new way to tackle cancer

The war on cancer is more intense than ever, and it’s taking place on many, many fronts. We’ve seen the anticancer minisubmarine, the anticancer trojan horse, and even the anticancer beer. In a study published in the first issue of EMBO Molecular Medicine, Canadian researchers showed there is yet another way to tackle cancer: re-engineering […]

Therapists still claim they "treat" homosexuality

Even though we claim to be living in the third millenium and we’ve “evolved” significantly from say, 50 years ago, there’s quite a number of people that think homosexuality is some sort of disease and should be taken care of. This lack of understanding and, most of all, tolerance leads to a whole number of […]

Of Trojan Horses and miracle drugs

When Oscar was diagnosed with a very aggresive form of cancer called anal sac adenocarcinoma, his days seemed numbered – literally. Doctors gave him very little to no chance of living 100 days when they noticed he was unresponsive to chemotherapy and radiation. But things took an unexpected turn, and in two weeks, Oscar was […]

The 10 most amazing unexplained artifacts

Some of these are truly puzzling, some are shrouded in conspiracy theories.

NASA researchers help explain why life is left-handed

Scientists that analyzed meteorite dust made some discoveries that gave them clues about the ever standing mystery of how life works at its most basic, molecular level. This question has puzzled researchers for quite a while now and definitive answers are yet to be found. “We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, […]

Fossils of sea "monster" make T-Rex seem cute & fluffy

Well, that’s a bit of a stretch, but according to scientists, this giant fossil sea creature known currently just as “Predator X” had a bite that makes T-Rex seem “feeble”. This 15 meter long dinosaur had a crushing 33,000 lbs (15 tonnes) per square inch bite force. “With a skull that’s more than 10 feet […]
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