Andrei Mihai ZME Science

The day our Sun brought darkness

About 20 years ago, on March 13, 1989, the whole province of Quebec, Canada, suffered a blackout that by now has reached legendary proportions among astronomers and electrical engineers. Still, what made it reach this status wasn’t its proportions, but the fact that it was caused by the sun, or a solar storm to be […]

Picturing yourself aging well may change your life

As you probably know (but may very well choose to ignore), ageism is going rampant throughout virtually every civilized country in the world, and this is by no means a casual thing, but it’s quite systematic, regardless of sex. What’s even worse, even old people think the least about themselves in terms of intelligence, competence […]

So-called vampire found in mass grave

Whether it’s due to novels and movies or some morbid fascination, more and more people seem to be fascinated about vampires. Still, when people first started to believe in them, things were quite different from now. For example, instead of drinking blood, it was believed that they chewed on their shrouds of people that died, […]

Dead gene is resurrected in humans

This is what researchers believe to be the first true comeback of a gene in the human/great ape lineage; the study was led by Evan Eichler’s genome science laboratory at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and they pointed out that the infection-fighting human IRGM is (as far as we know) […]

The Turtle and the Robot

The guys over at WHOI are doing more and more interesting things every day; just a few days ago I wrote about Noah’s ark debate and guess what: they’re in the highlights today also. This time it’s with an underwater robot developed by Stephen Licht, named Finnegan (after a James Joyce comic, Finnegan’s wake) because […]

Danube delta holds answers to 'Noah's flood' debate

It seems science and creationism are just taking sides and throwing rocks at each other; recently, they’ve taken things to a whole new level, each bringing out more or less relevant arguments to support their ideas; of course, the juiciest discussions are focused on the Bible: is it or not true, does it refer to […]

Satellites Confirm Half-Century of West Antarctic Warming

Despite whatever you may hear, it’s obvious that we still don’t have a clear understanding of the impact we’re having on the planet we call home; there are studies that show we’re totally destroying it, and there are studies that we’re an ant on a mountain, so it’s really hard to say for sure how […]

Lava versus ocean: what happens when the two meet (awesome photo alert)

Lava, the molten rock that flows from inside the Earth, can destroy everything in its path. Water, meanwhile is like an arch nemesis of lava. So what happens when the two meet? Water and fire It’s beautiful, sure — but it’s hella dangerous. When lava enters the water, a number of things happen. It’s a […]

Early American culture defeated by natural calamities

In almost every belief there’s an apocalypse, hanging above the believers’ head like the sword of Damocles. But as far as we know so far, such an apocalypse is yet to come; this is where Mike Moseley, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Florida steps in, claiming that actually, the earliest American […]

Martin Luther King day

Today, on the 3rd Monday of January, ZME Science pays homage to the man that was Martin Luther King, being grateful for all his lifetime achievements. Also, it’s not hard at all to observe how much today’s world would need a man of his calibre. He was an African American. He was an activist, and […]

Head banging can hammer the brain

If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you know that unique feeling when you leave the arena, and the whole world is in your pocket; that feeling appears whether you’re a headbanger or not, no difference there. But the difference, it seems, appears in your head. When I first heard what inspired Associate Professor […]

A 400 year old Moon map corrects history, making Galileo Galilei a runner up

As we learn (or at least should) at quite an early age, Galileo Galilei had quite the impact on science, making numerous improvements in telescopes and conducting early observations of the Moon, making the first map of our planet’s satellite. Right? Wrong. Despite the fact that he will always remain “father of modern observational astronomy” […]

Stellar 'cannibalism' is the key to giant stars

You may or may not have heard about blue stragglers; they are blue stars that are hotter and bluer than other stars with the same luminosity. Until now, it seemed that these stars defied most if not all of the standard stellar theories, but scientists now believe they have finally solved this stellar mistery. The […]

Mosquitoes make harmonic music before making sweet love

So the male mosquito comes, humming an Elvis song, with a rose in his mouth… maybe I’m taking this a bit too far. You know that pesky mosquito sound ?? Scientists have known for years that that is the sound of love for the little buggers. But what they didn’t know, and is quite fascinating […]

Milky Way spins faster

Well ladies and gentlemen, you’d better fasten your seat belts, because we’re in for quite a spin. The Milky Way is spinning a bit faster than scientists believed; with about 100.000 miles / hour that is. What does that mean, basically?? Well, we’re faster, heavier, and there’s a bigger chance that we’ll collide with… something. […]

Nasa discovers a dozen pulsars that change understanding about dying stars

Recently, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered no more, no less than 12 pulsars, and it also detected gamma ray pulse from 18 others. These findings are forcing scientists to rethink what we know about dying stars, as they totally underestimated the power of these stellar cilinders. “We know of 1,800 pulsars, but until Fermi […]

Dr. Russell Blaylock about "The Rockefellers & Social engineering"

The term “social engineering” is often misunderstood; what it refers to is the act of manipulating people (or masses of people) into doing whatever it is that you want. The term is not quite similar to a people trick or a people fraud, and it’s often about making people divulge information. Russell Blaylock, M.D is […]

The science of 2008

Probably 2008 will remain in history as the year of the economic crisis, or perhaps of the LHC, or perhaps the year we landed on Mars… either way, it was a year filled with many problems, and many achievements; the achievements were mostly scientific, while the problems could find their solution… in the same field. […]

Dreaming of a white Christmas

Oh boy time sure do flies! It seems just yesterday it was January… still, it’s the 2nd day of Christmas (here), and still no snow :( That’s why the ZME team will set onto other plains where you can make snowfights and watch the snow from the fireplace. Let’s see… Christmas hat – check Snow […]

Over 1000 new species discovered near Mekong in the past year

According to a report launched by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), more than a thousand species were discovered just in the last decade in that particular area. A rat thought extinct for 11 million years and a hot pink, dragon millipede that produces cyanide are just two of the amazing species found there. If you’re […]

Young people and Old people store information differently

The latest study conducted by researchers from the Duke University Medical Center was performed on two groups of (old and young) adults. The first group had an average age of about 70 while the younger ones were about 24 years old. Neuroscientists found out that the mechanism behind the part of the brain responsable for […]

Obama's first green move

It’s obvious that one of the biggest challenges the president elect has to face is rejuvenating the infrastructure; let’s talk about traffic jams for a bit. Everybody hates them, we all want to avoid them, but they exist. They are an unintended consequence of personal driving. Some transportation planners often speak about the fact that […]

Men are red, women are green; according to Brown scientist

We’ve heard the phrase “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” (or what is the other way around??) a hundred times. But quickly, associate a colour with the two planets; over 90% of those asked to do this will associate red with Mars, and Green with Venus. So there could be truth behind that […]

Contraceptive methods closely linked to women's sexual pleasure and satisfaction

Researchers over that the Indiana University conducted a study that led to rather surprising conclusions. Despite the fact that women who used condoms as a contraceptive method reported that the condom caused a decrease in pleasure, those who used both condoms and hormonal contraception found more pleasure in sex. The researchers suggest that this inconsistency […]

Meet the world's only immortal animal

If you’re thinking McLeod, you couldn’t be further from the truth. What you have to do is think small; not microscopic, just big enough to see with your naked eye. Turritopsis nutricula is a hydrozoan, and it’s considered by scientists to be the only animal that cheated death. Solitary organisms are (according to current belief) […]

Older men want younger women, science shows

Feeling the need for scientific research to back up the ‘dirty old men’ myth, Gothenburg University and Oxford University scientists performed a study on 400 lonely hearts ads to see how men and women choose their partners. What they wanted was to test some theories about how men and women pick their partners in general. […]

African cities and their ecological impact

No other continent in the world (that’s not counting Antarctica) is studied by less ecologists than Africa; that is actually paradoxal, because cities are growing here faster than any other continent on Earth. Just less than a century ago, 5% of people lived in urban areas, while now, almost 40% call a city their home. […]

Hubble takes amazing pictures of mammoth stars

Two of the biggest and most impressive stars from our galaxy have been “surprised” in some really amazing poses by the the NASA/ESA Hubble telescope. Until now, a cloud of mystery surrounded them, but these pictures in greater detail than ever before. The pair of colossal stars (named WR 25 and Tr16-244, located within the […]

No health care revolution in sight

Though we have to admit there are some small steps toward an improving in general health care, we’ve expressed our opinion about how bad things are on numerous occasions. Only the fact that major pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than research is a huge problem, that (along with others) leads to a domino-like effect […]

Brain neurons can remodel connections, MIT shows

Contrary to almost a half of century of research, Elly Nedivi, associate professor of neurobiology at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and colleagues found that a certain type of neuron that plays a crucial part in autism spectrum disorders is able in fact to remodel itself. It can do this in a strip […]

Beta Pictoris planet could finally be imaged

Beta Pictoris (β Pic / β Pictoris) is part of a group of hot young stars that have the same age and motion through stage. It’s best known for the fact that it’s surrounded by a dusty ‘debris’ disc. This disc is a result of collisions between planetary ’embryos’ and asteroids, or other such objects. […]

Meet the nanobamas

Meet the world’s tiniest portraits of an elected president ever; meet the nanobamas. Each ‘Obama’ is made up of about 150 million tiny carbon nanotubes, which is about how many Americans voted in this year’s presidential election. An assistant professor professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, John Hart, along […]

Mute man can now speak thanks to brain implant

Frank Guenther of Boston University in Massachusetts and his colleagues worked with a man who was unable to move or communicate; they implanted an electrode into his brain which allowed him to use a speech synthesizer that produces vowel sounds as he thinks them. This work shows promise of going even further and not far […]

Mineral Kingdom Co-evolved With Life

Evolution isn’t just for living organisms, as scientists the Carnegie Institution found. They found that more than 3000 of the 4000+ minerals that exist can be linked more or less directly to biological life. This finding could have a crucial importance for scientists that are searching for life on other planets. Robert Hazen and Dominic […]

The continents and their highest points

There's a great deal of geographical variation on Earth. H

New Enzyme Could Revolutionize Plastic Production

Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA for short) is a thermoplastic and transparent plastic that’s called acrylic glass for short. In the not so distant future it could be made from natural products such as sugars, alcohols or fatty acids. This process is much more environmentally friendly than the process used now. PMMA is manufactured by polymerising methyl […]

'Beauty Machine' turns average into knockout

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, or at least that’s what we used to hear as kids from our parents. Well, scientists say our parents were wrong; after creating a computer that recognizes attractivenes in women , now they managed to create the world’s first beauty machine. While this machine can’t (yet) make […]

Understanding thunder and lightning

In ancient times, people looked up to the sky and thought it was the home of the gods; they found a divine explanation for pretty much all natural phenomena, and thunder was usually a tool of the gods. Strange enough, but today things aren’t really that different. Sure, you’ll say, we know it’s a discharge […]

Female models and their negative effect on men

We all know that seeing female models can have a negative effect on how women think about themselves, but really, it seems hard to believe that they would have the same effect on men. Still, Jennifer Aubrey, a leading researcher of media effects on body image, completed three different studies that led to the same […]

76 recipients of the Nobel Prize endorse Obama

This year’s election is among the most significant in America’s history. The people need a visionary leader that could get the nation out of the way towards the dark ages, and that can make this country play its crucial role in the world. Under the Bush administration, scientific issues have been politicized in such a […]

Hubble Back In Business: Pair Of Gravitationally Interacting Galaxies

A while ago we were a bit worried about the future of Hubble, but it seems the people at NASA managed to once again do an amazing job, so the most well known telescope is back in business, and up to big things actually. Just a few days after it was brought back online, Hubble […]

Secret of spider-man suit revealed

If you ever wanted to stroll “spidy” your way around the big city, your dream is one step closer to becoming reality, as physicists have found the formula for what they call a “spider suit“. To do this, they applied what they learned from the dazzling gecko and it’s ability to climb walls as well […]

Smart amoebas reveal origins of primitive intelligence

Intelligence is very hard to define as a trait, as it’s usually a simplified term used to describe a quantum of related abilities, such as the ability to solve problems, to understand abstract issues, to learn and to plan. But the notion of intelligence should (by any means) be understood at a whole new level, […]

Opals on Mars hint at planet's wet past

As a proud student in geophysics, I can tell you that opal is hydrated silicon dioxide mineral with many astounding properties, but it’s also water hydrated. Since water hydrated minerals have been found on Mars we are led to the logic conclusion that when these minerals was formed, there was water on Mars. Opals have […]

Highest Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency Ever Reached

The efficiency of the solar cells is the first thing needed to be improved in order to improve the quality of the solar panels, and it is the aim of more and more scientists as time passes. Still, very few manage to obtain a breakthrough, and that’s exactly what researchers at University of New South […]

9 amazing displays of fossil art

Art is a relative term, especially in these modern times. In its most accepted term, art is the deliberate process of arranging certain elements in such a way that appeals to the senses, trying to achieve beauty. But what these elements are and how they are arranged is up to the artist. So it shouldn’t […]

The world's most advanced microscope

It’s the equivalent of taking the Hubble telescope (before it was damaged) and directing it towards atoms and molecules instead of stars and galaxies, according to Gianluigi Botton, director of the new Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy at McMaster, where the world’s most advanced and powerful microscope works. It’s called Titan 80-300 Cubed and it […]

Why Women Get More Cavities

It’s not because they deserve it, if that’s what you’re thinking – you mysoginistic bastard; and it’s not because they’re just much sweeter than man. Actually, the old tale that a woman loses a tooth every time she delivers is not as far from the truth as you’d think. A study published in this month’s […]

Serendipitous events show rare events in distant quasar

According to Murphy’s Law, all great discoveries happen by mistake. This is not the case here, but scientists had the opportunity to observe something they weren’t expecting at all. Astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz had the fortune of witnessing the birth of a young galaxy. They were the first to observe the onset […]

India launches first mission to the moon

Chandrayaan-1 is the name of the first mission India has ever launched towards the moon, and it was launches succesfully in the morning of October 22, from inside their country. This started the journey which will also imply a major manoeuvre – the lunar orbit insertion – about 2 weeks from the launch date. After […]

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