gear Push settings
Agriculture is a very risky line of work since its inevitable once in a while extreme weather will take a huge toll on the crop yields. This is common knowledge, but the quantitative impact of droughts and heat waves has only recently been investigated in great detail. A paper published in Nature by researchers at University of British Columbia found droughts cut a country’s total crop yield by 10 percent, and heat waves by 9 percent. Floods and cold spells oddly did not affect crop production in a significant way. These effects vary from country to country and another surprising finding is that crops in developed countries suffer up to twice as many losses than those in developing countries.
According to the United Nations, 20 to 40 percent of fresh food is thrown away by farmers because they don't look as appetizing as they should to sell. Besides looking a bit crooked, twisted or shrugged, these fruits and vegetables are perfectly edible and taste no different than the perfectly shaped ones you're always on the lookout for in the supermarket.
When faced with a risky decision, like gambling, some people falter and become very cautions, while others get super excited. As it happens, this trait of character may be determined by the strength of the connection between key brain areas of the brain. It's not only drugs that cause addiction -- gambling is psychologically addictive and can be just as dangerous as substance abuse. Three to five gamblers out of every hundred struggles with a gambling problem and as many as 750,000 young people, ages 14 to 21 has a gambling addiction. The findings might help therapists devise better measures. At the same time, using brain scans doctors can finally see whether their patients are making any progress.
The indispensable chemical mixture that allows the industry to fracture rock and release the gas trapped inside looks almost like a black box. More than 1,000 chemicals are used in the fracking fluid, but a paper published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology found toxicity information was lacking for 76% of them. In other words, these could be harmless or dangerous. There's no way to know at this point. Concerning the rest -- about 240 substances -- the researchers found evidence that suggests reproductive toxicity for 103 (43%), developmental toxicity for 95 (40%), and both for 41 (17%).
It's always annoying.
Some 50,000 years ago Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans co-existed, mingled and interbred. While only the human lineage exists today, these inter-species third degree meetings left a permanent mark on our genome. For instance, an ancient human who lived in what is today Romania had 9% Neanderthal DNA. Today, most Europeans and Asians have between 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA.
The prevailing assumption is that mothers who birth more children live short lives due to accelerated biological aging. Researchers turn this historical thinking upside down after they found having more offspring actually prolongs the life of mothers and slows down cellular degradation.
Birds are literally dinosaurs, so many scientists suspect millions of years ago dinosaurs shared similar courtship tactics like fancy plumage or complex dances to impress potential mates. While fossils can teach us so much about how dinosaurs looked and, in some instances, behaved (herd behavior, diet, hunting patterns etc.), inferences on mating rituals have been speculations at best thus far. A paper published in Scientific Reports offers some of the first tantalizing evidence that supports the idea that dinosaurs indeed employed similar courtship displays to modern birds. The researchers at University of Colorado, Denver found tracks etched into sandstone surfaces to create nest displays, hoping to attract a female to mate with. These scrapes are one of a kind, found nowhere else in the world.
hinese drone making company Ehang recently showed off one of the most impressive contraptions at the CES convention in Las Vegas: a manned drone. It can fly as high as 11,500 feet, top speed of 63mph and a range of 20 minutes worth of powered flight. It can fit one person and a small backpack. It looks and sounds impressive, but is the world ready for it? For sure no, but the prospects for the future already sound appealing. Finally, the age The Jetsons foretold might finally be nigh.
Schistosoma mansoni might not as famous as other nasty parasitic worms like flatworms or roundworms, but outside the U.S. this pesky bugger infests more than 200 million people. Symptoms range from rash to organ damage to paralysis. For years, patients have had to rely on drugs that ward off the infection, but for remote or communities in the developing world this may be out of the question. There's a widely available remedy found almost anywhere in the world though, according to Egyptian researchers. And it's so cheap that it literally grows in the ground: garlic.
The Chinese capital is notoriously polluted and frequently plagued by smog, a noxious gas mixture made of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, ozone, smoke or particulates. While 2015 saw cleaner air in Beijing than the year before, the current state of affairs lack in resolution, as echoed by concerned Beijing residents. With a lot of planning, hard work and a bit of luck, this situation might change for the far better as the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center announced it plans to cut airborne pollution by more than 200% by 2030.
So, what's the future going to look like ten years from now? What's the next big thing? Genomics, big data, nanotech, a Martian colony and nuclear fusion, to name a few.
Even though they can't remember a word in mandarin, children from China adopted in France bear the same brain activity response as bilinguals. Essentially, their brains use the same patterns and neural areas as bilinguals even though by all accounts they must think they're monolingual. The implies that the impact of early developmental experiences on later neural outcomes is much more significant than some might think.
A GreenTechMedia analysis forecasts that energy storage systems, like large density batteries, will become a lot cheaper in the coming years. According to the report, the cost of installing an energy storage system will drop by some 41% by 2020. Energy storage is tightly linked with renewable energy generation, driving a lower cost overall for clean energy.
These aren't Christmas lights, but the actual neural activity of Caenorhabditis Elegans, a parasitic nematode. The brain imaging was done by researchers at Princeton University, and no worm had to be cut open. Instead, the researchers used a special protein which fluoresces in response to calcium.
Everybody has to eat, but for all their efforts farmers can easily lose a year's worth of crops due to a dry season or some other freak weather event.
Some argue that the first genuine science fiction novel is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where technology bordering necromancy is used to reanimate the dead. But labeling what falls under science fiction can be troublesome. Christopher McKitterick says that in the strict etymological sense, it's literature about scientific discovery or technological change, but then argues that this definition misses the mark; instead Mckiterrick believes "SF is about how we have changed, how external change affects us, how things we do change the world around us, and how we will continue to change over time." What about works of fiction written in a time when science wasn't even considered a distinct field, separate from natural philosophy, or study of religious truth, etc? Depending on how you class what makes science fiction, Lucian of Samosata's "True Stories" might be the first science fiction novel. The characters venture to distant realms including the moon, the sun, and strange planets and islands. The star protagonist is Lucian himself who happens to stumble upon aliens on the moon and finds himself in the midst of a war between the lunar and sun empires.
Scientists find the specific brain pathway used by ketamine to relieve depression. Now, it's possible to design a new drug like ketamine, sans "K hole".
Before digital or overhead projectors were invented, for hundreds of years people enjoyed projecting large scale images on their walls using a fantastic invention called the magic lantern.
A new study shows a part of the problem that fuels America's prescription opioid epidemic -- the worst drug abuse episode in the country's history.
World War II was the most devasting war in human history, if we're to rank by casualties in absolute numbers or even in terms of horror. No other war was this gruesome.
Chinese researchers say their lunar rover found a new type of lunar rock unlike anything the Americans or Soviets had brought home before.
Scientists want to grow potatoes on Mars to study crop resilience in the face of climate change. Brilliant or stupid?
YES! SpaceX made it! Wooohooo!
Lions are listed under the Endangered Species Act, five months after a famous lion was lured away from a protected national park in Zimbabwe and killed by an American dentist. The decision announced by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is aimed to help with lion conversation as it will make it increasingly difficult for hunters to bring back trophies from Africa. While it doesn't ban the import of trophies (which would've been ideal), the new ruling has been met with great enthusiasm by environmental groups around the world.
It's the bigger or charismatic of animals that get targeted by human hunters. These give off more meat, more pelt and make for better trophies. The effects of over-hunting and poaching are well documented. Most markedly, this results in extinction and ecosystem destabilization. A new study, however, adds a new frighting dimension to hunting: climate change acceleration through loss of carbon storage.
Just a couple of minutes of high-intensity exercising can provide similar heath benefits as an hour of cardio. Learn why, along with some training tips.
Is this genius or lame? We can't really tell for now.
Over the last three years, NASA engineers have been exploring using additive technology, like 3D printing, to manufacture key rocket engine parts. Tests on individual parts had worked well. Now, the space agency fitted all the parts onto a special test bench that behaves like a real rocket engine and fired it up for a test. The engine fired at 90,000 RPMs for 10 seconds to produce 22,000 pounds of thrust, with all performance test parameters showing 'green'.
Is the American dream over?
This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but rather inside our home galaxy.
Since the first plesiosaur complete skeleton was discovered in 1824, scientists have been debating how on Earth this reptile used four flippers to swim.
For more than 200,000 years humans and face mites trace a common history. There’s no human that doesn’t feed these tiny arachnids with some of our delicious face oils, which might startle some. Fret not since these are mostly harmless (though some people are more sensitive to the mites and get rosacea and blepharitis). What’s startling […]
Blue-banded bees employ a head on approach to pollination, a group of researchers at Adelaide University showed. While other bees use their mandibles and wings to shake the pollen, this Australian native insect is all "no-hands" and bangs its head against the flowers 350 times per second -- considerably faster than any bee noticed so far.
A message from Einstein that shines of fatherly wisdom and speaks of something that most people should always consider: how to learn.
Researchers have discovered a new material that's both transparent and electrically conductive that might make smartphones, TVs, smart windows and solar cells a lot cheaper, and maybe even more efficient.
This beauty was designed, crafted and assembled by Matt Olczyk. The custom-made clock looks like a cross between old pendulum antiques and modern, minimalist designs. All the parts were custom made in Olczyk's shop using CNC milling, laser cutting and 3D-printing. The real innovation, however, lied in the fat that all of these operations were performed by one single machine - the ZMorph Hybrid 3D printer.
MIT researchers made a huge upgrade to an instrument that's indispensable in research today: the atomic force microscope (AFM).
A company called Windspeed Tech has for the past year or so been busy designing a novel upgrade to carriers and jets: a little bubble placed on the tail of an aircraft that offers a fantastic 360 degree view.
. According to Designer Carbon Materials - the only company in the world that manufactures this exotic material - it sold 200 micrograms of pure endohedral fullerenes for $33,400.
A promising power generation system uses the energy you expend walking or running to power mobile devices.
Scientists finally crack down a puzzle that has eluded the community for years. It seems sea level rise does indeed slow down Earth's spin.
Developing countries need an astonishing amount of cash to respect the commitments made at COP21, Paris. This money needs to come from developed nations.
Obesity rates have increased virtually everywhere in the world, especially in the developed world. Some 160 million Americans are obese or overweight. Over 70 percent of all men and 60 percent of all women from the US are overweight, and it seems like the next generation will have similar problems: nearly 30% of boys and girls under age 20 are either obese or overweight, up from 19% in 1980. When talking strictly about obesity, one-third of American men (32%) and women (34%) were obese in 2013 compared with about 4% of Chinese and Indian adults. Being obese puts you at risk of developing a myriad of conditions from heart disease and stroke, to diabetes, to some cancers, to osteoarthritis. Yet, for all the hazards that being overweight causes most people would rather lose weight to appear more attractive, than be more healthy. The two are interlinked, as we shall see. But that's better than not having any reason at all to lose weight, and now a new study quantified just how much weight men and women need to lose for this to show and make them look more attractive. Some might find the findings useful.
Citizens were against installing a solar farm because it would suck all the energy from the sun -- so plants will die.
"There's a window that could be opened for a long time or a short time where we have an opportunity to establish a self-sustaining base on Mars," Musk says.
The image above is a timeline with each frame showcasing a stage in our Universe's evolution, from humble beginning to present date (left to right), as simulated by the Argonne National Laboratory. Called the Q Continuum simulation, this is the most complete cosmological simulation to date covering a volume of 1300 Mpc on a side (one Mpc = 3.08567758 × 1022 meters) where half a trillion particles evolved for a mass resolution of ~1.5x108 Msun.
Powerful and smart people in the tech space join hands to found a new AI lab - one focused on making AI safe and beneficial to mankind.
From its first try, a computer can now draw handwritten characters from an unfamiliar language just as well as humans can.
There's a new player in the EV market -- one that might give Tesla a run for its money.
