Ants can tell who’s who using their crazy sense of smell
Maybe the most amazing of social insects, ants use complex cues of pheromones to determine to which cast in the...
![In this remarkable capture from above, we see a grizzly bear guarding a massive bison carcass. The photograph was taken by Doug Smith at Yellowstone National Park. Smith, who is the leader of Yellowstone’s Wolf Project, suspects that the bear happened upon the recently deceased bison and has now assumed ownership of the meal against other would be diners such as wolves [Source: BettPratt.com].](https://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/bear-guarding-its-kill-looking-up-aerial.webp)
Drones are stressing bears and other wildlife
The buzzing racket of quadcopters and drones may be stressing wildlife, a new study shows. Drones have long ceased to...
Tasmanian devil might get reintroduced to Australia after 3,000 years absence
Some conservationists are considering introducing the Tasmanian devil, currently only found in Australia's island state of Tasmania, back to the...
Freezing eggs can make in vitro pregnancies less successful
A lot of women in their thirties choose to delay motherhood by freezing their eggs to later fertilize them when...
Striking new atlas shows dramatic extent of Arctic ice loss
Every five years for more than a century, National Geographic releases an atlas of the world complete with the latest...
California drought is so tough L.A. is throwing 96 million balls to shade a reservoir
Faced with the worst drought in recorded history, officials in California are turning to all sorts of creative methods to...
Growing graphene nanoribbons jut got a lot easier, spelling great news for electronics
University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers devised a new method that grows graphene nanoribbons directly on a germanium wafer. The ribbons are...
Humand lends reflexes to a stumbling robot
Let's face it, even the most cutting edge robots developed today are stumbling goofs. So, in an effort to make...
Put a shine on that space station: how cosmonauts clean the ISS’s windows
After years and years without a shine, two Russian cosmonauts took a spacewalk to scrub all the dirt and fumes...
World population could double by 2100, according to the UN
A new report presented by United Nations officials at the American Statistical Association meeting in Seattle estimates that by 2100...
This 3D-printed Stradivarius inspired violin sounds gorgeous
A French company called 3Dvarius partnered with musician Laurent Bernadac to see just how far they could stretch 3D printing...
Finally, a new pentagon shape that tiles in a plane
Both bathroom decorators and mathematicians have a reason to rejoice (how often does that happen?). Using a computer algorithm, a...
Texas family sues fracking company after water well exploded from leached methane
In the latest in a long string of lawsuits filled against fracking operations, a Texas family is claiming damages after...
Drug trafficking is wiping out an unlikely bystander: wildlife
Central America is home to one of the greatest biodiversity on the planet. It's here among its rainforests that you...
10 of the Weirdest Internet Slang Words That Are Now in the Dictionary
No matter how puritans might hate it, the English language, as any language for that matter, is constantly shifting, expanding...
Introducing stanene: just like graphene, except it’s a 2D tin honeycomb
After graphene proved to be one of the greatest discovery of the century, material scientists became inspired to see if...
Why you’re freezing in the office: AC thermostat is optimized for a 154 pounds, 40-year-old man
Women often complain the AC is turned way too high at work. Many are forced by necessity to come to...
Semen regulates female’s gene expression and behavior (curbs depression, for instance)
There's more to seminal fluid, which makes up to 70% of semen's composition, than procreation. Scientists are only recently beginning...
A Chinese factory replaced 90% of its employees with robots – production soared soon after
Evenwin Precision Technology, an electronics processing company, sacked 90% of its employees, replaced them with robots and saw productivity soar....
The age of the centenarians: elderly population over 100 years to increase ten fold by 2035
If you were born in 1900, you could call yourself lucky if you'd seen a day past your 50th birthday....
Is Google actually building its own cars?
Self-driving cars have a promising future, and leading the pack technologically is Google, now a household name that has long...
“Climate change is a security risk,” Pentagon report reads
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense issued a report in which it highlights the global security implications of climate change....
Plants signal stress like animals do: with neurotransmitters
Plants signal stress when they're affected by drought, high temperatures or a disease using the same chemical and electrical signals...
Eyes up above: you can’t lie satellite imagery
A couple decades ago, satellite were solely the provision of governments, since they were the only ones that could afford...
The Jesusbot: robot strides on the surface and jumps on water
Taking inspiration from nature, scientists in South Korea hijacked millions of years of evolution and devised their very own robotic...
We’re halfway past the dangerous 2 °C warming limit set by the UN, and it’s only 2015
Boy, was this year a scorcher! Well, what can I say, apart from get ready for more. According to an...
This may look like wool yarn, but it’s actually made from slaughterhouse waste
Most of the yarn used today is synthetic, but in the last couple of years yarn sourced from biological raw...
The world’s most powerful laser could put the Death Star to shame
Japan just powered up the world's most powerful laser, a monster that shines a 2-petawatt pulse of light. The pulse...
Capital under water: the ground underneath Washington DC is sinking
A geological survey found Washington DC and the surrounding Chesapeake Bay region is gradually sinking. By the end of the...
How crazy ants carry dinner 100 times their size: coordination and individual leadership
Different ant species employ various tactics to forage food and keep the colony in tip top shape. Most often scouts...
Massive aquifers beneath the world’s deserts might store more carbon than all living plants
Chinese researchers sampled water from an underground aquifer in the Tarim Basin and found these store vast quantities of carbon...
Study suggests bullies have high self-esteem, status and low rates of depression
Are bullies hard wired (genetically) to be abusive to their peers or are most bullies the product of their environment...
This is the first white light laser. It might change video display and lighting dramatically
In what can only be heralded as a major breakthrough, a group at Arizona State University reports the demonstration of...
This GMO rice tackles global warming by emitting 100 times less methane
Following a three-year-long trial in the rice of fields of China, scientists report a new genetically modified strain that promises...
T-rex and other top dinosaur predators had serrated teeth to butcher their prey
A novel analysis reveals T-rex and other theropods - the top land predators that dominated the planet for no less than...
Fat is recognized as the sixth basic taste, but it’s awful on its own
Distilling tastes and flavors to their most basic constituents is essential to making food the tastiest it can be. We...
Hillary Clinton wants to install half a billion solar panels if she’s elected
Democrat Hillary Clinton is maybe the first presidential candidate to make tackling climate change a central point. Now we actually...
Strangers are better than you at picking the best photos of yourself
Even when people are genuinely trying to select a profile picture for a social network or to serve for an...
Folding tiny origami bunnies out of DNA and why it’s important
The revelation that DNA chemically self-assembles to build life was a game changer. Now, DNA's self-assembly capability is moving past...
Foods and drinks might be labeled for added sugar intake, FDA proposes
Companies in the US might be mandated by the FDA to list the amount of added sugar in their products...
Growing CO2 levels are messing up radiocarbon dating
Scientists rely on a method called radiocarbon dating to determine the age of fossils or artifacts. With little or no...
Boa constrictors don’t suffocate their prey. Instead, they cut the blood from the heart
In a first of its kind experiment, biologists found out to everyone's surprise that boa constrictors kill prey by cutting...
New WiFi chip uses 100 times less power with minimal loss of quality
Nearly all communication devices today, whether we're speaking of smartphones, tablets or notebooks, rely on WiFi signal to connect to...
Nature’s toupee: fungus weaves astonishing hair-ice
For over a century since it was described, a peculiar type of ice known as hair-ice or ice wool has...
Blind pensioner can see again following bionic eye implant
An 80-year-old man suffering from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - the most common cause of sight loss in the world...
Neural network image processor tells you what’s going in your pictures
Facial recognition and motion tracking is already old news. The next level is describing what you do or what's going...
What may be the oldest Koran fragments were discovered in Birmingham, UK
A Koran manuscript etched on sheep or goat skin may be the oldest discover so far, according to a radiocarbon...
This sexually transmitted virus castrates crickets, but encourages sexual activity
A female decorated cricket, with spermatophore attached, dismounts male. Photo: tomhouslay.com Meet one of slickest and twisted virus nature has...
Mesopotamian urban crisis after the fall of the Akkadian Empire mirrors modern Syrian one
Archaeologists used innovative techniques to gain new insights about the third-millennium urban crisis in Mesopotamia some 4,000 years ago. This marked...
New painkillers could be made out of the venom of a killer snail
Cone snails have one of the most dangerous venom in the animal kingdom. This complex venomous soup is made up...