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Some conservationists are considering introducing the Tasmanian devil, currently only found in Australia's island state of Tasmania, back to the mainland. The devil went extinct on the mainland some 3,000 years ago, and scientists hope the predator might restore balance to the local ecosystem, currently destabilized by too many cats and foxes.
A lot of women in their thirties choose to delay motherhood by freezing their eggs to later fertilize them when they feel the time is right. Cryopreservation of eggs is still a field in its infancy, though, and there's not much we know about its effects of pregnancy or rate of success. Doctors are steadily gathering stats, though, and a recent analysis suggests there may be some drawbacks to freezing eggs. The report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests fresh eggs have a significantly higher chance of success than cryopreserved ones. This is news for most, even for doctors working in fertility clinics and would be mothers (eventually) should understand this risk when they choose to bank their eggs in a clinic's frozen basket.
Every five years for more than a century, National Geographic releases an atlas of the world complete with the latest geographic and geologic cartographic representations. The latest edition of Atlas of the World can be quite terrifying if you move up north, in the Arctic, for it shows just how dramatic ice loss has been in the past decades. For comparison, the GIF above stitches three edition (7th and 10th) from 2000 to 2015. The latest caption shows the Arctic as it had been in 2012, during its record low ice extent.
Faced with the worst drought in recorded history, officials in California are turning to all sorts of creative methods to curb the rising water shortage. Most recently, 96 million black plastic balls were thrown in the LA Reservoir, which is filled with enough water to last the whole city of four million for weeks. Together, the millions of plastic balls act as a cover, shielding the water inside the reservoir from the sun's rays, especially the UV frequencies. This way, less water becomes evaporated or degraded through chemical means - about 300 million gallons of it.
University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers devised a new method that grows graphene nanoribbons directly on a germanium wafer. The ribbons are of excellent quality and the technique is compatible with current manufacturing methods. These sort of ribbons have been heralded by industry experts as the component of the future which will make electronics faster and more efficient. The only thing that's been missing until now was a sound way to make them.
Let's face it, even the most cutting edge robots developed today are stumbling goofs. So, in an effort to make robots less blundering a team at MIT has borrowed human reflexes to one of their lab's creation: a robot called Hermes. When the bot is just about to stumble about an obstacle, a human operator who is strapped with all sorts of actuators and motors synced to bots' movements is alerted. In a split-second, Hermes is back on his feet thanks to the innate reflexes of good ol' humans.
After years and years without a shine, two Russian cosmonauts took a spacewalk to scrub all the dirt and fumes from the International Space Station's windows. While scrubbing windshields is fairly easy and quick here on Earth, in space everything's a lot more difficult. The whole operation took five and half hours. Granted, the two cosmonauts completed two other tasks during this time: they retrieved an old experiment which measured how superheated gas from space affected the ISS hull and also cut loose an old communication antenna. Just a regular day's work, I guess.
A new report presented by United Nations officials at the American Statistical Association meeting in Seattle estimates that by 2100 the world's population will reach 11.2 billion people. Another less conservative scenario, however, estimates a numbers of 13 billion. Right now, there are 7.3 billion living in the world or around 80 million people more than last year.
A French company called 3Dvarius partnered with musician Laurent Bernadac to see just how far they could stretch 3D printing capabilities. Why not, they thought, stretch the strings of a fully playable 3D-printed violin? Combing the leading craftsmanship of the past two centuries with the cutting edge tech of today, the engineers designed an electric violin based on the legendary Stradivarius.
Both bathroom decorators and mathematicians have a reason to rejoice (how often does that happen?). Using a computer algorithm, a group of mathematicians at the University of Washington Bothell discovered the 15th kind of pentagon that can tile in a plane. The 14th was discovered in 1985 by mathematician Rolf Stein, while the previous five before were proven by Majorie Rice, a housewife from San Diego.
In the latest in a long string of lawsuits filled against fracking operations, a Texas family is claiming damages after the water well on their property exploded. The family's ranch is located just 1000 yards away from two fracking drills, which likely leaked methane to the groundwater according to the lawyer representing the family. The explosion left Cody Murray, the 38-year-old husband of the family of four, with severe burns on his arms, upper back, neck, forehead and nose along with “significant neurological damage.” He is now permanently disfigured, disabled and cannot work. He is now asking the court for retribution.
Central America is home to one of the greatest biodiversity on the planet. It's here among its rainforests that you can still find large swaths of land where there aren't any humans living nearby. But being sparsely populated also makes the region an attractive route to smuggle drugs and other logistical operations. In Honduras and Guatemala, particularly, all law and order seems to cede in the face of the narco-cartels who are razing forests to build airfields, roads and even ranches right in the middle of protected national parks. It's all a nasty business, and the greatest victims are those who play the least part in it all: the wildlife.
No matter how puritans might hate it, the English language, as any language for that matter, is constantly shifting, expanding and transforming. Previously, languages would influence one another based on proximity. French would influence English and vice-versa. But now, the world is smaller and borders between countries are thinning. On the internet, some people seem to have a language of their own. And while parents might scorn and others laugh, you should know in all seriousness that some of the weirdest internet slang words are actually real words now, as in they can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Let's just look at some:
After graphene proved to be one of the greatest discovery of the century, material scientists became inspired to see if other 2D meshes (just one atom thick layer of material) could be made from other elements. In time, we've heared about silicene, phosphorene or germanene. Now, a group from China reports for the first time stanene: a honeycomb 2D arrangement of tin (Sn) atoms, with a a bismuth telluride support that buckles the whole structure. Stanene is extremely exciting because it's been previously theorized that it could transfer electricity without heat loss, implying huge energy savings and increased performance for semiconductor applications.
Women often complain the AC is turned way too high at work. Many are forced by necessity to come to work on a hot summer day with a spare sweater or a freaking Snuggie, while men coworkers seem to be all fine, comfortable wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. Clearly, some people feel colder or hotter than others when exposed to the same temperature. However, I think nowadays it's no secret that most women get terribly uncomfortable in the conditions set by most thermostats at work. Now, a new study suggests that the way climate control in office buildings has been designed in the past couple of decades is discriminatory and doesn't reflect reality. That's because although in most workplaces today you'll find men and women in equal proportion, the AC is geared to provide the optimal comfort conditions for a 154 pounds, 40 year-old man. This profile may have been representative 50 years ago, but today it's outdated. It's time to align thermostats with today's needs.
There's more to seminal fluid, which makes up to 70% of semen's composition, than procreation. Scientists are only recently beginning to understand how the seminal fluid is interacting with the female brain and body, and findings so far may be surprising for some. For instance, in animals - including humans - semen affects the female reproductive tract, to maximize the changes of conception. But it doesn't stop here. The influence of semen on females might go even beyond this. In experiments on fruit flies, scientists found the females had altered gene expression post semen exposure, while males produce more seminal proteins when there are more rivals. Suddenly, semen just got a heck of a lot more complicated.
Evenwin Precision Technology, an electronics processing company, sacked 90% of its employees, replaced them with robots and saw productivity soar. Previously, there were 650 employees at the factory, now there are 60 - mostly engineers and accountants that oversee the production lines - and the number should go down to 20, according to company officials. The robots have produced almost three times as many pieces as were produced before. Quality has also improved. The product defect rate was 25%, now it is below 5%.
If you were born in 1900, you could call yourself lucky if you'd seen a day past your 50th birthday. The XXth century, however, marked an amazing leap in longevity thanks to the advent of vaccines, increased public health awareness and medical discoveries. In time, the leading causes of death and illness have shifted from infectious and parasitic diseases to noncommunicable diseases and chronic conditions. Sure, more people die today of cancer and heart disease than ever before, but it sure beats dying of typhoid. The extra decades in lifespan sure don't sound bad, either. Life expectancy at birth now exceeds 83 years in Japan—the current leader—and is at least 81 years in several other countries. The trend seems to be accelerating, especially for those at the extreme lifespan end. The population of adults 85 and older is projected to increase 351 percent by 2050, while those older than 100 will increase 10-fold between 2010 and 2050.
Self-driving cars have a promising future, and leading the pack technologically is Google, now a household name that has long transcended its status as a search engine. First and foremost, Google is a technology company and its interest are aligned with anything cutting edge, whether it's information technology or hardware (smart homes, smart appliances, cars). Since 2011 when Google first showcased its extremely successful self-driving Prius, later switched for a Lexus, the company has been making rapid progress. But Google rarely experiments just for the sake of it. Part of its philosophy is turning disruptive technology into a product, get it out to the people. But how do you go about self-driving cars, considering the auto business is one of the riskiest in the world? Well, just like it did with the Android for smartphones, Google could partner with the leading automakers supplying the technology. Indeed, Google confirmed this January that it had talks with General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Daimler and Volkswagen. But some highly interesting documents gathered by The Guardian suggests a possible alternate route. Google might actually build its own cars, all from scratch.
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense issued a report in which it highlights the global security implications of climate change. In the report, the authors note that climate change will exacerbate current world problems like " poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries."
Plants signal stress when they're affected by drought, high temperatures or a disease using the same chemical and electrical signals that animal use. In animals, these chemicals and signals are delivered, carried and interpreted by the nervous system, which is why it's surprising to find plants use this mechanism. The "machinery", however, is different suggesting plants and animals separately evolved the same communication mechanism.
A couple decades ago, satellite were solely the provision of governments, since they were the only ones that could afford launching billions dollars worth of tech into space. Slowly but surely, corporations hitched a ride and now, when an imaging satellite can fit in the palm of your hand and costs only a fraction it used to, small enterprises are flourishing. Along with them is innovation.
Taking inspiration from nature, scientists in South Korea hijacked millions of years of evolution and devised their very own robotic version of a water-strider - insects that can jump on water. Their tiny droid mimics the water-strider in both its water balancing acts and jumping on water, which is a lot harder than it sounds.
Boy, was this year a scorcher! Well, what can I say, apart from get ready for more. According to an exclusive info ran by New Scientist, all but one main tracker of global surface temperature will report that this year will mark the first full degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. I remind you that the International Panel on Climate Change warns that a two degree Celsius warming should be avoided on all costs if irreversible consequences like sea level rise, habitat loss and cataclysmic events are to be averted. This means that we're already halfway there, and the two degree mark might be reached by 2050. A four degree warming might end civilization as we know it.
Most of the yarn used today is synthetic, but in the last couple of years yarn sourced from biological raw materials have been making a comeback as manufacturers look for renewable alternatives. A PhD student at ETH Zurich developed one such promising alternative after he devised an innovative process to make fibers out of gelatine. Gelatine is mostly made of collagen, a main component of skin, bone and tendons which can be found in plentiful amount in slaughterhouse waste.
Japan just powered up the world's most powerful laser, a monster that shines a 2-petawatt pulse of light. The pulse lasted only one picosecond, or a trillionth of a second, but during this brief time frame the laser definitely concentrated a phenomenal amount of power.
A geological survey found Washington DC and the surrounding Chesapeake Bay region is gradually sinking. By the end of the century, the Chesapeake bay would be six inches lower than it is today. This is due to a natural phenomenon, not man-made global warming. But when the two add up, it could put the nation's capital a couple of feet under water, significantly affecting the lives of local residents and the city at large.
Different ant species employ various tactics to forage food and keep the colony in tip top shape. Most often scouts will scour for food, and when a source is deemed fit a trail of pheromones guide worker ants to pick up the crumbs, leftover pizza or cheerios. Ants aren't very picky, you know. What they are is very strong. It's common knowledge that ants carry loads multiple times heavier than their own weight. Some species, like longhorn crazy ants are able to carry some of the biggest loads among ants by working together, joining in a band to perform the lifting. It's a curios matter, one you might have often noticed in your very own backyard.
Chinese researchers sampled water from an underground aquifer in the Tarim Basin and found these store vast quantities of carbon dioxide as a result of human activities. If the same holds true for all the desert aquifers around the world, the trapped carbon would amount to about a quarter more than the amount stored in living plants on land. Previously, the carbon trapped in aquifers was thought to be negligible. Clearly, this isn't the case and these should not be disturbed so that the carbon doesn't wash up into the atmosphere.
Are bullies hard wired (genetically) to be abusive to their peers or are most bullies the product of their environment (abusive parents, emotional problems etc.)? This is already turning out to be an age old question among psychologists. A new study seems to lend credence to the idea that bullies behave the way they do because they really want it, and of course because of the rewards. The study published by Canadian researchers found that high school bullies had the highest self-esteem, status and lowest rates of depression.
In what can only be heralded as a major breakthrough, a group at Arizona State University reports the demonstration of the first ever white laser - a laser that emits light over the full spectrum of visible colors. Up until now, lasers were designed to emit a distinct spectrum, either red, green, blue and so on. Combining multiple colors has always proved challenging and previous attempts had been slumped with shortcoming. This latest version seems to work wonderfully. If this technology can and will be scaled commercially, it could radically transform the industry. Its contrast and lighting capabilities, watt per watt, are well over LEDs and, moreover, it could help devise a new generation of Wi-Fi, called Li-Fi, which works on laser light and is 10 times faster.
Following a three-year-long trial in the rice of fields of China, scientists report a new genetically modified strain that promises to dramatically reduce the otherwise huge carbon footprint of rice farming. The new GMO crop emits only 1% of the methane - a highly potent greenhouse gas - that an unaltered rice paddies leaches out into the atmosphere. So far, the crop looks extremely advantageous but the unfavorable social climate against GMOs doesn't help at all, particularly in China where the public is very sensitive and no genetically modified rice variety has been allowed on its fields apart from this trial. China is the second largest producer of rice in the world.
A novel analysis reveals T-rex and other theropods – the top land predators that dominated the planet for no less than 165 million years – had teeth of unrivaled complexity. The long and powerful teeth were serrated like steak knives to disembowel prey easily, while on the inside tissue supported the teeth for maximum resistance against […]
Distilling tastes and flavors to their most basic constituents is essential to making food the tastiest it can be. We currently know of five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and the somewhat hard to pin down umami (think savory or anchovies, tomato juice, the likes). Now, a group claims it has pinned down the sixth: fat. Bacon lovers throughout the world might rejoice at the news. However, if you like bacon you should feel grateful you didn't take part in this study because isolated fat molecules are reportedly awful tasting. Distinct yes, but quite awful. In fact, to distinguish from what people generally refer to as "fat", the researchers at Purdue University propose a new term to describe the sixth basic taste: oleogustus.
Democrat Hillary Clinton is maybe the first presidential candidate to make tackling climate change a central point. Now we actually have specifics after Clinton released on Sunday a fact sheet detailing her plan for action. Her proposals are bold, for sure. For instance, if she's elected, Hilary promises that clean renewable energy will power every home in America within a decade. To achieve this goal, she plans on bringing the total number of solar panels installed nationwide to more than half a billion before the end of her first term. Should we believe her?
Even when people are genuinely trying to select a profile picture for a social network or to serve for an ID, they're apparently a poor judge of their own looks. Strangers were found to select a picture that matches a person appearance better, according to a new research carried out by a team at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
The revelation that DNA chemically self-assembles to build life was a game changer. Now, DNA's self-assembly capability is moving past genetics and into structural mechanics. One of the most astonishing demonstrations involves an automated process which basically 3D prints structures made out of DNA, of all shapes and sizes. For instance, the team at Dresden University of Technology built tiny 3d objects like a bunny, a bottle or even a waving humanoid.
Companies in the US might be mandated by the FDA to list the amount of added sugar in their products as a percent of the recommended daily calorie intake. Last year, the FDA proposed to include the amount of added sugars in grams on the Nutrition Facts label. Now, the same agency thinks it would be more informative to consumers if the label is displayed as a percentage to fit a context.
Scientists rely on a method called radiocarbon dating to determine the age of fossils or artifacts. With little or no other information available, the widely used method can accurately determine how old a sample is. This makes it one of the most powerful tools archaeologists, anthropologists and paleontologists have at their disposal. Rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere are, however, artificially aging the atmosphere and this might drastically interfere with the accuracy of radiocarbon dating. According to a new paper published by a team at the Imperial College London, "by 2050 a new T-shirt would have the same radiocarbon date as a robe worn by William the Conqueror a thousand years earlier."
In a first of its kind experiment, biologists found out to everyone's surprise that boa constrictors kill prey by cutting the blood supply from the heart. It was long thought that suffocation is the snakes' modus operandi. This makes sense though, according to evolutionary biologists involved in the study. Cutting the blood supply kills prey much faster than limiting oxygen intake. This comes at an evolutionary advantage since this minimizes risks faced from predators.
Nearly all communication devices today, whether we're speaking of smartphones, tablets or notebooks, rely on WiFi signal to connect to the internet and transmit data. With the rise of the Internet of Things, WiFi will become even more ubiquitous. However, enabling an active WiFi connection also eats up a lot of power. When I have WiFi on, my smartphone goes dead in under 24 hours, compared to 48 or more otherwise. In fact, according to a report, the routers that keep us constantly connected to the Internet – now in nearly 90 million American homes – uses about $1 billion worth of electricity annually. But in a bid to cut WiFi power waste in space, NASA might inadvertently change this situation forever.
For over a century since it was described, a peculiar type of ice known as hair-ice or ice wool has been puzzling scientists. Now, the mystery seems to have been solved. The uncanny fine hairs of ice, which are only 0.02 mm thick and can grow to 20 cm in length, are actually caused by a fungus.
An 80-year-old man suffering from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - the most common cause of sight loss in the world - can now see again after being fitted with a bionic eye. The technology was developed at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, and the implant marks the first trial for the Argus II system for AMD.
Facial recognition and motion tracking is already old news. The next level is describing what you do or what's going on - for now only in still pictures. Meet NeuralTalk, a deep learning image processing algorithm developed by Stanford engineers which uses processes similar to those used by the human brain to decipher and interpret photos. The software can easily describe, for instance, a band of people dressed up as zombies. It's remarkably effective and freaking creepy at the same time.
A Koran manuscript etched on sheep or goat skin may be the oldest discover so far, according to a radiocarbon dating. The fragments, preserved in pristine condition and written in a surprisingly clear Hijazi script, were found in the University of Birmingham's library. The dating shows the Koran copy is at least 1,370 years old, and was edited between 568 and 645 by a person who likely knew the prophet Muhammed himself. Though it's not clear if it's the oldest Koran fragment, it's definitely out there among the earliest Islamic texts - a reason to rejoice for the large Islamic community in Birmingham.
Meet one of slickest and twisted virus nature has to offer. Called IIV-6/CrIV , researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia discovered the virus effectively castrates crickets, while promoting sexual activity at the same time like an aphrodisiac so it can spread. It’s an incredibly effective strategy for the virus, but can we learn anything from it? […]
Archaeologists used innovative techniques to gain new insights about the third-millennium urban crisis in Mesopotamia some 4,000 years ago. This marked the fall of the Akkadian Empire – the very first empire in the world. The researchers also drew a comparison to modern-day Syria where current events in the wake of climate change and a violent […]
Cone snails have one of the most dangerous venom in the animal kingdom. This complex venomous soup is made up of thousands of chemicals used both to hunt prey and ward off predators. The venom is enough to kill a human in a matter of minutes. Now, these lethal chemicals could be used to create a new class of painkiller for chronic pain and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, according to University of Queensland researchers. The same team also used a genetic and proteomic to find out how the cone snails developed its venom. Apparently, the animals initially used their chemical weaponry as a defense mechanism and later on adapted it into an attack.
Duke University researchers made micro CT scans of the skull of ancient monkey and found its brain, though tiny by modern standards, was far more complex than previously thought. The fossils, discovered in Kenya in 1997, belong to a monkey ancestor who lived some 15 million years ago.
One this day, 53 years ago, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory detonated a thermonuclear device 194 meters below the Nevada desert. Why? Well, the government at the time thought blowing up a nuclear bomb underground sounded like a good idea if you want to excavate a mine. It's a lot quicker than drilling with a lot machines. After all, mines are made using thousands of tonnes of dynamite. Why not take a shortcut and nuke the damn thing. The problem, of course is radiation. But how can you have people work in a mine if it's contaminated with radiation, right? The logic escapes me as well.
