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In 1899 the famous Russian paleontologist Alexander Petrovich Karpinsky published a paper in which he described a peculiar fossil resembling what can only be called today as a “buzz saw”, but whose barer escaped scientists. Many speculations have been made since then, but most recently, using advanced SCAN scans, scientists at Idaho State University have asserted that […]
The European Space Agency just announced the asteroid they chose for an upcoming controlled crash landing of one of their spacecraft. The objective? Well, more or less, they just want to see what happens. The Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission will intercept the asteroid, called Didymos, in 2022, when the asteroid gets within […]
I have nothing but the deepest admiration and respect for fighters – always faithful in the face of peril and always ready to put their necks on the line in order to save people from the hellish depths. As one can imagine, firefighting tech has evolved a great deal from simple fireproof clothing and a […]
For some time now, researchers have been experimenting with the idea of an aircraft that operates with flapping wings, just like insects or birds do, instead of conventional flat and long wings. The idea is that flapping wings allow a much greater degree of control and stability, allowing the aircraft to perform maneuvers otherwise impossible. […]
In just a couple of years, electronics will cross a new frontier of practicability and aesthetics as consumer goods will transition to flexible electronics. We’ve told you all about fantastic electronics that can stretch multiple times their own size all while housing delicate circuitry, hinting to prospects where they could be easily embedded into clothing […]
Cockroaches are maybe the most amazing insects in the animal kingdom – they’re simply made to survive. These little buggers can survive in sub-zero temperatures, can withstand a lethal dose of radiation up to 15 times of that for humans, can live without food for a whole month and … they can live with a […]
One of the miracles of modern day medicine science, stem cells, are regarded by scientists as the basic building blocks for devising treatments, cures or transplants for some of today’s yet incurable diseases like Alzheimer or diabetes. The biggest hurdle researchers face is differentiating stem cells so that they may grow into a specific type […]
Though hundreds of potentially life harboring exoplanets have been discovered thus far, until the James Webb Space Telescope becomes operational, sometime around 2018, scientists today lack the resources to peer into the guts of these planet and determine a realistic chance of hosting life. Even when the JWT goes live, however, it will take hundreds […]
Most of us likely own a phone that has more computing power than that available for the entire Apollo mission which landed a man on the moon, still rather curiously we choose to dedicate most of it to browsing photos of cute cats on the web. Nevertheless, there comes a time when pedestrian technology can […]
We’ve never shun away from praising the almost miraculous properties of graphene, the wonder material set to become even more paradigm shifting than plastic. Graphene has found been found to have the potential to revolutionize a myriad of scientific fields, from genetics, to electronics, to nanotech, to security, to just about anything you could think of. The energy […]
Princeton University political scientists have found as part of a recent study looking to assess the performance of state supreme court justices that appointed justices generally bring a higher quality of information to the decision-making process, are less biased and are generally less prone to error as elected justices. For their study, Matias Iaryczower, an assistant […]
A new climate model has predicted dramatic snow fall decline worldwide as a result of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide in the next 100 years. Many regions in the world depend on fresh water as a result of snow melt, which means if the study’s predictions hold that dire consequences to the biosphere and climate balance await. […]
Humans were granted with an evolutionary edge that differentiated us from other primates and may have helped us become the dominant species on planet Earth. A recent study which scanned the brains of humans and rhesus monkeys found that humans have at least two functional brain networks absent in rhesus monkeys. Previous genetic research concluded […]
It’s remarkable what state technology has reached today, and it’s only getting faster, more powerful and smaller. If merely a decade ago you were to tell someone that it would be possible for a human to control a robotic arm by the power of thought only, chances are you would have been labeled as mad. […]
In the culmination of 15 years worth of painstaking research work related to retina implants, scientists from Germany and Hungary have for the first time demonstrated that a light sensitive electronic chip, implanted under the retina, can restore useful vision in patients blind from hereditary retinal degeneration. As part of the research, nine persons previously completely […]
There seems to be a general belief, especially among parents, that if you send children to music lessons the experience will make them smarter. However, a group of researchers at University of Toronto, intrigued by this highly thrown about, yet never proven, link between the two conducted a study to see if this belief genuinely holds. Their findings suggest, […]
Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie? Sorry about that folks – that was a bit twisted right? Just earlier you’ve used your lips, tongue, jaw and larynx in a highly complex manner in order to render these sounds out loud. Still, very little is known of how the brain […]
It’s a rather well-attested fact that men are significantly better than women at spatial navigation, something that holds across a wide variety of species, not just humans. General belief holds that evolution triggered this response since our ancestors needed to return home after traveling vast distances in search of food, while the females stayed home. […]
Researchers at Northwestern University claim they have uncovered the mechanisms that lead to difficulty in reading. Apparently, there is a direct correlation between one’s ability to encode speech sound in the brain and ease of reading. The scientists also devised an experiment and saw that children with reading impairment significantly improved after being fitted with […]
I realize we’re maybe bugging some of you with these constant asteroid/meteor pieces here on ZME Science, but for what’s it worth we found this recently released NASA video comprised of radar images during 2012 DA14’s recent flyby very interesting. The movie, which combines 73 radar-images captured over the course of eight hours on the […]
The recent historical flyby of 2012 D14 – the largest asteroid ever to pass this close to Earth in recorded space observational history – as well as the modest in size, but monumental in punch meteorite that exploded over Russia caused an whole frenzy around them on the web. Thing is, meteorites and asteroids have […]
Computer scientists at University of Illinois at Chicago have created what can only be described as a real-life Star Trek holodeck. Now, it’s not nearly as impressive as its SciFi counterpart, after all futurist Tim Huckaby predicted it will take some ten years before a full blown version might be created, still virtual reality is […]
Deep inside the Milky Way lies the beautiful star breeding ground known as the Lobster nebula, located in the constellation Scorpius – some 8,000 light-years away from Earth. The nebula has been the subject of study for astronomers for many years, however just recently it has been imaged in infrared for the first time capturing […]
As climate change and global warming become ever pressing issues on the desks of the world’s governments, so do the much awaited measures become more prevailing, albeit not nearly as thoughtfully as they should be addressed. Today, renewable energy sources like solar and wind have actually ceased to become regarded as “alternative”, since actually more […]
A new study by scientists at University of British Columbia and Université Paris Descartes found that babies growing up in bilingual environments are more than well equipped to tackle the challenge of distinguishing between the two from a very early age – as young as seven months old according to the findings. Scientists, linguistics and […]
Now, I’m not advocating alcohol consumption, but truth be told most of us take alcohol for granted, and I’m not referring to abusing either. Millions of years ago, our ancestors and primate relatives had a very poor ability of metabolizing ethanol — the alcohol in beer, wine and spirits — and were it not for their […]
For most Parkinson’s patients, tremors associated with this devastating disease make living a normal life extremely difficult, if not impossible. Cooking, eating, even tying one’s shoelaces, basically anything that implies limb manipulation is very difficult to achieve by one’s self. A novel type of therapy developed by physicians at Oxford University, however, brings a glimmer […]
A team of international researchers from US and China have employed a novel method to link enzymes together and then encapsulate them in a polymer shell. This enables the enzymes to work sequentially in chemical reactions, just like in nature. To illustrate their enzyme batch, a group of mice were intoxicated with alcohol and then injected […]
Recently, the highly controversial “golden rice” – a genetically modified rice that also contains vitamin A – has been approved in the Philippines after much heated debates and a slew of barrages imposed by anti-GMO organizations. It is believed worldwide 250,000-500,000 children go blind each year, with half of these eventually dying within a year, […]
The weekend that has just passed was a tight one for asteroid news. At the center was of course the much raved about “2012 DA14” – the closest asteroid of this significant size to flyby Earth since recorded history – which actually speared passed Earth at an altitude of 27,700km, a few thousand kilometers below the […]
In what can only be considered a remarkable medical breakthrough, researchers at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have completely cured type 1 diabetes in dogs after they were injected during a single gene therapy session. The injected gene therapy vectors ensure a healthy expression of glucose, thus the regular insulin shots and associated side effects with the […]
A telescope in Chile recently imaged one of the brightest spots at the core of the Milky Way, beautifully illustrating a star cluster and its neighboring dark nebula. The latter offers a stunning contrast for the billions of stars present in this patch of our galaxy. This fantastic view was made possible using the Wide Field […]
Most brain-machine prosthetic research today is focused on supplementing a missing sense, like medical devices that restore hearing or sight. In a novel research, however, scientists at Duke University Medical Center have literally granted rodents a sixth sense after they implanted them with an experimental prototype that allows rats to “touch” invisible infrared light. At first, six rats […]
Myth, wonder, mysticism these are just a few concepts that has entertained and has fascinated the human mind for thousands of years. Be it from boredom of life’s seemingly casual existence or drawn by aspirations of a higher self, many people have been, currently are and will be for a long time seduced by what […]
Researchers at University of Utah have recently demonstrated that it is indeed feasible to construct a topological insulator from organic compounds. Topological insulators are deemed very important by scientists because of their unique property of conducting electrons on their edges, while at the same time acting as an insulator on the inside. These capabilities make it […]
Chances have it, if you’re working in the field of manufacturing, medicine, research or even sales, that some of your co-workers are robots. Which is no wonder, since robots today are a lot cheaper and efficient than most humans when simple or repetitive tasks are required, or on the contrary when high precision and delicate […]
Using 21st century nanotechnology, researchers have discovered a new mineral in samples from a meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1969. The meteorite is 4.5 billion years old and originates from an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. The new mineral has alluded scientists for some time since its discovery by a Japanese expedition team to Antarctica […]
Researchers have developed a gene engineered vaccinia virus JX-594 – one of the pox viruses – that selectively kills cancer cells and increases immune system response. In a clinical trial of 30 terminally-ill liver cancer participants, where doses were randomized, the researchers found that the median life expectancy significantly prolonged. “For the first time in medical history we […]
Obviously there has to be a limit to how much to a tree can grow, but what exactly influences and in term limits the height of a tree? For a long time researchers have noticed that the taller the tree, the shorter its leaves. Recently, a team of scientists found that there has to be […]
Underneath hundreds of meters of Antarctic ice lie a slew of lakes, completely isolated from the outside world, some for thousand of years. For years, scientists have been trying to imagine what life in such a system might look like, if any. Just recently an US Antarctic expedition found a small body of water huddled in […]
There’s a common stereotype that depicts athletes as being grunts that are all brawn and no brain. In reality, the truth couldn’t be farther. Athletes, the good ones at least, seemingly posses an above average intelligence, and a recent study by cognitive scientists at University of Montreal adds further weight to this statement. In the study […]
For years scientists have been studying the salmon migration path, which is one of the most fascinating, yet dangerous. Once it’s born in its freshwater breeding location, the salmon heads for salt water in the ocean, before it returns to its exact freshwater stream of birth in order to restart the process – a journey that lasts […]
For the past twenty years there’s been a debate whether the mammal explosion that eventually made the class of animals dominant on Earth happened before or after the end of the dinosaur reign. Scientific papers and various evidence supporting both views have surfaced along the years, but a recent massive study conducted by a collaborative […]
It’s remarkable what astonishing finds archaeologists today still manage to discover. A few years ago, no less than 17 new pyramids were discovered in Egypt. Recently, in neighboring Sudan a most impressive site filled with densely packed pyramids was unearthed, proving once again that there are still many hidden relics left in the world. The find was […]
Here’s a global warming reduction plan that might appeal to most of you – work less! According to a Washington thinktank called the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an annual 0.5 percent reduction in work hours would cut between eight and 22 percent of every degree of warming from now until 2100. In the past few […]
If you remember, a few weeks ago I reported on the ISON comet, discovered just last year, but which is already hailed as possibly the “comet of the century”. If the ISON comet won’t collapse during its closest approach to the sun, its trail will be so bright and massive that it will become visible […]
Stereo sensing is a highly important skill that most animals possess that creates a directional perspective. Not all senses are stereo, however, in some animals. For instance, humans have stereo vision and hearing, however no stereo smell – the latter being a trait that not too many animals possess. The common mole has been found […]
The Kepler mission has proven to be invaluable to science today thanks to its formidable discoveries of exoplanets in our galaxy. It’s rather remarkable how scientists can tell so much from so little, like the size, mass, orbit and sometimes even composition of a distant planet all by analyzing light. On other hand, it’s frustrating […]
The Eurasian Jays are among the most intelligent birds studied thus far by biologists, belong to the corvids, a group of birds that also includes crows. The latter are especially gifted, as they’ve been observed making use of tools, associate faces with behavior and even recognize when a fellow crow has died. Quite crafty fellows. […]
We’re only in the early days of 3-D printing, but even now the breakthroughs made using such technology are most impressive like the genuine possibility of printing spare parts in space for the ISS, creating objects of great details on the nanoscale or even artificial muscles made using a 3-D printer. What’s fabulous though is […]
