Features on ZME Science

Snow Leopards: What You Need To Know About These Magnificent Cats

For millennia, they've been the uncontested kings of the mountains, hunting prey up to three times bigger than them.

Tea Histories: Yerba Mate

Mate Tea is one of the more uncommon and special teas you can have. Not exactly a tea, it’s been a favorite of millions for hundreds of years. Typically prepared from dried leaves of Yerba Mate, the tea is served through a metallic straw called a bombilla. But let’s take it slower, and start with the […]

'Fire Rainbows' - What they are, how they form, and of course, great pictures

With the recent sighting of a fire rainbow in South Carolina, there seems to be a sudden surge of interest for this phenomenon, so I thought I’d come back with some more information. First of all, they’re not ‘fire rainbows’; in fact, they’re not rainbows at all. The correct name is circumhorizontal arc, and it’s […]

Do violent video games really make children more aggressive?

Video games don't make kids more aggressive. This myth needs to stop.

Natural News is the biggest pseudoscience hub on the internet - stop following them

Did you know that vaccines are dangerous? Or that eating whole lemons (or eggs) prevents cancer? Or that evil doctors kill people to treat them for depression, or that science in general is just bogus studies and money? Those are just some of the headlines you can find on what I believe to be one of the biggest sources […]

How long does food stay fresh? Learn what expiration dates really mean

Experts did the math and they estimate that $165 billion worth of perfectly edible food gets tossed each year, due to it passing it's expiration date. But most of these dates are largely made up.

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 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:

I Am Not What You Say I Am - The Strange Case of Awesome Misnomers

A misnomer is a word or term used to suggest a meaning that is not really true – misnomer doesn’t mean “misunderstanding” or “popular misconception”, as it is often implied on the internet. Most of the times, misnomers just cause some confusion and a wrong perception and sometimes those ideas get burned into the popular opinion, […]

The Skypunch - not a fancy anime combat move, but just as awesome

"Skypunch" is the colloquial name of a phenomenon known as a Fallstreak hole - a large circular or elliptical gap that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds.

Is Dairy Addiction Real? Here's what science says

Dairy Addiction is one idea toted not only as a notion, but as a fact by a significant number of vegans, especially ones that do not link to any reliable source (if any at all) to provide any evidence to the conclusion they have reached. So I decided that I will take it upon myself […]

Skeleton flower turns translucent when it comes in contact with water

This rare flower's petals are usually white, but turn translucent (their "skeleton" form) when exposed to water. Being completely clear and of striking, glass-like beauty while wet, they turn white again when they dry off.

Domes of ice and grass: the Pingos [with great pics]

Also called hydrolaccoliths, pingos are spectacular domes of earth and vegetation covered ice usually found in the Arctic and subarctic. They can reach up to 90 metres (300 feet) high and more than 800 metres (0.5 mile) across and are usually circular or oval-shaped. They may be green on the outside, but the core is solid, clear ice. […]

The world's religions: an overview

What drives us to create these intricate systems of tales, beliefs and myths, who starts them and why do they propagate? Is it just the need to explain the unexplainable? Is there a deeper need for order nestled in our brain that makes us pin rain and drought, life and death on some higher, but purposeful, being? I don't know. But what i can show you is what we know about how religion appeared, spread, and thought us up till today.

Meet Arthur - The stray dog that followed a team through a 430 mile race in the Amazon

A stray dog followed a Swedish racing team through 430 miles (688 km) of jungles and rivers just because one of the team members gave him a meatball during one of the early halts. A small good deed can have huge effects – this was proven by an extreme racing team and a stray dog. […]

Tiny fluffy sea slugs have Japan's netizens going crazy, and they'll give you our cute-dose for the day

Japan’s Twittersphere has just rediscovered (and is loosing its collective mind over) what is probably the cutest sea slug ever – Jorunna parva, a sea slug that looks like a fluffy bunny.

Into the Earth: The Mind Blowing Cave Photography of Robbie Shone

Robbie Shone is one of the most talented and hard working cave photographers in the world. Over the past ten years, Robbie’s passion has taken him to China, Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Uzbekistan, Sudan, the Picos, the Alps and Crete. He has also worked closely with scouting groups in California, and documented scientists in Portugal, Switzerland […]

Georgia Guidestones -- mysterious instructions for the post-apocalypse

Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite and Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature. There's a really powerful vibe in here.

American Museum of Natural History Releases Vintage Drawings of Seashells

The American Museum of Natural History has released a set of postcards you can buy when you visit them – The Seashell Collector. I thought the set looks quite brilliant, and it’s definitely worth sharing, along with some basic information Seashells The word seashell is often used to mean only the shell of a marine mollusk […]

So you've come face to face with a bear; what should you do to bear through this?

A Montana family came perilously close to a grizzly bear near Yellowstone Park in the US when it jumped on the hood of their car. The family stayed in their car, kept the windows closed, and eventually the bear got bored and wandered off. But what happens if you don't have the safety of a vehicle?

This mirror lets you see how you look with different clothes on

A new hi-tech mirror allows clients to see how they would look like in different outfits, without having to actually try them on. From what I could find, there are two companies working on different versions of this product (one in Japan, one in America), but the bad news is that so far, it only […]

This is how the Moon looks under the microscope!

The Apollo program returned 380.05 kg of lunar rocks and soil, and most of the samples are stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility. The samples of rocks, breccias, and regolith were polished into thin sections, allowing for optical geologic studies to be performed on them.

The science of soap bubbles [with great pics]

A soap bubble is a very thin sheet of water sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules. They are an evanescent childish wonder, but also hold some valuable mathematical and physical insights: let’s have a look at the science of soap bubbles. We see them as fun and childish, blowing them around in the summer, but […]

What the SPF number on your sunscreen means

Most people don't know what SPF is and many companies exploit this ignorance.

Why corn is a fruit, tomatoes are berries, rhubarb is a vegetable, and strawberries are neither

Fruits and vegetables – they’re tasty and they’re healthy… but do you know what they really are? Hank Green, which we know for developing EcoGeek, explained on Youtube why some things are fruits, some things are vegetables, and some things are neither. Prepare to have your mind blown: We generally consider vegetables as a side dish […]

Historical pistols: a WWII anatomy project

WWII was the largest conflict known to mankind, responsible for 50 to 80 million fatalities, involving most of the countries in the world. Historians are still fascinated by this tragic event to this day, and while we here at ZME Science are not big gun fans nor do we support technology that’s built to kill, we […]

Even More Spectacular Fungi Photos by Steve Axford

In September 2014, we were telling you about Steve Axford’s spectacular mushroom photography. I was truly fascinated by the art and the insight he provides into this tiny and mysterious world. Most of his work is done on Australian fungus, and he says he likes to take pictures of things that are close to home. “My […]

They did the math - things you won't believe people on the internet calculated

Every once in a while, you stumble upon a statement or question so preposterous that you don’t even bother thinking about it – but somewhere, someone on the internet did the math. This is a list of that kind of things – crazy things that someone actually calculated. This is not real science though, so […]

A Spectacular Pie Chart of the World's Most Spoken Languages

“A world of languages” is a fascinating infographic created by Alberto Lucas Lopéz for the South China Morning Post. It highlights the most spoken languages in the world, and what countries actually speak them. The results may surprise you, so have a look: Lopez explains: “There are at least 7,102 known languages alive in the […]

If you fold an A4 sheet of paper 103 times its thickness will roughly be the size of the Universe

Whaaaat? It’s just a matter of math, really. Fold an A4 once and it will be twice as thick, fold it again and it will be four times as thick as it initially was. Turns out, according to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, if you do this 103 times the sheet’s thickness will be larger than the observable Universe: […]

Tanktastic: a brief overview of the modern-day knight in shining armour

Here at ZME Science we aren't very fond of war, but I think tanks are really awesome.

How would the world look like without ice?

There are more than five million cubic miles of ice on Earth, and throughout our planet’s history, there have been periods with both more, and less ice. We tend to think of ice as an immovable reality but in truth, planetary ice is quite volatile. With continuously rising temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels […]

Artist Transforms Junk Into Beautiful Street Art to Remind us of Pollution

Portuguese artist Artur Bordalo’s (aka Bordalo II) creates artwork from junk, but that doesn’t make it any less cute! He uses only junk to bring these animals to life, each of them a larger-than-life version of their biological versions. Each statue carries with it a powerful message, because each animal is built from materials responsible for its […]

When science meets art: a sensor-based mirror made of fur

Artist Daniel Rozin has designed a surprising mirror-like device from… fur. Dubbed the PomPom Mirror, it relies on motion sensors and 928 faux fur pom poms manipulated by 464 motors to create a mirror reflection of the viewer in real-time. Sure, the mirror only works in black and white, but the effect is surprising and spectacular. This […]

Why Nestle is one of the most hated companies in the world

Child labor, unethical promotion, manipulating uneducated mothers, pollution, price fixing and mislabeling – those are not words you want to see associated with your company. Nestle is the world’s largest foodstuff company, and it has a history that would make even hardcore industrialists shiver. We’re gonna look at why Nestle has such a bad reputation […]

5 Ways Louis Pasteur Changed the World

Widely considered one of the most brilliant scientists in history, Louis Pasteur basically revolutionized the world as we know it.

The surreal practice of honey hunting in Nepal

The life of a beekeeper is not an easy one, but for bee hunters, it’s an entirely different world. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, bee hunting is an ancient art practiced by some Himalayan civilizations in one way or another in the past 10,000 years. It’s been done in 8,000 BC, it’s […]

9 Foods to Make Sure You're Eating Enough Potassium

Potassium is one of the more important nutrients in our diet, and the recommended daily dietary intake is 4700mg – but few of us actually get even close to that figure (you may need more or less potassium depending on your body and if you have certain medical conditions). Sure, you can take dietary supplements, but […]

Beautiful winged insects built from computer and video game components

I just love it when stuff that’s thrown away becomes a part of something new and valuable – upcycling, as many people call it. For UK-based artist Julie Alice Chappell (Facebook), it’s about turning technology into art. She takes thrown away computer and video game parts and assembles them into pieces of art, which she then sells […]

Lake Michigan is so clear right now you can see its shipwrecks from air

A coast guard patrol reported that Lake Michigan’s shallow waters are so clear that you can actually see the shipwrecks on the bottom of the lake, until sediments stir up the water and algae blooms develop. Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one that’s completely on […]

Nobuo Okano and the forgotten art of restoring old books

While many people today aren’t even considering reading paper books, Japanese craftsman Okano Nobuo has been repairing old, tattered books and making them look brand new. Using simple tools like a wooden press, chisel, water and glue, Okano can make even incredibly, centuries old books look like they just came out of the press. He and […]

The Mind Bending Types of Geological Folds

Folds are some of the most common geological phenomena you see in the world – a geological fold occurs when planar (usually sedimentary) layers are curved and/or bent, permanently deformed due to outside pressure. Folds’ sizes can vary from microscopic to mountain-sized, as you can see above. Despite being a fairly simple process (in principle), […]

Why do we have chins?

Chins are weird and make little evolutionary sense.

7 scientific reasons to read books

I know, I know — reading is fun, it’s hip, and it’s good for you. There’s plenty of reasons why you should read, but here, I’ll focus only on the ones backed by science. 1. Reading makes you a better person. Seriously, it’s not a figure of speech. Not one, but two (parallel) studies found that […]

Mankind and its Relatives - Modern Homo Species

Homo is the genus of hominids that includes modern humans, as well as other species closely related to them… I mean us. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old and it features several species (though it’s still not clear how many). Here are the modern (<0.6 million years) Homo species […]

Spring is the season for citizen science - what you can do to have fun and help science!

The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and citizen scientists… do citizen science! In case you’re not familiar with the concept, citizen science are activities supported (or sponsored) by universities, organizations, institutes or governments through which everyone can provide meaningful scientific contributions. Activities can vary greatly (from counting birds to analyzing galaxy clusters), and […]

The Colugo (flying lemur): the cutest mammalian glider

The flying lemur is the most accomplished mammalian glider.

Repeat Photography From the 1920s and Now Shows Incredible Glacier Retreat

Repeat photography (or rephotography) is a technique in which photographs are taken repeatedly at a site to see how it evolves. It’s especially useful for glaciers, particularly because other remote ways of estimating glacial mass, depth, and rate of retreat are imperfect. These photos depict how this technique was used at a number of locations […]

What is Cat-Eye Syndrome -- here's what the science says

It might look cool, but this genetic condition can cause some very serious health problems.

The amazing 32,000 year old drawings in the Chauvet Cave

In December 1994, three explorers made a surprising discovery in southern France - a rumble of stones blocking the entrance to a spectacular cave, over 400 meters long and covered with archaeological and palaeontological remains, including the skulls and bones of cave bears, which hibernated there, along with the skulls of an ibex and two wolves. But it was the human traces that were most interesting...

Why some tropical mushrooms glow in the dark

The tropical forests of Northeaster Brazil have their own nightlight: a peculiar mushroom called Neonothopanus gardneri that glows in the dark. Like a street light, it's tuned to activate its bioluminescence only in the dark, first in the twilight then peaking at about 10 PM. Researchers at Dartmouth College in the US and the University of São Paulo in Brazil have now fond out what this strange behavior is all about: 'candy' for insects.

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