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People who excessively share on facebook are more lonely and depressed

Researchers at  Charles Sturt University in New South Wales found a connection between excessive sharing of information on facebook and feeling lonely and/or depressed. This is the latest in a slew of studies that suggest the social network can cause serious emotional damage to some people. The researchers found that 79 percent of users who describe themselves […]

Twitter to release all tweets for scientists: massive scientific tool, but also an ethical dilemma

Five hundred million tweets are tweeted each day – with so many details about the location, interests and behaviors of users, the tweets are a trove of useful information for scientists who might be, for example, looking to find patterns in human behaviors, checking out risk factors for health conditions and track the spread of infectious […]

Ant biomechanics might inspire the super robots of the future

Ants are one of the most fascinating and extraordinary organisms on Earth. The ant society is extremely stable, compact and adaptable, but while ants can only survive as a colony, taken individually each ant is extremely remarkable by itself, too. Body size considered, ants are among the strongest beings in the world, capable of lifting […]

New way to make affordable high efficiency stacked solar cells

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report they’ve devised a new type of highly efficient solar cell that is potentially easier to manufacture and cheaper than cells of similar performance. The stacked cell allows photon energy to be garnered from across the whole solar spectrum, and this new design makes use of a […]

3D Bioprinted liver-inspired device traps toxins and detoxifies blood

Inspired by the healing properties of the human liver, researchers at University of California, San Diego created a 3D-printed biodevice which mimics the liver and removes dangerous toxins from the blood. Used outside the body, like a dialysis machine, the device employs nanoparticles to trap pore-forming toxins that can damage cellular membranes. These toxins often result from […]

Silly Putty ingredient helps improve batteries

When you think about Silly Putty toys, the last thing that comes to mind is high-tech. A group of researchers, however, used a novel trick to incorporate  an ingredient in Silly Putty to improve lithium-ion battery life between charges by three times the industry standard. For what’s it worth, Silly Putty is actually one of the […]

Graphene: unlimited heat conductivity

It’s official – graphene is the wonder material of the millennium. A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz and the National Univ. of Singapore found that thermal conductivity of graphene diverges with the size of the samples. What’s the big deal? Well, the findings show that the thermal […]

China Unveils Plans to build an 8,000-Mile High-Speed Underwater Railway Line to America

I’ve seen a lot of strange Chinese ideas, but this one is definitely something else – the Chinese government is bent on building an 8,000+ mile railroad (sounds plausible) connecting China, Russia, Canada, and the U.S. that includes a 125 mile undersea tunnel spanning the Bering Strait. A report in China’s state-run Beijing Times claims the nation […]

WORLD's smallest comic is carved on a single strand of human hair

“Juanita Knits the Planet” is a short comic strip that tells the story of Juanita, a very creative little girl. In fact, she’s only 10 microns tall, small enough for the entire comic strip to fit on a strand of human hair, making it the smallest comic in the world. The strip was printed for the […]

Why birds survived the dinosaur apocalypse: they were small enough

Some 65 million years ago an asteroid impact caused countless species of land, marine and plant life to become extinct, including the mighty dinosaur which dominated the planet for millions of years. Not all species of the dinosaur group vanished, however. You’ve guess right: birds! Now, a new study sheds light on why birds were […]

Volvo’s first self-driving cars now being tested live on public roads in Sweden

Self driving cars are hitting the road in Sweden! Volvo Car Group’s “Drive Me” project involving 100 cars is now being tested in the streets in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. Apparently, everything is going out just fine: “The test cars are now able to handle lane following, speed adaption, and merging traffic all by themselves,” says Erik Coelingh, […]

New 3D printer allows you to print your own make-up at home

3D printing is the hot jazz nowadays, with applications varying from cranium and skin replacements to houses to nanoscale objects. Now, Grace Choi, a self proclaimed inventor has developed a way to 3D print makeup at home, in every color you want, as eye shadow, blush, lip gloss or whatever you need – reducing both waste […]

Tree rings reveal worst droughts in the West's history happened during Christopher Columbus' lifetime

Modern climate tracking and water flow records go back only 100 years, but to prepare for the worse, scientists and policy makers alike need to understand how the weather was like in the world many more years prior. A solution is to study the tree rings of certain tree species which bear telltale signs of water […]

Discovering Technological Attributes in The Not-So- Ordinary Computer

With all the different types of computers in modern times, special-purpose computers are becoming more and more advanced; nowadays, you can almost define the civilized world as people with computers. Most people are familiar with desktop, laptop and mobile computers – more commonly known as smartphones and tablets. Tech industry professionals, military personnel and employees […]

New circuitboard is 9,000 times faster and more energy efficient at simulating the human brain than PC

A mouse might not look like the smartest animal, but however modest its cortex may seem it’s still 9,000 times faster than a personal computer simulation of its functions. Not only that, but it takes 40,000 times more power to run – energy efficiency being, in fact, the true benchmark that needs to be considered when […]

Bionic prosthetic allows disabled to run, climb and even dance - watch this TED talk!

Hugh Herr, head of the Lab’s Biomechatronics research group, spoke at TED 2014 on March 19 about his group’s work in creating bionic prosthetic limbs, and their goal to eliminate human disability through technology.  For Herr, his work and involvement is deeply personal, having lost both his lower limbs in a climbing accident 30 years […]

The Chameleon vine: the only plant that morphs host plants near it

The animal kingdom is full of cons – shapeshifter who have learned that to survive, they need look different or mask their appearance altogether. Everyone’s heard of the chameleon, a distinct species of lizard with the  ability to change colours and easily blend to his environment. He’s not alone, though, and frankly he’s not even […]

Glass molecules jam to form fractal wells

Water is liquid, air is gaseous, but glass? For years at end, glass has perplexed scholars intending on fixing it under a state of matter. Neither liquid, nor solid, explaining glass is a lot harder than some might think. Researchers at Duke University have contributed to solving the puzzle after they performed numerical solutions and […]

3D printer used to build 10 homes in one day in China

Say what you will, but the Chinese are clearly the fastest builders in the world, though sometimes quick haste makes to waste. A while ago, I wrote about how a Chinese company wants to build the tallest skyscraper in the world in just 90 days. Really crazy stuff, but now another Chinese company, with many […]

Making graphene in a kitchen blender

A team led by Jonathan Coleman at Trinity College Dublin reports they’ve patented a technique that can easily produce large quantities of quality graphene. The method is so simple that the researchers have even been able to scale it down for use in a kitchen blender. The exact ‘recipe’ has yet to be disclosed, but nevertheless […]

Claws of meanest crustacean inspire supermaterial design

As the night covers the tropics, odd clicky sounds run about much to the annoyance of sailors stationed in harbors. These sounds are made by the punching mantis shrimp, a very small crustacean which doesn’t seem that much threatening but who definitely lives up to its name. Its claws are so powerful that it can […]

Old tires become material for new and improved roads

Scrap tires, which are very problematic to dispose of and can cause many problems, can now be used to lower road noise and reduce need for road maintenance. Almost 300 million scrap tires are generated every year in the US alone, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You may wonder what’s exactly happening with these wheels, […]

Condensing towers could make water from thin air in the driest places on Earth

The Namib desert is one of the vastest and driest deserts in the world. There is little water to be found here, so the few critters calling the desert home had to learn to adapt in order to survive. One particular beetle species stands out through the ingenuity with which it manages to quench its […]

Monkeys can do math, study proves

It’s long been supposed that monkeys are capable of mental arithmetics, but it was only recently that this was proven for a fact by neuroscientists at the Margaret Livingstone of Harvard Medical School in Boston. The researchers taught three rhesus macaques to identify symbols representing the numbers zero to 25, then when given the choice […]

MIT and Harvard researchers develop 100% internal cochlear implant

A cochlear implant that can be wirelessly recharged using the natural microphone of the middle ear rather than a skull-mounted sensor was developed by a joint team from MIT and Harvard. The cochlea is the auditory part of the inner ear –  t’s where the hearing takes place. Cochlear implants are not really a new thing […]

$42,000 Prosthetic Hand OutPerformed By $50 Printed Cyborg Beast

Over the last few months, we’ve written a lot about some fantastic 3D designs which can be very useful in medicine – a cranium replacement, 3D printed skin, and especially bone and limb prosthetics. Now, 3D universe, a website dedicated to 3D printing, published an article comparing a $42.000 conventional prosthetic, with a $50 3D […]

Sleep aids and anxiety pills can kill

There’s no secret prescriptions drugs have taken off in the past few decades, amounting to a multi-billion dollar industry. Millions are hooked on them, despite this why are so many policymakers or key people of interest shutting an eye on the potential perils these drugs pose? In the quest to treat symptoms, not diseases, physicians […]

Toyota confirms confirms fuel cell launch for 2015; zero local emissions and 500-mile range

Toyota has officially announced that it will launch a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car in 2015, but said sales volumes would be limited. The company announced they will use a high-density fuel stack which will have the potential to cover 500 miles on a single fuel tank. The technology will take a while to be implemented and accepted […]

French students develop the world's first 3D printing tattoo machine

Three French students transformed a 3-D printer — a MarkerBot Replicator 3D printer, to be exact, into a tattoo machine! So we can now add “makes tattoos” to the impressive list of things 3D printers can do! It all started with an idea that came to Pierre Emm, a young student in France, while he […]

How does a message in a bottle survive for 101 years at sea?

Last week, the story of a German fisherman made front news after he found a message in bottle floating in the Baltic Sea for nearly 101 years. What’s more, despite most of the text written was undecipherable, researchers at the Hamburg Museum were able to find the sender’s name and deliver the message to his […]

Graphene speakers easily outperform traditional designs

I feel like a broken record – graphene is awesome at this, graphene is awesome at that… graphene is just awesome! A few months ago, we were telling you about the first graphene ear buds, which were really promising, but researchers still had a lot of work to make them commercially viable. Well, they’ve turned it up […]

US navy synthesizes jet fuel solely out of seawater; costs $3-6 gallon

Part of an extraordinary venture, researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) report they’ve synthesized hydrocarbon fuel solely from seawater by transforming the CO2 and H2 found in the water. To demonstrate they viability of the fuel, a replica of the legendary WWII P-51 was fitted by an off-the-shelf (OTS) and unmodified two-stroke internal combustion engine […]

Newly discovered microRNA may help diagnose lung cancer

Researchers at the National Research Foundation of Korea report on Sunday that they have identified a new microRNA molecule that suppresses a gene, which previous research had identified as playing a crucial role in lung cancer development. If the present findings are refined, it may be possible to diagnose lung cancer in the future based […]

New exotic subparticle confirmed by LHC scientists

Once with the discovery and confirmation of the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva proved its money worth and garnered international appraise. Despite the LHC is currently shutdown for its periodical maintenance (the restart procedure is well underway, with the particle accelerator expected to become fully operational again in 2015), physicists aren’t slaking. […]

Spinning disk spots foods tainted with Salmonella in 30 minutes

Researchers in South Korea may have come across a novel and effective idea to tackle foods tainted with Salmonella bacteria. What looks like a disk actually contains six separate microfluidic slices that work together to provide DNA extraction, amplification, and detection in less than 30 minutes instead of days and a full-blown lab typically required for Salmonella detection. Salmonella causes […]

The LHC is gearing up for long-awaited restart

The Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is the most complex machinery devised by mankind. Here, scientists all over the world joined forces to recreate conditions similar those in the very first moments of the Universe, following the Big Bang. There’s a lot at stake here, and so far the LHC has […]

Breakthrough: first time monolayer graphene made in bulk

We’ve written extensively about graphene here on ZME Science, awarding it much praise and promise. Truly, if you read a bit about what graphene can do [strength, conductivity, cost, etc], you’ll soon learn to love it. So, why aren’t we seeing graphene used everywhere, from computers to aerospace like so many science papers herald its […]

Tiny power generator fueled by spit

In the future, your saliva might power key microelectronics. Researchers at Penn State have devised a micro-sized microbial fuel cells that is power by the organic materials and bacteria present in saliva. The power generated by the tiny fuel cell is very small, though, so don’t expect charging your phone by spitting in it any […]

The moon formed much later than thought, but new questions arise

A new massive computer model that simulates the formation of the solar system from its early days when all it used to comprise was a huge disk of matter to present day shows that Earth’s moon formed some 65 million years later than previous estimates led us to believe. The method provides a new way […]

You may be using antibacterial soap incorrectly

Most people nowadays buy antibacterial soaps instead of normal ones, because they believe it keeps them safe and protects them for the oh-so dreaded bacterial infections. Apparently, there’s little evidence that antibacterial soaps provide any additional protection than the regular kind. The problem: most people don’t use them properly. For that matter, it may be […]

A new method for filtering light coming from a specific direction

Using only material geometry and interference patterns, MIT researchers have devised a novel way of passing light of any colour only if it comes from a specific angle. Light coming from other directions will be reflected, something which can be desirable in certain applications. Those who could benefit immediately from the findings are solar photovoltaics, detectors […]

A possible way of predicting low IQ embryos - should we interfere then?

Cardiff University  researchers report on Monday that  children with two copies of a common gene (Thr92Ala), together with low levels of thyroid hormone are four times more likely to have a low IQ. It was found that this combination occurs in 4% of the UK populace. In the future genome sequencing will become so cheap that […]

Bioprinting tissue: a solution for faster, cheaper drug testing

Testing drugs on 3-D printed human tissue might significantly improve drug research.

Yeast chromosome engineered from scratch: creating cretures in a lab

In a huge breakthrough in synthetic biology, scientists at Johns Hopkins University have engineered from scratch a yeast chromosome. This is the first time scientists have been able to assemble a chromosome from a creature as complicated as a yeast, namely a prokaryrite. The implications of this research are far and wide. For one, the […]

Why the sun's corona is hotter than its surface: laws of physics still stand

One of the biggest mysteries in solar physics is how is it possible that the sun’s surface is colder than its atmosphere. At first glance, it seems that the sun’s atmosphere, called the corona, is hotter than the heat source which is preposterous given the second law of thermodynamics. So, either the sun doesn’t care […]

IceTee shirt keeps you cool with gel packs

Nowadays, clothing can use some extremely advanced technology to regulate body temperature – and more often than not, this leads to exorbitant prices. The IceTee takes a more low-tech and cheap approach with strategically-placed pockets for holding gel packs to help keep you cool. Made from dry-fit moisture wicking fabric, the IceTee is an athletic […]

This material can be turned into a solar cell by day and light source by night

Scientists have made great efforts to discover a material that can be used to both absorb and emit light. A fluke may have suffice, since researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore discovered by accident a material that can be used to work as a solar panel, harnessing energy from the sun during the […]

New drug literally blows up the most aggresive brain cancer cells

A potentially game changing drug developed by scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University infiltrates the cells from glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain tumor, and causes them to literally explode. Trials so far have been made only on mice whose tumor growth was reversed and survival was prolonged considerably. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is […]

Fiber optic tubes inserted through your veins could accelerate diagnosis

The backbone of today’s modern telecommunication industry is held by fiber optic cables. These information highways have accelerated data transfer and help people all over the globe stay connected, but that’s not all they’re good for. A group of international researchers are exploring the idea of using fiber optics as a lab-on-chip device. The tubes […]

Scientists develop non-toxic paint that never fades, by mimicking bird feathers

A team of Harvard engineers has developed a way of producing color that could produce paint that never fades, and displays that never go dark. How color works If you’ve never wondered how color works, it’s a pretty nifty thing. The color we usually see, like on paints and trees works by absorbing certain wavelengths […]

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