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Vaccines have become synonymous to needles, and for a lot of people they’re the subject of horror stories since childhood. Typically, a vaccine works by injecting an inactive virus into the body, such that when the real virus reaches the host body, the immune system will be quick to act and destroy it before it gets a […]
The advent of antibiotics has spared humanity of a great deal of suffering and has saved countless lives through the years. Infectious diseases do not bore too easily and have always put out a fight, though. The bad news is that they’re winning and as the battle rages on, more and more strains become resistant […]
As of 2008, just about one in 100 people in the US is currently living in jail. This amounts to millions and millions of people currently incarcerated or roughly half of the total number of jailed people in the world. As to what are the social and legal causes that have lead to such an […]
Though Siberia stretches across about 10% of the world’s land surface, it’s only occupied by 0.5% of the world’s population, which isn’t too hard to explain why. Recent temperature measurements read on average -25°C for the month of January, but it’s not unheard of to experience temperatures below -40°C. Extreme weather, temperatures and terrain, however, call […]
If there’s something ever wrong with ping-pong guns is that they fire too slow. So, Mark French, a mechanical engineer at Purdue University in Indiana, along with a couple of his graduate students took it upon themselves to finally design a gun that can fires ping-pong balls at supersonic speeds. Of course, this makes for […]
For a few years now, Google has been developing what it claims to be the next generation in user interface, set to revolutionize the way to interact with the world. The project is called Google Glass and apart from a few incredible demos, these is still very little known about the product, apart from the […]
Oil spills, especially the big ones, can cause irremediable damage to the local ecosystem. Unfortunately once in a while, there’s a catastrophic disaster either from an oil rig or oil tanker leak, but these are the big ones – the ones you hear about on TV, since frankly anyone today with an internet connection can […]
It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! No, it’s… microbes ?! High up in the atmosphere, 10.000 meters above ground, researchers have found over 100 species of bacteria doing just fine in stormy clouds. Each year, hundreds of millions of tons of dust, water and man-maned pollutans make their way into the atmosphere, often traveling […]
Scientists at Cornell University may have stumbled across the cornucopia gene for crops, after scientific investigations revealed that a certain gene allows some plants to photosynthesize 50% more efficient than most common plants, including crops like wheat or rice. The researchers hope through genetic manipulation that they may transfer this gene to crops, allowing for […]
Dung beetles just climbed another ladder on the animal coolness scale – they are the only known species to navigate via the Milky Way. The tiny insects can orient themselves to the bright stripe of light generated by our galaxy, and move in a line relative to it, according to experiments conducted in South Africa. […]
I remember years ago, when I got my first computer – it had a storage capacity of 40 MB. A few years after that, I got a 1 GB hard drive, and nowadays, 1 TB is quite the standard – that’s a growth by a factor of about 250.000. However, data storage capacity has slowed […]
A group of researchers at MIT have devised a new method for infiltrating cells with large molecules such as nanoparticles or proteins that is a lot more non-intrusive and doesn’t damage the cell. Imaging target cells or growing more stable stem cells might thus be possible with this method. Every cell has a membrane, which […]
Hydrogen is an extremely appealing energy source, despite the immense hurdles than come with storing it. Still fuel cells based on hydrogen are extremely useful, and a team of researchers at University at Buffalo may have found the fastest and most effective way of obtaining this element. Basically, it’s as easy as adding water. The scientists […]
Researchers looked at data that described people involved in car accidents and, after balancing factors like airbag and seat belt, found that obese people are at a much greater risk of dying during a collision than people of normal weight. The study holds a rather important significance since it might prompt car manufacturers to rethink […]
As computing power grows and becomes ever more accessible, passwords become easier to crack day by day. If you want to make it really easy for hackers and automated crawlers to retrieve your secure information then input passwords like common names, pets, sequences of numbers and symbols or birthdays. Yup, they’ll gobble these right up. […]
Exactly 50 years ago, Cambridge researchers Watson and Crick published a monumental paper that for the first time described the intertwined double helix DNA structure which carries the fundamental genetic code for life. The discovery led to an explosion of advancements in the fields of genetics and health, but also in chemistry or computing. Now, researchers, […]
Researchers at Duke University studied the telomeres – the tip of chromosomes that protect them – in a group of children and found that those who had experienced trauma had their telomeres shorter than those that hadn’t. These chromosome tips, which can be viewed akin to shoelace tips, have been linked by scientists with aging […]
Using combined imagery delivered by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and recent color channel data, the European Space Agency has recently discovered the vestiges of an ancient river that used to flow through Mars’ highlands. The river is 1,000 miles long and at some points 4 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep. The images are simply […]
Scientists at Duke University have devised a metamaterial that uses microwaves to image objects or scenes in real time, all through a set-up no larger than a book. Currently, the same imaging is being made with robust, huge machinery – the kind you see in airports used to scan people before they board flights – […]
At his recent keynote 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Las Vegas, Tim Huckaby dazzled the audience with his predictions for the future in user interface and technology. His presentation was initially structured as a showcase of possible developments in the next five years, but Huckaby didn’t stop there and also talked a bit about how […]
Scientists have developed a new surface, which they call “superomniphobic”, that can repel virtually any liquid, even the most troublesome like blood or highly concentrated acids. Their findings brings us a step closer to manufacturing stain-proof, spill-proof clothing, protective garments and other products. Currently there is a wide range of clothing and garments that are water proof and offer protection […]
In an amazing breakthrough, scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) have for the first time demonstrated an extremely appealing, yet still obscure concept – intelligent molecules. By definition intelligence is the ability to learn and understand or deal with new situation and the latter is exactly what the researchers’ polymer molecules can do, namely react to external stimuli and reversibly […]
Researchers at University of Toronto and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) have recently published a paper that claims exotic plant species do indeed eliminate native plants from the wildlife ecosystem, contrary to previous reports that found the threat unreal. The ecologists argue that reports heralding invasive plants as non threatening are based […]
The whole point of technology is that of aiding mankind, and it has done so since the advent of fire and will continue to do for a long time. In today’s fast pacing world, however, technology is evolving so fast that it has caught the workforce by surprise. Of course, we’re primarily referring to robots, […]
Along the years DARPA has proposed, tested and implemented a slew of preposterous sounding projects like the Minority Report-like interface threat detection system, the firefighting robot or the surrogate soldier program that aims at deploying robots that bind to a soldier’s will just like the movie Avatar. Yes, the agency seems to have a thing for movie […]
A materials science researcher at MIT has devised a novel technique using nanoparticles that allows heat flow to be treated much in the same way as light. This means that like electromagnetic waves, heat was successfully focused and reflected. The findings could help spark further research which might one day aid in the development of […]
Astronomers from Britain’s University of Central Lancashire have recently published a landmark paper that describes the largest known structure in the Universe, a group of quasars so large it spans 4 billion light-years across at its longest end. The study holds broader consequences, not just because of the encountered astronomical milestone, since it challenges Albert Einstein’s Cosmological […]
Researchers who had performed the first high detail 3-D reconstruction of early tetrapod (four-legged animals) backbones claim the first land based animals moved by dragging themselves around the ground much in the same way modern day seals behave. The scientists used the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble to bombard 360-million year old fossils with high […]
The ultimate goal of all current Mars missions and observations is that of finding evidence of life or, on the contrary, collect data that would once and for all flag the planet as barren and devoid of life. Recent findings from scientists at University of Florida both help ease and complicate this quest after it’s […]
Children are veritable knowledge sponges that can appropriate an intense amount of skills in a short amount of time. As we age, starting from the end of puberty, people seem to loose their ability of learning new skills as intense as children do. For instance, if a 30 year old French man decided to starting […]
It should be no surprise for anybody that a major earthquake is way overdue in LA; a study has shown that the area has a 99% chance of a big earthquake in the next 30 years (well, 25 years, since the study was conducted in 2008). Even with what should have been a huge wake […]
Besides being a great family time activity and an awesome display of art for some who have way too much time on their hands, dominos are also a great mathematics exercise. Although most dominos are the same size, it’s well documented that the first domino piece can topple a second larger domino piece, which in […]
Hearing loss is a grave healthcare problem around the world, with 50 million cases in the US alone. The most common type is sensorineural hearing loss caused by the degradation and loss of sensory hair cells in the cochlea (the auditory part of the inner ear). While implants and various other hearing aids can improve hearing […]
A recent study conducted by Californian and Japanese seismologists claims that stable fault areas might not be so stable, in terms of earthquake generation. The controversial findings suggest that creeping fault behavior (more on this in the next paragraph) is actually not only instable, but also capable of creating fast slipping earthquake ruptures. Faulty issues […]
People with brown eyes appear more trustworthy than those with blue eyes, unless the man has a broad face. What – is this for real? According to a study conducted by Karel Kleisner and colleagues from Charles University in the Czech Republic – the answer is ‘Yes’. The point of the study was to determine […]
The year is 2013, but offices and business headquarters are still riddled with stacks and tonnes of paper. The future is disappointing. Researchers at Queen’s University, in collaboration with Plastic Logic and Intel Labs, recently unveiled an extremely interesting concept which address this issue and aims to put both office work and leisure desk activities into the 21 […]
We’ve featured countless research here on ZME Science where important scientific and technological advancements were made after scientists sought inspiration from nature, be them high-tech surfaces (butterfly) or robots (leaping lizard). Recently, researchers at Canada’s University of Sherbrooke managed to improve LED efficiency by 55% after they applied a coating etched with a profile similar to that […]
Why would the El Niño be important for the rest of us that don’t live in the western part of South America? Well because it also influences the climate in North America, Asia, Australia, Africa, even Europe perhaps.. so that basically means the whole world. The El Niño-the southern oscillation or ENSO is a sort of a […]
Aged glasses are materials that interest scientists very much due to their appealing properties. During thousands and even millions of years glass steadily evolves towards an ever stable molecular configuration. In manufacturing where the process needs to be cut short to weeks or days, similar properties are extremely difficult if not at times impossible to […]
An ambitious project is currently being considered by NASA consisting of capturing and dragging a small-scale asteroid into the moon’s orbit. This would allow for a valuable footing where asteroid research might become a lot more accessible, one of NASA’s main objectives for the upcoming decades. The proposition has been made by the Keck Institute for […]
We’re all familiar with laser weapons from SciFi movies and novels, but how far away is laser warfare from reality? Very close, if we’re to judge from the recently publicized test run of Rheinmetall Defense‘s 50kW high power laser that can melt through thick armor a kilometer away and shoot tiny mobile targets at twice the distance. […]
Since 1889, the world has used the International Prototype Kilogram (IPK) – a cylindrical chunk of metal the size of a matchbox stored in a French vault – as the standard for measuring one unit of mass. Some 40 replicas were made and shipped to countries through out the world such that an international standard […]
The StemBANCC project, developed as a joint effort between the European Union and Europe’s pharmaceutical industry, is set to culture 1,500 pluripotent stem cell lines derived from the cells of diseased individuals like Alzheimer’s patients is currently planned. Using this massive database, researchers will be able to achieve much smoother and faster drug screening process in order to […]
By detecting specific biomarkers (proteins) produced by cancer cells, physicians can diagnose a tumor, however these are so diluted in the bloodstream that only after they’re sufficiently present can they be observed. Usually this happens many years after the tumor had already the chance to develop. Now, scientists at MIT have proposed a novel method […]
For the first time ever the shadow of an atom (yes, even an atom can cast a shadow) has been imaged using a complex technique which involved a laser beam and a a Fresnel lens. The culmination of their five-year work is this fantastic snapshot from above, and although this dark spot is quite tiny, the […]
The Upper Las Vegas Wash region is sprawling with fossils from diverse geological eras be it the Cretaceous or the Late Pleistocene. From the latter age, more precisely since the last ice age some 10,000 years ago, a dire wolf fossil was dated and identified. This is the first piece of evidence that the now extinct ice age wolf once […]
A team of scientists at University of Colorado Boulder is currently working on self-assembling robots the size of a ping-pong ball that may fit together to serve various purposes. The researchers envision swarms of such tiny robots could assemble to build or repair satellites in space, contain an oil spill or form into other complex systems. Nikolaus […]
Doctors in Pittsburg are stunned by the ability of a patient who reached a never seen before mental control level of a robotic arm. The human part Jan Scheuermann, 53, who is paralyzed neck down, was able to move, grasp and release a variety of common household items with the same ability as with a […]
The Geneva based Large Hadron Collider has gobbled a lot of cash and resource in order to become operational, but through the constant fantastic results that has advanced particle physics understanding greatly, which couldn’t have been possible otherwise, it has definitely shown its value. The next generation of particle smasher is apparently destined for Japan, […]
In the most comprehensive and thorough survey of its kind, an international team of scientists sampled, sorted and cataloged every arthropod species they could find in patches of Panama’s San Lorenzo rainforest. During their survey of areas summing up to roughly three acres, the scientists estimated that a 6,000 hectare forest houses 25,000 arthropod species, […]
