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Researchers from the Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications are really exited about their latest innovation in what can be scientifically described as tactile communication or in more direct terms as the “makeout box”. The Kiss Transmission Device is basically a plastic box which gets connected to a PC and receives data from the […]
It’s amazing where computer science is heading to, and with quantum computing getting more and more popular, the trend of evolving towards smaller and smaller scales has just reached another level – an atomic level. Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have stored quantum information in a single atom! […]
Researchers from Boston College and MIT have managed to develop a new kind of thermo-solar technology by applying a new technique which involves high-performance nanotech materials arrayed on a flat panel – they’re results have proven to be as much as eight times more efficient than current solar thermo electric generators, at little to no […]
In a recent important palentological find, it seems that one of our ancient ancestors, the so called “Nutcracker Man” who lived between 1.4 and 1.9 million years ago, actually used its large teeth to graiss grass not crack the shell of nuts. “It most likely was eating grass, and most definitely was not cracking nuts,” […]
Humanity’s right handedness began at least 500.000 years ago, according to a new study conducted by University of Kansas researchers. The right handed trait is believed to actually be a “side effects” of the development of language. “We are right-handed because the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and […]
First of all, don’t think of alien species as extraterrestrials; if you came here wanting to hear about that – sorry. Thankfully, the sci-fi scenario is not upon us. I’m talking about species which haven’t originated from Antarctica – seeds, fungi, microorganisms, they go wherever they are taken, and wherever people take them. If you […]
Some species of bacteria can survive virtually anywhere: in acids, in nuclear waste, at extremely low or high temperatures, at extreme pressures, and so on; extreme microbes that survive on gases thrown out by Siberian hot springs may have played an extremely important role in the formation of our planet’s atmosphere and its composition, a […]
Over 50 species of pupfish are known from the US to Venezuela, and they are all pretty much the same – except for the ones in two places: the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and a Caribbean island. Generally speaking, the species of pupfish do the same things. “They look the same and they act the […]
The box jellyfish (commonly known as the sea wasp) is not only the most venomous creature in the world, but it also holds a few other major surprises. They may seem like rather simple creatures at a first glance, but researchers are now convinced they are nothing like this; as a matter of fact, they […]
Researchers at the The Rockefeller University in New York City, have recently published a study which suggests painkillers such as the simple aspirin or ibuprofen could decrease the effectiveness of certain antidepressant medications. Their research was conducted on mice, who were administrated with an anti-inflammatory drug (also called an NSAID, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and a […]
Researchers have concluded that urban dwelling birds forced to adapt and innovate in a concrete environment have a larger brain, relative to their body size. In the process, scientists have found family traits are key to identifying why certain birds thrive in certain European cities, and consequently generally in urban environments. Urban bird achievers include […]
The world scientific community is absolutely abuzz with the rumour that the Higgs boson, the elusive God particle, may have just been detected. The rumour started after an internal note was leaked from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); it’s not yet exactly clear if the memo is authentic, but it seems real enough to have […]
In what can only be described as an incredible natural engineering feat, fire ants in times of floods have the remarkable ability link up with one another to form a life-saving, floating and impenetrable raft. While this is an attested ability for a long time now, scientists have only recently managed to understand how the […]
An international research team is in the land of snow and ice, in search of soot or black carbon, in an effort to judge whether or not it is responsible for the alarming rapid warming in the area lately. The research team includes scientists from Norway, Russia, Germany, Italy, and China, whose members are working […]
Telephones became mobile phones, mobile phones became smartphones, and smartphones will become… mind phones ?! According to neuroscientists at the University of California, San Diego, that’s not very far away from us. How did they come to this conclusion ? Well… They had subjects sit in front of a screen displaying a keypad, with different […]
A recently published study 8 years in the making reveals the uncanny ability humpback whales have of following seemingly perfect straight paths for weeks at a time. The navigational precision of humpback whales cannot be explained by known theories. Humpback whales feed during the summer near polar oceans and migrate to warm tropical oceans for […]
As the last two shuttle flights will mark the end of a thirty year long program, NASA is looking for alternatives to transport astronauts, cargo and equipment to and from outer space. The best alternative seems to come from the private sectore, and with this in mind NASA has awarded a total $269 million dived […]
Paleontologists turned into dentists after an examination of the fossilized jaw of a reptile from the Paleozoic era revealed what’s considered to be the world’s oldest tootache. Dated back 275 million years ago, the Oklahoma found Labidosaurus hamatus must have had some serious issues with its sugar tooth, as researchers observed missing teeth and eroded […]
This is one of those studies which makes you realize that being a researcher definitely has some unexpdected perks; it was funded by ERSC, and let me tell you, to get a grant from them, you really have to have a solid project, because the approval rate is somewhere around 17%. What they concluded from […]
I was telling you a while ago about the revolutionary material called graphene. Graphene is a one atom thick layer of carbon packed in a honeycomb lattice. Now, a team led by Professor Andre Geim, recipient of the Nobel Prize for graphene, showed that electric current (which is basically a flow of electrons) can magnetise […]
Staphylococcus aureus is a nasty fellow; it can be responsible for a variety of diseases, and it’s pretty resistant to a variety of treatments. But sometimes, it can get an upgrade, and become way more resistant to drugs, which means the staph bacteria becomes much more dangerous and much less treatable. So it’s definitely not […]
In the last couple of years researchers have been confronted with a peculiar case in the Atlantic penguin colonies as an increased number of penguin chicks have been found to be suffering from what seems to be a feather loss causing disorder. Scientists have been studying the phenomena for a few years now, but have […]
In a breakthrough discovery that could revolutionize transplants, British researchers have managed to create human kidneys from stem cells, which could lead to transplant patients growing their own organs; the artificial organs were created using human amniotic fluid and animal foetal cells. The kidneys are now about half of centimeter long, which is about what […]
A team of paleontologists from the Smithsonian Institute have uncovered the fossils of a brand new dinosaur species in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico which posses a particular importance by filling the family tree gap between early predatory species such as Herrerasaurus and later theropod dinosaurs. Researchers named the species Daemonosaurus chauliodus, based on the Greek […]
The average brain can only hold about five to seven pieces of information at a time within 30 seconds – this is called working memory. What people usually do to get pass the 30 seconds interval is they re-expose themselves to the information, for instance if you want to remember a 7 digit phone number […]
Almost all Nobel prize laureates are active in an artistic field as well as in science. They are 25 times more likely (that’s 2500%) than an average adult to sing, dance or act, and 17 times more likely to be an artist. This proves wrong the general belief that there aren’t any useful connections between […]
Cyanide is nasty. I don’t care if you’re a venomous snake, an elephant or Charlie Sheen, cyanide is something you don’t want, which makes it an excellent defense mechanism. Lotus corniculatus, commonly known as the bird’s-foot trefoil, a plant common throughout Europe, Asia and Africa has evolved so that it’s leaves have a cyanide reservoir, […]
In the theoretical and absurd case of a pigeon going on a police identification line, do you think it would use the same processes you’d use ? If your answer is “yes”, you may seem a bit strange… but you’re right. A study published by researchers from the University of Iowa found that pigeons recognize […]
DNA nanotechnology is one of the most exciting branches of nanotechnologies, especially because it uses the ability of natural DNA strains to self assembly. Prof. Alexander Heckel and his doctoral student Thorsten Schmidt of Goethe University set out with exactly that thought in mind when they created two DNA rings with the size of only […]
Law is a highly demanding field, in which its practitioners are required to have an objective and stoic approach at all times, but a recently published very interesting study shows that court judges can be just as biased as any of us and their rulings, however rational we’d love them to be, are influenced by […]
It’s somewhat evidently observable that the elderly have more trouble focusing or multitasking than young people, but a recent study in which scientists used brain scans shows an unexpected explanation to the generation deficit. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco led by neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, recruited 20 relatively young adults, average age 25, […]
Similar to genomics, the science which maps our genetic background, “connectomics” is a new emerging science which is becoming very popular in the neuroscience area. Basically, connectomics aims to map the highly intense neuron connections and properties in the brain, more exactly the synapses, and recently researchers have made important progress in the field which […]
The topic of modification of data in scientific research is definitely a hot one; the frequency at which researchers fabricate or falsify data is extremely hard to quantify and make a statistic from it. Many different studies or surveys have tried to do this, but the results varied greatly and were difficult to compare and […]
Big guns and big boats go well hand in hand most of the time, and the latest experimental weaponry unveiled by the US Navy, dubbed the Maritime Laser Demonstrator (MLD), will be sure to please any old sea dog. The diode-pumped solid-state high-energy laser weapon was developed by Northrop Grumman, and its capabilities were demonstrated […]
The brains of adults can grow significantly in a staggeringly short amount of time if you just start learning like children do, according to research that had the purpose of treating braind disorders; they seem to have stumbled into something different, but extremely interesting. The researchers unexpectedly discovered that adult brains can grow in only […]
By means of a new mathematical model, scientists have been able to calculate the displacement of ice in glaciers along the years. This was achieved by using the spread of glacier debris and the lines where vegetation starts on the mountainsides to create a series of calculations determining the amount of ice that has melted […]
I had no idea IBM was doing this kind of thing too, but I recently found out that they developed a technology that could revolutionize the treatment of drug resistant bacteria. A whole team of engineers and researchers headed by Dr. James Hedrick at IBM Inc. has worked on this technology, which relies on a […]
As far as science goes, most of the time size really does matter. Think of a tiny amateur telescope how insignificant it seems, but yet how revealing it can be for the observer – multiply this by a million times the effect and size and you’ve got yourself the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), one of […]
According to a research conducted by anthropologists from Arizona State University, there seems to be a big increase in the general negative attitude people living in diverse societies have towards obese individuals. The study was made on 680 correspondents across 9 countries who were asked to agree or disagree with various statements expressed by scientists […]
Contrary to what you might expect, a recent published study unveiled by scientists shows a map of our planet’s gravity, which resembles not a sphere, but more a … potato. This is because the Earth’s gravity isn’t uniform, being affected everyday by such factors like winds, currents and tides, so because gravity is higher in […]
Extraordinary enough, an ancient Greek tablet dating far as back as 1450-1350 BC was found last summer in an olive grove in what’s now the village of Iklaina, which makes it the oldest readable piece of writing found in Europe. The position and time frame of the artifact places it in the time of the […]
Named Leefructus, the captioned above perfectly preserved flower is estimated to be 123 to 124 million years old, which makes it one of the earliest angiosperms ever found – the ancestors to all modern day flowers. Besides the obvious stunning preservation of the flower fossil, the find is also on par with a very interesting […]
Aphrodisiacs have been used to improvement sexual performance and desire for thousands of years now, but which of them are really effective or simple old waives’ tales? Researchers from University of Guelph claim they’ve conducted the most elaborate study to date as far as aphrodisiacs are concerned. “Aphrodisiacs have been used for thousands of years […]
Today’s military generals meet on battlefields that are no longer vast, empty fields waiting to be bathed in blood, but in crowded, urban settings which most of the time represent tactical nightmares. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently completed a five-year program called Urban Photonic Sandtable Display (UPSD) that creates a real-time, color, […]
Let’s face it, China overtaking US in science should no longer shock anyone, but if this were to happen just two years from now, in 2013, it would be a major surprise. The study, dubbed Knowledge, Networks and Nations, charts the challenge addresed by China to the traditional scientific leaders, US, Europe, and even Japan. […]
Quantum computing is the regarded by many as the future of computing technology, which among endless applications might help scientists answer a lot of questions otherwise impossible with today’s technology. In a nutshell, the difference between today’s computers and the future’s quantum computers is that the first handle binary code 1 and 0 one at […]
In a recently published study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), it seems that teen angst is evident in the online world as well, as researchers believe there’s a clear evidence of a “facebook depression” effect. It’s considered that more than 70% of American teens and young-adult who have an active internet connection use […]
The sun is the biggest source of energy on our planet, and it’s all natural. It’s enough to realize that in one hour the sun produces enough energy to power all the electrical needs of the word for an entire YEAR! Naturally, research has been underway for many years now for means of practically and […]
Ever since the 9.0 earthquake in Japan, there has been a growing mainstream interest for earthquakes, which will probably fade away as time passes, only to be revived when the next big temblor strikes. However, the good news is that, even for a brief period of time, seismologic studies are given the attention they […]
In a world where the king words are ‘buy low, sell high’, speed is of upmost importance. Stock trading has become more and more reliant on modern ways of transmitting and processing information, and in this process, fiber optic plays a crucial role. While fiber optic does work at 90 percent the speed of light, […]
