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So the male mosquito comes, humming an Elvis song, with a rose in his mouth… maybe I’m taking this a bit too far. You know that pesky mosquito sound ?? Scientists have known for years that that is the sound of love for the little buggers. But what they didn’t know, and is quite fascinating […]
Well ladies and gentlemen, you’d better fasten your seat belts, because we’re in for quite a spin. The Milky Way is spinning a bit faster than scientists believed; with about 100.000 miles / hour that is. What does that mean, basically?? Well, we’re faster, heavier, and there’s a bigger chance that we’ll collide with… something. […]
A study conducted by entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson from the University of Illinois sheds new light on the way insect brain works proving that honey bees on cocaine tend to overreact. Usually, foraging honey bees alert the others from the hive about food sources only when more food is necessary or when the […]
The latest study conducted by researchers from the Duke University Medical Center was performed on two groups of (old and young) adults. The first group had an average age of about 70 while the younger ones were about 24 years old. Neuroscientists found out that the mechanism behind the part of the brain responsable for […]
Astronomy & Astrophysics has published spectroscopic observations of one of the hottest stars discovered so far – a white dwarf called KPD 0005+5106. The observations were made using the space-based Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), showing that the temperature can reach 200 000 K at the surface of the star. Temperatures can get so high that […]
Combining law and neuroscience, the researchers at Vanderbilt University conducted a revolutionary study in order to find out exactly how one’s brain assesses crime and punishment. After a crime has been committed an impartial third party has the role to decide whether the accused is guilty or not and how severe the punishment should be. […]
Researchers over that the Indiana University conducted a study that led to rather surprising conclusions. Despite the fact that women who used condoms as a contraceptive method reported that the condom caused a decrease in pleasure, those who used both condoms and hormonal contraception found more pleasure in sex. The researchers suggest that this inconsistency […]
A drug which uses light to cure skin cancer is getting nearer and nearer to being offered to sale in Sweden for the tens of thousands of patients suffering from it in this country. The solution is quite simple, cheap and not at all unpleasant as other ways of treating this disease. Researcher Leif Eriksson’s […]
Feeling the need for scientific research to back up the ‘dirty old men’ myth, Gothenburg University and Oxford University scientists performed a study on 400 lonely hearts ads to see how men and women choose their partners. What they wanted was to test some theories about how men and women pick their partners in general. […]
Even though most of us like to think that the decisions we make are rational and based on relevant factors weighed by our mind, more and more research comes to prove that many times people are subconsciously influenced by many other factors including…cleanliness. New research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological […]
No other continent in the world (that’s not counting Antarctica) is studied by less ecologists than Africa; that is actually paradoxal, because cities are growing here faster than any other continent on Earth. Just less than a century ago, 5% of people lived in urban areas, while now, almost 40% call a city their home. […]
We all know how unpleasant it is to have an incapable, grumpy and never-satisfied boss. It’s annoying, nerve-wrecking and even …lethal. According to some new research having an awful boss may have more implications than initially thought. If your boss has no consideration for your ideas, is not communicative enough or is simply incapable of […]
Though we have to admit there are some small steps toward an improving in general health care, we’ve expressed our opinion about how bad things are on numerous occasions. Only the fact that major pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than research is a huge problem, that (along with others) leads to a domino-like effect […]
Contrary to almost a half of century of research, Elly Nedivi, associate professor of neurobiology at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and colleagues found that a certain type of neuron that plays a crucial part in autism spectrum disorders is able in fact to remodel itself. It can do this in a strip […]
Beta Pictoris (β Pic / β Pictoris) is part of a group of hot young stars that have the same age and motion through stage. It’s best known for the fact that it’s surrounded by a dusty ‘debris’ disc. This disc is a result of collisions between planetary ’embryos’ and asteroids, or other such objects. […]
After more than 400 years, science-enthusiasts and not only can finally pay a tribute to the man who revolutionized people’s perception of the Universe. After having analyzed DNA taken from two strands of hair and a tooth, scientists finally concluded that the remains found in Frombrok Cathedral in Poland are, in fact, the ones of […]
Meet the world’s tiniest portraits of an elected president ever; meet the nanobamas. Each ‘Obama’ is made up of about 150 million tiny carbon nanotubes, which is about how many Americans voted in this year’s presidential election. An assistant professor professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, John Hart, along […]
Frank Guenther of Boston University in Massachusetts and his colleagues worked with a man who was unable to move or communicate; they implanted an electrode into his brain which allowed him to use a speech synthesizer that produces vowel sounds as he thinks them. This work shows promise of going even further and not far […]
Evolution isn’t just for living organisms, as scientists the Carnegie Institution found. They found that more than 3000 of the 4000+ minerals that exist can be linked more or less directly to biological life. This finding could have a crucial importance for scientists that are searching for life on other planets. Robert Hazen and Dominic […]
People are faced with making decisions everyday and more than that they find themselves in the situation of trusting a group in jury trials, elections or even when it comes to TV shows such as American Idol. Fish have to face the same situation when gathered in schools as the decision they have to make […]
The gender of the person one receives the heart from may in fact prove highly important for their future evolution. As reported on November the 12th at the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions meeting, the number of patients whose gender matched their donors’ proved to be less likely to reject the organ or to […]
Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA for short) is a thermoplastic and transparent plastic that’s called acrylic glass for short. In the not so distant future it could be made from natural products such as sugars, alcohols or fatty acids. This process is much more environmentally friendly than the process used now. PMMA is manufactured by polymerising methyl […]
Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, or at least that’s what we used to hear as kids from our parents. Well, scientists say our parents were wrong; after creating a computer that recognizes attractivenes in women , now they managed to create the world’s first beauty machine. While this machine can’t (yet) make […]
We all know that seeing female models can have a negative effect on how women think about themselves, but really, it seems hard to believe that they would have the same effect on men. Still, Jennifer Aubrey, a leading researcher of media effects on body image, completed three different studies that led to the same […]
If you ever wanted to stroll “spidy” your way around the big city, your dream is one step closer to becoming reality, as physicists have found the formula for what they call a “spider suit“. To do this, they applied what they learned from the dazzling gecko and it’s ability to climb walls as well […]
Intelligence is very hard to define as a trait, as it’s usually a simplified term used to describe a quantum of related abilities, such as the ability to solve problems, to understand abstract issues, to learn and to plan. But the notion of intelligence should (by any means) be understood at a whole new level, […]
The efficiency of the solar cells is the first thing needed to be improved in order to improve the quality of the solar panels, and it is the aim of more and more scientists as time passes. Still, very few manage to obtain a breakthrough, and that’s exactly what researchers at University of New South […]
A surprising new discovery shows that unconsciously people are more likely to vote the candidate whose facial features are more similar to their own. So, does a familiar face attract more votes? In a paper that is to be published in the December issue of Public Opinion Quarterly, Jeremy Bailenson, an assistant professor of communication, […]
It’s the equivalent of taking the Hubble telescope (before it was damaged) and directing it towards atoms and molecules instead of stars and galaxies, according to Gianluigi Botton, director of the new Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy at McMaster, where the world’s most advanced and powerful microscope works. It’s called Titan 80-300 Cubed and it […]
It’s not because they deserve it, if that’s what you’re thinking – you mysoginistic bastard; and it’s not because they’re just much sweeter than man. Actually, the old tale that a woman loses a tooth every time she delivers is not as far from the truth as you’d think. A study published in this month’s […]
According to Murphy’s Law, all great discoveries happen by mistake. This is not the case here, but scientists had the opportunity to observe something they weren’t expecting at all. Astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz had the fortune of witnessing the birth of a young galaxy. They were the first to observe the onset […]
Every once in a while you hear about such a good idea that you just know it deserves a prize. Such is the idea of a few students from Rice University, who are taking drinking beer to a whole new level; the genetically engineering level. They are entering it in the International Genetically Engineered Machine […]
This year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry has been earned by three scientists who researched into the mysterious green glow of a jellyfish. They will split the prize which has been given to them for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein GFP. Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; […]
It’s natural that when you are stressed out, you tend to search for an explanation for your current situation and to search for answers; too many people have felt this and this is a global issue even without the economy crisis that struck us. But in such times when you feel that your finances are […]
Using the RHESSI spacecraft, scientists managed to calculate the Sun’s roundness with a level of precision that surpasses anything of this type that has been attempted before. They found that the star which the Eart rotates around is not quite a sphere, but it has a thin “cantaloupe skin”. This skin causes the equatorial radius […]
Chinese researchers confirmed the theory that they are building an “impossible” space drive, and at this stage they are building a demonstration version; if things go according to their plans, this could revolutionize space exploration and the economy of satellites, giving China a significant military and economical advantage over other countries. This year, “Emdrive” (short […]
It’s often believed that blondes have more fun, but now, we finally have proof for that; scientists claim that not only does bleaching hair does wonders for your look and self-confidence, but it also makes a women feel more attractive, more daring when it comes to asking someone out, and even more adventurous in […]
This month, two independent teams have announced that they have succesfully converted sugar-potentially derived waste from agriculture and non-food plants into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other chemical substances of high importance. Randy Cortright, a chemical engineer at Virent Energy Systems of Madison, Wisc. announced that carbohydrates and sugars can be processed into a number […]
Our old Sun has broken a milestone that has not happened for almost a hundred years, as an entire month has passed without a single sun spot being noted. This is relevant because many climatologists believe there is a tight connection between solar magnetic activity which is responsable for the sun spots and climate on […]
Astronauts definitely don’t have it easy; preparing and training for most of your life, to go on a mission that is dangerous in most cases, and that has many difficulties to say the least. But perhaps the most interesting aspect in the life of an astronaut is eating. Because there’s not any room for your […]
One of humanity’s fiercest enemies in the modern world is without a doubt this terrible malady, which has caused an endless number of deaths and suffering; while news and developments in treatment appear every day, there is still no safe receipe for curing it. However, if things get bad, there is now a new technique […]
It’s hard to believe that about half of the food produced on our planet is wasted, especially when about a quarter of Earth’s inhabitants are suffering from hunger; this, my friends is the wonderful world we live in. Not a world without resources, but a world in which we do not know how to use […]
It may seem weird, but ear infections don’t attack only your ears, but your weight too. If you get them during your childhood, there’s a big chance you will develop a taste for fat foods, and thus this affinity will probably lead to obesity. Scientists that made this study suggest that this appears because middle […]
Bacteria have sometimes behaviour that can amaze scientists, by its complexity and efficiency. Salmonella can commit suicide and help their “brothers” to establish infections that are more damaging, thus helping their species. But scientists believe they have found the answer to this surprising kamikaze behavior. This phenomenon which is called self-destructive cooperation often helps Salmonella […]
It’s not as if this was a novelty, but now there’s the scientific background to prove it. Actually, this refers more to when children deny something has happened rather than just making things up. Adults to a little better at this one. This research has been made mostly to help in forensic searches, when dealing […]
Every once in a while, you hear about the hardest of problems that have really easy solutions. In numerous cases, cures have been found in most common of substances, or even foods. This time, a study led by researchers at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland showed that in small concentrations, something as common as […]
Biofuels seems to be the word on everybody’s lips today, and for good reason. It’s necessary that people understand the benefits and importance of this development, as it could be a huge step in protecting our resources and planet. Fortunately, some breakthroughs have been made which give us confidence that things are moving (slowly, but […]
Photo by Firentzesca Recently, attempts to make “cloaking technology” possible have reached a great level, with major break throws. Among mentionable achievements, more notable are the work of Oleg Gadomsky, a Russian professor that managed to redirect light around objects and that of the people from the University of Maryland, who reported the successful cloaking […]
Technology has developed so much in these years that scientists are finding more and more brilliant ways to clear out the pollution that fills our lungs and to solve problems that trouble the very existence of our mankind in ways that sometimes surprise all of us. Often, for the most complex issues we have to […]
The Neanderthal has spakled controversies around scientists for many years, and most questions remain unanswered even today; they had many adaptations to a hard life, such as hort, robust builds, and rather large noses, which show they lived mostly in cold climates. They were almost exclusively carnivorous and top predators and their brains were probably […]
