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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 […]
Less than a year from now, in 2009, NASA is going to launch a whole new generation of spacecraft and launch vehicle system. The test flight is called Ares I-X and it will bring scientists even closer to the exploration goals they have set for themselves. The main test objectives are focused on dynamics of […]
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 […]
The Yale School of Medicine researchers conducted a study in 13 countries which lead to the conclusion that there may be a connection between school bullying and children who resort to suicide. The lead author, Young-Shin Kim, part of the Yale research team, and her colleague, Bennett Leventhal, claim that the exact causality between the […]
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but according to a study led by Andrei Sommer, Dan Zhu, and Hans-Joerg Fecht, diamonds are life’s best friend too. According to them, billions of years ago the surface of these precious gems made it possible for life to rise, by providing just the right chemical conditions. It is […]
Everybody pondered at least once in their lives the possibility of being immortal, and this idea sparkled in the immagination of many people throughout history. Now, Stuart Kim, a PhD at Stanford and professor of developmental biology and genetics conducted a study that led to results that shocked pretty much everybody involved, contradicting the […]
A few days ago, I wrote about the damage that a well intended, but wrongly conducted mangrove restoration could cause; the article itself was focusing on the Philippines. It is time to underline (again) the importance that they have on ecosystems which rely on them way more than you would probably guess.Just a few days […]
Actually, it’s not about the brightest star of all, but the brightest star in our galaxy. It seems there’s a new contender for the title of Milky Way brightest star; it’s near its dusty center, and infrared observations performed by NASA have revealed how bright it is by piercing the dust that surrounds it. The […]
Archaeopteryx has been the subject of many controversies, but it is now widely considered as the world’s oldest bird; however, reptiles were flying for 50 million years when it appeared, even before the world was roamed by dinosaurs. Now, paleontologists have unveiled an extraordinary prehistoric ‘flying’ reptile which lived 235 million years ago.It’s called kuehneosaurs […]
If you have a bug you want to identify and know everything about, there’s one place which will solve all your problems; the experts at the Natural History Museum in London are proud to say that they can identify species from around the globe, from birds and mammals to insects and snakes. Still, if you […]
Scientists have believed for years that the moon doesn’t have water, only to find that its interior proved them wrong, challenging our current understanding on how the satellite was formed The current most accepted theory is that it formed in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object.But if this had been the case, […]
Michio Kaku, a highly regarded physicist and one of the world’s leading authorities on string theory (essentially an attempt to discover a “theory of everything” combining all of the known physical forces) has virtually redefined what is impossible and what is not. He has studied and tried to predict the future of science and physics […]
It’s not a bird, it’s not a planet, it’s not Jupiter… it’s super earth. Actually, there’s 3 of them. What are they? Well they’re three planets that astrophysicists have found orbiting the same star. They were located with the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile.These Super Earths are […]
We all know (or really should know) the benefic impact a healthy lifestyle has on your body and mind. But according to a study led by U.S. researchers, exercising and having a balanced diet can not just keep you fit, but it can also lead to some swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level.In […]
Ever wake up in the morning and just couldn’t get out of bed? Did you ever have something to do and just didn’t have what it takes to do it? Well, all you lazy people, rejoice! In may not be your fault after all. A simple test could show whether difficulty in defeating your laziness […]
When I read what Ray Kurzweil said about the future, I was just awed! I mean, coming from somebody else, it would seem ludacris (even from him, I find it really hard to believe), but c’mon, the man is one of the best futurists we have, so he HAS to know what he’s talking about. […]
For the first time, scientists have found fossilized burrows of tetrapods (four legged vertebrates) in Antarctica dating from the Early Triassic epoch, about 245 million years ago. They’ve been conducted research there since early 2006, and it’s the first time they’ve actually found something of this calibre. The fossils are created in a relatively simple […]
Geography Easter Island (Rapa Nui in the native Easter Island language) is situated in the southeastern Pacific Ocean – it’s an overseas territory of Chile. It’s the most isolated inhabited area, and it’s famous for the monumental statues, called moai (pronounced MOE-eye) which have fascinated and baffled people for many, many years; and still, no […]
If you think girls like sport cars, bling, and fancy clubs… you’re so last year! Well that’s not really what I think, but it’s what a study conducted by GM as part of this year’s Challenge X competition showed. I’m not really sure how relevant this is, but the results baffled me to be honest […]
Seven was considered a magic number by the ancient Greeks. So when it came to naming the most impressive constructions mankind had achieved at the time, it was a must that they settle on just seven. The historian Herodotus and the architect Callimachus of Cyrene made these lists, but their writing remained only as references. […]
For almost a century, scientists have been trying to figure out what’s good and what’s bad about Einstein’s vision of the universe. Blending the traditional view of physics with the bizarre almost impossible to understand world of quantum physics is no easy task – for anybody. It’s due to our current understanding of these phenomena […]
Think about the hottest thing that comes to your mind; probably, 90% of people would answer the Sun. But what if you found out that some scientists in Oxfordshire have heated matter to 10 million Celsius, hotter than the surface of the Sun, marking a major landmark in research, you’d probably change your mind. […]
A study conducted by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health showed that cat ownership probably has a very good effect on young children of ages up to 5 years. The study was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. […]
It’s still unclear how sleep deprivation affects us, as there are still so many things scientists have failed to understand about sleep itself. But now, neuroscientists at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore have shown for the first time what happens to the visual perceptions of healthy but sleep-deprived people who struggle […]
British scientists have received the green light to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday. Already a wave of contradictions and the scientific world is divided into two camps. An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was rejected […]
Just like when you lie certain things happen in your brain, the same thing happens when you think something about somebody. But what happens in our brain when we judge people or at least when we make an idea about someone? Those (and many other) questions have been tackled by MIT neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe. Her […]
Let’s start with the beginning, shall we ? A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape its pull after having fallen past its event horizon. That means that electromagnetic radiation (e.g. visible light) is unable to break away from the […]
Photo by ±‡ U a € ï ¥ a H ‡± Life has ups and downs, reminding more or less of an emotional rollercoaster; but some memories stay in your memory way longer than the others. Emotional memories of traumatic life events (physical or mental), especially cases of accidents or serious illnesses are stored […]
