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Researchers have developed a novel way of calculating the gravity of distant stars, helping determinate if a planet is capable of supporting life or not.
A new study shows a part of the problem that fuels America's prescription opioid epidemic -- the worst drug abuse episode in the country's history.
The British government has announced that they will create a marine reserve almost as big as the UK in the waters of Ascension Island in the South Atlantic between Brazil and Africa. It’s good news, but it’s still a far cry from what scientists and conservationists asked for to preserve species and expand fish stocks. The […]
The seventh row of the periodic table is now officially full - we just have to set a name for the newcomers.
Joy Milne's husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's when he was 45, but she felt something was off a few months earlier.
Research has confirmed that Henry Mountains of southern Utah are home to a rare, genetically pure bison herd. This is the only genetically pure bison herd we know of, after all other surviving members of the species were crossbred with cattle. The team that confirmed their genetic heritage included Utah State University scientists. Dr. Johan du Toit, […]
In what is likely the most underrated disaster of the year, a massive natural gas leak is taking place in Aliso Canyon, California, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles. The leak has been spewing about 62 million standard cubic feet of methane per day into the atmosphere after a well was mysteriously damaged on October 23 […]
Thousands of babies are being born with brain damage due to a mosquito-borne virus.
Scientists have developed a new polymer that can clean water of tiny impurities and pollutants in a matter of seconds. This could revolutionize the water purification industry, not only saving numerous lives, but saving a lot of money and energy in the process. The team was led by Will Dichtel from Cornell University in the US. […]
Japanese television has released extremely rare footage of a giant squid swimming in the Sea of Japan.
Many ancient civilizations made astronomical notes, but according to researchers, this is the earliest historical document of naked eye observations on a variable star – Algol. Variable stars are stars with a varying brightness (as seen from Earth), and they probably held a special place in Egyptian astronomy – they made careful notes on these […]
The two largest cities in Italy have taken drastic measures as pollution levels continue to rise and smog builds up.
Ski slopes (runs) are an environmental bane, as more and more studies are beginning to show. Even after 40 years of abandonment, the environment still fails to recover on the graded slopes.
Partial femur bones found in the renowned Red Deer Cave seems to show that other species of humans overlapped with our own species during the ice age.
World War II was the most devasting war in human history, if we're to rank by casualties in absolute numbers or even in terms of horror. No other war was this gruesome.
Chinese researchers say their lunar rover found a new type of lunar rock unlike anything the Americans or Soviets had brought home before.
Scientists want to grow potatoes on Mars to study crop resilience in the face of climate change. Brilliant or stupid?
YES! SpaceX made it! Wooohooo!
There’s almost no need to say it again – it’s been an exceptionally warm December, and an exceptionally warm year. In fact, it’s been the hottest year on record, with 7 of 11 months so far breaking the record. Things aren’t very different in the capital of the US, where temperatures have exceeded 50 degrees […]
A month ago, millions of gallons of toxic mining waste burst into the environment following a dam break in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Since then, the sludge has left behind a 500 mile (800 km) trail of polluted rivers and banks, ultimately reaching the Atlantic Ocean and marking Brazil’s worst environmental disaster in […]
In a world class display of hypocrisy, after opening up the world’s largest marine sanctuary and vowing to reduce fossil fuel subsidies, the New Zealand government has opened up a marine reserve of the world’s rarest dolphin for oil exploration – most significantly, seismic surveys. The Maui dolphin is the world’s rarest, with under 60 […]
Lions are listed under the Endangered Species Act, five months after a famous lion was lured away from a protected national park in Zimbabwe and killed by an American dentist. The decision announced by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is aimed to help with lion conversation as it will make it increasingly difficult for hunters to bring back trophies from Africa. While it doesn't ban the import of trophies (which would've been ideal), the new ruling has been met with great enthusiasm by environmental groups around the world.
It's the bigger or charismatic of animals that get targeted by human hunters. These give off more meat, more pelt and make for better trophies. The effects of over-hunting and poaching are well documented. Most markedly, this results in extinction and ecosystem destabilization. A new study, however, adds a new frighting dimension to hunting: climate change acceleration through loss of carbon storage.
Elephant social structure is deeply matriarchal, meaning their groups look to older females for leadership. A new study looks into how, even with poaching picking their matriarchs off one by one, elephant social structures unexpectedly managed to survive.
Is this genius or lame? We can't really tell for now.
The fatty acids in fish oil have been proved to help with a wide range of conditions, with WebMD detailing benefits ranging from improving the health of the heart and circulatory system all the way to fighting dyslexia, kidney disease and improving your child's IQ. Now, scientists from the Kyoto University found that feeding fish oils to lab mice made them gain considerably less weight than their fish-less counterparts.
Over the last three years, NASA engineers have been exploring using additive technology, like 3D printing, to manufacture key rocket engine parts. Tests on individual parts had worked well. Now, the space agency fitted all the parts onto a special test bench that behaves like a real rocket engine and fired it up for a test. The engine fired at 90,000 RPMs for 10 seconds to produce 22,000 pounds of thrust, with all performance test parameters showing 'green'.
The Australian government wants to eliminate hepatitis C within one generation - a 'miracle drug' with a price tag of $100,000 will be provided at a cost of only $37.70
Almost all of Costa Rica’s energy came from renewable sources in 2015, making it one of the few countries to achieve virtual independence from fossil fuels. The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced that the country achieved “99 percent renewable electricity generation” this year, running 100% renewable in 285 days so far. The bulk of the […]
Is the American dream over?
New imaging techniques might revolutionize the technologies currently used to capture uranium from seawater, as researchers gain a better understanding of the way the compounds that bind the atoms interact with them.
This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but rather inside our home galaxy.
In a collaborative effort by the Oregon Healthy and Science University and the University of Pittsburgh researchers have been able to identify the genes whose role is to trigger the onset of puberty, and manipulate them to delay puberty in female rats. They hope that the discovery will help determine exactly why causes early-onset puberty in females.
Sharing and other voluntary acts of kindness are what we regard as part of our humanity – but this type of behavior exists in other creatures as well. Now, scientists working in Austria have shown for the first time that dogs exhibit prosocial behavior, if they know the other dogs. Different types of personality have […]
Since the first plesiosaur complete skeleton was discovered in 1824, scientists have been debating how on Earth this reptile used four flippers to swim.
It's finally happening - they're selling air, and the Chinese are buying it.
2015 is set to be the hottest year on record as November smashed previous records, being 1.75 degrees Fahrenheit (0.97 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average. As if that wasn’t enough, 7 of the first 11 months of the year broke the record, according to reports by both NOAA and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. […]
The annus horribilis continued at the jade mines in Myanmar, as another major landslide was announced, with at least one fatality and ten people missing.
This summer in Poland, two treasure hunters discovered what they believe was a WWII Nazi train filled with treasure, in a buried tunnel. Poland’s Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski said authorities were led to the spot and that he was 99% convinced that the treasure had been located. But according to scientists Krakow’s AGH University of Science […]
For more than 200,000 years humans and face mites trace a common history. There’s no human that doesn’t feed these tiny arachnids with some of our delicious face oils, which might startle some. Fret not since these are mostly harmless (though some people are more sensitive to the mites and get rosacea and blepharitis). What’s startling […]
Somewhere in the Arctic, in the interior of the Greenland ice sheets, there lies a glacier like no other. This glacier quakes once every minute, more frequently than ever observed. Geologists now believe that studying these ice quakes could help them better understand how ice melts and reacts to rising temperatures and better model ice flow. […]
Blue-banded bees employ a head on approach to pollination, a group of researchers at Adelaide University showed. While other bees use their mandibles and wings to shake the pollen, this Australian native insect is all "no-hands" and bangs its head against the flowers 350 times per second -- considerably faster than any bee noticed so far.
It’s no secret that when it comes to condoms, the pleasure factor plays a big role – some people simply don’t want to use condoms because it diminishes their pleasure. With that in mind, researchers from Australia are now working to create condoms that feel just like bare skin… or even better! This year, over […]
It’s the closest Earth-like planet we’ve ever discovered: Wolf 1061c lies in the habitable zone, joining a very elite list of rocky planets that could host life. The planet, reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is one of the three planets found by astronomers around a small red dwarf star called Wolf 1061 in the constellation Ophiuchus. […]
Christianity is currently the world's largest religious movement, with an estimated 2.2 billion followers. And because he plays such a huge role in christian mythos and practice, and because of the influence he's had on the course of history (we even date our years after his birth), we all know how Jesus Christ looks like. We've seen it in paintings. on tv, in church, on Christmas; he's white, long haired and wears something thorny. Right?
For the first time in history, the UK has a representative on the International Space Station. This morning, British astronaut Tim Peake made his first visit to the station, alongside two seasoned: Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko and NASA’s Tim Kopra. It was a flawless launch, as you can see below. Malechenko had to take manual control after the automated […]
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, looking into the effects depression has on the brain have found proof linking the disorder with abnormal brain development in preschoolers. Their study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, shows how gray matter is thinner and lower in volume in the cortex, an area of the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions.
If we want to transition to a carbon free economy, renewable energy has to be pivotal – but no matter how you look at the problem, the bottom line is always the same: efficiency. Solar only generates energy when the sun is up, the same goes for wind… there’s a big reliability issue. With this […]
Northwestern University neuroscientists have developed a method that allows them to pinpoint communicating neurons in a living fly's brain -- effectively paving the way for mind-reading. Their mapping of specific neural connection patterns could provide insight into the computational processes that underlie the workings of the human brain.
Researchers have discovered a new material that's both transparent and electrically conductive that might make smartphones, TVs, smart windows and solar cells a lot cheaper, and maybe even more efficient.
