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On Mars, auroras are blue and visible to the naked eye. Here's a simulation

Mars has auroras too, and in addition to the red and green tinted Northern Lights here on Earth, these also come in blue. According to NASA, these should be visible to the naked eye if a Martian astronaut were to look to the sky from one of the two poles.

NASA's deceleration system for Martian landings looks like an UFO. [UPDATED: launch postponed]

Today, NASA is performing a new test round for its low-density supersonic decelerator (LDSD), which is basically a giant stop and break system for heavy duty crafts landing on Mars. Both the Curiosity Rover (2012) and the twin Viking probes (1976) used the same parachute to slow their supersonic descent and land safely on the Martian surface. These parachutes, however, can't handle more than a tone worth of payload, and if humans are ever to touch the planet's surface they'd need to land 15 to 20 tones of payload. The LDSD system deployed by NASA and slated for a test run above the Pacific might be the technology we've been waiting for.

Giant sawfish exhibit virgin birth, reproducing without sex

A routine DNA test came up with some extremely surprising results - female sawfish in Florida reproduce without mating with males. This is among the very few times this process was observed in vertebrates.

Earth-sized planets all have relatively circular orbits, study finds

For decades, researchers have studied our planet’s orbit with growing interest: is there something special about the way the Earth revolves around the Sun, is it a necessary condition for life to emerge? A team of researchers from MIT studied 74 Earth-sized exoplanets and reports that all of them have fairly circular orbits around their […]

Amazon holds contest to see who's the best robot that can replace a warehouse worker

Over the weekend, Amazon - a company that employs more than 50,000 people in its warehouses alone - organized a contest where engineering teams from all over the world were invited to present a robot that can fulfill simple warehouse duties. Though some of the bots were quite impressive, all of them failed miserably at some point, even at a task so simple as grabbing an item from a shelf and placing it in a tub. It's not that they couldn't do this, rather they were so slow and clumsy that any warehouse worker witnessing the display might think he's a superhero and his job is safer than the pope in the Vatican. Well, that may be true ... but who knows for how long. After all, any repetitive task can be automated, eventually.

Lightsail responds after eight day of silence in space. Bill Nye: 'it's alive!'

After a successful launch and deploy to Earth's orbit on the back of the powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket out of Cape Canaveral, the LightSail went silent for eight straight days. Spirits were high and nerves tense, but apparently the craft managed to solve the communication glitch all by itself. Like always, "have you tried switching it off and on?" Following the self-reboot, engineers immediately uploaded a new patch and hopefully we'll see Lightsail unravel its photon harvesting wings soon enough. The LightSail, currently strapped to a CubeSat, might then be deployed through and out the solar system.

California faces tsunami risk - L.A. specifically threatened

It's not just the San Andreas fault - a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research reports that there are several long faults on the U.S. West coast which can cause significant earthquakes, as well as tsunamis.

Tiny origami bot folds, navigates obstacles, swims, then dissolves. Next: inside your body

At the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) conference, a team from MIT, in collaboration wit the Technische Universitat in Germany, presented an incredible origami bot that can perform various complex motor tasks. Weighing only 0.3 grams, the bot can scuttle at about 4 cm/sec to crawl up an arm, carry twice its load, dig through a pile of foam, climb a ramp or push a tiny puck along a planned trajectory. At the end, the researchers demonstrate how the entire bot (apart from its magnet) can be dissolved in acetone. Later on, it's easy to imagine a similar origami bot traveling through your body where it performs various tasks like deliver a medical payload, diagnose for diseases or even perform surgery. It would be designed to be much smaller and with all its parts dissoalvable inside the human body after a while or when emerged in a certain bodily solution.

The 2C global warming goal may be buried in Paris

The plan for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP21, was to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world. But tackling global warming simply doesn't seem to be a priority for the governments of most countries, and the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) seems less and less likely.

Invasive species still hitch a ride on 2011 Japanese tsunami

The 2011 Japan tsunami was so massive that even today, debris from it keeps washing up in Washington - and that might be a problem. Scientists report that along with the debris, invasive species are also make their way to the USA.

Scientists light the brain of mice to recall their lost memories

A team at MIT in collaboration with the Riken Brain Science Institute in Japan activated the lost memories of mice, suggesting memory deficiencies like amnesia have more to do with accessing data, than storage itself. Though far from applicable to humans, the research does show that it's possible, in theory at least, to help patients with retrograde amnesia (who'd lost their memories following a trauma or brain injury) live a normal life once more.

Third of endangered saiga antelope population killed by unidentified disease

Some 120,000 critically endangered saiga antelopes were killed by a mysterious disease since mid-May in Kazakhstan, where 90% of the population lives. A third of the endangered saigas died in this sudden lapse that is still leaving veterinarians and researchers in the area scratching their heads. In the past two decades, the long-nosed antelopes went through a number of similar tragedies, both at the hand of disease and over-hunting.

4000 years of human civilizations charted, the Histomap

Created by John B. Sparks and first printed by Rand McNally, the Histomap started selling in 1931 for the price of US$1. Folded in a green cover that advertised it as “clear, vivid, and shorn of elaboration,” and promising to “hold you enthralled”, the 5-foot-long work of historic awesomeness aims to deliver big.

Soft, squishy and powerful: The Royal Institute of Technology creates batteries from trees

A team of researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stanford University has developed a method for making elastic, shock-resistant, high-capacity batteries from wood pulp.

Why Swiss cheese has holes (it's not the mice)

A team at Agroscope, a Swiss agricultural research center, reports what lends the Swiss cheese its uncanny hole-ridden appearance: tiny pieces of hay that find their way into the milk.

Elon Musk's Hyperloop 'might be free to passengers'

As if Elon Musk's Hyperloop project wasn't attractive enough, it just got even hotter - Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of the company running the project announced that the super-fast transportation might actually be free for passengers, as they are thinking about other types of monetisation.

Leaving the nest: early humans migrated from Africa through North, rather than South

Archaic homo sapiens left Africa, the wellspring of humanity, some 60,000 years ago migrating North, via a route passing through what is known today as Egypt, rather than South, through the Arabian Peninsula, as previously proposed. The findings were reported by an international team of researchers which used novel techniques to produce whole-genome sequences from 225 people from modern Egypt and Ethiopia (six modern Northeast African populations). This is far from the last word, but the picture the researchers paint seems to be consistent with other evidence, such as early human-made tools and human fossils found on the proposed route (Israel), and is in better agreement with what we already know about the genetic mixture of all non-Africans with Neanderthals.

Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, new study finds

New controversial research concluded that dinosaurs weren't the cold blooded lizards we tend to see them today - instead, they had much in common with mammals, and were warm blooded.

New simulation lab will help researchers better understand hurricanes

A lab from the University of Miami will be able to reproduce hurricane conditions on demand, empowering researchers to study hurricanes in a novel way.

Archaeologists find 2,400 year old gold bongs used for cannabis and opium

Two apparent bongs likely used by Scythian tribal chieftains have discovered by archaeologists in Russia. But unlike modern bongs, these ones are made of solid gold.

Creationist finds Paleocene fossils in his basement, claims they're 4,500 years old

An Alberta citizen discovered a trove of rare fossilized fish while digging up his basement. But Edgar Nernberg isn't a man who "believes" in science - instead, he claims that the fish are 4,500 years old, from Noah's flood.

Author of Gay Marriage Study Admits to Lies

A few days ago, we were telling you about a seemingly fake study on changing people’s opinions on gay marriage. Michael LaCour, a very promising grad student from UCLA apparently forged data and lied about how he got it, and the study which had been published in Science, one of the largest journals in the world, […]

Risky brain, safe brain: MIT charts neural pathways involved in decision-making

Researchers at MIT have now identified a neural circuit that they believe underpins decision-making in situations such as this, and have started looking into mice's brains to better understand the biological processes that make us tick and help us pick.

Volcanic twins of the Red Sea: Sholan and Jadid

We tend to think of the planets as static, enduring, and never changing. With the average human life spanning only decades, we can be forgiven that the dimension of time in which geological processes take place goes a bit over our heads. However, recent images captured by satellites showing the birth of two volcanic islands published in a study by Nature Communications are a powerful reminder that the Earth is a planet alive under its crust as well as above.

Tattoos can cause severe adverse reactions in the skin 1 out of 10 times

One in four people in the US has a tattoo, and if you're part of this statistic you know how painful getting one can be. The problem is that, like the tattoo itself, that pain lasts and in some cases the adverse reactions caused by the foreign body, i.e. the dye, can endure for months and months at a time. This isn't something new per se, but what's surprising is how frequent this happens. Researchers at New York University asked 300 or so people in Central Park if they had a tattoo and whether they experienced anything out of the ordinary following the procedure, like redness and scarring. Almost 10% confirmed they had developed abnormal reactions. Of these 6% had itching, scaly skin and swelling , and 4% claimed they went through pain, itching and infection and these didn't stop for at least four months.

Everest glaciers might be gone thanks to global warming, new study concludes

A new study shows once again that no place on Earth is safe from the effects of climate change. Even in the heights of the Himalaya Mountains, glaciers aren't safe; there's a good chance that 99% of the glaciers around the Everest area will melt by 2100.

NASA spacecraft takes new photos of Pluto

In the past couple of months, we've posted quite a lot of articles about the New Horizons spacecraft zooming in on Pluto. It got close enough to see its moons, to see it in color, and to see it at unprecedented resolution. Now, New Horizons got even closer to Pluto and guess what - it took some even better photos.

Mice in space grow thinner skin and more hair, but how safe is micro-g for humans?

Six mice were spent 91 days on board the Internationals Space Station in 2009, or seven years in the life of a mouse. Comparing their tissue characteristics with mice living in the same conditions, only on Earth, researchers found micro-gravity induces some peculiar biological changes. For instance, the mice's skin was thinner and their hair grew more. Like humans, mice too suffer from muscle and bone atrophy in micro-gravity, which prompted scientists to consider them as reliable models for studying the effect of living in space for extended periods of time. Previously, human astronauts have complained about skin dryness and irritation and these latest findings seems to suggest that these may indeed be caused by micro-gravity.

Norway's $900 billion fund will stop investing in coal

Norway's Parliament has agreed that their sovereign energy fund should divest from investments in coal in an attempt to mitigate climate change.

Global carbon pricing schemes value climbs to $50 billion - still a trifle compared to oil subsidies

According to the World Bank, the total value of carbon pricing schemes - including emission trading schemes (ETS) and carbon taxes - has climbed to $50 billion worldwide, slightly up from the previous year. This despite Australia repealed its carbon pricing mechanism in July 2014, at the lead of prime minister Tony Abbott. In 2004 less than 1% of the world's emissions were capped or taxed. In 2005 this climbed to 5%, while in 2015 carbon pricing covered around 12% of the world's emissions according to the World Bank report. Though 50 billion might seem like a lot of money, progress is still slow. When you consider oil and gas is subsidized by $5.3 trillion a year, which basically means governments are paying to pollute, it all sounds like a joke.

Squeezing Schrödinger's cat to measure sensitive quantum states

Researchers at ETH Zurich "squeezed" the quantum states of a calcium ion to make it easily distinguishable, i.e. they measured one of its physical quantities more precisely. All while working within the confinements of Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty (as if they had a choice). The findings could prove useful for ultra-precise measurements which are particularly sensitive to unwanted external influences.

U.S. military accidentally shipped live anthrax to nine states and South Korea

A US Army laboratory in Utah accidentally shipped live samples of anthrax, prompting immediate efforts to recover the samples and make sure that no one suffers. In total, 26 people have been put in post-exposure treatment, a defense official said.

Ancient CSI: Scientists investigate 430,000 year old Murder

Anthropologists have uncovered a 430,000 year old homo skull with fatal wounds that represents the earliest identified murder case in human history.

Scientists discover pre-human species that roamed with "Lucy"

In 1974, anthropologists found a 40% complete skeleton of a female which they identified as a pre-human species; they called her Lucy.  Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago, she is classified as a hominin, and she is without a doubt one of the most important findings in history. Now, scientists have found […]

New research challenges aging consensus by reversing mitochondrial anomalies in 97-year-old cells

A team led by Professor Jun-Ichi Hayashi from the University of Tsukuba in Japan, known as the white lion to his students given his white hair and powerful voice, challenges the current consensus surrounding the mitochondrial theory of aging, proposing epigenetic regulation, and not genetic mutation, may be responsible for the age-related effects seen in mitochondria. When Hayashi and colleagues tested their theory, they reversed the age defects in cell lines collected from 97-year-old Japanese participants. They then singled out two genes involved in glycine production which they believed are responsible for the mitochondria reversal. The findings thus suggest that a glycine supplementation could help curb aging or age-related diseases.

Global warming has never looked so beautiful: Glowing plankton in Tasmania

Tasmania's Derwent River has put on a garb of surreal blue these past few nights as blooms of bioluminescent plankton light up the dark waters. But while photographers scramble to catch breathtaking pictures, scientists point to the more dire implications of the invasion of these tiny organisms so far south.

UN: fewer hungry people worldwide, but still a long way to go

The number of hungry people worldwide has dropped to 800 million, down from a billion more than a quarter century ago. Progress in Latin America and East Asia accounts for the massive reduction in the number of undernourished people, but the UN warns there are still many challenges that need to be overcome if world hunger is to end by 2030. The report proposes rich countries divert more of their resources to poorer environments, while vulnerable countries need to invest more in social protection schemes, incentives for rural areas and promote peace in conflict ridden countries like those in Africa.  Sub-Saharan Africa still has the highest level of undernourishment in the world - almost one in four people there do not have access to enough food.

Robo-roach and robo-bird team up to conduct recon mission

It’s almost like a Disney movie: a roach helps a bird take off from its back in order to save their friends – except both the roach and the bird are robotic, and the recon mission was just a test conducted in a lab from the University of California, Berkeley. But this technology could save lives […]

Modified herpes virus used to treat skin cancer

A new clinical trial from the UK brings exciting results as a modified strain of the herpes virus has been successfully used to treat skin cancer patients, with only minor side effect.

Some influential studies are "sleeping beauties", going unnoticed for decades after publishing

A study which combed through millions of research papers published over the span of a century measured their citations and found many obscure studies surfaced much later into attention and were recognized for their true worth. Typically, if a study hasn't received any citations within the first couple of years since it got published, it will likely stay as it is - forgotten and uninteresting. But this is no rule. The exception are those works of science that were ahead of their time. For instance, the statistical model the researchers employed cites one paper published by Albert Einstein and others which didn't became influential until 1994. This insight into the "science of science" will prove useful in assessing citation dynamics in general.

Last ditch effort gives endangered turtles another chance

A female Yangtze giant softshell turtle (quite possibly the last female of her species) has been given another chance to breed. She has been artificially inseminated at the Suzhou Zoo in China, in a last ditch effort to attempt to preserve her species.

Scientists 3D print eggs, trick birds into thinking they're real

It's more than just a nasty trick - scientists have actually 3D printed eggs to help them better understand bird behaviour. They were especially interested in bird perception and what particular characteristics make them identify real eggs from fake ones.

NASA presents toolkit to search for life on Jupiter's Moon Europa

Sending a probe to look for alien life is just half of the work - it's the tools you send there that will actually do the job, and NASA has decided which tools it wants to send to Jupiter's moon Europa, a place considered by many the likeliest to hold alien life.

Sturdy virus might help us treat infectious diseases

Scientists are studying a virus that survives in extremely hot environments in the hope that it will give us better ways of fighting infectious diseases.

Tinder usage caused STD spike, officials say

It's taking the world by storm, and allowing millions of people world wide to meet friends... and hook up. But for all the joy that is bringing to the world, Tinder also has its downsides - a new study reports the app has actually led to an increase of STD incidence.

Key protein that prevents Ebola outbreak found. Preventive vaccine now in works

A breakthrough study confirmed what scientists have long suspected: Ebola attaches itself to a singular, "gateway" protein to infect hosts. When mice were genetically engineered to lack the protein, these failed to become infected. Though extremely early, these promising results suggest Ebola outbreaks could be contained using vaccines that inhibit the protein either to stop the spread or prevent infection altogether. Nine out of ten infected Ebola patients die, and last year was the worst outbreak in history killing more than 11,000 people in Africa in official numbers, and likely twice as much in reality.

First Hyperloop ever will be built in California

With the Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. signing a deal to build the first test track in California, Elon Musk's "fifth mode of transport", the Hyperloop, took its first big step from the realm of geeky to the concrete. Work on building the track is set to begin next year.

Bad Science - Study on Gay Marriage Was Fake, Gets Retracted

The scientific community is in shock after one of the largest scientific publishers, Science, was forced to retract a study on gay marriage; the reason? The data on which it was based was almost certainly fake.

Ecstasy might be used to relieve Anxiety in Autistic adults in new clinical trial

Some researchers are considering a pilot treatment that involves MDMA, the active psychoactive ingredient in ecstasy pills, to help adults diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) ooze out anxiety. ASD adults typically report difficulties in bonding with other people and often feel nervous in a social setting. Though illegal in the United States, MDMA has been recently explored for psychotherapeutic purposes with promising results reported in battling addiction or post traumatic stress disorder. If it receives approval - and there's a great deal of paperwork that needs to be filled before they get the green light - this would make it the first MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of social anxiety in autistic adults.

Wearable FES-robot hybrid eases stroke recovery

Hong Kong PolyU has designed a new FES (functional electrical stimulation)-robot hybrid that promises to ease recovery of mobility in stroke victims.
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