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At the core of a newly found dwarf galaxy, astronomers discovered a mysterious source of gamma rays that may signal the presence of the mysterious dark matter. If this is confirmed, then it would be the first time we see dark matter through anything else than its gravitational pull.
The chameleon is one of the most remarkable, but also iconic creatures in the animal kingdom. It's color shifting traits has made it the subject of metaphors. A person who is a master of disguise is rightfully labeled a chameleon. But how does the elusive lizard work its magic? After years of observation and rigorous study, scientists have finally uncovered how they do it. Beneath the outer layer of skin, chameleons have special nanocrystals that are evenly spaced. These reflect light and changing the spacing between the crystals also changes what kind of light gets reflected and eventually hits our eyes. Ultimately, this is how the chameleon turns green from red only a few minutes ago, or vice versa.
People generally love their pets, but we'd be lying to say there isn't an inter-species discrimination. How many fish owners do you know who've been with their goldfish to a veterinarian? Not that many, I presume. Certainly, number-wise it pales in comparison to dogs or cats. The story of a Scottish goldfish named Star which had its cancerous eye removed by doctors thus serves as a noble example of respect and responsibility that all pet owners should bear.
Exoplanet GJ581d is the first potentially habitable world astronomers have discovered, but some astronomers believed that the planet wasn't actually there - it was all an observational flaw mixed with some noise in the signal. However, British researchers recently released a study which confirms that the planet does exist and further underline the matter of habitability. This is one of the planets outside our solar system most likely to harbor life.
People who excessively rely on their smartphones scored lower on tests which gauged cognitive abilities like analytical thinking than those who use their smartphones less frequently. The results reported by psychologists at University of Waterloo suggest that using smartphones to find answers to questions - difficult or not - via search engines makes you lazy and less apt at solving problems.
Three hundred years ago, three African-born slaves from the Caribbean suffered a sad fate. No one knew who they are, no one knew what they went through, and until recently, no one knew where they came from. Now, researchers extracted and sequenced tiny bits of DNA to figure out where in Africa these people came from when they were captured and enslaved.
Two new studies, independently published in the same journal, found that consciousness expanding substances like LSD or psilocybin (the psychoactive substance found in 'magic mushrooms') couldn't be linked with mental health problems in the general population. Moreover, according to data fed from a nationwide survey, psychedelics make people less prone to suicide and suicidal thinking than the general population. Previously, studies showed that psychedelics have significant results in treating addiction and post traumatic stress, under guidance and supervision. The researchers stress, however, that some individuals may experience adverse psychological effects.
A study conducted on 2000 year old tooth enamel found that ancient farmers traveled to the grassy plains southern Africa to develop herding away from the dangerous tsetse fly.
Astronomers have discovered a star racing at a incredible pace of 2.6 million miles an hour (4.2 million kilometers an hour), making it the fastest moving star discovered thus far. It's so fast that it should exit our galaxy and turn into an intergalactic rogue. It doesn't stop here. Such celestial oddities are believed to be spurred in motion by the extreme gravitational tugs found in the vecinity of supermassive black holes, such as the one found at the core of the Milky Way. The new found road runner, however, was most likely flung outward by a Type Ia supernova, one of the most powerful and brightest bursts of energy in the universe. Little is know about such stellar explosions, and the hypervelocity star might submit some valuable clues.
Tomorrow, Swiss aviators Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will embark on an epic journey aboard Solar Impulse 2 - an airplane entirely powered by solar power - that will take them around the world. The five-months, 35,000 kilometers long trip will start and end in Dubai.
In Florida, some have already found a solution to climate change: just ignore the damn thing! According to a outrageous report released by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, employees of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have been ordered to stop using key terms like “global warming” or “climate change” in public communications, be them […]
Extraordinaire experimental physicist Galileo Galilei allegedly climbed hundreds of step to reach the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa’s – which wasn’t so leaned as it is today – and dropped pairs of balls of different weights and materials onto the ground. The experiment was meant to prove in front of the crowd of scholars […]
By 2050, world population is expected to rise to nine billion, but the amount of arable land meant to grow food will remain mostly the same as it stands today. As such, a 25% increase in productivity is mandated to support not just a growing populace, but also a wealthier one - as income inequality is coming down in developing countries, we're also seeing a sharp increase in meat consumption, for instance. Genetically modified organisms and waste management are just a few paramount solutions. At the same time, productivity stems from agricultural processes and some modern farmers are already integrating the latest technology to increase their yields and cut costs. Twenty years from now, expect your oranges and corn to be 100% sown, grown and harvested by robots.
A study conducted on a small number of men concluded that the "love hormone" oxytocin may reduce appetite, helping men lose weight.
The Catalina Fox simply can't catch a break - it went from endangered, to doing so well that local residents want to kill it again.
In 2002, Jason Padgett was brutally attacked outside a karaoke bar, getting a brain concussion and a severe case of PTSD. But this may have actually been the best thing that happened to him - the brain injury turned him into a mathematical genius, and made him see the world differently, through a geometrical lens.
Whether we see them in math or in real life biology (or architecture, or art), fractals are just awesome. In case you don’t know, a fractal is a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. Basically, a fractal is a similar, never-ending pattern. No matteer how you zoom in or out, you end up with a […]
Archaeologists working in Oregon have uncovered a stone tool which seems to be way older than any previously documented site of human occupation in North America. When archaeologists date things, they use a relative law borrowed from geology, called the superposition law. The superposition law states that sedimentary layers are deposited in a time sequence, […]
We live in a society which puts a lot of pressure on looks. Women especially, are always looking for new ways to make themselves look more attractive either by dyeing their hair, wearing make-up or, in some particular extreme cases, plastic surgery. Now there’s another type of aesthetic procedure – a novel laser treatment which can […]
Dental health is still a generally neglected issue throughout the world - most people just delay their dental problem or simply ignore them until they become unbearable. Although it's pretty simple to have a correct dental hygiene, most people simply don't care enough about this, and as a result, almost 2 and a half billion people suffer from untreated tooth decay.
Praying mantises are peculiar creatures, by human standards. The insect often stands in a pose that looks like it is praying, but make no mistake - it's a formidable killer and an unforgiving lover. The unholy mantis uses its spiky front legs with great accuracy to ledge unto prey, but also to hold onto its male lover after mating to chop of his head. Ouch! A less known aspect of praying mantises is their agility. The insects make extremely calculated leaps and controlled landings, all in the blink of an aye. Now, a team from University of Cambridge and University of Bristol, UK, have found out how they manage their acrobatic feats. In short, it's a complex interplay between the counter-rotation of three body parts to exchange momentum. This orients the insect towards its target with great precision.
Scientists in Finland have been keeping themselves busy testing two different beers... for science, of course. These are not just your average beers though - they're almost two centuries old, recovered by divers exploring a 1840s shipwreck in the Baltic Sea back in 2010.
Scientists have found tantalizing evidence regarding Mars' wet past - according to new research, the Red Planet may have once had a huge ocean, containing 5 million cubic miles of water with a depth of over a mile.
For the second time, astronomers have discovered a planet in a solar system with four stars! While most solar systems only have one star, two stars are pretty rare, three are very rare, and four stars… that almost never happens – or at least this is what we thought. The planet wasn’t newly discovered, but […]
According to a new report, a team of astronomers has observed a supernova explode - split into four different images. It's a "needle in the hay stack" scenario which astronomers were hoping to find for a long time... and now they finally did.
Some people waste hours each day driving their car, time they could have otherwise spent better. You'll still be trapped on the road in a self-driven car, but the added benefit is that you'll be free to do other stuff - anything but stare into your windshield non-stop. According to a study made by McKinsey & Company, self-driving cars could generate billions of dollars a year in revenue from mobile internet services and products, even in situations where occupants only save a couple of minutes. Of course, we had it coming. What did you thought people would do with their spare driving time? Surf the internet, of course.
It amazes me when I hear people say they're against wind turbines because ... wait for it... they're ugly. If you think the same, please get a look at this. Others hate them because they have this misguided impression they're noisy. Well, modern turbines at least are quieter than a heartbeat. If you really want to make a case against wind turbines, you could argue they're bad for wildlife and you'd be right. Birds, bats and other winged creatures are sometimes attracted by the turbines or get slashed when these are in the way of their migration patterns. This is why I believe turbines should be built only in those areas where there is minimal interference with wildlife. They'll always be downsides to any technology or infrastructure development, but when you draw the line we must be objective whether or not the benefits tip the scales. There's also another added benefit to turbines you likely never heard about: they help crops grow faster and better when they're placed on farmland.
Parasitic hookworms infect half a billion people worldwide, causing severe health problems like gastrointestinal issues, cognitive impairment and stunted growth in children. As if the challenges weren't big enough, the parasites are growing resistant to current drugs. Scientists are trying to tackle this by developing new treatments and vaccines based on the worm's genome. A team of Caltech sequenced the genome of a hookworm species known as Ancylostoma ceylanicum and found the genes that code key proteins involved in infecting hosts. They hope blocking these proteins from being made might save millions from great sorrow and suffering.
Since 2000, the number of deaths from heroin overdose have quadrupled. At the same time, the profile of the average overdosed fatality has shifted from older back men to younger white males, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
It's increasingly hard to eat less sugar, as market shelves are filled with sugary products. In the past ten years alone, global sugar intake has risen by ten percent. In what's not the first and surely not the last appeal of the sort, the Wold Health Organization reports adults and children from the Americas to Western Europe and the Middle East must halve their daily sugar intake to reach acceptable levels. Otherwise the risk of obesity and tooth decay, to name a few, will skyrocket. In terms of daily energy intake, the new guidelines means that people should keep sugar at a maximum of 10% of equivalent energy.
You never know what’s hidden in food these days… but you also never know what’s hidden under supermarkets. Organized rows of over 200 skeletons have been found in a communal grave under a Monoprix supermarket in central Paris. The site is thought to be a hospital cemetery dating back to the 1100s. When building constructors encounter […]
It’s not every day that species get such awesome names – but then again, it’s not every day that such awesome spiders are discovered. Two gorgeous new species of spider have been discovered in Australia (where else?), and the researchers who made the discovery decided to give them these memorable names. The species are a part […]
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Google reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature that they are one step closer to developing a true quantum computer - they have developed a quantum device the art of checking and correcting its own errors.
Using both modern and historic measurements, researchers now have a more extensive view of how the Arctic sea ice has changed in the past few decades, finding that the ice is melting much faster than previously expected. The ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.7 feet (3.59 meters) to 4.1 feet (1.25 m).
How the tables have turned! While documenting the experiments conducted on campus, Benjamin Savard, a digital media producer at Middlebury College, wanted to take some underwater pictures of an octopus. But the octopus had other plans. It grabbed the camera and turned it on Savard, who posted the photos and GIF of the entire sequence on Reddit. “I […]
An expedition in the Honduras has emerged from the jungle with a spectacular announcement: they have discovered the remains of a lost city belonging to an unknown, mysterious culture. The team was investigating a lead regarding the site of a storied “White City,” also referred to in legend as the “City of the Monkey God.” La […]
A broken jaw unearthed in Ethiopia pushes back the origin of the homo linage – of which homo sapiens sapiens are the only surviving members – by 400,000 years. The finding might prove important in explaining how our ancestors diverged from more apelike relatives, like Australopithecus, to big brained beings, filling a blank spot two […]
Science journal today seem to be dominated by positive results - that is those that are statistically significant and lead to a dramatic finding. The devil's in the details they say, and the same hold true for the advances of science. While it's true that groundbreaking research is what leads to leaps, these jumps are often ambiguous. Hundreds of other papers - some which control tidbits, other that replicate past findings - are paramount to filling in the blanks.
A crowd gathered for the New America Foundation’s first annual Future of War conference was told by DARPA's director that a woman was able to control F-35 flight simulator without touching the joystick. The woman controlled the simulation only with her thoughts, which were relayed and processed to the simulator by a neural implant embedded in her left cortex.
One of the world's most iconic and well known monuments - the Eiffel Tower - just got even better: the French authorities have installed two vertical axis wind turbines to power, at least partially, the tower's electrical requirements.
The UK boasts 650,000 solar installations across homes, offices, schools, churches, warehouses, farms, police stations, train stations and even a bridge. It's been one of the fastest growing solar markets in Europe. At the end of 2013, there were 2.8GW of solar power arrays installed, but by the end of 2014 this figure climbed to 5GW or nearly double in only 12 months. However, drastic and discriminatory changes in renewable subsidies to come in effect in May of this year are expected to collapse solar development to 1% of its current level.
Sick, got the flu? Well, maybe what you think is the flu really isn't the flu... a new study has found that while children catch a flu once every two years on average, the rate goes down significantly in adults - the average adult only gets it once every 5 years.
When she was pregnant, former Chinese news anchor Chai Jing got some tragic news - her unborn daughter was diagnosed with a tumour. She immediately quit her job, and soon started working on a documentary focusing on China's pollution problem (especially smog). Now, her self-financed documentary, for which she paid $200,000 took the country by storm, with 75 million hits on the day it was released on Chinese video streaming sites and over 250 million views now.
An ancient tomb possibly belonging to Amenhotep, the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Photographs distributed by the ministry show a tomb with bright green and brown paintings with hieroglyphics and is one of the most spectacular findings in recent years. “The tomb contains many stunning scenes with bright colours painted on plaster,” Antiquities Minister […]
A new study suggests that two very common emulsifiers - chemicals that stabilize foods and stop products like mayo from separating - could increase the risk of obesity and irritable bowel syndrome.
Scientists undertook the gargantuan task of analyzing the compound chemicals found in the venom of 206 spiders, and they discovered what may lead to a new generation of painkillers, improving the lives of over 1 billion people.
If you'd happen to see these two British twins, you'd likely believe they're good friends - or cousins at most. But Lucy and Maria are actually twins - despite the obvious differences.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is expected to remain stationary for at least a couple of days after a shortcircuit has rendered its arm useless for the time being. The engineering problem occurred on February 27 as the rover was preparing to start drilling in the Martian soil.
Many people today are consuming more salt than they actually need - while this may make foods more tasty, it also increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. But a new study found that dietary salt could actually have a dietary advantage, defending the body against invading microbes.
OK, it’s been a while since we did this feature, but it’s back now – and it’s here to stay. This is where we take a look back at the past week, discussing the most interesting studies and the researchers behind them. Bees have false memories too Article Featured Researcher: Lars Chittka Affiliation: Chittka Lab, Queen Mary […]
