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New evidence beamed back by the Curiosity rover and analyzed by NASA JPL scientists suggests that the Gale Crater on Mars had large lakes, rivers and deltas for millions or tens of millions of years. The implications are huge, since if Mars ever had a chance of fostering life, it needed to not only have flowing water […]
Three new mosaics have been uncovered in the ancient Greek city of Zeugma, which is actually located in today’s Turkey. The incredibly well preserved mosaics date back to the 2nd century BC, but they’re still as beautiful as the first day. There are actually two ancient cities called Zeugma – one in Dacia (probably today’s Romania), […]
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has set sail to Ceres – one of the most intriguing objects in our solar system. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, containing a third of all the mass in the asteroid belt. The unmanned Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in early 2015, […]
A NASA probe has taken a picture of a surprising pie-like geological feature on Mars. Scientists are not yet sure what caused the feature, but the likely culprit is lava. The 1.2 mile (1.9 km) wide feature was imaged by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) appears like an island of iron in […]
Australia’s Abbott government has been accused of intentionally taking measures that might lead to an international greenhouse gas emission target in Paris, next year. Australian leaders are keen on insisting there should be a binding legal agreement between the countries that agree to the action, arguing that in lack of such a internationally enforceable framework […]
An indigenous leader of the Shuar people who was openly opposing a major mining project in Ecuador has been found bound and buried, just days before an environmental protest he was organizing in Peru’s capital, Lima. We here don’t really like to tackle politics – unless it directly involves science or the environment… and this is […]
An IBM team analyzed a sample of discarded batteries and found that they can still be used and can still provide benefits. They developed a device which uses re-usable Lithium Ion cells from discarded laptop battery packs to power low energy DC devices. They found that 70% of used batteries could still store enough power to keep an […]
A team of researchers from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has revealed how the atomic structure of proteins changes during photosynthesis using an X-Ray laser which captures snapshops with unprecedented temporal resolution. As if conventional lasers weren’t awesome enough, scientists invented X-Ray lasers – which use stimulated emission to generate or amplify electromagnetic radiation in the near […]
Nine years and three billion miles later, NASA’s New Horizon probe awoke once it neared a strip close to Pluto. The probe was kept in hibernation for more than two thirds of its trek and will is soon expected to finally explore the dwarf planet and, most importantly, the world that surrounds it – the Kuiper belt. […]
Australian solar researchers have converted over 40 percent of solar light’s energy into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported by any team for this kind of system. The key for the design is a custom filter which captures sunlight that is normally wasted by commercial solar cells on tower. “This is the highest efficiency ever reported […]
Malaria is one of the most common and dangerous diseases in the world, with the World Health Organization estimating over 200 million cases every year. There are several ways to try to treat malaria, but the results are debatable and often times not as effective as desired. Now, a team has demonstrated a new compound […]
It’s one of England’s better kept secrets – Old Sarum is a hidden gem among gems, one of the most spectacular ancient sites in Europe and in the world. Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury in England. The site contains evidence of human habitation as early as 3000 BC, but only […]
Just one week of camping in the wild (or in any area without man-made light) can reset your body clock and return your natural sleep patterns, a new study has found. If you’re a night owl, if you’re having problems sleeping and just can’t set up a good sleep pattern – science has your problems […]
Using a pulse of infrared light, physicists at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter have turned an insulating material into a superconductor even at room temperature, a property that was retained for only a few millionths of a microsecond. Superconductivity is a state where a material can conduct electricity with […]
More than 80 people were hospitalized after inhaling noxious fumes after a pipeline failure caused some 600,000 gallons of oil to spill into a nature reserve in the desert near Eilat, a southern Israel city. The city with a population of about 50,000 people was not directly affected, however local fauna and flora was severely damaged, according […]
We already wrote about driverless cars hitting the streets several times (California, University of Michigan) but until now, the talk was all America. Now, cars without drivers will also hit the street in the UK, in 4 selected cities: Greenwich (south-east London), Bristol, Coventry and Milton Keynes. There will be a total of three projects, […]
The Electric Eel, a scaleless fish from the Amazon possesses an electroshock system very similar to a Taser. Not only can it stun its prey with the shock, but it can also make it twitch involuntarily, revealing its position. The electric eel is able to generate powerful electric shocks of up to 650 volts, which it uses […]
Pulsars and black holes, two of the most enigmatic celestial bodies in the Universe may actually hold the key to understanding how Einstein’s theory of relativity and gravity interact. A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. Pulsars are from when a star that turns becomes a supernova and then […]
According to a new study published by researchers working with the American Geophysical Union, the drought that California is experiencing now is the worst one in over 1,200 years. They show that the current California drought is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and also record high temperatures. With the effects of global warming being […]
The human body is a complex biological machine, where each part of the system works in tandem, from cells to whole organs, to keep us alive. When something in the system goes astray or downright haywire, disease creeps in. I’m not going to go into biological details on how the human body works – there […]
High speed photography is no longer a new thing… but then again, it depends what you mean by high speed photography; you likely don’t mean one hundred billion frames per second (100,000,000,000 fps) – but that’s exactly what Liang Gao, Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University means. He and his team have developed the world’s fastest […]
Archaeologists have identified the oldest engraving known to mankind – a 500,000 shell scratched by a human ancestor. In 2007, Stephen Munro was a graduate student in archaeology; while he was studying some shells from Java, Indonesia, he had the shock of his life: he found that one shell had a pattern of zig-zag lines […]
A breakthrough in optical communications has been reported by Stanford engineers who used a complex algorithm to design a prism-like device that splits light into different colours (frequencies) and at right angles. This is the absolute first step towards building a circuit, and ultimately a computer, that uses light instead of wires to relay signals. This […]
A series of setbacks, including a strayed boat, gusts of wind and other technical issues, have ruined NASA’s plans of launching its much anticipated Orion capsule into space today. Just before the launch window closed, officials announced that the launch would be scrubbed until a later time. The next attempt might be on Friday, 7:05am ET. […]
Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu are two neuroscientists who are at the very forefront of their field. Their work is focused on mapping the memory system, but also on how memory activation alters neural pathways, thus changing our mood. For instance, the two spoke recently during a TED talk about their most impressive experiment yet where […]
The elevator was invented over 150 years ago, and now, we’re entering a new era in vertical transportation: the first ropeless elevator has been developed. The Germany company ThyssenKrupp developed this technology, and it looks straight out taken from a Willy Wonka movie! But this technology is not about being cool, it’s about being effective. MULTI elevator […]
Butcher shops are very traditional – they’ve been around for ages, and they’re probably the best place to get quality, cheap meat. But meat consumption is also cruel and not environmentally friendly, and I’m very happy to see more and more vegetarian establishments across the world. Such is the case with this Vegan Butcher shop […]
People who chronically abuse marijuana may be able to quit by replenishing the supply of a molecule that normally activates cannabinoid receptors in the brain, thus reducing anxiety and relieving mood. A truly natural high In the 1980s and 90s, researchers identified cannabinoid receptors, long, ropy proteins that weave themselves into the surfaces of our […]
After studying 118 newlywed couples for up to four years and regularly surveying the women, researchers Florida State University found that choosing a partner while on the pill might affect a woman’s marital satisfaction. After discontinuing hormonal contraceptives, women reported a drop in marital satisfaction. There’s a trick to it, though. Apparently, the drop in […]
It just seems like Ukraine can’t catch a break – Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday an accident had occurred at the Zaporizhye nuclear power plant (NPP) in south-east Ukraine. What exactly is meant by “accident” is not clear; we don’t know the scale of the damage and how the situation is likely […]
A team of UK researchers led by none other but Nobel Laureate Andre Geim – one of persons involved in graphene’s discovery in 2004 – has shown that the wondrous two dimensional material graphene can used as a proton exchange membrane in fuel cells. The find took everybody by surprise since no one expected graphene could […]
Evidence of ancient bony fish suggests that they copulated even though many of their descendants stopped doing so. Paleontologists believe this is the first-known animal to stop reproducing by spawning and instead mate by having sex. The primitive fish (Microbrachius dicki) measured about 8cm long and is now long extinct. As it often is today, the first sexual […]
Christmas came early for physicists as the CERN facility in Switzerland report the discovery of two new baryonic particles from their LHCb experiment. “Today the collaboration for the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of two new particles in the baryon family. The particles, known as the Xi_b’- and Xi_b*-, were […]
The Mediterranean diet has long been known to provide a myriad of health benefits, reducing the risk of heart disease and cancer among others; but until now, no study has shown that it also protects telomeres, one of the biomarkers of aging. As the name gives it away, the Mediterranean diet follows the nutritional patterns of […]
The University of Texas at Austin is missing about 100 brains, about one half of the entire collection from the University… and no one seems to know what happened to the brains. University staff are scratching their heads trying to figure out what happened to the brains; it may be an act of vandalism or […]
Ants often get a lot of bad rep for being “pests” in the city, but a new study has shown that ant populations are actually very helpful in urban environments. Scientists researching the behavior of ants have found that they dispose of garbage with remarkable efficiency, keeping rats and other garbage-dependent pests at bay. “Urban green […]
Many thousands of miles above our planet’s surface, electrons whiz through close to the speed of light. These electrons can streak past Earth in under five minutes, but can also become dangerous and have been known to destroy satellites and even injure astronauts in extreme cases. Most of the time, however, our gear and astronauts can rest […]
You often hear people complaining that kids don’t play outside anymore – instead just hanging in the house all day long, playing on the computer (tablet/xbox/whatever). This is a pretty big problem, because there is a myriad of advantages to playing outside; this study has added yet another advantage to that list: playing outside reduces […]
The remains of King Richard III have been confirmed with pin-point accuracy by the latest round of sequencing; exclusive details on how the late tyrant king might have looked like are also now available. A few years back, a most surprising find was made under a car park in Leicester: none other than King Richard […]
It’s very small and incredibly old – scientists have found the egg of a 240 million year old parasite – a pinworm, to be more precise. It’s the oldest pinworm ever found, and one of the oldest evidences of parasitism ever found. The pinworm, also known as threadworm, is a parasitic intestinal worm, pretty common […]
The past couple of months have been really tense for the people who are often times labeled as coming from ‘uncontacted’ tribes. The truth of is most of these tribes are often times intruded upon by neighboring communities and, worse and most dangerous of all, illegal loggers and drug traffickers. As such, tribesmen have come out […]
Yoga, coffee and even chocolate can do wonders for your mood – it’s already a known fact. But what if technology stepped in – would you take a few electrical shots to substitute your urge for caffeine? If the answer is yes, or if you want to have more control on your mood, then good […]
Have you ever wondered why you crave for a drink from time to time or why you can drink alcohol in the first place, for that matter? Our ability to ingest and metabolize ethanol can be traced back to a common primate ancestor who lived some 10 million years ago, according to US researchers who […]
Charle’s Darwin’s original notes during which he first scribbled down the ideas which led to evolution have been digitized and published online by Cambridge University. Over 12,000 high-res images have been published online – including the ones with the pages where he actually coins the term ‘natural selection’. “One may say there is a force […]
Nature, one of the biggest academic journal groups has announced that they will make all their articles free to view. While the articles will be available for anyone to read, they cannot be copied, printed or downloaded, the journal’s publisher Macmillan announced on 2 December. “Subscribers to 49 journals on nature.com will be able to share a […]
Oh, boy. This week’s freaky science story comes from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York where researchers grafted mouse pups with human glial cells. Within one year, half the brain cells of the by now adult mice were human. A study made last year by the same team suggests that mice whose […]
An Israeli company has developed a battery that can charge a smartphone in just 30 seconds; to make things even more interesting, the technology could be scaled and power up electric cars in a matter of minutes. Demonstrated at the 2014 Microsoft Think Next Conference in Tel Aviv earlier this year, StoreDot‘s prototype battery fully charged […]
There is currently no Lyme borreliosis vaccine available for humans available for purchase, but a new research has shown how such a vaccine could be made. Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis) is an infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. Each year, approximately 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are […]
Music is almost ubiquitous in our lives – we hear it in commercials, in the car, on the radio, at the movies, when you go out, when you stay in… we’re quite a musical society nowadays. But we still don’t understand many things about how music affects our bodies and our brains; now, a new […]
Geologists are close to cracking the mystery of one of the biggest earthquakes in American modern history – the 1872 North Cascades event. Now, over one century later, they believe they have finally found the origin of the earthquake. An ancient mysterey Current research points to a newly discovered fault near the town of Entiat in Chelan […]
