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The Grand Canyon is a favorite for tourists all over the world – but if you think it’s cool to see it from the ground level, you haven’t seen it from above – the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is also a favorite for astronauts shooting photos from the International Space Station. The Grand Canyon is […]
A female insect has developed a spiky penis which it uses to get in charge . It’s a role reversal, basically: not only do the females have a penis, but the males have a vagina. The males still have sperm, but the female extracts it from the male vagina using its penis. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? […]
Remote, cold, rugged, and fiedy – that’s the Kamceatka Peninsula for you! Out of all the 1,550 volcanoes that have erupted in the recent geologic past, 113 are found on Kamchatka. Of those, 40 Kamceatkan volcanoes are active, either erupting now or capable of erupting anytime, without any notice. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured […]
A common brain myth is that creative people, like artists, use their right part of the brain more, while the left part of the brain is more active in rational people. This has been debunked many times, and a few searchers on Google will satisfy your curiosity, if you think otherwise. It’s true, however, that […]
Toyota has officially announced that it will launch a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car in 2015, but said sales volumes would be limited. The company announced they will use a high-density fuel stack which will have the potential to cover 500 miles on a single fuel tank. The technology will take a while to be implemented and accepted […]
Australian brush turkeys incubate their eggs in places most animals would stay clear of: moist piles of rotting vegetation. There are some advantages to this approach, most notably that the heat released by the microbes keeps the eggs warm but those same microbes can also get through eggshells and kill the embryos. However, even though the risks […]
Prostitution may or may not be the oldest job in the world, but rigging goes a long way too. Researchers have recently deciphered a Greek document that shows an ancient wrestling match was fixed. The document, which was dated from the year 267, is a contract between two teenagers who had reached the final of a very […]
A new study on which a swarm of scientists worked on showed that two children (an 11 year old boy and a 6 year old girl) have a mutation which greatly reduces viral replication in HIV, dengue fever, herpes simplex virus type 2 infection, and hepatitis C – effectively protecting them from the viruses. The two […]
A team of development psychologists who have been following children’s temperament since they were babies until early adulthood found evidence that suggests shy or behaviorally inhibited (the official term) babies are more likely to become anxious adults. From here on a chicken and egg story unfolds: are these children overly shy because their brains are […]
You could be sitting alone and still be completely outnumbered for your body is home to trillions upon trillions of tiny passengers – bacteria. In fact, there as ten times more bacteria living inside you then cells in the body. Don’t get scared, though. The vast majority of these co-redident organisms are our friends. They […]
Humans are great social beings because we have an extraordinary ability to distinguish between our fellow bretheren. If you don’t suffer from prosopagnosia, also known as “face blidness”, chances are you’ll be able to easily recognize a friend’s face or voice out of a myrriad of other humans. This kind of mental ability is extraordinary […]
NASA will host a news teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, April 17, to announce a new discovery made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope. NASA hosts conferences all the time, what makes this one so special? Well, two reasons: first of all, there’s a big paper published in the […]
Oligarchy vs Democracy Democracy is a pretty familiar term, at least it should be! Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally (either directly or indirectly) in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. Technically, all citizens are equal – they all have one vote, they all have the same rights. Democracy […]
We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with […]
Last week, the story of a German fisherman made front news after he found a message in bottle floating in the Baltic Sea for nearly 101 years. What’s more, despite most of the text written was undecipherable, researchers at the Hamburg Museum were able to find the sender’s name and deliver the message to his […]
Like a sticking nail, Alzheimer’s has been irritating neuroscientists for decades. After so many years and billions worth of research, the underlying causes and mechanics that cause the gruesome neurodegenerative disease have yet to be identified, though hints suggest genetics have a major role to play – never mind a cure! Clearly, Alzhaimer’s is formidable […]
While pollution is most felt locally, where its produced, some of it eventually winds up in remote locations proving to be a global hazard even places in the world where there isn’t any kind of fossil industry. For instance, a while ago I reported how 29% of San Francisco’s pollution comes from China – be […]
Part of an extraordinary venture, researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) report they’ve synthesized hydrocarbon fuel solely from seawater by transforming the CO2 and H2 found in the water. To demonstrate they viability of the fuel, a replica of the legendary WWII P-51 was fitted by an off-the-shelf (OTS) and unmodified two-stroke internal combustion engine […]
The new year came with a grim report, after South African authorities reported 1,004 rhinos were pouched in the previous year or 50% more than in 2012. Just six years ago, only 13 rhinos were slaughtered by poachers, but since then demand for rhino horn has soared. If the current trend is set to continue, than […]
The Red Planet is dear to many of us. There’s a sort of brethren feeling, something that relates Earth and Mars together which makes people fond of the planet, but also at the same time weary. Weary because it’s dead planet, and because people don’t want the same thing to happen to Earth. The Martian […]
Until just a few decades ago, there wasn’t any proof that there were any planets beyond those in our solar system, although of course everybody expected them to exist somewhere. After the Kepler Space Telescope was deployed, astronomers found not one, but a couple hundred exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars). In fact, our galaxy is […]
Researchers at the National Research Foundation of Korea report on Sunday that they have identified a new microRNA molecule that suppresses a gene, which previous research had identified as playing a crucial role in lung cancer development. If the present findings are refined, it may be possible to diagnose lung cancer in the future based […]
For the nearly six million Americans living with paralysis, 1.3 million of which with spinal cord injuries, life is often a struggle. Few are independent, and this causes severe psychological strain. Physiotherapy has proved it can do wonder in some cases, but what if you could push it a bit further? Building up on previous […]
Ever get that feeling that the place you’re heading to is much closer than it should be? Take for instance a trip with your friends to a resort. Why does the last hour leading to the destination feels like its shorter than the first hour when you all jumped in the car and left home? […]
Once with the discovery and confirmation of the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva proved its money worth and garnered international appraise. Despite the LHC is currently shutdown for its periodical maintenance (the restart procedure is well underway, with the particle accelerator expected to become fully operational again in 2015), physicists aren’t slaking. […]
Many parasites affect their hosts’ behavior, up to the point where the host can sacrifice itself for the wellbeing of the parasite; it’s an extremely cruel fate for the host, but a really good evolutionary adaptation for the parasite. Good examples are horsehair worms that reach water by forcing their cricket hosts to drown themselves, […]
Rhinopithecus strykeri, also known as the Myanmar Snub-Nosed Monkey or Sneezing Monkey was discovered just a few years ago, in 2010. Their small numbers and elusive behaviors made them very hard to find, and since them, even harder to study. All the species of snub-nosed monkeys have short stubby noses, but R. strykeri’s is just […]
At the turn of the new year, we marveled how Swedish doctors transplanted no less than nine wombs in patients who suffered from Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome or MRKH. Now a team of researchers from Mexico and the US have gone a whole step further – they engineered vaginal tissue in the lab and transplanted it in […]
Self-awareness is surely the key to a life lived in full, which is why the ancient’s great challenge to themselves was, ‘Man, know thyself!’ With the emergence of the work of the biologist Jeremy Griffith, we are now in a position to at last, ‘know ourselves’! Some of history’s greatest thinkers have attempted to step […]
The photo right above was captured by the Curiosity Rover’s right-hand navigation camera , currently deployed on Mars and on route to Mount Sharp, which shows a striking flare of light seemingly torching near the horizon. Taken on April 4th, the photo somehow made its way to the general public (bad idea NASA) and stirred international […]
The future is here. Nano-sized entities made of DNA that are able to perform the same kind of logic operations as a silicon-based computer have been introduced into a living animal. It’s every Science Fiction fan’s dream come true. The tiny DNA computers are called origami robots, because they work by folding and unfolding strands of DNA; […]
Without oxygen, your brain would shutdown within five minutes or so and you, as a person, along with it. Deprived of this fundamental element, brain cells can’t produce energy anymore and wither and die. Breathing is important, that’s pretty settled but what happens if you can’t rely on your lungs anymore. A team of researchers led […]
Video games have been getting more and more attention, partly due the fact that more and more children (and adults) are playing them, and partly due to the fact that some advantages of playing them are starting to surface. Now, a new study has shown that gamers’ hostile behavior is linked to the experience of […]
The popular myth of the fountain of youth tells the story of a magical spring that restores youth to anyone who drinks from it. Scientists working with longevity research have made important strides forward in recent years, however all of these efforts concentrate on prolonging life and slowing the effects old age has on the […]
Arctic sea ice has seen a sharp decline over the past four decades, as the sea ice cover is shrinking and thinning, making scientists think an ice-free Arctic Ocean during the summer might be reached this century. According to researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA the arctic region is experiencing longer […]
The average grown man has about 5 liters of blood – and you need most of it to survive. That’s why injured people fall victim not to the wound per se, but to the bleeding caused by it. If we could somehow find a way to stop the bleeding in a timely fashion, then many […]
The scientists from the Australian Meteorology Bureau estimate that there’s a good chance that El Nino will form in the southern hemisphere’s winter (northern hemisphere’s summer). El Nino is a band of anomalously warm ocean water temperatures that periodically develop off the Pacific coast of South America. The results of this pattern are extreme weather […]
A team of researchers from the Colorado University has found that the tendency to procrastinate is also influenced by genetic factors – the same genetic factors which are linked to impulsiveness. Before you start blaming your family for your lack of productivity, you should know that procrastination is still mostly your fault – genes are […]
Researchers in South Korea may have come across a novel and effective idea to tackle foods tainted with Salmonella bacteria. What looks like a disk actually contains six separate microfluidic slices that work together to provide DNA extraction, amplification, and detection in less than 30 minutes instead of days and a full-blown lab typically required for Salmonella detection. Salmonella causes […]
The Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is the most complex machinery devised by mankind. Here, scientists all over the world joined forces to recreate conditions similar those in the very first moments of the Universe, following the Big Bang. There’s a lot at stake here, and so far the LHC has […]
We’ve written extensively about graphene here on ZME Science, awarding it much praise and promise. Truly, if you read a bit about what graphene can do [strength, conductivity, cost, etc], you’ll soon learn to love it. So, why aren’t we seeing graphene used everywhere, from computers to aerospace like so many science papers herald its […]
Trying to understand the overall effect of climate change on our food supply can be difficult. Increases in temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) can be beneficial for some crops in some places, but overall changing climate patterns lead to frequent droughts and floods that put a severe strain on yields. It’s not all about production, […]
Caitlin Levin and Henry Hargreaves, use regional foods to create physical maps of countries and continents around the world. This doesn’t mean that the food originally came from that country, just that it is heavily incorporated in the country’s diet. Exploring new places through the food you eat is often a portal to the cultural […]
Talk about dedication to science! Michael Smith, a graduate student at Cornell University mapped which parts of the body are most painful when it comes to bee stings – by testing it on himself! Smith’s work focuses around the behaviour and evolution of honeybees. It all started when a honeybee flew up his shorts and […]
La Trobe University research has revealed a tobacco plant’s natural defense mechanisms could be harnessed to kill cancer cells in the human body. The research is still in its initial stages, and has a long way to go before it can even be regarded as a viable anti-cancer possibility, but there are some promising results. […]
In some parts of the world you can find fences that stretch for hundreds of miles, delimiting protected areas or those populated with humans. The basic reasoning is that these fences are put in place to protect the local wildlife by preventing the spread of diseases, poachers and by helping helping managed endangered populations. The […]
In the future, your saliva might power key microelectronics. Researchers at Penn State have devised a micro-sized microbial fuel cells that is power by the organic materials and bacteria present in saliva. The power generated by the tiny fuel cell is very small, though, so don’t expect charging your phone by spitting in it any […]
Prepare to enter the era of Big Neuroscience. For the past decade or so, billions worth of research has provided some of the most tantalizing clues about how the human brain works, and consequently we, as human beings, reason. There are millions of people in the world suffering from dreaded neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s or […]
The characteristic “chirp” a cricket makes is created when the insects rub their legs, in an attempt to draw the attention of any nearby female. If he is successful and finds an interested counterpart, the couple quickly gets down to business. Interestingly enough, it’s the female that mounts the male, but that’s less important here; […]
A new massive computer model that simulates the formation of the solar system from its early days when all it used to comprise was a huge disk of matter to present day shows that Earth’s moon formed some 65 million years later than previous estimates led us to believe. The method provides a new way […]
