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Last week we reported about a 300 million year old fossilized forest which was discovered underneath a coal mine in China. A highly remarkable find by all means, fact confirmed by the overwhelming response the story gathered from your part, the reader. If you found that interesting, wait until you learn about the oldest fossilized […]
Although the T. rex isn’t the largest carnivorous dinosaur to have roamed Earth, a new study that used computer models to reconstruct its skull muscles reveals that his bite was the most powerful one ever of all terrestrial animals, extinct or living. Biomechanics experts at Liverpool University, UK, used laser scanners to digitize the skulls […]
A new study which analyzed Neanderthal DNA suggests that our close, now extinct relatives were on the point of dying off as a race well before humans made their appearance in Western Europe. The team of international researchers analyzed the mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bones of 13 Neanderthals, and studied its variation. Mitochondrial DNA is copious […]
I recently stumbled upon this absolutely dazzling chemistry experiment, and I just had to share it. What you will see is a pretty rare reaction in chemistry – an oscillation reaction. Three clear solutions are combined, and the color gradually changes to amber. Suddenly, the whole thing goes dark blue! Then it stays blue, reverts […]
Women in red dresses have twisted the minds of men for centuries, but a new study shows not only that we find women in red more attractive, but that we also think of them as being more… ahem… available. Basically, men rate women in red dresses as more interested in sex, hinting that men associate […]
New Zealand is home of some of the world’s weirdest animals, and things weren’t very different 24 million years ago either: a huge penguin, measuring 1.3 meters tall was found by paleontologists. During the time the penguin lived, New Zealand was mostly underwater, and the only shelter it provided was in the form of isolated, […]
Part of a the recent slew of revolutionary technological and scientific novelties coming off IBM‘s research and development lab, the company has just announced that it has successfully managed to measure and image for the first time how charge is distributed within a single molecule. The achievement was made possible after a new technique, called Kelvin probe force microscopy […]
You probably remember the massive 9.1 earthquake that struck Japan last year and the subsequent problems that followed – most notably the huge tsunamis that struck the Fukushima nuclear plant, bringing it close to a meltdown. Now, according to the first scientific assessment made on the spot, the tsunami was indeed as formidable as the […]
A team of researchers comprised of scientists at the NanoScience Center of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and at Harvard University, US, have shown through computer simulations a novel technique for generation nanomaterials. The whole process revolves around the extremely simple idea of twisting narrow graphene nanoribbons until they become rolled up into carbon nanotubes, […]
Bergmann’s rule states that mammals of a given genus or species are smaller in hotter climates, and bigger in colder climates. Adapted, when faced with climate change cycles, mammals shirk as temperature rises and scale back up in size, once the cycle ends and makes room for cooling. Simple correlation, based on fossils and temperature readings […]
Good news for men, and especially women: the Y chromosome, which holds the male sex determining genes in most mammals, including humans, is not going extinct, as some claim, as a new research found that the diminishing gene numbers have come to a halt and will remain this way. Sex chromosomes come in pairs, such […]
Implantable medical devices, capable of delivering drugs or performing micro-surgery from inside the body, have been the subject of scientific research for decades now. A number of exciting prototypes have been developed in the past few years, as miniaturization allowed it, however reliability flaws rendered them unpractical. A new tiny device developed by Stanford electrical engineers, was presented […]
Scientists at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have set on a path that promises to revolutionize the way paleontology is studied, and model reconstructions are made from fossils. By using 3D printers, the researchers intend on cheaply and efficiently replicate bones, without going through the hassle of casting with plaster molds. This way, they can actually build very […]
There are currently an estimated 19,000 individual space debris swirling around Earth’s orbit at 17,000 miles/hour, posing great threat to current active satellites, telescopes, future launches in orbit, the International Space Station and even astronauts out on space walks. It’s very clear that something must be done, before the Earth gets one of its own […]
The world’s longest kidney transplant chain which just ended at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, USA was possible thanks to the people who just ‘paid it forward’. The chain started when Rick Ruzzamenti, a man who describes himself as being “impulsive” decided to donate his kidney, after being motivated by a friend who had […]
Unexpected new findings from University of Maryland researchers show that a portion of our planet’s mantle survived Earth’s rough formation, including a collision with a planet-sized body which many believe led to the creation of the Moon, as we see it today. “It is believed that Earth grew to its current size by collisions of […]
A team of German and American researchers have discovered four new species of tiny chameleons on the island of Nosy Hara, just off the northern coast of Madagascar, which considered one of the smallest reptiles known to man. Some are so small they can balance on the tip of a match. The four new species […]
It looks like not all is going bad for Italian researchers, after the trial of the seismologists: physicists from Italy have discovered the first evidence of a nucleus that doesn’t exist in nature and survives only for 10-10 seconds when created in a laboratory. Strange matter Hypernuclei contain all sorts of protons and neutrons, but […]
You’d be surprised by how many of today’s day to day devices were first developed after its creators got inspired by various SciFi movies. A new project currently in works at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) intends to bring the James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar” to real life. However, researchers there have been tasked to […]
Alan Turing is considered by most to be the father of the computer; the British mathematician had one of the most tragic fates ever suffered by scientists. Aside from defining concepts such as ‘algorithm’ and ‘artificial intelligence’, he also put up an idea that repetitive biological patterns are generated by a pair of morphogens that […]
I will take the risk of being quite subjective: the trial against the Italian seismologists just got a lot more absurd. Six seismologists and one government official are charged with manslaughter after telling the public there is no major risk of an earthquake, right before the deadly temblor in 2009. Yesterday, the much anticipated and […]
In what can only be hailed as a breakthrough in the “smart drugs” field, scientists at Harvard University have successfully managed to create nanorobots made out of strands of DNA, folded together by the DNA origami method. These act like drug-carrying recipients, which specifically target various types of cells and deliver complex molecular instructions – […]
Most of the robots we’ve featured on ZME Science are more or less humanoid in their characteristic. Either they can see in the same manner human eyes do or, most commonly, feature articulations, say hands, very similar to those of a human. Human hands are incredibly complex, allowing for very highly sensitive manipulation of objects […]
After two decades of drilling in the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, Russian researchers have finally managed to drill down to lake Vostok, which has been sealed under kilometers of ice for over 15 million years. When they first announced they reached the water, biologists were ecstatic; not only did they get a unique chance to […]
Researchers report that after testing on lab mice an FDA-approved drug, used as treatment for skin cancer, that significant improvements in cognitive recovery were signaled, shinning a new ray of hope for Alzheimer patients. Neuroscientists Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine discovered that bexarotene, a skin cancer drug, remarkably also appears to reverse cognitive […]
Life on Earth started out in a ‘small little pond’, just like Darwin, the father of evolution, proposed more than 140 years ago, according to a provocative new study. According to this study, the primordial cells were ‘created’ (though germinated would be a better word) in pools of condensed vapor which appeared as a result […]
Scientists have come a step closer to mimicking the aerodynamics of flying animals in nature, which might lead to the creation of flapping-winged aircraft in the future, after a new breakthrough in the field. The study, conducted by biomimetic researchers at New York University, finds that the ideal weight-distribution for hovering is totally opposite from […]
Researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison recently carried out an linguistic analysis that compared descriptions posted by online dating sites users (height, weight, age, personality traits etc.) and their actual, true characteristics. The results weren’t that surprising at all – almost everybody lied at least about something. Interestingly enough, the communication experts involved in the study […]
Based on how the tectonic plates are moving now, no later than one hundred million years, Asia and the Americas will merge into one huge supercontinent, named Amasia. Geophysicists have long theoretized this, but a team of researchers from Yale University offered a new view on how Amasia will be formed. Continental drift Continental drift […]
Butterflies are one of the most enchanting beings in the animal kingdom, a symbol of grace and beauty encountered in every art form. From a crawling larva to a majestic winged creature, it’s difficult not to take notice of the similarities between the butterfly’s metamorphosis process and the ups and downs life serves before one […]
Scientists from China, US and Mexico have used light detection and ranging laser altimetry (LiDAR) to study how an earthquake can change the surrounding landscape. Using this technique, the researchers were able to establish with high accuracy where the Earth’s crust ruptured. If the same technique were to be established around all major high-risk areas for earthquake, […]
The leading theory that explains why zebras are striped (remember the age old riddle? black stripes on white or white stripes on black?) is because it offers them protection against predators, by providing camouflage, as colour blind animals confuse the strips with tall grass in the savanna. A team of researchers from Hungary, however, offer a different, […]
The first genetically engineered or biotech food products were released on the market for the first time in 1994. Consumers received them fairly well, and since then more production intensified, such that between 1997 and 2010, the total surface area of land cultivated with GMOs had increased by a factor of 87. In 2011, biotech […]
The origins of life is one of the biggest mysteries scientists have been trying to unravel for a very long time. While a lot of effort is being directed to finding alien life, it’s crucial, at least in my opinion, for us to understand how the first signs of life spurred on our own planet. […]
The size of a fist when fully grown, the tiny Philippine tarsier has always been considered a very quiet being. Ironically, this big eyed, lemur-like animal wasn’t quiet at all, you just needed the right ears to hear him our. Recently, researchers at Humboldt State University in California have proven that the Philippine tarsier is quite the chatty being, […]
If you’re reading this post via e-mail or RSS, please visit the post’s page on the website to view the video interview. MIT researchers, guided by Andreas Mershin’s vision of a world fueled by cheap and renewable electricity, have recently published a paper in which they explain how photovoltaic panels made from plants can be […]
Space offers incredibly fascinating experimental conditions for various scientific studies, otherwise very hard or practically impossible to replicate on Earth. Microgravity is something of great interest to scientists, and even simple experiments with fire are extremely insightful. Combustion in space occurs at much lower temperatures and with a lower amount of required oxygen, and to […]
Whenever a massive object, with an equally massive gravitational pull, like black holes or galaxy clusters, falls between an observer, say a telescope, and a distant target in the background to be observed, than a gravitational lens is formed. Light emitted from the distant object gets twisted by the massive object, and ends up distorted […]
It took 30 years, an enormous amount of effort and patience, and drilling through 3,768 meters of thick ice for scientists to finally reach the surface of the Vostok, a unique subglacial lake. Just as large as the great Ontario lake, the Vostok is thought to be 20 million years old, and due to the […]
The Russian space agency recently announced that they’ll be soon launching a campaign to recruit cosmonauts for upcoming missions to the Moon, slated for the next ten years. Interestingly enough, the announcement comes just one day before the much expected February full moon, called Snow Moon – yes there’s actually snow on the moon this time of […]
A group of students from Yale University, along with molecular biochemistry professor Scott Strobel, were on a routine trip to the Amazon’s Yasuni National Park, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, when they stumbled across a peculiar type of mushroom capable of eating polyurethane plastics. If successfully applied to landfills clogged with millions of metric tons […]
For the past three years, scientists have been analyzing data fed back by the 2008 NASA Phoenix mission to Mars, which touch landed on the planet’s northern poles. Even though there was ice, soil analysis showed that the planet has been suffering from a massive, 600 million years long drought, providing inhospitable life supporting conditions on its […]
Modern technology has revolutionized the way we communicate forever. From the telegraph, to the wire telephone, to the internet, to extremely capable smartphones, technology, fueled by scientific advancements, has helped people communicate easily with one another and be aware of what’s going on in world instantly. Too much of anything, however, can be harmful, and […]
Kenneth Boehr was doing the usual chemistry class, not expecting more than you would from any other ten year old students. The same for Clara Lazen, one of his students, who started working on a molecule building kit, while looking at the periodic table she was handed; she handed her teacher a model constructed from […]
From a certain age onward, humans seem to process information at a slower pace – learning new things becomes more difficult, remembering where you put the car keys seems to give headaches, and it gets ever worse as we age even more. Neuroscientists at the University of Bristol studying dysfunctional neural communication in Alzheimer patients demonstrated that the […]
I used to see moths as simple, clumsy beings, whose sole purpose in life is that of annoying people by hitting light-bulbs head first repeatedly in a closed loop. The hawk moth (Manduca sexta), however, is in a whole different league entirely, and it’s because of this hummingbird-like insect that I’ve come to reconsider my views upon the […]
Researchers studying marine bacteria in the Bahamas’ underwater caves, have made some remarkable discoveries which allowed to understand how these organisms adapt and thrive in rather precarious conditions. Their study might help scientists understand how marine life formed for the first time millions of years in the past, as well as hint how marine life […]
In the popular TV series, Star Trek, one of the most fascinating devices featured, out of the whole myriad of blasters and tractor beams, is the tricorder, a portable medical scanner and communication device which could detect biological phenomena such as increased blood flow around tumorous growths just by sweeping a person. The closest thing […]
The much dreamed off invisibility cloak is just a few tiny steps away, after remarkable research in the field, many backed by military interests, have sparked some amazing advances. In the last few years alone, scientists have managed to successfully cloak various objects either using meta-materials that bent light around an object to conceal it or […]
University of Bristol scientists have developed a magnetic soap, which basically is a common soap only it’s filled with iron atoms that causes the targeted waste material to become magnetized. The detergent has a real potential of revolutionizing how mega clean-ups will be handled in the future. An oil spill could be cleaned a lot […]
