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In December 1994, three explorers made a surprising discovery in southern France - a rumble of stones blocking the entrance to a spectacular cave, over 400 meters long and covered with archaeological and palaeontological remains, including the skulls and bones of cave bears, which hibernated there, along with the skulls of an ibex and two wolves. But it was the human traces that were most interesting...
Paris authorities have put in place 24-hour emergency measures to limit the number of cars in traffic as part of their efforts to fight the smog shrouding the city. Today (Monday, March 23) all cars with number plates that end with an even number will be banned from circulating in the Paris region, unless they're carrying 3 or more passengers. Clean cars will also be allowed.
Syngenta Photography Award aims to draw attention on pressing social and environmental issues, stimulating dialogue around a number of global challenges. The competition invited both professional and amateur photographers, under two separate categories, to share their views on the theme of Scarcity–Waste and examine one of the greatest challenges facing a world with increasingly limited […]
For her MA degree project at the University of West Hungary, Budapest-based graphic designer Barbara Bernát came up with these beautiful versions of the Hungarian Euro. The project involved five denominations of increasing scale – there’s a 5, a 10, a 20, 50 and 100. She even made the copper plates for printing the bancnotes; there’s even […]
This is it - the pinnacle of technological development, the result of countless research hours; yes, it's a tree.
It's about as unusual and heartwarming as it gets - Jia Haixia is completely blind and his best friend, Jia Wenqi, doesn’t have any arms, but in the past 10 years, they've planted over 10,000 trees!
Physics on your feet is basically a collection of physics problems (with solutions at the end), presented in an illustrated and humorous way.
See: Previous Week First samples collected from Antarctica’s blood falls Article Featured Researcher: Jill Mikucki Affiliation: University of Tennessee Knoxville Research Interests: Her main research interests are the interactions between microbes and their environment and how the impact of microbial metabolism is detectable on an ecosystem scale. Ultrasound treatment restores memory in Alzheimer’s plagued mice Article […]
When James Lovelock came up with the Gaia hypothesis, today also commonly referred to as Gaia theory, he likely didn't know it will affect his entire life. The theory proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that works together to maintain the conditions required for habitability. In a way, even though obviously not an organism, the planet actually behaves like an organism. The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet discusses how this theory emerged and evolved throughout the year, itself almost like a living organism.
Designer Thomas Heatherwick just completed construction on a cluster of 12 parsnip tornado-shaped towers for the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The building, called the Learning Hub, is part of a larger project to help redesign educational architecture and make the university a more attractive place. I have to say, it seems to be working – it’s one of […]
Some 17 million years ago, a beaked whale took a wrong turn up an African river, something which ultimately proved to be its demise. But now, geologists studying the whale's fossils believe the whale's unfortunate end might shed a new light on early human evolution.
A rather surprising study found that graphene's imperfections can actually be used to improve fuel cell efficiency. Researchers from Northwestern University worked together with scientists of five other institutes to show that defective graphene actually works as the world's thinnest proton channel—only one atom thick.
In 2005 Chris ‘Brolga’ Barns set up a baby kangaroo rescue centre in central Australia’s Alice Springs. The main goal was to help orphaned baby kangaroos, whose parents had been struck by vehicles in Australia. Often Chris would find the orphans at the side of the road still in their mother’s pouch – even if she […]
According to Danish and Australian researchers, there are billions of the stars in the Milky Way located in the "habitable zone", where liquid water might exist, and with it, life as we know it.
Leading climate change denier U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has had enough of NASA studying our planet: he wants NASA to devote its attention only to space and inspiring children… somehow, without studying our own planet. He even went as far as saying that earth sciences are not “hard sciences”, which should be NASA’s main […]
A year ago, Oxford University professor of human genetics Bryan Sykes and his colleagues took some unusual hair samples found in the Himalayas and concluded that they actually belong to a now extinct polar bear which once inhabited Norway. Now, another team analyzed the results and concluded that while it's clearly no yeti, the remains might actually belong to a brown bear instead.
Researchers from NASA, Imperial College in London and Texas University have discovered two seafloor troughs that allow warm ocean water to infiltrate and accentuate the melting of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica's largest glacier. This could have massive implications not only for the Antarctica ice, but for global sea levels.
Researchers at Brown University have found a cheaper and easier way to create hybrid perovskites, enabling engineers to develop more affordable and efficient solar cells. Perovskite is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate (CaTiO3). The mineral has received much attention in recent years as artificial perovskite crystals have increasingly been used in solar cells. Perovskite films in solar cells are excellent light absorbers, but they until now, they were more expensive to fabric and only created small crystals.
As we go around our daily lives with wireless internet and satellite smartphones, it's easy to forget that at the core of modern internet, there are hundreds of thousands of submarine cables lying on the ocean floor - sometimes at depths nearing 8,000 metres. Those cables help transmit 99 percent of all international data and without them, the world as we know it wouldn't exist - so let's give them a bit of credit.
I've had this book on my desk for longer than I'd care to admit... but not because I didn't want to read it, but on the contrary - because I wanted to read it in style. I wanted to make some tea, go to the park or a nearby cafe and read it there. I wanted to savor it, mostly because I had a good idea what it was about and the subject was fairly familiar, but also because it reminded me about my junior year of studying paleontology. But work kept adding on and the book kept waiting for me, until I finally answered its call this Spring. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait!
There are still many things we have yet to discover about plants, a new study has highlighted. The research team showed that trees don’t just move water up and down like we previously thought - they can store it and move it horizontally if they need it. In a way, they save water for a not-so-rainy day.
When the University of Amsterdam decided to close down several language studies, students reacted; but they didn't protest or used violence, they simply occupied one of the University's buildings, demanding a more democratic approach to education and more student participation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Obama administration and California lawmakers have announced a doubling of the size of the Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones national marine sanctuaries off Northern California. “NOAA is expanding the boundaries of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary (CBNMS) and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) to […]
The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has lost years of development progress following the devastating effects of Cyclone Pam. Widely regarded as the worst natural disaster in the history of Vanuatu, the cyclone's damage has not yet been thoroughly estimated.
The Moon's geologic past was much more interesting and active than previously thought, results from the Chinese lunar rover indicate. The Yutu moon rover found evidence of at least nine distinct rock layers deep beneath its wheels, something which seems to indicate a more complex setting.
It's awesome when engineers can take inspiration from nature and design something truly spectacular - now, a Berkeley team has managed to create a material that can shift colors as easy as a chameleon's skin when pulled or twisted. The material could be used for camouflage or for the next generation of display technologies.
For centuries, arsenic was the go-to poison in the high circles of Europe, either to knock out political foes or to simply eliminate people on the dastardly way to a high position; it was odourless, tasteless, and until 1830 - when chemist James Marsh developed a test - impossible to detect. Thankfully, we're dealing with much less intentional arsenic poisoning today, but unfortunately, we're dealing with much more accidental poisoning. Recently, scientists discovered a population that developed natural immunity to arsenic, high in the Andes.
Deep inside the Earth, in the gigantic Hang Son Doong cave in Vietnam, there lies a completely unique and mostly unknown ecosystem. Using a GoPro-carrying drone, Beijing-based traveler Ryan Deboodt provides a unique insight into this cave, showing a pristine, forgotten world. The cave was only discovered in 1991, but even then, scientists had to wait until 2009 […]
Watch the video all to the end – it starts off a bit slow, but it gets pretty rad towards the end. I’m not sure what I was expecting to happen… but it clearly wasn’t this: So what’s happening here? Well, it’s plain to see that a bunch of dark particles precipitate at the bottom […]
If you've ever visited the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, then you've likely had a surprise. The cold, frigid white background cut by snowless valleys is marked by the Onyx river, the continent's longest and largest river, which ends with a five-storey-tall waterfall that spills bright blood-red water over an enormous glacier.
Extraterrestrial life in our solar system just got a lot more likely: NASA has found convincing evidence that Ganymede and Enceladus, moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, might both harbor salty oceans beneath their frozen surface. Scientists estimate that the oceans are over 50 miles thick (80 km), which greatly increases the chances of alien life.
It is generally accepted that our galaxy has a diameter of nearly 100,000 light-years. However, findings of a new research, published in the Astrophysical Journal, suggest that the Milky Way may actually be 50% larger than previously thought. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy containing our solar system. From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a […]
Recent archaeological and anthropological research showed that Neanderthals weren't the mindless brutes we once thought they were - they were smart, organized, they had their own speech and interbred with early humans. Now, a new study has found evidence that 130,000 years ago, Neanderthals also designed elaborate jewelry, a degree of sophistication never seen before for that time.
As more and more researchers are starting to highlight the potential benefits of Psychedelic substances, one recent Norwegian campaign is aiming high: they’ve started a crowdfunding campaign to make psychedelics and MDMA legal for research and global medical use. In the past years, we’ve written about several studies documenting the positive effects that psychedelics may have, […]
An eruption from an underwater volcano in the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' caused a 1-km wide island to form.
It may be the dawn of a new age for particle physics - scientists and engineers are working together to restart the Large Hadron Collider. Upon reactivation, the LHC will be capable of energies never before achieved, potentially unveiling novel particles, confirming the Standard Model and revealing some of the Universe's biggest mysteries.
See: Previous Week’s Featured Researchers This is where we take a look back at the past week, discussing not only the most interesting recent studies, but also the men and women behind them. Lost City Belonging to Mysterious Culture Discovered in the Honduran Rain Forest Article Featured Researchers: Christopher Fisher; Mark Plotkin Affiliation: Colorado State University; Old […]
A few days ago, we wrote an article about our featured researchers – outstanding men and women in their field, who recently published highly interesting studies. Today, we’re talking to Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). […]
Scientists in Australia have developed a groundbreaking bionic heart that works without having a pulse. The device, which was successfully tested on a sheep, is set to start clinical trials within three years.
The cockroach - one of the nature's great survivors, hated by building residents throughout the entire world, just got more interesting. According to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, cockroaches have individual and even group personalities; in other words, cockroaches do have a character.
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.
A few days ago, we wrote an article about our featured researchers – outstanding men and women in their field, who recently published highly interesting studies. Today, we’re talking to Dirk Lachenmeier, a certified food chemist, toxicologist, head of the official alcohol control laboratory and co-head of the nuclear magnetic resonance laboratory at Chemical and Veterinary […]
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.
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.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the internet's favorite astrophysicist doesn't have high hopes for Mars One - the private enterprise that plans to send people on a one way trip to Mars. Mars One, plans to create a Martian outpost with a crew to land in 2024, sending people 2 by 2; they recently announced the 100 finalists to be the first Martian astronauts.
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.
This eagle at Codorus State Park in Pennsylvania has had it up to his neck with snow – both parents, mother and father, have taken parenting to the next level, sharing egg duty despite the growing snow. The Bald Eagle, recently taken off the endangered list, is a sea eagle. It’s an opportunistic species that subsists […]
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, […]
