gear Push settings
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, […]
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.
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.
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 […]
A private company in Hong Kong known as the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company (HKND) has been given the green light to start the $50 billion work on a canal that will connect the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean through Nicaragua. The project, which will be significantly longer than the Panama canal could bring huge economic benefits, saving a lot of time and resources, but it also raises major environmental concerns.
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 […]
Anthony Gibbons, a designer which specializes on sustainable materials and biomimicry developed some rad looking tree houses which seem to be taken straight from the elves’ forest home of Lothlorien in Lord of the Rings! The Roost (as its called) rises up above the forest floor with sleeping quarters, viewing platforms, and spiral stairs, fully […]
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the developed world, obesity is one of the biggest health concerns, so weight loss is one of the hottest topics today. But while dietary supplements and gastric by-pass surgeries are becoming more and more popular, we are also starting to discover issues associated with these procedures. Recently, a study published in Cell showed that the new generation of weight loss drugs may actually favor cancer development.
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 […]
Most of the time, the so-called civilized world would just rather turn a blind eye towards what is happening in Africa; right now, I'd like to shed some light on what it's like to be an albino in Africa, and more specific, Tanzania.
You may look more like your mom or more like your dad, but technically, you inherit equal amounts of genetic information from both; however, a new study has shown that you (and all mammals for that matter) are genetically more like their dads. If that sounds a bit confusing... well, it is. Specifically, although we inherit equal amounts of genetic mutations from both our parents, the mutations that make us who we are and not some other person actually 'use' more of the DNA that we inherit from our dads.
Many people change a lot after their youth... and so to did our Universe. Nowadays, galaxies contain both dust and gas, but back in the early Big-Bang days, the earliest galaxies had no dust, only gas. Now, a team of astronomers has discovered a very young galaxy with lots of dust - the equivalent of a white-bearded young man.
We see light every day, and yet, we don't truly understand it; it's either a particle or a wave, or both at the same time... and we don't really know why. Now, for the first time, researchers have captured an image of light behaving as a particle and a wave at the same time.
A week ago, we were telling you about Wei-Hock Soon, an aerospace engineer turned climate scientist; mister Soon, known as "Willie", is one of the most well known and quoted climate change deniers - he's also one of the only climate change deniers. This week...
In any given month, the vast majority of physicians treating children in the US (93%) receive at least one request to delay child vaccination; many of them (37%) often or always honor the request, despite putting the kids at a needless risk for disease and favoring potential outbreaks of diseases such as measles.
According to a new study, ancient hunter-gatherer Britons imported wheat from mainland Europe, showing a surprising level of sophistication for such an old population.
Who doesn't love dinosaurs? Well sure, there's these guys, but rational people love dinosaurs, right? Well, Nathan Myhrvold, an inventor and Microsoft's former CEO sure does, and he believes that dinosaurs might actually help us fight malnutrition. Here's how:
They like freezing conditions, but the Emperor penguins struggled during the last Ice Age, a new study concluded. In fact, if they hadn't been able to change their breeding habits and even their genetic make-up, they might have not survived.
We all know how therapeutic and soothing (or on the contrary, motivating) music can be; and we all know that different people like different types of music... so it seems safe to say that different animals also like different types of music. Now, a joint team of scientists and musicians believe they found how to compose the purr-fect music for animals, including monkeys and cats.
Mars - our neighbor, the Red Planet... is not actually red. The first look at what’s under Mars’s dusty red surface has revealed a clearly greyish blue rocky layer.
The world's first grid-connected wave power station has just been activated off the coast of Australia. Taking energy directly from the waves and sending them to the grid is a remarkable achievement which will hopefully be replicated in Australia, as well as in other parts of the world.
If you've ever wondered what happens inside an egg, then science has you covered - researchers have developed transparent artificial eggshells; but they didn't do this just out of curiosity - they want to create a controlled environment for bird embryo growth and development to aid stem cell studies.
Scientists at the University of Sydney in Australia have achieved 5G speeds of 1Tbps, far exceeding existing the speeds of existing technologies. At 1 Terrabyte per second, you could download 10 movies per second.
After an exhaustive analysis conducted over a year and a half, NASA's Curiosity Rover has finally confirmed the existence of methane on Mars, somewthing which indicates that life may have existed (or still exist) on Mars.
Time flies fast when you’re trying to figure out the mysteries of the Universe… it seems like 2015 started just yesterday, and now winter is already over. Let’s take a deep breath and have a look at what we’ve done so far in 2015, what went right, what went wrong, and what we’re planning for […]
Building vertical farms is innovative and can have significant advantages, done properly; but building a vertical farm in the middle of a city... that's just awesome! In downtown Jackson, Wyoming, developers are working on a vertical veggie farm which just might revolutionize urban food growing.
A while ago I wrote that the applications for graphene are endless, and it seems like scientists just want to make prove me right - University of Manchester scientists have used graphene to target and neutralise cancer stem cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
Today, we have more pictures... because I just couldn't limit myself to one. Olivier Grunewald, a well known French photographer traveled the world to capture these stunning images of volcanic eruptions.
Bionic hands - artificial limbs controlled through thought power - they're as awesome as they sound, and they're now a reality. Three Austrian men have become real-life cyborgs after having losing their hands to injury and then undergoing innovative surgery.
If you've ever walked with beverages in your hand, you probably know that coffee tens to spill easily, while beer doesn't. Emilie Dressaire, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering, believes the secret lies in the foam.
The Curiosity Rover, currently on Mars, took another selfie in the "Mojave" area, where it is preparing to have a second taste of Mount Sharp, the central peak within Gale crater. The selfie scene is assembled from dozens of images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover's robotic arm.
The Sahara Desert and the Amazon area have few things in common - one is a dry, barren wasteland, while the other is the most fertile area on Earth. But according to a new NASA study, there may be more than meets the eye when it comes to the two - dust from the Saharan area makes the trans-Atlantic journey, fertilizing the Amazonian rainforest with phosphorus.
Imagine for a moment how it would be like to recreate a gladiator fight. I’m not talking about martial arts or wrestling or something like this – I’m talking about full on, man versus man gladiator fights. An Australian company wants to revive the tradition, while using futuristic carbon fiber costumes to avoid any real bloodshed. Neo-gladiators […]
An Australian company called ArchiBlox recently unveiled the first first carbon-positive prefab home – it generates more energy than it consumes, helps reduce carbon emission, and looks simply gorgeous. Contemporary and cozy, the house is topped with solar panels, and is designed to keep cool air in – something very important for the Australian environment. However, I […]
It's always the cute ones - a team of Norwegian researchers found that the Black Plague, which arrived in Europe in the 14th century and wiped out up to 200 million people was brought by gerbils, not by rats.
A new study has concluded that marijuana is much safer than alcohol and tobacco combined. Alcohol is actually the most dangerous substance out of the ones studies - more dangerous than heroin, cocaine, ecstasy or meth.
In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised parents to keep children as far away from peanuts as possible, in order to avoid potential allergies - it seemed like a good idea at the time. But now, a new study has found that in the long run, that actually did more harm than good, and if we want to fight allergies, we should be feeding our children peanuts.
A company called nanoFlowcell has revealed a concept sports car which gets its energy from salt water and can run up to 621 miles on this electricity alone - wow!
Almost 70% of HIV-infected people in the US are either undiagnosed or not receiving care; this population is responsible for 91.5 percent of all infections, according to the CDC.
