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Providing free water in schools could be key to helping people in developing countries lift themselves out of poverty according to research from the University of East Anglia. Children who go to schools which provide free water have reported better overall health, and teachers reported fewer children off sick; it seems fairly clear that there’s […]
Is there a connection between intelligence and how likely you are to trust people? According to Oxford researchers, the answer to that question is a definite “yes!”. They based their research on an analysis of the General Social Survey, a nationally representative public opinion survey carried out in the United States; they say that one […]
Technology and feelings Technology has gotten pretty good at understanding how we feel, being basically able to read at least the seven universal emotions a person is feeling: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, or suspicion. This has become useful in medicine and psychology, marketing, police investigations, and more recently… driving safety. EPFL researchers, in […]
An international team of geologists captured a prehistoric portrait of parental care deep in the fossil record. The team led by Leicester geologist Professor David Siveter revealed a ‘sea nursery’ which features a species new to science. This new species was found with specimens preserved incubating their eggs together with probable hatched individuals. As a […]
A study conducted by Oxford researchers has shown how sound affects the taste of our foods – high frequency sounds enhance the sweetness in the food, while low frequencies bring out the bitterness. In order to figure out how sounds influence our food, Crossmodal Laboratory at Oxford University fed a group of volunteers some cinder […]
Scientists believe they will be able to extract high quality DNA from remains which have undergone a unique autopsy in Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Repblic, also called Yakutia, in Siberia – they also believe they will be able to clone a wooly mammoth based on those remains. There was a wave of excitement spreading […]
With all the hard science we’ve publishing this week, I thought we could use a little fluff – here’s a striking picture of the iconic Pyramids of Giza from the inside of a nearby KFC. Unless you’ve actually visited the archaeological site, or you’ve had the curiosity of checking it, you probably don’t realize just […]
The first ever terrestrial discovery of ringwoodite seems to confirm the existence of massive amounts of water hundreds of kilometers below the Earth’s surface. Let me explain how. Under pressure Ringwoodite is a high-pressure polymorph of olivine; it’s basically olivine, but with a different crystal structure. The mineral is thought to exist in large quantities […]
Future lunar missions may be fueled by gas stations in space, according to a new plan developed by MIT engineers. A spacecraft might dock at a propellant depot, somewhere between the Earth and the Moon, and pick up some more fuel before heading on to the moon. The carry load is still a major problem for […]
Using relatively simple perforated sheets of plastic and an extensive amount computation, Duke University researchers have created the world’s first sound invisibility cloak. The cloak diverts sound waves in a way that it conceals both itself, and anything hidden beneath it. The device is, of course, 3D, and it works in the same way, no […]
A researchers from the University of Southampton has developed a a wireless network of sensors that is set to revolutionize soil-based salinity measuring. Testing the salinity levels in soils is a big deal – any salty water infiltrations can have massive effects on agriculture and sometimes, even on soil stability. At the moment, you can […]
San Francisco continues to be one of the most environmentally interested cities in the US, with the Board of Supervisors on March 4 voting unanimously to bar the city from buying plastic water bottles and to ban distribution of plastic water bottles smaller than 21 ounces (600 grams) on city property starting October 1. The […]
Children who use their hands to gesture during a math lesson gain a much deeper understanding of the concepts and methods discussed, according to new research from University of Chicago’s Department of Psychology. It’s already a pretty much accepted fact that gesturing accentuates children learning – it was already established by several studies that gestures […]
When you think about dangerous viruses, gonorrhea doesn’t usually come to mind – but that may well be about to change. Gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease (STD), has become resistant to most of the antibiotics that we have used to combat it over the last three decades. We’ve written before about antibiotic resistant gonorrhea entering […]
Some 20.000 years ago, mammoths and other giant fauna roamed the Earth. So too did this giant virus – the only difference is that this virus, Pithovirus sibericum, is still around and doing fine. Large enough to be seen under a light microscope, Pithovirus sibericum is not the first megavirus to be found, but at […]
There’s been a lot of talk about obesity and what it really is, especially after the American Medical Association recently declared it a disease. Personally, I don’t agree with this idea. I’m no doctor, but it’s pretty clear that you can be obese without being sick in any way – so it’s pretty hard to […]
When you think about pollution, usually dirty chemical substances pop to mind; maybe some petroleum, or waste water – light pollution doesn’t usually take the first places. But a new study conducted by scientists from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin (IZW) showed that light pollution can also have a significant […]
We’ve been receiving many messages from you guys, asking why exactly does it take so long to develop a new drug/treatment, especially when it appears to be extremely promising. So, in this article, I will explain what drug development is, how it works, why it takes so long (usually 10-15 years) and why it costs […]
New analyses of NASA airborne radar data collected in 2012 reveal the radar detected indications of a huge sinkhole before it collapsed and forced evacuations near Bayou Corne, La. that year. Researchers believe that they can use this type of data, usually routine gathered, to foresee at least some of the sinkholes. I’ve written a […]
In a new study conducted by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, researchers showed that the human-induced magnitude 5.0 earthquake near Prague, Oklahoma in November 2011 further caused a larger M5.7 earthquake less than a day later. We’re talking about two human induced earthquakes with magnitudes of 5 and above, in less than a day, […]
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake off the coast of Northern California struck Sunday night, on the 9th of March. It was the largest on the West Coast since the 7.2 Baja California quake in 2010 and it was followed by a series of at least 13 aftershocks, the largest of which had magnitude of 4.6, according […]
The largest clinical study ever conducted to date of patients with advanced leukemia found that an incredible 88% of patients entered remission after being treated with genetically modified versions of their own immune cells. It’s like the medicine of tomorrow – today; and it’s super effective. “These extraordinary results demonstrate that cell therapy is a […]
It’s a little out of this world – a psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa says she can voluntarily enter an out-of-body experience. While scientists are generally skeptical when it comes to this kind of claims, they were thrilled by the possibility to scan her brain during the experience – and the results […]
It may be the birth of a new supermaterial – not long ago, spider silk materials were considered science fiction. Despite being a bio-material and basically a protein, spider silk has some amazing properties: it is by weight five times stronger than steel and three times tougher than Kevlar. Just so we’re clear, strength is […]
A new study has concluded that virtually all red dwarfs, the stars which make up at least three quarters out of all the stars in the Universe, have planets orbiting them. The study suggested that habitable-zone super-Earth planets (where liquid water, and therefore life as we know it can exist) orbit around at least a […]
African elephants make a specific alarm call to warn others of human-related dangers according to a new study of wild elephants in Kenya. Researchers from the Oxford University Save the Elephants, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom carried out a series of audio experiments. In these experiments, recordings of the voices of the Samburu,a native tribe from […]
If we are to start controlling global warming, we have to figure out ways to deal with the major CO2 problem we are facing at the moment. But some entrepreneurial minds are starting to think of CO2 as a resource, instead of a threat. A few start-up companies are using CO2 as a raw material […]
When researchers first reported a child cured of HIV, they were baffled! The fact that he was reportedly cured just 30 hours after his birth led to immediate skepticism that the child had been infected in the first place. Basically, much of the scientific community thought this was too good to be true. But now, […]
Oceanographers believe that Antarctica‘s oceanic waters, which are turning from briny to fresh in recent decades, are causing the shutdown of the Southern Ocean’s coldest, deepest currents. The cold currents, called the Antarctic Bottom Water, are basically cold, briny, underwater rivers flowing from the underwater edge of the Antarctic continent north toward the equator, very […]
A Silicon Valley start-up have developed a machine capable of a biblical feat: turning water into wine. They call it the Miracle Machine: “the world’s first accelerated winemaking device for the home”. Pricing in at $500, the Miracle Machine looks like a cross between a vase and a Goa’uld communication device, but it comes pretty […]
During the harvest last year, many farmers from Jordan and Mozambique reported that their plants looked nothing like what they’ve been harvesting for decades, instead turning into something like this: Scientists first discovered that this fungus was wreaking havoc in Southeast Asia in the early 1990s. Since then, the pathogen, known as the Tropical Race 4 […]
In society, there’s a general idea that women are more cooperative than men. But in academia, at the very least, that’s not the case. According to a recent study published in Current Biology women in academia are simply less likely to cooperate than men. The findings are based on an analysis of the publications from […]
The low quality of the Chinese air is more than simply a nuisance – China has by far the worst air quality out of all the industrialized countries, and it’s estimated that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China. Needless to say this significantly raises mortality and causes a myriad of […]
Hygiene is extremely important for hospital workers – regardless of the type of medicine they practice – because they run a high risk of further transmitting any contamination they might have. But now, research has shown that while healthcare workers’ hands are the main source of bacterial transmission in hospitals, physicians’ stethoscopes appear to play […]
I love Bill Nye, and I think the world needs more people like him. I don’t mindlessly follow him, I don’t always agree with what he does, but ultimately, his reasoning and actions speak very clearly to me. You can watch the video below and I highly recommend watching it to the very end, especially […]
San Francisco, for the nice and laid back city that it is, has many problems – and I was pretty surprised to hear that public urination is one of them. Now, they’ve come up with a solution that could not only solve this problem, but also green up the city. PPlanter is a smart and […]
For the first time, researchers have taken a look at the life that thrives in one of the deepest spots in the ocean. They investigated the New Hebrides trench, located just West of Vanuatu, and revealed that cusk eels and crustaceans teem more than 7,000m (23,000ft) down. They used cameras fitted on an unmanned lander […]
Researchers have developed a three dimensional atlas which shows the concentrations of iron dissolved in the world’s oceans. This monumental achievement can be very valuable for scientists, but also for policy-makers. Why is mapping iron in the oceans such a big deal ? Well for starters, iron plays a crucial role in the oceanic carbon […]
The Stonehenge is one of the most impressive and mysterious constructions left behind by our ancestors. Now, scientists have found the exact source of Stonehenge’s smaller bluestones: over 200 km away from Stonehenge. The stones’ composition revealed that they came from a relatively nearby outcrop about 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) away from the site originally. […]
Astronomers have recently discovered water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system, using a novel technique – they believe that this new method could reveal more and more planets which feature water; so far, all life as we know it, is based on water. They made their discovery on a Jupiter-like planet […]
A piece of rock traveling at at 61,000 km/h punched a crater 40 metres wide on the surface of the Moon, producing a flash that could be seen from Earth. I feel like Hollywood can ruin your expectations when talking about huge meteoritic impacts – we’re dealing with a meteorite here that’s way smaller than […]
If you’ve ever had a nice fuzzy feeling whenever you heard the voice of a loved one, then, you’re not alone. If somebody’s ever told you that ‘we need to talk’ and out of their tone you understood that something’s bad, then again, you’re not alone. A new study has shown that dogs have an […]
When researchers wanted to conduct DNA analysis on the remains of a Stone Age child, Native American tribes met the idea with opposition. However, after a period of discussing and explaining, despite general resistance, representatives of tribes in the US recently gave their blessing for the DNA analysis. The results were fruitful, as the boy’s […]
The average obese woman gets less than 70 minutes of exercise per year; if you were to average it out, that’s about 11 seconds per day. Obese men don’t have it much better either: they break a sweat only 3.6 hours annually, researchers say. You can talk about obesity in terms of culture and psychology, […]
Mammograms have been controversial since their inception – many researchers argued that reduction in mortality from breast cancer comes from improved treatment, and not from the procedures. Now, a very large and thorough study involving 90.000 women and lasting 25 years casts a big doubt on the value of mammograms. Basically, what they found was […]
A team led by astronomers at The Australian National University has discovered what they believe to be the oldest star in the known Universe – forming shortly after the Big Bang, some 13.7 billion years ago. This is the first time astrophysicists get the chance to study the chemistry of the oldest stars, giving scientists […]
It’s one of the most known effects of marijuana – you get a powerful surge in appetite (especially a craving for sweets) after smoking (or inhaling or ingesting the drug) – something colloquially referred to as “the munchies”. While for casual users this is a minor and not troubling side effect (often times even enjoyable), […]
As a non-smoker with many smoking friends living in a country without a smoking ban, going out can be quite a hassle sometimes. Staying in smoky rooms, the way the clothes smell after getting home… I feel like I may be smoking just as well. But as it turns out, smoking bans help smokers just […]
Dennis Aabo Sørensen is the first amputee in the world to feel sensory rich information (in real time), thanks to a prosthetic hand hard-wired into the nerves in his upper arm. After nine years ago he lost his left hand, Dennis Aabo Sørensen got lucky. Silvestro Micera and his team at EPFL (Switzerland) and SSSA […]
I’m gonna go into a little more details about both people and the discussion, but I just want to get out the main idea for people who don’t have the time/don’t want to watch the entire debate. Bill Nye is a scientist, Ken ham is a creationist who advocates taking the Bible literally. At one […]
