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Early modern human populations were culturally diverse and sometimes exchanged tools helped by river networks in a then savanna rich Sahara, according to the biggest ever comparative study of stone tools dating to between 130,000 and 75,000 years ago. At least fourdistinct populations, each relatively isolated from each other, have been identified as possessing distinct cultural practices.
A first of its kind study conducted at the University of Colorado Denver looked at how city design affects populace health. Older cities, initially built for pedestrian traffic in mind were found to harbor less cases of diabetes and other diseases than those with broader streets and fewer intersections. While some people can stay healthy and stick to exercising habits no matter where they live in, the study suggests that in general cities which are optimized for vehicle traffic discourage walking and other healthy activities.
In a breakthrough in robotics, researchers have programmed a swarm consisting of a whooping 1,024 members which can assemble in programmable 2-D shapes. The demonstration might provide insights in how natural self-assembling swarms operate, like ants who join up to form bridges for the good of the colony.
Scientists introduced Clostridium novyi, a bacteria that causes mild illnesses in humans that typically lurks inside the soil and feces, in cancer tumors and found that these shrank and some cases were destroyed completely. The research suggests that bacteria, when engineered to reduce toxicity, can be a viable fighting tool against cancer, one with less destructive […]
We’ve covered quite a bit the recent developments involving perovskite as an extremely promising light-to-energy conversion semiconductor. Now, researchers at University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität are performing research on perovskite-based devices that work the other way around by emitting light. Their research has turned out promising results that suggest high-brightness LEDs, manufactured at […]
At this very moment, the International Space Station has all its docking ports fully booked, as five manned and cargo spacecraft have occupied all available slots. Most expensive parking ticket ever The spacecrafts in question are: Soyuz TMA-12M, Soyuz TMA-13M, Cygnus 2, Progress 56, and ATV-5. The Soyuz crafts are tasked with ferrying the crew of Expedition 39/40 […]
A group of international researchers have demonstrated a novel technique for destroying cancer cells. By inserting a chloride payload that penetrates the cancer cell's sodium membrane, the cells become flushed with salt causing a self-destruction response.
A brave Australian professor of molecular biology thinks he may have found out why women get premenstrual syndrome (PMS). According to his findings, following genetic screenings, PMS has evolved as a mechanism for breaking up infertile relationships and thus increase the chance of fostering a fertile relationship in the future. Effectively, nature designed PMS to […]
The walking cane has helped the blind navigate obstacles for thousands of years, and its design has remained largely unchanged since - a sophisticated stick. What looks like a combination between a TV remote and a Star Trek tricorder, the Enactive Torch aims to help all the aging baby boomers, injured veterans, diabetics and white-cane-wielding pedestrians navigate their surroundings using 21st century tech.
Sometimes, we go through situations thinking when we reach the end of the road the outcome will feel gloom. But sometimes, the exact opposite happens and we're flooded with absolute joy, the kind of which we couldn't have experienced were we to expect that outcome. In a word, this is called surprise.
This magnificent painting by Steve Gildea combines the planets of our solar system in one beautiful planetary mosaic. It’s a celebration of the geological diversity our solar system possess, illustrating each planet’s surface in the order they orbit the sun, starting from the battered Mercury to lonely Pluto. Speaking of which, Pluto is of course […]
As reported earlier, 2014 has seen the worst Ebola outbursts in history. Recent escalations of the outbreaks and spread to other countries like Nigeria has finally prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the Ebola situation a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The report is meant to raise more awareness to the deadly threats […]
After cleaning the Hudson River, which spills into New York harbor, marine biologists report increased sightings of whales and sharks around the Big Apple’s waters. The cleaner waters now harbor more fish and nutrients, which in turn has led to a surge in numbers. Dolphins and seals are also on the rise. The Hudson River used […]
A new study adds to a body of evidence that suggests the brain is involved in a unconscious process of screening human faces for patterns that suggest trustworthiness or otherwise. Namely, our brains are busy judging other people based on their physical features even when we aren’t even get the chance to properly see those […]
The brain of complex organisms, such as humans but just as well other primates or even mice, is very difficult to emulate with today’s technology. IBM is moving things further in this direction after it announced the whooping features of its new brain-like chip: one million programmable neurons and 256 million programmable synapses across 4096 individual […]
Disguised under a ‘health halo’, manufacturers selling energy and sports drinks advertise their products as being a healthy alternative to soda. A report filed by researchers at the Atkins Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley found that not only did most popular drinks contain just as much sugar as sodas, but the added […]
A new study investigated the circumstances under which a 15-year-old kitesurfing male died after a tiger shark attacked him in the South Pacific. Their analysis suggests that attack took place mostly likely because the kitesurfer's motion was confused by the shark with a bird overtaking the water. In light of other similar shark attack cases, the researchers advise any kitesurfing in waters known to harbor sharks should be made with extreme care.
This wasn't an easy tasks since the researchers identified hundreds of potential candidate compounds.
An exceptional Biologists duo who have studying an ecosystem from the Galapagos Islands for the past 40 years have made one of the most important discoveries in evolutionary biology - the birth of a new species!
Researchers at University of Sheffield demonstrate a perovskite spray-on solar cell for the first time. Also, this is the first time rated efficiency for a spray-on solar cell tops two figures in efficiency, marking an important milestone and breakthrough in the field.
One can argue that zoos have no place in a civilized society; cheap entertainment with little educational value at the expense and suffering of countless animals. But let’s face it – they’re not going away any soon. So instead of abolishing them altogether how about radically transforming them? Bjarke Ingels is set on doing just that. […]
Some people become in love with physics because they’re secretly in love with the truth. Physics never lies, if you care to think in absolute terms, so there must be a great deal of comfort. The reason modern civilization works they it does today is because of our faith in physics and other sciences. If […]
The Aboriginal Martu people have been hunting kangaroos and sand monitor lizards for over 2,000 years. During this time, the natives have not only lived sustainably, but also became unwilling conservationists helping kangaroo populations grow by sparking wild fires that help them catch lizards, a study by researchers at University of Utah found. In other remote areas […]
The old adage goes ‘practice makes perfect’, and while we all know there is truth in it, at some point practice ceases to become the driving factor towards excellence, at least if we’re to judge from the recent findings of a group of psychologists who studied how people acquire skills and become experts at what […]
Most University professors still rely on passive lectures to get their subject across. A meta-study which analyzed 225 studies found that active teaching – lectures that actively engage students and make the learning experience two-way – improves grades and significantly reduces fail rates. The findings add to an already body of literature that suggests the […]
Allan Savory's holistic management solution seems too good to be true. Hint: it's not.
A group from the Multicellular Systems Biology lab at the Center for Genomic Regulation confirmed one of Turing's findings from a biology paper published in 1952, which discusses how fingers are formed.
Using nothing but birth and death records, sociologists at Northeastern University developed a working framework that details the migration patterns of some of humanity's most notable intellectuals in North America and Europe in the past 2,000 years. The data allowed the researchers to identify the major cultural centers on the two continents over two millennia. Rome, Paris, London and New York are some of the world's prolific cultural centers in history.
Since 2007, shale gas has boomed by 700% in the US and is projected to rise for the next 30 years. While there are states where well fields span across hundreds of hectares, you'd think that the effects of exploitation of this caliber are well researched and documented. In reality, the bio impact of fracking remains largely unknown.
Recent findings suggest that our general cognitive abilities are heavily influenced by key regions of the brain involved in social functions, further strengthening the hypothesis that social abilities are primary to general intelligence and not the other way around.
Here at ZME Science we often report on cutting edge developments and various medical breakthroughs that offer novel treatments and such. Most of these drugs or techniques are first studied on animal models, and while they hold great promise, it’s most often than not that the desired response isn’t replicated in humans. This translates in […]
A new study that shifted through 81 e-cig related studies found that these are less harmful than conventional cigarettes. Policymakers, however, are inclined to introduce strict regulations for e-cigs, citing unsubstantial evidence that e-cigs do not pose health risks.
Here's a scientific explanation that will show you what happens when you get a tattoo and why the ink will forever show on you body. Hint: it's not because of how deep the ink is.
Ruscosmos, the Russian space agency, recently launched geckos in space to see how zero gravity affects mating. The findings have much broader implications that extend humanity's ultimate goal of reaching for the stars.
A newly developed technique by researchers at University of Cambridge might revolutionize metamaterial manufacturing and help make a complete invisibility cloak.
The Ebola virus causes a highly infectious disease that can reach fatality rates of up to 90%. It causes a great deal of suffering, spreads really easily and if it’s not treated very early on can kill most people. It’s darn scary , but ever since it surfaced in 1976, when the first outbreaks in […]
HIV is maybe one of the most resilient and tenacious viral infections known to medical science. Unlike other infections, even if all traces of HIV are gone from the body – the virus itself – it can still resurface and infect the patient later on. That’s because HIV inserts itself permanently into the patient’s genome, […]
A group of Chinese physicists, working with international collaborators, have announced their plans of building a 52-kilometre underground particle accelerator that would smash together electrons and positrons to unravel the fundamental building blocks of life. The project would offer means of probing these sort of fundamental questions that are unavailable to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, an oval-shaped […]
A few months ago, I reported how Google is using its drones and Google Earth technology to monitor an uncontacted Amazonian tribe. Now, there’s convincing evidence that the same tribe has come in contact with non-indigenous locals, then with western researchers in the most unfortunate of circumstances. One, the contact was initiated by criminals operating illegal […]
In the 1980s, concerned that the state statute on prostitution was too broad and could potentially infringe on First Amendment freedoms, lawmakers in Rhode Island decided to make it more explicit by cutting some articles. They went a bit too far, though, and accidentally removed the section defining the act itself as a crime. It […]
If you’ve ever been to London, you might have noticed the city is packed with CCTV cameras even in the least crowded street crossings. Besides 24/7 monitoring, these cameras feed images to a highly complex system that automagically runs face recognition, checks the mugs of pedestrians and runs a check if there’s anything on file […]
We’ve all read and heard about how exercise can dramatically boost our quality of living, but how many people actually take action? Very few. Less than 20% of Americans over the age of 18 meet the official recommended guidelines. This is really alarming, because what most people don’t know is that mild exercising has fantastic returns, […]
A crystal known to science for more than a century has only in recent years become recognized for its use in harvesting solar power. Since the first successful usage of perovskite in solar cells in 2009, the advances in the field have grown exponentially over time, making it a potential candidate for revamping the solar […]
Rave parties go crazy when the bass drops, no doubt about it, but what makes people click so well with low frequencies? Canadian scientists at the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind investigated how our brains react to low-freq pitches and found our affinity has to do with how humans detect rhythm. Basically, the bass is […]
In 2006 , the BBC aired a fascinating documentary that featured that featured a family of five siblings from a remote corner of Turkey that remarkably solely moved about by walking on all fours. Many anthropologists of the time saw this behavior as evidence of reverse evolution and sought to extensively study the phenomenon in […]
“We women talk too much, nevertheless we only say half of what we know.” Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess There’s a deeply entrenched stereotype that portrays women as extremely talkative or, at least, much much chatty than men. Ask most people, both men and women, they will agree, but is this merely a subjective facet or […]
Whether studying late or partying until dawn, more and more people now turn to energy drinks to keep them up and running. The detrimental effects to health resulting from prolonged energy drink use have been well documented, yet this hasn’t stopped sales one bit. Moreover, researchers in Australia claim that adding energy drinks in alcohol cocktails […]
Some applications require such a degree of precision that everything needs to be in exact order at the atom-scale. In an awesome feat of atomic manipulation, physicists from the University of Basel, in cooperation with team from Japan and Finland, have placed 20 atoms atop an insulated surface in the shape of a Swiss cross. Such […]
Designed by the world’s foremost social robotics expert, MIT’s Cynthia Breazeal, Jibo looks like a cross between HAL 9000 and Eve from Wall-E. The robot seeks to become the first in a line of truly intelligent robot helpers that not only assist the family with chores, but become part of it as well. Is this cute, […]
Right now, I’m the happy caregiver of seven cats (five kittens. Yey!) which in most people’s books makes me socially challenged and insane. I do take special notice of my pets, and this means looking after them so they don’t get infected by parasites. Cats are typically clean animals, but when infested can spell trouble […]
