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The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has recently issued a report that laments the embarrassing lack of efficient planning and strategy of science funding in the UK. Namely, the report speaks primarily of the seemingly lack of communication between the people who write the funding projects for infrastructure and those who write the […]
If astronauts are ever to live on the moon or in deep space outposts, a sustainable living plan in which they would grow their own food (plants) in greenhouses is required. NASA is taking the first steps in this direction by developing a project which aims to germinate plants on the moon’s surface. Thousands of […]
At one of the sites where it’s possible that Buddha was born, archaeologists have identified the remains of an ancient shrine – a timber structure which used to encircle a tree – right at the heart of the present day Maya Devi Temple in Lumbini, Nepal. Carbon dating reveals this ancient structure is at least […]
Astronomers all over the world rejoiced recently after they were treated to a most privileged event. Using the RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) system in New Mexico and Hawaii, in conjunction with the most sophisticated observatories in the world, researchers witnessed what may be the most brightest event this century: an extreme flash of light […]
Stanford researchers claim the inherent disordered molecular structure of polymer semiconductors is actually desirable. Current organic solar cells made with semiconducting polymers try to mimic orderly silicon structures as much as possible; this direction of research may be fundamentally wrong according to the Stanford researchers. A balance between molecular order and disorder at the polymer […]
Are hairy men attractive to women? The answer can vary greatly depending on culture and personal preference.
As if that would be our biggest concern in the first place, but it’s important to understand, especially for policy makers, that even though dumping CO2 as a byproduct of current energy production methods is a lot cheaper than “cleaner alternatives”, in the long run the balance of economics turn. A new report released today […]
University of Utah researchers found that female mice that live in a competitive social environment and choose to mate casually with multiple partners give birth to males who are much more attractive to female mice, at the cost of a dramatic cut in life expectancy however. You only have one life, says the sexy male […]
It’s not the cancer tumor itself that kills people, but rather the spread of cancer cells is what ultimately may bring the killing blow to patients. This is called metastasis, and oddly enough not nearly enough is known about how it works. University of Minnesota researchers have devised a pathological method for doctors to assess whether […]
Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have for the first time coaxed human stem cells into forming three-dimensional cellular structures similar to those found in our kidneys. The breakthrough could provide a valuable footing for upcoming work that might eventually lead to fully functioning lab-grown kidneys, based on patients’ own cells for bio-compatibility. In […]
There’s only so much you can cram into conventional magnetic storage devices. We’re already seeing these slowly, but surely lose ground in the face of solid-state drives, which offer more storage density and don’t have any moving parts (last longer, make no noise, etc.). What about even further ahead in the future? Well, it’s most […]
While chimpanzees, which are our closest relatives sharing 98% of our genetic blueprint, are notorious for their widespread tool use, the same can’t be said about gorillas. The great apes have only been caught twice by researchers engaged in tool use. One used a stick to explore the depth of a muddy river and another […]
In a synergy between biology and electrochemistry, researchers at MIT cleverly exploited genetically modified viruses to assemble metal molecules into extremely thin nanowires that can be used as cathodes in a lithium-air battery. This type of battery has been thoroughly researched in the past few years and has sparked the interest of scientists because of […]
Paleontologists have unearthed skull fragments in Tibet belonging to an ancient “big cat” species, which apparently may be the oldest discovered thus far. The fossils have been dated between 4.1 and 5.95 million years old and belong to a previously unknown species “similar to a snow leopard”, according to US and Chinese palaeontologists. “This cat is […]
Tesco recently hit the news once again in a whirlwind of controversy as it was revealed that the UK supermarket giant wasted 28,000 tonnes of food in the first half of 2013. As most of us would guess, the common wastage culprits were the typical items we’re all guilty of forgetting about, failing to use […]
This oddball cosmic body, called P/2013 P5, has puzzled astronomers for a while. By mass and orbit, it can only be classed as an asteroid, but the fact that it trails gas or dust would make it a comet. In fact, this weird rock has six tails, which would maybe make it a supercomet! Researchers at […]
A team of researchers at Washington State University achieved a dramatic 400 fold increase in electrical conductivity for a crystal after it was accidentally left exposed to light one day. This readings are attributed to photoconductivity, a phenomenon which causes a material to become more electrically conductive due to the absorption of electromagnetic radiation such as […]
A few years ago ZME Science reported the peculiar case of Brooke Greenberg, a woman who was born prematurely at just four pounds but never physically developed into an adult. Her condition baffled her doctors as well as the scientific community who even to this day hasn’t managed to pinpoint what exactly was wrong with […]
The world’s most complex malware ever created, the Stuxnet virus which was designed and enforced by the U.S. and Israel against Iran a few years ago, may have ended up infecting the International Space Station according to leading security analyst Eugene Kaspersky head of IT security at Kaspersky Labs. The virus was designed to only attack specific […]
From an evolutionary psychology stand-point, one can genuinely assume that a stepparent won’t invest the same amounts of energy and care for their wards as genetic parents often do. This behavior may in some cases turn to an extreme, especially if a new child is born in the family after a stepparent enters the scene, […]
You’ll be pretty impressed by this novel research. Scientists at University of Iowa have developed an ingenious biopatch which expels nanoparticles containing DNA that instructs cells to turn into bone. Practically, you just apply this patch over a damaged area that needs reconstruction, dental surgery site or congenital bone defect and the genes do the rest of […]
In Greek mythology, Narcissus fell in love with himself after gazing upon the splendor of his own reflection. A pathological admirer of his beauty, Narcissus eventually died of grief for not being able to reach the beautiful young man in the water. When thinking of Narcissus, whose story birthed the term narcissism to describe inordinate […]
The human body is a complex biological entity in seemingly perfect harmony as thousands of components play their part in tandem. Discovering, describing and understanding how each of this body parts function and work together is the primary role of human anatomy. Some of you might be surprised to find that human anatomy is yet […]
The human brain is possibly the most complex entity in the Universe. It’s absolutely remarkable and beautiful to contemplate, and the things we are capable of because of our brains are outstanding. Even though most people might seem like they’re using their brains absolutely trivially the truth is the brain is incredibly complex. Let’s look […]
Fossils that capture a kinetic moment are truly fascinating because they surprise a scene or picture from millions of years ago, effectively acting as a time capsule. Paleontologists have found along the years all sorts of such scenes, be them dinosaurs engaged in battle before an unlikely event engulfed and preserved them or some other […]
This “How to” may not be that relevant in modern times, but in the XIV and XV century, I could think of a few civilizations that would have loved to learn how Chinese engineers moved huge volumes of rock from quarries tens of miles away. Such blocks of stone, weighing at least 100 tonnes, were […]
In the US alone there are an estimated 100 million daily coffee drinkers, each contributing to a booming $18 billion industry. Of these, 68% claim they have their first coffee within the first hour of waking up. As a coffee drinker, I find myself guilty of the same practice, but apparently this isn’t the best […]
Crossing the riverbed of Carrizo Creek in Oklahoma, a series of tracks made by a two-legged dinosaur have been preserved in time for 150 million years. The tracks reveal a most clumsy scene, as the dinosaur in question slipped for a second before going back to his beaten path. When first analyzedin the 1980s, paleontologists […]
Some people are better navigators than others, i.e. men better than women. Whether you can make your way effortlessly through the woods to reach a safe house or get seemingly lost on your way home from a different bus stop, it doesn’t make that much of a different at a sensory level. Navigation is often […]
There’s been a lot of praise and finger pointing alike around the hydrogen economy, and whether or not fuel cells can be scaled to reasonable levels i.e. becoming actually useful. There are a lot of problems with fuel cells in terms of their economy. Fuel cells are some of the most efficient energy converters current […]
A lot of Americans are buying into the electric car dream. As noble as this may be, despite the fact that EVs are far from being pure ‘green’, there are numerous challenges faced by the industry which have deterred a lot of folks from switching to electric cars such as the one offered by Tesla Motors. […]
India is a sort of economic paradox. Its general population is among the poorest in the world, yet it is still wealthy in many respects. It wouldn’t be a mistake to call India a space superpower, at least in the way the term gets tossed in the press. Attesting this fact is the country’s recently […]
The U.S. is not only the biggest energy consumer per capita in the lord, but also the leading media consumer. An estimated 6.9 zettabytes of media flows to individuals and households in a year or 6.9 million million gigabytes. That’s almost twice as much than in 2008 and according to the latest “How Much Media? 2013 […]
After performing an exhaustive quantitative research across numerous plant species, scientists at UCLA’s College of Letters and Science have found that leaf design is governed by a set of fundamental mathematical expressions, underling once again the elegance of nature. The basis of their research was “allometric analysis”, that is to say the study of an object’s evolution […]
Although the Kepler Space Telescope itself is defunct due to a malfunction that rendered it out of operation some months ago, the mission goes on as scientists churn through massive amounts of data gathered by Kepler, enough to keep them busy for years to come. One of the fruits of Kepler is an exoplanet called Kepler […]
What is creativity? Although definitions vary, one might be inclined to say that creativity, ultimately, is anything that has to do with ideas – generating them, building them, transforming them into reality. There are a lot of tests that measure creativity and chances are if you’ve been to a job interview recently you might have […]
A team of researchers at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania (Transylvania) claim they have developed artificial blood which has so far behaved promisingly during preliminary tests on mice. If actually found effective in the long-run on humans as well, the new kind of artificial blood might aid in battling blood transfusion shortages all over the world, […]
What difference does a grade make? Quite a lot, if we’re to consider the latest findings from Duke University researchers. According to their study, the age at which attention problems emerge makes a critical difference in a child’s later academic performance. Other studies have noted the link between early attention problems and academic achievement. But the […]
Researchers at University of Cincinnati have developed an unique all-in-one nanostructure: it can both diagnose cancer cells and deliver its drug payload for treatment at the same time. Other nano carriers are typically built to serve one of the two purposes, not both at once. To achieve this, the researchers fashioned a double-sided surface, called […]
Each of NASA’s Great Observatories – Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra – have been designed to peer through the Universe in a characteristic manner. The telescopes have provided along the years massive amount of astronomical data and have helped scientists make important discoveries. What if you combine each of the telescopes’ strong points to assemble one […]
In science we have what are called “laws”, be them Newton’s Laws of Motion or Archimedes’ Principle, because these mathematical expressions describe systems in a rigid set of boundaries, essentially helping predict how these systems will behave in the future. What about overly complex, highly dynamic systems; could we use a single mathematical equation to […]
Infertility affects 7.3 million people in the U.S, representing 12% of women of childbearing age, or 1 in 8 couples. Medical advancements in the field have sought to correct infertility anomalies, some with staggering results. For instance, we reported last month how an Australian infertile woman became the first person to get pregnant through ovarian […]
More than on one occasion, the Enterprise’s chief medical officer Dr. Leonard McCoy laments how barbaric surgeons of the XXth century must have been to actually cut patients during surgery. While many of Star Trek’s memorabilia are far from having become reality, medicine has made important strides forward in some aspects comparable to Doc. McCoy’s […]
Capable of illuminating in a wide array of pure colors and operating at high efficiency, quantum dot LEDs are set to become the future’s foremost illuminating medium. However, at this time, these fantastic quantum dot light emitting diodes are limited by a physical effect which triggers after a certain photon barrier is crossed, becoming highly […]
Mysterious and elusive, dark matter has escaped scientists time and time again; yet confirming its existence is quintessential to current efforts of studying the Universe. With this in mind, detecting dark matter has become one of the foremost goals in the physics of the 21st century. An experiment at MIT, called DarkLight, aims to prove […]
One of the greatest mysteries scientists have been trying to reveal is how inanimate chemicals joined to produce life. It’s definitely one of the biggest questions scientists are trying to answer, and the challenges are numerous since it’s very difficult to appreciate what the exact conditions necessary for this to happen were billions of years […]
Craig Venter may just be the most arrogant high-profile scientist today, but in his defense the man has a lot to show for. You might not remember the name, but you might remember his hallmark achievement – the creation of the world’s first synthetic life. Now, with the release of his second book, Life at the […]
Miners trapped inside a mine following a collapsing tunnel or skiers covered in deadly snow after an avalanche might be found and rescued in the future by search teams using an improved form of radar device inspired by dolphin echolocation. The resulting radar can track things more accuracy and at a greater speed than conventional radar. […]
Paulo Lozano, of MIT’s Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory, is a space enthusiast for as long as he can remember, growing up with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and spending much of his childhood in bookstores studying science and other worlds in our solar system. His passion and hard work eventually landed him a job at MIT where […]
The 19 days long Government shutdown was finally lifted recently, as thousands of employees returned to their day jobs. The consequences of this stalemate period are long and broad, despite its seemingly short time frame. I won’t go into the politics and mechanics of this rather unpleasant event which will most likely go down in […]
