Tibi Puiu -- author profile on ZME Science

A novel way of measuring the size of the Universe

The Universe is in constant expansion, which is why it is commonly said to be infinite, so basically one can measure all he wants and still won’t find out how big the Universe is. An accurate measurement of this rate of expansion, however, is critical for space observations, and a young Australian student has recently […]

The International Space Station to get sunk in the Pacific for 2020 retirement

A watery death awaits the International Space Station after its programmed retirement in 2020, according to a recent statement released by Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency). Space doesn’t need more junk, apparently in their account. Launched in 1998 as joint effort involving numerous space agencies from around the world and tens of billions of dollars worth […]

Amazing Brain Art

Brain-Art competition is an annual celebration of the beauty and creativity of artistic renderings emerging from the neuroimaging community. Last month concluded the first edition in which various artists from around the world submitted some incredible work for the competition’s galleries – 3D-rendering gallery, connectome gallery, abstract gallery and humorous gallery. Below are a few […]

Time travel proven impossible by scientists

A team of Hong Kong scientists have proven that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum, at the same time crushing a dream concluding that time travel is simply impossible. Time travel has been a central theme for science fiction for many years, moving minds and imagination to all sort of […]

Arthur Ganson's moving sculptures

Arthur Ganson is a mechanical engineer by trade and a kinetic sculptor at heart. His mechanized devices spur up spirit from cogs and wires, as his sculptures move with subtlety and grace, often in a chain reaction of energy à la Rube Goldberg. His creations are rooted inside deep philosophical concepts, but at the same […]

357 dead sharks found on illegal fishing ship in Galapagos Park

A patrol by park rangers and an Ecuador navy ship made the largest shark seizure in the country’s history, when they detained a fishing vessel as it was casting its nets 20 miles inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve. On board they found 357 dead sharks. The government news agency says criminal proceedings will be pursued […]

Alaskan volcano shows signs of eruption

Increased heat emissions by a volcano located in the Aleutian were detected via satellite by the Alaska Volcano Observatory, which has issued an eruption advisory alert. Recent activity has increased the volcano to a Yellow Alert. Mt. Cleveland, 5,676 ft. AGL, also referred to as Cleveland volcano is emitting seismic activity that seems to correlate with the […]

Enormous water reservoir found in space is bigger than 140 trillion earth oceans

Astronomers have discovered the largest body of water so far known, a reservoir of water floating in space around a ancient distant quasar, holding 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans. Remarkably enough, the find was dated as being 12 billion light years away, only 1.6 billion light years farther from […]

Elusive Higgs Boson particle may have finally been found

CERN researchers have announced this Friday that they may had caught a glimpse of the fabled Higgs Boson particle, also known as the “God Particle”. Scientists have the news during the 2011 Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics (HEP 2011), which opened Thursday in Grenoble, France. This came after two collision detector teams (Atlas and CMS), […]

[Amazing Photo] Atlantis re-entering Earth's atmosphere

I know some of you are either nostalgic or plain tired of all the Atlantis posts we’ve been publishing lately, but this one absolutely takes the cake. The photo above, taken from aboard the International Space Station by one of the astronauts there, shows Atlantis as it enters Earth’s atmosphere, leaving a trail of golden […]

Beautiful exoplanet aurorae 1000 times brighter than on Earth

There are few more dazzling sights in the world than that of the great Norther Lights, and in a exercise of brilliant imagination scientists have depicted how an aurorae would look like on huge hot planets. Scientists ran computer models of so-called “hot-Jupiters” placed in close proximity to a sun (a few millions miles away, […]

200 million years ago, half of all life on Earth went extint from a methane eruption

Around 200 million years ago, the Earth was still one big continent – the great Pangaea. Around that time came, what’s commonly referred to as, the End-Triassic mass extinction period in which half of all marine life on the planet went extinct. For years, scientists believed that this came as a result of a mass […]

Aerosols slow down global warming by a third in 2000s

According to a new study released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tiny solid and liquid particles in the atmosphere, resulting from human and natural pollution, have kept the Earth from warming at the estimated level. The reduction of global warming effects by stratospheric aerosols has been significant for the past dozen years, […]

New subatomic particle observed for first time at Fermilab

Scientists at Fermilab’s Tevatron particle collider on Wednesday voiced excitement about the observation of a new particle. The new particle, called Xi-sub-b, was first theorized by the Standard Model which predicted that the neutral particle should exist. Now, through a process which involved high-speed collisions in the Fermilab Tevatron particle accelerator in Batavi, a three-story […]

New DNA sequencing device could decode your genome for just $1000

News of a low-cost semiconductor-based gene sequencing machine has been reported this Wednesday in the journal Nature, by a team led by Jonathan Rothberg. The astonishing advancement might lead to a age of personal human genome sequence, where people will be able to decipher their own DNA for as low as $1000. The human genome was […]

Short fact: the first man to pee on the moon, Buzz Aldrin

There were a lot of firsts during the initial lunar landings, especially during the very first Apollo 11 mission. There was, of course, the obvious first famous moon walk by Neil Armstrong, the first country to land on the moon, the first word spoken from the moon, and so on. A new genesis of gestures […]

Hubble discoveres new moon around Pluto

Astronomers have discovered a fourth moon orbiting Pluto via the famous Hubble telescope, NASA announced this Wednesday. Some of you might be wondering, just exactly how was it possible for astronomers to have missed it so far, considering NASA’s been tracking space rocks even from the edge of the solar system. The truth is, our […]

Homemade supercomputer made with lego is highly energy efficient

Mike Schropp can be considered a geek-tinkerer, a person whose passion for hacking, tweaking and generally setting things apart animate him day by day. His most recent project comes as a pinnacle to his self-proclaimed label, combining his passion for building computers and lego (you’d be surprised how well they come together) to build a […]

[VIDEO] The ISS and Atlantis shuttle as seen in broad daylight

Incredibly enough, using a a simple, standard issued astrophotography set-up, amateur astronomer Scott Ferguson was able to film in incredible detail the ISS docked together with Atlantis as they both orbited above him – all in clear sky, broad daylight. How did he do this? Well, as equipment goes Scott, like I said, used a simple […]

Ancient wasps used to grow inside rotting dinosaur eggs

A recent discovery made by Argentinian paleontologist uncovered wasp cocoons hidden inside the 70 million year old fossilized egg of a titanosaur sauropod, suggesting that these ancient wasps used to dwell, consume and breed inside of them. The find was made after researchers carefully analyzed one of the five titanosaur eggs uncovered back in 1989 […]

NASA's DAWN spacecraft successfully enters Vesta's orbit. Snaps detailed photo

This weekend, NASA‘s DAWN spacecraft finally put a lot of tension and nerves to rest after it successfully entered Vesta’s orbit, the second largest object in the Asteroid Belt. The whole event took place at 1 a.m. EDT Saturday (0500 GMT), marking the first time a man made spacecraft entered the orbit of an object […]

NASA spacecraft set to visit giant asteroid this weekend

After a four year journey, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will finally reach the orbit of Vesta, the second largest asteroid in our solar system. The object, located 117 million miles from Earth and spanning across a circumference of 329 miles, will be visited in premiere by Dawn this weekend when the latter will hover over on […]

Jell-O-like inovative memory device opens new doorway for bio-electronic tech

Scientists from North Carolina State University have successfully managed to engineer a new kind of soft, malleable memory device that can function like a memristor, while at the same time retaining the physical properties of your plain old, delicious Jell-O. Due to its consistancy, the device might find itself ideally suited for wet environments, where […]

Extremely fatal monkey virus spreads to human lab worker

Adenoviruses are nonenveloped (without an outer lipid bilayer) icosahedral viruses, characterized by a particular large size compared to other types of viruses. For years, scientists have thought that each adenovirus strain could infect only one species of animal, however, a recently published report shows how the same strain that infected and decimated a titi monkey […]

Crippled bee population might be saved by super breeding

The world bee population is at its greatest trial in years, as thousands of bee populations die off each year. Scientists are trying to salvage what’s left or even possibly enforce the current bees left by breeding a new pest resistant, cold impervious superbees. Beekeepers around the world have reported on their lowest honey crops […]

Hugely tall underwater volcanos discovered

In the first ever-survey of its kind, geologists have managed to discover a chain of massive underwater volcanoes, some as tall as 2 miles, underneath the Antarctic waters near the South Sandwich Islands in the remote Atlantic Ocean. The South Sandwich Islands have always been known for their evident volcanic activity, ever since their discovery […]

MBE machine grows gadgets one atom at a time

Dubbed MBE, after the intricate molecular beam epitaxy process, this device developed by scientists at Sharp Laboratories in Oxford, England, can actually grow electrical components at a dazzling precision atom by atom. This is where razor sharp technology is at, as far as manufacturing goes, and this monstrous-looking device is capable of transferring atoms from […]

Scientists grow new teeth from stem cells

A recently published remarkable study describes how scientists from Japan have successfully manage to grow teeth inside a lab using mice stem cells. Takashi Tsuji from Tokyo University of Science and his team managed to achieve this after extracting stem cells from the molars of mice. They then transported these cells to the lab where […]

Talking robot mouth learns how to sing. Tries at least

There were a lot of crazy exhibits on display at this year’s Robotech 2011, and one of the most impressive stands was that of Professor Hideyuki Sawada from Kagawa University in Japan who showed off an bizarre looking artificial mouth designed to look and function as close as possible to the real thing. With this […]

Youngest dinosaur found adds weight to asteroid extinction theory

Paleontologists have unearthed in Montana the fossilized bone of a the last known dinosaur so far, dating back from 65.5 million years ago. The finding carries a big weight in supporting the currently leading asteroid impact dinosaur extinction theory. What paleontologists found was actually the horn of a thought to be triceratops in a sediment […]

Getting across: how snails travel through birds' bellies

New York to Paris – 8 hours. Who in their right minds would’ve thought 100 years ago that you could span more than 3600 miles in this kind of time span? Aviation has changed the way we view time and distances forever, and consequently the world is a much smaller place now. Humans aren’t the […]

32 inches of snow in the driest place on Earth

A bit late on reporting this, but I’m still struck with amazement by this extremely peculiar case of precipitations. Last week a cold wave hit Chile and surroundings, including the Atacama desert, known to be the driest place on Earth, covering it in snow. In this area less than 50mm of rain on average is […]

The REAL Iron Man laser glove looks dangerous

Anyone scarcely into Iron Man will tell you they wouldn’t want anything more for Christmas than a bone melting ray gun weapon bursting out of your palm. Well, that a fission core artificial heart, but that’s stretching it a bit too far with Santa. Patrick Priebe, a German lab technician, and firstly an Iron Man […]

NASA's last ever shuttle mission in photos

Despite unfriendly whether filled with low lying clouds and a last moment countdown glitch, which gave of all the 750,000 spectators gathered at Kennedy Space Center venue to witness the launch a pretty big scare, Atlantis was catapulted into low-orbit with dazzling success yesterday, July 8th. STS 135 was, as the name implies, the 135th […]

Pollution linked to memory loss

It’s pretty evident for anyone living in a big, crowded city what pollution looks like and to what degree our health is affected by it. Besides things like your lungs or skin, scientists relate in a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry, how they believe pollution can cause memory loss. To prove their point, they […]

How scientists taught monkeys the concept of money. Not long after, the first prostitute monkey appeared

Seriously, what the heck?

Light gets dragged after getting slowed down to speed of sound

At 300,000 kilometers/second, the speed of light is constant in vacuum, such as space, when it encounters a different medium, however, such as glass or water, its speed is reduced. Another phenomena that can occur in addition is that light can be dragged when it travels through a moving substance, and scientists at University of […]

Vietnam War bio-weapon used today for Amazon deforestation

Of all the despicable things I thought possible going on around the Amazonian Rainforrest, using an extremely powerful chemical agent on the forest would’ve never crossed not even the darkest region of my conscious. It’s indeed petrifying what the human mind can conjure up for profit. Agent Orange is the chemical in question, and is […]

X-raying a 120 million year old bird

Using a new X-raying technique and device, based on synchrotron radiation, scientists have been able to map the pigmentation of creatures dead for million of years just by reading the traces metals in fossils left. “Every once in a while we are lucky enough to discover something new, something that nobody has ever seen before,” […]

Iron Man-like exoskeleton enables paralyzed Japanese man to visit France

Seiji Uchida is 49 years old and for the past 28 years he’s been left paralyzed from the waist down and to one of his arms after a dreadful car accident. He’s never lost hope of walking on his own two feet ever since, though, and now thanks to the marvels of Japanese robotics, his […]

Bionic glasses aim to replace guide dogs for the visually impaired

On display at one of the featured stands at this year’s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition is a pair of special glasses developed by scientists at Oxford University, which mixes technology already developed by gaming and smartphone manufacturers, and allows people with next to none vision orientate. ‘We want to be able to enhance vision […]

How aging can be cured in the future - a scientist's view

If we’re to guide ourselves after Aubrey de Grey‘s telling, according to his predictions the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born, and as science advances along the decades at the current pace it does, he claims people born soon after the latter mentioned birthday will live to […]

Chinese coal linked to global warming standstill

In the past decade, it seems that greenhouse has emissions have remained constant each year, despite no important improvements were made – on the contrary CO2 levels have increased dramatically. The reason, reports a team of academicians who sought to explain the bafflement, after tweaking a statistical model to include sulfur emissions, is that coal […]

On the eve of the shuttle's "Final Countdown"

Space shuttle Atlantis will embark this Friday on its final journey, symbolizing the end of NASA’s illustrious space shuttle program. Yesterday, the last crew of the orbiter Atlantis arrived at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where the launch will take place. Commander Chris Ferguson said: “I think I speak for the whole crew in that we […]

Warmer oceans lead to faster glacier melting

There isn’t any news for anyone, I hope, that the Earth is on the heater right now, and as time passes and gas emissions in the atmosphere rise, you should be thinking about ordering that air conditioning faster. Yes, glaciers are melting, and like I mentioned before scientists have projected an increase in sea levels […]

Tour de Hell: 2,100 miles of pain for cyclists

Each year for three weeks, professional cyclists suffer at great lengths, enduring both physical and mental pain, in the Tour de Frace. Considering each day means around 100 miles on a bike, most of the time uphill, though mountains and so on, there aren’t any losers at the Tour de France. If you manage to […]

Scientists predict age using only a saliva sample

In a recently patented research, UCLA geneticists have shown and demonstrated how they’ve accurately been able to predict a person’s age just by analyzing a saliva sample. The research could possibly find highly welcomed applications in crime scene investigation, as a forensics tool for pinpointing a suspect’s age. “Our approach supplies one answer to the […]

Most distant quasar in known Universe found

Astronomers have discovered the most distant quasar known so far, dubbed ULAS J1120+0641, powered by a supermassive black hole with a mass 2 billion times that of our sun – it’s also the brightest object in the known Universe. At a redshift of 7.1, placing it at only 770 million years after the Big Bang, the newly discovered […]

Introspective individuals spot illusions harder, study says

According to a new study by scientists from University College London, it seems people who find optical illusion solving easier are less inclined to think about the process and understand how they came to that decision. This conclusion came after further analysis of data from a research conducted last year, which showed people with more […]

Final ever shuttle mission scheduled for July 8

NASA just confirmed the shuttle’s last-ever mission will launch on July 8th. The space shuttle Atlantis will blast off headed for the International Space Station this Friday for a very important mission, in which it will deliver the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to the orbiting outpost, bearing supplies, food for a whole year and spares. The 12-day […]

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