Other on ZME Science

Huge algae front reaches Chinese coast [PHOTOS]

Recently, China’s Yellow Sea has been clogged for a surface of nearly 7,700 square miles (20,000 square kilometers) by a massive algae front. Surprisingly enough, the algae spanning across great distances off the eastern provinces of Shandong and Jiangsu is a year to year visit, although authorities believe this year has been a bit more […]

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 […]

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 […]

Humanity at its finest: Japan elderly offer to clean up nuclear waste

Yasuteru Yamada is a man just like any other, except he isn’t just like any other. “Let the young rebuild Japan, and let old clean up the most difficult mess”, he says. Argueing that the elders have a smaller chance of developing cancer in their lifetime, the 72-year-old former engineer is recruiting other retirees to […]

[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 […]

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 […]

Shorties: No sex for a million years ? Sure, no problem !

The Timena genus is remarkable from numerous points of view; they are walking stick insects which have been around for almost two million years, out of which for the last 1.5 million years they have been asexual. Biologists from the Simon Fraser University wanted to find out exactly what is it about this celibate insect […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Defy nuclear war with the doomsday survival suit [photos]

For the 2012 panicked or just the doomsday memorabilia collectors, Kacey Wong‘s doomsday survival suit will definitely spark interest. The Hong Kong artist has designed the robot-shaped suit inspiring herself after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, with the idea of protecting people from radiation leaking from nuclear power stations. Mobile and equipped with glowing […]

Ingenious flat earth theory revealed

It was 1893 when Orlando Ferguson, a real estate developer based in South Dakota combined religious beliefs with some scientific theories and a big chunk of creativity to create this square map of the stationary earth. The map was accompanied by a 92 page lecture delivered by Ferguson, who referred to himself as a professor, […]

Star Wars inspired EV is worth a look

Dubbed EDWARD, this most inspiring electric two-wheeler has managed to forge a simple Star Wars geek fantasy into reality. The name stands for Electric Diwheel With Active Rotation Damping, and was developed by students at Adelaide University in southern Australia. Very simply built, the vehicle runs on sealed lead acid batteries, which allows it to […]

The complete Akkadian dictionary

Akkadian, or Assyro-Babylonian, is the oldest attested written language – the code for the cuneiform writing system. Texts written in Akkadian date back as early as 2800 BC, and although it hasn’t been spoken for well over two thousand years, the language can be considered invaluable to the unraveling of the first human civilizations from […]

Iran will launch a monkey into space

Last year, Iran successfully launched a rocket that carried a mouse, a turtle and worms into space. This summer, the Iranian Space Organization is planning on taking its space program one step further by sending a monkey into orbit this summer. This was revealed this Thursday by Iran’s top space official at a press conference […]

The "do it yourself" weapons of the Libyan rebels

For the past few months, the situation in Libya has varied from dire to horrifying; the rebels are fighting to maintain ground and even push whenever they get some help, but the situation they are in is not a good one. Scrambling to arm themselves against organized and trained military and mercenaries, the rebels have […]

Stunning image of "O-ring" shapped nebula

The brilliant image from above was captured by Spitzer space telescope and depicts a ring shaped region formed by hot gas and glowing dust. Dubbed RCW 120, the nebula lies about 4,300 light-years away from Earth, and is located in the constellation Scorpius, just above the plane of the galaxy. The wavelength emited by the […]

Chinese space program posters

In a recent post I showed you some absolutely stunning Soviet space program posters, and guess what – we’re back with more space posters, only this time, it’s the other communist titan on the planet: China. What is striking about these posters are the children; while the Soviets emphasized on the power of the people […]

Woman tattoos facebook friends on her arm

How do you feel about your facebook friends ? I like them; some are my good friends in real life, some are just people I know, and I have only a vague idea who some of my facebook friends are. But this woman loves them all; she loves them so much that she permanently inked […]

Robot juggling 5 balls; this. Is. AWESOME

You can add another thing to the list of robots do and 99.99% of humans can’t; this time, it’s all about juggling. Students from the Department of Control Engineering at Prague’s Czech Technical University have managed to create a robot that can juggle up to 5 balls, something that even most jugglers have a hard […]

The Spirit Rover's last transmitted image from Mars

Captioned above is the very last piece of transmitted imagery by the now defunct Mars Spirit Rover (rest its soul; HA!), before the harsh Martian winter forced it into submission; and it’s quite the vista as well – the Columbia Hills. This was transmitted during Spirit’s 2,175th sol on Mars, when it got stuck in […]

Stonehenge-like Structure Found Under Lake Michigan

While scanning underneath the waters of Lake Michigan for shipwrecks, archeologists found something a lot more interesting than they bargained for.

Mind blowing pictures of the recent Iceland volcano eruption

Taken at distances as small as 1 kilometer, these pictures of Grimsvotn (the volcano that erupted recently in Iceland) reveal how beautiful and terrifying at the same time volcanic eruptions can be. Blending smoke and ash with lightning, the pictures are truly breathtaking. They were taken by Johann Ingi Jonsson, an amateur photographer […]

Paper + Microscope = amazing art

Paper is just paper, right ? Nothing fancy, nothing special, just plain old paper that we see and probably use every single day. Well, for Charles Kazilek at ASU, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth; incredible colours, from orange and purple to vibrant green, amazing textures, all of these were obtained from […]

Woman busted for trying to sell 'moon rock' for 1.7 million$

A recent NASA operation (who knew they do this stuff ?) busted a woman who was trying to sell what she claimed was a piece of the Moon for the meager price of 1.7 million dollars. This came as a result of months of targeting her, after rumour spread that she was selling such […]

Shorties: Shanghai introduces one-dog policy

Reminiscent of the infamous one-child policy introduced in China in 1978, which limited urban Chinese families togiving birth to a maximum of one child, as a means of slowing down the alarming overpopulation trend, the country’s biggest city Shanghai has introduced a similar policy – this time for pets. There are an estimated 800,000 dogs […]

Spledid photos from the Sakurajima volcano eruption

Sakurajima is probably the most active and dangerous volcano in Japan. Actually, one of its eruptions from back in 1914 is still attested as the the most powerful volcanic eruption in Japanese history, which at the time engulfed a whole city in ash and lava, and joined the former island with the neighboring Osumi Peninsula. […]

Octomom gives birth to thousands of octopus sons - all caught on tape

Giving birth is definitely not something you see everyday, but an octopus giving birth – that’s something you may never see. However, thanks to the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, you get a chance to see just that: a species of Caribbean Octopus vulgaris giving birth. They took the […]

Neanderthals went extinct 10,000 years earlier, study says

Accurate dating of a Neanderthal fossil found in a Russian cave, showed that it was 10,000 years older than previous research had suggested. The find could provide proof for the dismissal of the theory which states that Neanderthals and modern humans interacted for thousands of years. The study leads scientists to believe that coexistence between […]

Mississippi flood leads to hoards of animal refugees

Late this Monday, the Mississippi crested in at 47.8 feet (14.5 meters), just less than a foot below the city’s record, set in 1937. As the river reaches nearby city neighborhoods and Shelby County suburbs, nature has “put the pin back in the grenade,” said county spokesperson Steve Shular. Floods are really nasty, but for […]

Every six hours, the NSA collects data the size of the Library of Congress

With the whole Osama operation that’s been dabbling all over news right now, intelligence and surveillance is coming to mind to a lot of people, not just the paranoid. During this time, agencies like the FBI, CIA or NSA have all delivered various press releases detailing the event, praising the valient action of this delicate […]

Hydrogen fuel station opens in Torrace, CA

Toyota is the leading electric car manufacturer in the world, and now the Japanese automobile manufacturer is prepping to dominate another emerging green auto market – the hydrogen fueled car market. The first step hydrogen fueled cars need to take to actually make it, and maybe sometime in the not so distant future to actually […]

China on the moon: rover by 2013, samples by 2017 and manned landing by 2025

How’s your Mandarin? If it’s as rusty as mine, we’d do best and brush up on it since it seems we’re heading towards an age of Chinese domination. Capitalizing on its tremendous financial growth, China has some incredible programs which officials hope to catapult the people’s republic in front of the new space age. A […]

U.S. Military launches new missile defense system into space

This Saturday the United States Military launched a new geosynchronous satellite into orbit as part of its Space-Based Infrared System project, which is intended to enhance the country’s ability to detect, track and counter enemy missiles. Part of an effort to enhance the country’s security, the satellite was launched into orbit by an unmanned Atlas […]

25 Amazingly awesome images of crop circles

Crop circles have been intriguing and fascinating ever since they were first reported, sparkling the immagination of many who believed they were a sign of alien communication. They appeared in fields all across the world, fascinating, inciting, and sometimes scaring people from the US, Canada, the UK, France, Holland, even Romania. The figures appear at […]

Infographic: the cost of SETI

As previously reported, SETI, the international organization which handles the search for electromagnetic transmissions from civilizations on distant planets, will shut down soon due to lack of funding. What’s really bothersome is that, although we all know we live in trouble economic times, the cost of keeping SETI going is simply peanuts for the US […]

The Makeout box: the latest internet sensation... or maybe not

Researchers from the Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications are really exited about their latest innovation in what can be scientifically described as tactile communication or in more direct terms as the “makeout box”. The Kiss Transmission Device is basically a plastic box which gets connected to a PC and receives data from the […]

Only in China: risk your life several times for a good tea house

Well the teahouse itself isn’t dangerous at all, but as in life, it’s about the journey, and not about the destination. Do you think you have what it takes to get to this amazingly dangerous place? Well, the first step is not always the hardest, and this time it’s the easiest – you just take […]

Deadly tornadoes continue rampage, killing over 150 people

Deadly tornadoes are rampaging the United States, killing an estimated number of 193 people in five states already, and showing people that this is just a taste of what’s to come. The majority of deaths (128) has been in Alabama, and authorities seem pretty unprepared to takek care of the situation. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley […]

Biosphere 2 still unsuccessful after 20 years

When Biosphere 2 was launched in 1991, the idea seemed to be absurd. A few years after that, it suddenly seemed to be a great idea, and the results were eagerly awaited; but the results didn’t came… Biosphere 2: the making The point was to make a terrarium, connect it with some other enclosures, and […]

China unveiles detailed plans for its own Space Station

Only a decade since China launched its first human being into orbit, and three years since the first space walk performed by China launched astronaut, Beijing has now unveiled to the world its plans of developing its version of the International Space Station by 2020. China’s space station will be relatively small at size, weighing […]

Government officials introduce bill directing NASA to build a moon base

In what can be considered a highly ambitious project, but quite highly unlikely to get passed bill, Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., has introduced H.R. 1641, the “Reasserting American Leadership in Space Act” or the “REAL Space Act” or simply the “Back to the Moon Bill,” as its named in the vernacular. The key brief of […]

World's last typewriter factory closing its doors

Nostalgia time folks; you might want to sit down for this, because this time it’s the typewriter edition. The last typewriter factory (yes, it still existed in 2011), Godrej & Boyce in Mumbai, India, is closing its doors. A little typewriter history The first typewriter was invented less than 150 years ago, in 1870, and […]

Fire ants building life-saving rafts against floods [amazing photos]

In what can only be described as an incredible natural engineering feat, fire ants in times of floods have the remarkable ability link up with one another to form a life-saving, floating and impenetrable raft. While this is an attested ability for a long time now, scientists have only recently managed to understand how the […]

The amazing Soviet Space Program posters

In the years of the Cold War and the space race, the Soviets were extremely preoccupied with convincing their people (and the world) that they are by far the best; quite often, they used posters and images to send out the message they want to. Here are some of the best posters they used to […]

Today, more than 100 years ago: the great earthquake of San Francisco

The great San Francisco earthquake took place on April 18, 1906, rupturing along the San Andreas fault for a total of 477 kilometers. The earthquake was so strong that it can be felt from Los Angeles to Nevada and Oregon, even though it had an esimated magnitude of 7.9, which makes it 10 times less […]

The New Yorker publishes misleading article about climate change

You’d expect this from the Times, and it wouldn’t be so much of a surprise. But David Owen’s article entitled “Economy vs Environment” definitely says a lot about how things are going at the New Yorker these days; it was published three weeks ago, but I just came across it, and it’s never too late […]

A third of Texans believe humans lived side by side with dinosaurs... and other stuff

I recently came across this poll, which was conducted about a year ago. Ok, so it’s not extremely actual, but one year can’t change the data significantly. So, almost 1 in 3 Texans believes that humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and over half of them don’t believe humans evolved from […]

Arctic foxes threatened by red ones

Global warming shows more and more effects with eacy passing day. Russian arctic foxes are threatened by their red relatives, for the first time. For the first time in history, a red fox has been seen intruding on an arctic fox breeding den. The arctic fox is not prepared for a fight, because they are […]

« Previous 1 … 33 34 35 36 37 … 39 Next »