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Today’s birds’ ancestors descended from non-avian dinosaurs according to a recent paper that thoroughly studied Anchiornis (155 million years ago) and Archaeopteryx (between 152 million and 168 million years ago) – the oldest known feathered dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx is so far the oldest bird-like dinosaur found thus far, and since it was first discovered almost 150 years ago, it was thought that […]
There’s a rather common image that might pop inside someone’s head when thinking of penguins – an entire flock of such animals, standing very close together, keeping themselves warm as they confront extreme sub-zero antarctic temperatures. Don’t be fooled, though. According to the results of a mathematical simulation that modeled penguin huddling, the penguins stick […]
In an age where the developing world is shadowed by paranoia in face of waves of terrorist attacks, no measure of precaution is spared. Preventing terrorist attacks has been a top priority for governments for a long time, especially since 9/11, and detecting explosives at critical check-ins like airport and customs makes for the first […]
While current solar energy conversion technology is preoccupied with generating electricity with as much efficiency as possible, researchers at Rice University have invented a new technological set-up consisting of nanoparticles smaller than the the wavelength of light that can transform solar energy into steam almost instantly. Their findings show a registered efficiency of 24%, while current […]
We’ve all been hearing about the miracles that carbon nanostructures will provide us in the near future for several years now. One of the first steps to making its application commercially viable is making it easy to use and manufacture. Researchers from the Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai and Southeast University have made identifying the […]
While the owl is commonly associated with wisdom, make no mistake – it’s a vicious predator of the night. It’s main weapon is its stealth, as it silently dashes through pitch black catching pray off-guard. This remarkable ability of noiseless flight has intrigued scientists who are looking to develop aircraft inspired by the owl. The owl has […]
First initiated in 2008 by IBM, the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program whose final goal is that of developing a new cognitive computer architecture based on the human brain. Recently, IBM announced it has reached an important milestone for its program after the company successfully simulated 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion […]
Popular scientific consensus says that DNA code is identical in every cell of our bodies. A new study from Yale University that could pose extreme far reaching consequences in the field tested a highly controversial hypothesis that claimed genetic variations are widespread through out the body. The researchers found that this claim is true. For […]
Scientists at University of Texas Dallas have made artificial muscles capable of supporting 100,000 times their own weight and generate 85 times more mechanical power than natural muscle of the same size. Applications for this kind of technology are quite numerous, ranging from extremely strong and intelligent textiles to high-temperature applications since the fabric has […]
As of 2010 wind power amounted to 2.5% of the world’s energy production with an estimated 25% increase in quota each year. Yes, eolian power is one of the cleanest forms of energy production, but like any other renewable sources, its no entirely all green. During a wind power turbine’s manufacturing hundreds of tons of […]
Like in a scene from a Sci-fi novel, about 100 light years away, somewhere in the constellation Doradus, a planet is travelling around the galaxy by itself, without orbiting a parent star. This “rogue planet“, has a temperature of about 400C and a mass between 4 to 7 times that of Jupiter – close to […]
Researchers at MIT have created a new metamaterial that they used to fashion a concave lens capable of focusing radio waves with extreme precision. The result lens is extremely lightweight compared to its counterparts developed from conventional materials, and could see promising applications in satellite telecommunications and space exploration of distant stars. In many ways […]
Paleontologists have come across the oldest fossils identified as a relative of the giant panda in Spain, dated from 12 million years ago. A highly peculiar find since this unique animals is native to central-western and south western China. The giant panda belongs to the order Carnivora, which is rather ironic since its highly specialized diet […]
Data storage has reached great heights in the past two decades. You can now fit in a typical PC hard-drive thousands of CDs and millions of floppy disks (who else remembers these?). However, magnetic hard drive developers have almost reached the physical limit to where they can cram up data. Researchers at University of Texas at […]
If you ever wondered why you have to pay for broadband on your smartphone or tablet know that it too, like physical commodities, is a limited resource. Voice, text and Internet services, such as streaming video and music are transmitted on a limited spectrum, and at the current rate of deployment, broadband demand will soon […]
The reason why we don’t trade with gold, diamonds or cheese is because these do no offer the exact interchangeable value. Money the other hands, does. If you loaned someone with $50, and the other person returned the money all in coins for instance, you’d still have the same exact value back in your hands. A new […]
Modern sight correction medical procedures often involve surgery where an artificial lens is implanted. The patient’s sight is significantly improved, however the quality of vision is far from that experienced with a healthy pair of eyes. That’s because current artificial lenses function more or less like those from a camera, a bit more advanced of […]
Bacteria biofilms, when formed, pose a significant health risk in industrial applications, like food processing, and medical settings. Researchers at MIT suggest a new weapon for fighting bacterial formations in the form of nature’s own line of defense – mucus. Mucus lines most of the wet surfaces of the body, including the respiratory and digestive tracts, […]
Scientists with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) have used a novel technique to peer through the nature of dark energy as far as ten billion years ago and measure the three-dimensional structure of the distant Universe. Tracing this 3-D map scientists were able to assess the influence of dark energy over time, which might help unravel […]
According to a new study conducted by Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, humans have peaked their intellectual capacities thousands of years ago, and now we are in a slow, but certain, state of decline. The provocative theory comes from one of the leading minds in genetics, and […]
Any mammal, including humans, suffering from an injury to the central nervous system will lead to a life-long loss of the particular affected brain function. Some invertebrates, like the zebrafish, in contrast can regenerate parts of their organs, even the central nervous system. The zebrafish’s remarkable ability to regrew parts of its damaged brain has […]
A recent research from Ohio State University found a link between gifted children’s special abilities and autism, a developmental disability characterized by problems with communicating and socializing and a strong resistance to change. Their findings suggest that child prodigies might have a genetic mutation that allows them to possess the extreme talents seen in autistic savants, […]
Considering their heavy scale armor, and ferocious apatite, “sensitive” might not be the first adjective that comes to mind when describing crocodiles or alligators. A new study has sought to answer a long lasting riddle for biologists after it finally found the purpose of peculiar black spots or domes on crocodile and alligator heads. Apparently, these […]
This has the potential to be the holy graal of solar energy – UCLA researchers have developed a new organic polymer that produces electricity, is nearly transparent and much more resistant than silicone. If you think about solar cells, usually, the blacker the better – the blacker they are, the less energy is lost. But […]
Take a moment to think about what your ears do. The human ear has a complex system for turning mere sound waves into electric messages for your brain, and it serves to keep you balanced. In order to turn sound waves (which are mechanical energy) into the electrochemical energy that sends messages to the brain, […]
Psychologists at Tel Aviv University’s School of Psychological Sciences surprisingly found that decision making based on instinct has surprisingly positive outcomes. The researchers’ experiment to prove their theory is comprised of an extremely simple set-up, as you may read on below, however, the findings are rather difficult to contest. Their work suggests that the human […]
The superb fairy-wren is a small Australian bird whose nests are often invaded by cuckoo birds. The cuckoos lay their eggs in the wrens’ nests, leaving their young to be taken care of by the wren family. This is bad for the actual wren chicks, because it limits the amount of resources, like food, that […]
Common to Central and South America, the Blue Morpho is an iconic butterfly, prized for its brilliant blue color and iridescence. Beyond its beauty, however, scientists have discovered that its wings have a certain microscopic texture that could benefit a wide range of applications from self-cleaning instruments, to more efficient piping. For example, the researchers […]
Some people in the world have a different perception of what’s good to eat and what’s not. For instance, it’s customary to this day in many culture around the globe to eat substances that are considered non-foods in the west, like dirt, clay, sand or raw starches like rice, weird roots and so on. A […]
A team of international physicists have made a nano-sized device which can allow the phase velocities of certain wave of visible light travel infinitely fast. No, this doesn’t translate into instant communication, nor does it mean that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has been broken. It’s safe and sound. Read on, however, about the potential uses […]
In a groundbreaking study, researchers at University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science used satellite imagery to study volcanic eruptions from the past years in Indonesia’s west Sunda arc, a highly active volcanic region. Their findings show that images of inflating magma balloons hint towards impending volcanic eruptions in one in two cases, on […]
The first recollection of the spade-toothed whale came in 1872, but no actual proof of its existence has been found ever since. Recently, biologists were dumbstruck when they heard not one, but two specimens of the highly elusive whale species beached on the shores of New Zealand. Unfortunately the two whales, mother and cub, died […]
Some 12,900 years ago, a massive flood of melted freshwater in the Arctic caused a 1,200-year-long chill nicknamed the “Big Freeze.” During this time much of the Northern Hemisphere was engulfed by centuries of cold, which caused the extinction of most great mammals, like mammoths, as well as the Clovis people. For decades, scientists have […]
A team of dutch researchers have devised a window into metastasis, literary. The scientists implanted a glass window in the abdomen of a mouse through a surgical procedure, allowing them to perform high-resolution imaging of cancer metastasis. “Visualization of the formation of metastasis [spread of cancer cells] has been hampered by the lack of long-term […]
Back in the prehistoric, and even Antiquity days, man didn’t understand a lot of things; he took every such phenomena and said well, this god did it, or that spirit did it, or some entity did it and that’s just how it goes. Same goes for fossils – whenever somebody stumbled across a fossil, they […]
Photons are slippery fellas. Since they don’t have any electrons, they’re free to run through any matter, no matter how intense an electric field may be. Scientists at Stanford, however, have come by a monumental breakthrough after they devised a way to exert virtual force on photons using synthetic magnetism similar to the effect of […]
Alan Kingstone, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, has been debating with peers for many years what exactly comprise the gaze mechanisms. Do humans first look for the eyes or face when surveying another person or animal? Many scientists believed this is a question impossible to answer since the two are indistinguishable. Capitalizing on […]
According to two new studies, after smoking is banned indoors the number of people suffering from heart attacks considerably drops within months. Some of the researchers believe this data offer substantial evidence to the claim that second-hand smoke does in fact affect people’s health. Besides the obvious health benefit, the researchers argue that preventing second-hand […]
When left in scarcity, the human mind has always been pressured to find a solution. In the past decade or so, the demand for rare earth metals has soured as ever expansive green technology required it. The problem however, is that not only do these metals come in short supply, but they’re actually controlled in their […]
The origins of vision is a widely debated subject, since genetic relationships between early animals capable of sight are inconsistent. A team of researchers has conducted an extensive computer analysis that tests every proposed hypothesis on the origin of vision to date, and found a common ancestor dating from 700 million years ago. Their findings […]
With Halloween just around the corner, preparations in light of the impending artificial ghoul frenzy run amok through each neighborhood. Haunted houses, wild theme parties, trick or treating and as always an onslaught of horror flicks releases from Hollywood. Despite Halloween being considered an idle release time, horror movies have always found an audience no matter […]
In yet another breakthrough archaeological find, the tomb of what’s considered by many the founder of the Mayan civilization has been found at the pre-Columbian archaeological site of Tak’alik Ab’aj in western Guatemala’s Retalhuleu region, about 45km from the border of Mexican state of Chiapas. The tomb was built between 700 and 400 BC, according to carbon-dating […]
Scientists have found hints that methane deposits, tucked away in seabed sediments, have began to breakdown from their frozen state. The shifting of the Gulf Stream from colder to warmer waters is to blame, the researchers note. While a significant greenhouse gas influx into the atmosphere might occur, the researchers conclude, based on their models and […]
No, this isn’t some kind of reinvented alchemy or optical illusion. Scientists at University of Southampton have changed the colour of gold, silver and other metals without coating, by using a nanotechnology patterning technique. Applications may include harder to forge currency or encryption of valuable documents, among other. The team of researchers embossed the surface of […]
In an extremely exciting find, scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark found a type of bacteria that creates electrical currents on the sea floor. Despite the lack of air or sun light, these tiny bacteria flourish and form vast swaths of electrically pulsating multi-cellular organisms. The researchers found that the bacteria breaks down substances in deeper sediments […]
Attempts to decipher the 5000 year-old proto-Elamite writing system have so far rendered little results, much of it still consisting a troublesome puzzle for the scientists studying it. After using a high-tech imaging technique that has rendered the symbols in incredible details, scientists are now finally confident they’re nearing a breakthrough. The Elamite civilization spanned […]
How many times did you find yourself anticipating a certain event shortly before it happened?
Strangely enough, it was computer simulation that provided the mathematical support for the grandmother hypothesis – a famous yet controversial theory which suggests adult humans have longer lifespans as a result of grandmother babysitting. Longevity genes The simulation indicates that without any estimate of the brain size, an animal with a chimp-like lifespan can evolve […]
The pyramids, art, all of the world’s great inventions, literary works, just about any valuable intellectual work can be traced back to food – cooked food. If you care to go as far back as our very roots, that is. Previous research showed that cooked food made it easier and more efficient for our guts to […]
It may not be the best footwork in the world, because much like your uncle after a few beers, Charli doesn’t really want to lift its feet too far from the floor – but it’s definitely something fun to look at. This US Navy robot has all the moves: the lasso toss, the horse riding, […]
