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Scientists want to grow potatoes on Mars to study crop resilience in the face of climate change. Brilliant or stupid?
YES! SpaceX made it! Wooohooo!
There’s almost no need to say it again – it’s been an exceptionally warm December, and an exceptionally warm year. In fact, it’s been the hottest year on record, with 7 of 11 months so far breaking the record. Things aren’t very different in the capital of the US, where temperatures have exceeded 50 degrees […]
A month ago, millions of gallons of toxic mining waste burst into the environment following a dam break in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Since then, the sludge has left behind a 500 mile (800 km) trail of polluted rivers and banks, ultimately reaching the Atlantic Ocean and marking Brazil’s worst environmental disaster in […]
In a world class display of hypocrisy, after opening up the world’s largest marine sanctuary and vowing to reduce fossil fuel subsidies, the New Zealand government has opened up a marine reserve of the world’s rarest dolphin for oil exploration – most significantly, seismic surveys. The Maui dolphin is the world’s rarest, with under 60 […]
Lions are listed under the Endangered Species Act, five months after a famous lion was lured away from a protected national park in Zimbabwe and killed by an American dentist. The decision announced by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is aimed to help with lion conversation as it will make it increasingly difficult for hunters to bring back trophies from Africa. While it doesn't ban the import of trophies (which would've been ideal), the new ruling has been met with great enthusiasm by environmental groups around the world.
It's the bigger or charismatic of animals that get targeted by human hunters. These give off more meat, more pelt and make for better trophies. The effects of over-hunting and poaching are well documented. Most markedly, this results in extinction and ecosystem destabilization. A new study, however, adds a new frighting dimension to hunting: climate change acceleration through loss of carbon storage.
Elephant social structure is deeply matriarchal, meaning their groups look to older females for leadership. A new study looks into how, even with poaching picking their matriarchs off one by one, elephant social structures unexpectedly managed to survive.
Is this genius or lame? We can't really tell for now.
The fatty acids in fish oil have been proved to help with a wide range of conditions, with WebMD detailing benefits ranging from improving the health of the heart and circulatory system all the way to fighting dyslexia, kidney disease and improving your child's IQ. Now, scientists from the Kyoto University found that feeding fish oils to lab mice made them gain considerably less weight than their fish-less counterparts.
Over the last three years, NASA engineers have been exploring using additive technology, like 3D printing, to manufacture key rocket engine parts. Tests on individual parts had worked well. Now, the space agency fitted all the parts onto a special test bench that behaves like a real rocket engine and fired it up for a test. The engine fired at 90,000 RPMs for 10 seconds to produce 22,000 pounds of thrust, with all performance test parameters showing 'green'.
The Australian government wants to eliminate hepatitis C within one generation - a 'miracle drug' with a price tag of $100,000 will be provided at a cost of only $37.70
Almost all of Costa Rica’s energy came from renewable sources in 2015, making it one of the few countries to achieve virtual independence from fossil fuels. The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced that the country achieved “99 percent renewable electricity generation” this year, running 100% renewable in 285 days so far. The bulk of the […]
Is the American dream over?
New imaging techniques might revolutionize the technologies currently used to capture uranium from seawater, as researchers gain a better understanding of the way the compounds that bind the atoms interact with them.
This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but rather inside our home galaxy.
In a collaborative effort by the Oregon Healthy and Science University and the University of Pittsburgh researchers have been able to identify the genes whose role is to trigger the onset of puberty, and manipulate them to delay puberty in female rats. They hope that the discovery will help determine exactly why causes early-onset puberty in females.
Sharing and other voluntary acts of kindness are what we regard as part of our humanity – but this type of behavior exists in other creatures as well. Now, scientists working in Austria have shown for the first time that dogs exhibit prosocial behavior, if they know the other dogs. Different types of personality have […]
Since the first plesiosaur complete skeleton was discovered in 1824, scientists have been debating how on Earth this reptile used four flippers to swim.
It's finally happening - they're selling air, and the Chinese are buying it.
2015 is set to be the hottest year on record as November smashed previous records, being 1.75 degrees Fahrenheit (0.97 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average. As if that wasn’t enough, 7 of the first 11 months of the year broke the record, according to reports by both NOAA and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. […]
The annus horribilis continued at the jade mines in Myanmar, as another major landslide was announced, with at least one fatality and ten people missing.
This summer in Poland, two treasure hunters discovered what they believe was a WWII Nazi train filled with treasure, in a buried tunnel. Poland’s Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski said authorities were led to the spot and that he was 99% convinced that the treasure had been located. But according to scientists Krakow’s AGH University of Science […]
For more than 200,000 years humans and face mites trace a common history. There’s no human that doesn’t feed these tiny arachnids with some of our delicious face oils, which might startle some. Fret not since these are mostly harmless (though some people are more sensitive to the mites and get rosacea and blepharitis). What’s startling […]
Somewhere in the Arctic, in the interior of the Greenland ice sheets, there lies a glacier like no other. This glacier quakes once every minute, more frequently than ever observed. Geologists now believe that studying these ice quakes could help them better understand how ice melts and reacts to rising temperatures and better model ice flow. […]
Blue-banded bees employ a head on approach to pollination, a group of researchers at Adelaide University showed. While other bees use their mandibles and wings to shake the pollen, this Australian native insect is all "no-hands" and bangs its head against the flowers 350 times per second -- considerably faster than any bee noticed so far.
It’s no secret that when it comes to condoms, the pleasure factor plays a big role – some people simply don’t want to use condoms because it diminishes their pleasure. With that in mind, researchers from Australia are now working to create condoms that feel just like bare skin… or even better! This year, over […]
It’s the closest Earth-like planet we’ve ever discovered: Wolf 1061c lies in the habitable zone, joining a very elite list of rocky planets that could host life. The planet, reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is one of the three planets found by astronomers around a small red dwarf star called Wolf 1061 in the constellation Ophiuchus. […]
Christianity is currently the world's largest religious movement, with an estimated 2.2 billion followers. And because he plays such a huge role in christian mythos and practice, and because of the influence he's had on the course of history (we even date our years after his birth), we all know how Jesus Christ looks like. We've seen it in paintings. on tv, in church, on Christmas; he's white, long haired and wears something thorny. Right?
For the first time in history, the UK has a representative on the International Space Station. This morning, British astronaut Tim Peake made his first visit to the station, alongside two seasoned: Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko and NASA’s Tim Kopra. It was a flawless launch, as you can see below. Malechenko had to take manual control after the automated […]
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, looking into the effects depression has on the brain have found proof linking the disorder with abnormal brain development in preschoolers. Their study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, shows how gray matter is thinner and lower in volume in the cortex, an area of the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions.
If we want to transition to a carbon free economy, renewable energy has to be pivotal – but no matter how you look at the problem, the bottom line is always the same: efficiency. Solar only generates energy when the sun is up, the same goes for wind… there’s a big reliability issue. With this […]
Northwestern University neuroscientists have developed a method that allows them to pinpoint communicating neurons in a living fly's brain -- effectively paving the way for mind-reading. Their mapping of specific neural connection patterns could provide insight into the computational processes that underlie the workings of the human brain.
Researchers have discovered a new material that's both transparent and electrically conductive that might make smartphones, TVs, smart windows and solar cells a lot cheaper, and maybe even more efficient.
After months of delays and years of underfunding, the US Congress finally revealed its plans for funding the federal government in 2016.
This beauty was designed, crafted and assembled by Matt Olczyk. The custom-made clock looks like a cross between old pendulum antiques and modern, minimalist designs. All the parts were custom made in Olczyk's shop using CNC milling, laser cutting and 3D-printing. The real innovation, however, lied in the fat that all of these operations were performed by one single machine - the ZMorph Hybrid 3D printer.
MIT researchers made a huge upgrade to an instrument that's indispensable in research today: the atomic force microscope (AFM).
A company called Windspeed Tech has for the past year or so been busy designing a novel upgrade to carriers and jets: a little bubble placed on the tail of an aircraft that offers a fantastic 360 degree view.
. According to Designer Carbon Materials - the only company in the world that manufactures this exotic material - it sold 200 micrograms of pure endohedral fullerenes for $33,400.
A promising power generation system uses the energy you expend walking or running to power mobile devices.
If you're an alien buff or just really, really bored with knowing just one species that can hold a decent conversation, this might come as a bummer. SETI has confirmed that KIC 8462852, the 1,500 light-years away star that's been all over the news as potentially having signs of an advanced alien megastructure built around it is just a regular, run of the mill, alien-free ball of atomic fire.
Scientists from the University of Ferrara, Italy collaborating with the Beijing Genomics Institute have isolated a gene that, when mutated, causes muscle tissue to become significantly weakened and damaged. Their findings, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, show how the gene, dubbed Popeye domain containing-1, has a role in ‘gluing’ muscles cells together.
Scientists finally crack down a puzzle that has eluded the community for years. It seems sea level rise does indeed slow down Earth's spin.
Developing countries need an astonishing amount of cash to respect the commitments made at COP21, Paris. This money needs to come from developed nations.
Obesity rates have increased virtually everywhere in the world, especially in the developed world. Some 160 million Americans are obese or overweight. Over 70 percent of all men and 60 percent of all women from the US are overweight, and it seems like the next generation will have similar problems: nearly 30% of boys and girls under age 20 are either obese or overweight, up from 19% in 1980. When talking strictly about obesity, one-third of American men (32%) and women (34%) were obese in 2013 compared with about 4% of Chinese and Indian adults. Being obese puts you at risk of developing a myriad of conditions from heart disease and stroke, to diabetes, to some cancers, to osteoarthritis. Yet, for all the hazards that being overweight causes most people would rather lose weight to appear more attractive, than be more healthy. The two are interlinked, as we shall see. But that's better than not having any reason at all to lose weight, and now a new study quantified just how much weight men and women need to lose for this to show and make them look more attractive. Some might find the findings useful.
Citizens were against installing a solar farm because it would suck all the energy from the sun -- so plants will die.
In 2001 a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom was traced back to a farmer that illegally fed uncooked waste to his pigs. It left the country's agricultural industry in tatters -- over 10 million sheep and cattle were killed in an effort to contain the disease. Later that year EU legislators banned the use of human food waste (or swill) as pig feed, a decision that is now coming under a lot of fire from disgruntled livestock farmers and the scientific community.
"There's a window that could be opened for a long time or a short time where we have an opportunity to establish a self-sustaining base on Mars," Musk says.
A crucial date, or another point in a long line of failures? History will certainly judge the Paris Climate Agreement, but until then, reactions to it have generally been positive. It’s a monumental achievement, if only for being unanimously supported. I found remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry to be highly relevant: “For […]
The agreement in Paris is not a cure for the world’s environmental problems, but it’s definitely more than a band-aid. It provides a framework on which to build future global and national efforts, but one word came close to ruining everything. Visibly exhausted, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius cracked a smile – probably the first […]
