gear Push settings
After two weeks of marathon negotiations, hundreds of presentations and dozens of press conferences, 195 countries unanimously approved an acord that will ultimately eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels, limiting global warming to 2ºC, with an incremental goal of 1.5ºC. For better or for worse, it’s the first global climate accord after two decades of […]
The image above is a timeline with each frame showcasing a stage in our Universe's evolution, from humble beginning to present date (left to right), as simulated by the Argonne National Laboratory. Called the Q Continuum simulation, this is the most complete cosmological simulation to date covering a volume of 1300 Mpc on a side (one Mpc = 3.08567758 × 1022 meters) where half a trillion particles evolved for a mass resolution of ~1.5x108 Msun.
Powerful and smart people in the tech space join hands to found a new AI lab - one focused on making AI safe and beneficial to mankind.
Archaeologists believe they have found the he tomb of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled over the Ottoman empire from 1520 to 1566, near the fortress of Szigetvar in southern Hungary.
While the windy and overcast weather of a stormy day isn't surprising on telluric planets, it's not something most of us readily associate with stars. But it does happen -- the best evidence for this is W1906+40, a distant dwarf star recently described in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal.
From its first try, a computer can now draw handwritten characters from an unfamiliar language just as well as humans can.
With only hours remaining on the COP21 negotiations, there’s a good chance the draft we got to see yesterday will be final – with some small tweaks perhaps. Opinions have been mixed, but mostly negative about this particular draft; sure, it’s important that we get a final draft on which all parties agree, but it’s […]
You know how the old saying goes, that "diamonds are forever," and giving your significant other a piece of diamond jewelry is considered to be a declaration of eternal love? Well, scientists working at the Borexino experiment in Italy may change the saying and send enamored young men scrambling for something that's really eternal to profess their love -- electrons.
There's a new player in the EV market -- one that might give Tesla a run for its money.
After hundreds of hours of negotiations and discourse, it seems that the parties involved are finally settled and can agree to a new draft for a binding climate agreement. But with one day left to go, is that enough – can we call it a success? The pact is a top-bottom approach; it’s an international agreement […]
Loyalty is a complex emotion, and paradoxical at times. For many loyalty is intrinsically link to identity, since our loyalty and allegiance to our nationality, families and friends or lack thereof defines us as persons. Psychologists have been studying the interplay of social injustice, righteous anger and group allegiance of many years (marketers especially love these kinds of studies). Loyal persons are seen by others as nicer and more trustworthy. But how early in life do we actually see group loyalty develop? As early as age four, a new research suggests.
The craziest thing you'll see all day -- predicting what you look like from DNA.
NASA just released an infrared composite image of Saturn's largest moon, constructed from images taken by the Cassini probe.
The future is now - researchers at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland have developed a camera that can see around corners and track movements in real time.
You know something is down when the most important climate change event in history is sponsored by fossil fuel companies.
A very ambitious initiative could make Africa the cleanest continent – Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) an African-led plan to add 10,000 MW of additional renewable energy on the continent by 2020, has received over $10 billion in funding from international sources at COP21. The mega-scale initiative wants to develop all sectors of African renewable energy by […]
Emissions flatlined in 2014 -- the first time in 15 years. There is still hope!
Researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment claim that plants aren't keeping up with CO2 levels.
The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) is probably celebrating right now, as their Akatsuki orbiter reached Venus on December 7. The first time JAXA tried to do this in 2010, they failed because the engine malfunctioned, and the shuttle didn’t enter the Venusian orbit. Aimlessly wandering into space without its main engines, the spacecraft appeared doomed […]
With only three days left from the Paris Climate Summit, the time for populist talks has passed, and we're expecting concrete solutions.
This map shows what gun ownership on a per capita basis looks like around the world, based on data compiled by the Guardian. As you can see from the color codes, the United States tops the list being home to 88.8 guns per 100 people! The only country that marginally comes close is Yemen with 54.8 guns per 100 people.
Despite it being studied for many decades, there are still many things we don’t understand about the Stonehenge. Scientists have now identified the original quarries where the bluestones were mined: 225 km away in Wales, and 500 years before the Stonehenge was built! This could indicate that perhaps a proto-version of the Neolithic monument could […]
The Internet is a wonderful and wonderfully powerful place. Just think about it, you have access to almost all of human knowledge with just a few key strokes. But having this much information at your disposal seems to actually make us rely less on what we already know.
Competition between tech giants is more fierce than ever, and Google is out for blood - literally.
There is a long-lasting debate dividing the cancer researchers community over the point at which a skin lesion is considered a melanoma. A University of California-San Francisco team led by Hunter Shain might have found the answers to settle the debate once and for all; they have found a way to tell whether a lesion is harmless or growing into a melanoma.
Researchers run a problem on a quantum machine and found it performed 100 million times faster than a conventional processor.
A ship missing for over 300 years has been rediscovered, according to Colombian authorities – a boat with an estimated $17 billion in loot. San José was a 60-gun, 3-masted galleon of the Spanish Navy. It was launched in 1698, and was sunk in the battle off the coast of Cartagena in 1708, during a […]
In what reads like the headline for a modern mystery novel, a researcher has found a hidden portrait under the Mona Lisa - or so he claims.
An unprecedented image created by UK and US researchers shows how a submerged human is “seen” by dolphins through echolocation. Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals, including dolphins. Basically, they emit sounds around them and then listen to the returning echo to locate and identify different […]
An undercover investigation exposed how fossil fuel companies pay off academics to publish research sowing doubt about climate change and promote corporate interests.
Talks are in full force in Paris at the COP21 climate change conference, but meanwhile in China, Beijing is going through one of its hardest smog events ever. The mayor of Beijing announced on Monday its first red alert for pollution, showing that Chinese smog is still a huge problem.
While the climate talks in Paris are carrying on in full force, it’s important to keep in mind that most of climate change isn’t actually affecting the ones causing it. The polar regions, the south Pacific and small islands are the ones suffering the most. The governments of Nunavut (Canada) and Greenland (Denmark) and the Inuit […]
“I don’t give a damn if we agree about climate change” – this is how a post on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Facebook page opened up yesterday, one day before his talk at the COP21 climate summit. Fighting for climate We don’t have the time to debate and convince everyone, as every day, as 19,000 people die from […]
A few words on how a well stocked library can drastically improve academic performance later in life for your children.
A team of Argentinian astronomers, peering up in the night's sky from the Astronomical Observatory of Córdoba has found a new, young lithium-rich giant star that they designated KIC 9821622. And they can't explain where that lithium comes from.
The full extent of Japan's 2011 Fukushima meltdown is still being uncovered, with measured levels of contamination increasing in previously identified sites throughout the North American coast. While it's still too low to threaten human or ocean life, this confirms that the power plant continues to leak radioactive isotopes researchers report.
Elon Musk - involved with cutting-edge tech companies like Tesla, SpaceX and Solar city - told youngsters gathered at an event at the University of Sorbonne, Paris that carbon pricing would accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to a renewable energy economy.
The climate talks in Paris have so far been surprisingly consistent and on track – right now, we’ve learned that the first draft for a global climate agreement is out! This unprecedented meeting has just yielded its first concrete results, and while there are still many brackets which mean that many things are still debatable, […]
Should dirty energy companies have a voice in climate talks? Can government figures, known to receive money from the oil and gas industry, be trusted to represent the best interests of the planet over those of the people that fund their campaigns? That was one of the key points that today's conference on great polluters debated on.
Today, at a press conference at COP21, a panel of scientists and chairmen from the IPCC said that they never suggested one or the other figures as a baseline for averting climate change. "The 2 degree goal is a political figure, not generated by scientific reports," the panel warned.
All of the current Republican presidential candidates make a point of denying what scientists and the common folk have come to agree upon in much of the world, and of preserving the status quo in the energy sector. Why are these public figures, with aspirations of world leaders, basing so much of their policy on a fossil fuel-centric agenda that will only come back to bite us? In a revelation that shouldn't shock anyone who's even remotely aware of the concept of money, it's because they're being paid off.
As China’s cities struggle with smog more and more, one man has started an interesting project to raise awareness: he wandered the streets of Beijing with a vacuum cleaner gathering smog and turned it into a brick. Meet “Nut Brother,” a 34-year-old artist and activist from Shenzhen. Of course, he understands vacuuming smog will do nothing to change […]
Some 2,440 new coal fired plants are expected to come online by 2030 in eight countries like India, China, Indonesia and the European Union. Combined with already existing plants, their emissions make averting 2 degrees of warming past industrial levels impossible, and the respective countries' national pledges aimed at curbing emissions - the so-called INDCs - now sound completely ridiculous.
Most people would love to a holographic display in their rooms, and seriously you might not have to wait too long for this to happen. Japanese researchers demonstrate how lasers can be used to manipulate holograms.
More than 500 institutions representing over $3.4 trillion chose to divest away from fossil fuels, $800 million of which only in the past 10 weeks.
While most of the world is trying to reach a climate agreement that would help preserve our planet’s climate for future generations, some of the US presidential candidates just don’t get it – or don’t want to get it. Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus (97% of climate scientists), despite obvious effects and forecasts, and despite […]
Warning alert: this will be extremely annoying for Republicans, Democrats, women, men, children… and pretty much anyone with common sense. While the whole world is trying to settle its differences and finally reach a climate agreement for the future of the planet, Donald Trump is being… Donald Trump. What is Obama thinking? A video posted […]
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, or so the old adage goes. But it's wrong.
Climate change and agriculture are so interrelated that you basically can't talk about addressing climate change without bringing agriculture into the mix. At COP21, the climate summit in Paris, governments, NGOs and private entities joined hands to announce several initiatives focusing on some of the most pressing issues in agriculture: soils in agriculture, the livestock sector, food losses and waste, and sustainable production methods and resilience of farmers.
President Obama voiced his concerns that any agreement made in Paris, COP21 will be ineffective if it lacks the force of treaties.
