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Some people waste hours each day driving their car, time they could have otherwise spent better. You'll still be trapped on the road in a self-driven car, but the added benefit is that you'll be free to do other stuff - anything but stare into your windshield non-stop. According to a study made by McKinsey & Company, self-driving cars could generate billions of dollars a year in revenue from mobile internet services and products, even in situations where occupants only save a couple of minutes. Of course, we had it coming. What did you thought people would do with their spare driving time? Surf the internet, of course.
It amazes me when I hear people say they're against wind turbines because ... wait for it... they're ugly. If you think the same, please get a look at this. Others hate them because they have this misguided impression they're noisy. Well, modern turbines at least are quieter than a heartbeat. If you really want to make a case against wind turbines, you could argue they're bad for wildlife and you'd be right. Birds, bats and other winged creatures are sometimes attracted by the turbines or get slashed when these are in the way of their migration patterns. This is why I believe turbines should be built only in those areas where there is minimal interference with wildlife. They'll always be downsides to any technology or infrastructure development, but when you draw the line we must be objective whether or not the benefits tip the scales. There's also another added benefit to turbines you likely never heard about: they help crops grow faster and better when they're placed on farmland.
Parasitic hookworms infect half a billion people worldwide, causing severe health problems like gastrointestinal issues, cognitive impairment and stunted growth in children. As if the challenges weren't big enough, the parasites are growing resistant to current drugs. Scientists are trying to tackle this by developing new treatments and vaccines based on the worm's genome. A team of Caltech sequenced the genome of a hookworm species known as Ancylostoma ceylanicum and found the genes that code key proteins involved in infecting hosts. They hope blocking these proteins from being made might save millions from great sorrow and suffering.
Since 2000, the number of deaths from heroin overdose have quadrupled. At the same time, the profile of the average overdosed fatality has shifted from older back men to younger white males, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
It's increasingly hard to eat less sugar, as market shelves are filled with sugary products. In the past ten years alone, global sugar intake has risen by ten percent. In what's not the first and surely not the last appeal of the sort, the Wold Health Organization reports adults and children from the Americas to Western Europe and the Middle East must halve their daily sugar intake to reach acceptable levels. Otherwise the risk of obesity and tooth decay, to name a few, will skyrocket. In terms of daily energy intake, the new guidelines means that people should keep sugar at a maximum of 10% of equivalent energy.
You never know what’s hidden in food these days… but you also never know what’s hidden under supermarkets. Organized rows of over 200 skeletons have been found in a communal grave under a Monoprix supermarket in central Paris. The site is thought to be a hospital cemetery dating back to the 1100s. When building constructors encounter […]
It’s not every day that species get such awesome names – but then again, it’s not every day that such awesome spiders are discovered. Two gorgeous new species of spider have been discovered in Australia (where else?), and the researchers who made the discovery decided to give them these memorable names. The species are a part […]
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Google reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature that they are one step closer to developing a true quantum computer - they have developed a quantum device the art of checking and correcting its own errors.
Using both modern and historic measurements, researchers now have a more extensive view of how the Arctic sea ice has changed in the past few decades, finding that the ice is melting much faster than previously expected. The ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.7 feet (3.59 meters) to 4.1 feet (1.25 m).
How the tables have turned! While documenting the experiments conducted on campus, Benjamin Savard, a digital media producer at Middlebury College, wanted to take some underwater pictures of an octopus. But the octopus had other plans. It grabbed the camera and turned it on Savard, who posted the photos and GIF of the entire sequence on Reddit. “I […]
An expedition in the Honduras has emerged from the jungle with a spectacular announcement: they have discovered the remains of a lost city belonging to an unknown, mysterious culture. The team was investigating a lead regarding the site of a storied “White City,” also referred to in legend as the “City of the Monkey God.” La […]
A broken jaw unearthed in Ethiopia pushes back the origin of the homo linage – of which homo sapiens sapiens are the only surviving members – by 400,000 years. The finding might prove important in explaining how our ancestors diverged from more apelike relatives, like Australopithecus, to big brained beings, filling a blank spot two […]
Science journal today seem to be dominated by positive results - that is those that are statistically significant and lead to a dramatic finding. The devil's in the details they say, and the same hold true for the advances of science. While it's true that groundbreaking research is what leads to leaps, these jumps are often ambiguous. Hundreds of other papers - some which control tidbits, other that replicate past findings - are paramount to filling in the blanks.
A crowd gathered for the New America Foundation’s first annual Future of War conference was told by DARPA's director that a woman was able to control F-35 flight simulator without touching the joystick. The woman controlled the simulation only with her thoughts, which were relayed and processed to the simulator by a neural implant embedded in her left cortex.
One of the world's most iconic and well known monuments - the Eiffel Tower - just got even better: the French authorities have installed two vertical axis wind turbines to power, at least partially, the tower's electrical requirements.
The UK boasts 650,000 solar installations across homes, offices, schools, churches, warehouses, farms, police stations, train stations and even a bridge. It's been one of the fastest growing solar markets in Europe. At the end of 2013, there were 2.8GW of solar power arrays installed, but by the end of 2014 this figure climbed to 5GW or nearly double in only 12 months. However, drastic and discriminatory changes in renewable subsidies to come in effect in May of this year are expected to collapse solar development to 1% of its current level.
Sick, got the flu? Well, maybe what you think is the flu really isn't the flu... a new study has found that while children catch a flu once every two years on average, the rate goes down significantly in adults - the average adult only gets it once every 5 years.
When she was pregnant, former Chinese news anchor Chai Jing got some tragic news - her unborn daughter was diagnosed with a tumour. She immediately quit her job, and soon started working on a documentary focusing on China's pollution problem (especially smog). Now, her self-financed documentary, for which she paid $200,000 took the country by storm, with 75 million hits on the day it was released on Chinese video streaming sites and over 250 million views now.
An ancient tomb possibly belonging to Amenhotep, the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Photographs distributed by the ministry show a tomb with bright green and brown paintings with hieroglyphics and is one of the most spectacular findings in recent years. “The tomb contains many stunning scenes with bright colours painted on plaster,” Antiquities Minister […]
A new study suggests that two very common emulsifiers - chemicals that stabilize foods and stop products like mayo from separating - could increase the risk of obesity and irritable bowel syndrome.
Scientists undertook the gargantuan task of analyzing the compound chemicals found in the venom of 206 spiders, and they discovered what may lead to a new generation of painkillers, improving the lives of over 1 billion people.
If you'd happen to see these two British twins, you'd likely believe they're good friends - or cousins at most. But Lucy and Maria are actually twins - despite the obvious differences.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is expected to remain stationary for at least a couple of days after a shortcircuit has rendered its arm useless for the time being. The engineering problem occurred on February 27 as the rover was preparing to start drilling in the Martian soil.
Many people today are consuming more salt than they actually need - while this may make foods more tasty, it also increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. But a new study found that dietary salt could actually have a dietary advantage, defending the body against invading microbes.
You may look more like your mom or more like your dad, but technically, you inherit equal amounts of genetic information from both; however, a new study has shown that you (and all mammals for that matter) are genetically more like their dads. If that sounds a bit confusing... well, it is. Specifically, although we inherit equal amounts of genetic mutations from both our parents, the mutations that make us who we are and not some other person actually 'use' more of the DNA that we inherit from our dads.
India is among the most polluted country in the world, a direct consequence of its growth-orientated policy. Despite economic growth, the health of Indians is suffering significantly. According to researchers at University of Chicago, Harvard and Yale, pollution is directly responsible for shortening the lives of 660 million Indians who live in sensitive areas by three years on […]
NASA's Towed Glider Air-Launch System will launch small payloads, like mini-satellites, into space more efficiently and at a fraction it currently costs, according to officials. In a spree of ingenuity, researchers have devised a launch system comprised of a double piggyback of sorts. First, a drone will fly off the ground and into the upper atmosphere, carrying a glider. The glider in turn carries a rocket, which ultimately carries the payload meant for Earth's orbit. Once the drone reaches 40,000 feet, it decouples the glider which immediately turns on its on-board booster. Once, again, high enough, the glider will decouple the rocket which fires for the final climb into space.
Many people change a lot after their youth... and so to did our Universe. Nowadays, galaxies contain both dust and gas, but back in the early Big-Bang days, the earliest galaxies had no dust, only gas. Now, a team of astronomers has discovered a very young galaxy with lots of dust - the equivalent of a white-bearded young man.
The link between climate change and violent conflict has been thrown about often, but a recent study is the first to support this hypothesis with qualitative evidence. US researchers found that widespread droughts and increased temperatures amplified an already heightened state of unrest in Syria, which may have triggered the civil war still raging on today.
We see light every day, and yet, we don't truly understand it; it's either a particle or a wave, or both at the same time... and we don't really know why. Now, for the first time, researchers have captured an image of light behaving as a particle and a wave at the same time.
A week ago, we were telling you about Wei-Hock Soon, an aerospace engineer turned climate scientist; mister Soon, known as "Willie", is one of the most well known and quoted climate change deniers - he's also one of the only climate change deniers. This week...
There's something so eerily exciting about spacewalks... the idea of walking into outer space with only a cable connection you to a ship rotating at 7 km/s some 400 km above the Earth is just... out of this world - literally! Now, two astronauts have completed ISS upgrades is what can only be described as a picture perfect spacewalk. This entire spacewalk took one hour less than planned for.
It's not just women who are concerned with their bodies and eating disorders, it's men too. This might seem obvious, but a study found that despite eating disorders are very common among men, these receive little attention or are treated less seriously than women.
In any given month, the vast majority of physicians treating children in the US (93%) receive at least one request to delay child vaccination; many of them (37%) often or always honor the request, despite putting the kids at a needless risk for disease and favoring potential outbreaks of diseases such as measles.
US researchers have imaged for the first time ultra-small bacteria, whose existence has been debatable for the past couple of decades. Now, these tiny bacteria have been confirmed after samples coming from groundwater were analyzed with state of the art techniques. Very little is know about these enigmatic creatures, but it's believed they play an important role in microbial ecosystems, despite their tiny cells harbor limited resources. The cells have an average volume of 0.009 cubic microns (one micron is one millionth of a meter). About 150 of these bacteria could fit inside an Escherichia coli cell and more than 150,000 cells could fit onto the tip of a human hair.
According to a new study, ancient hunter-gatherer Britons imported wheat from mainland Europe, showing a surprising level of sophistication for such an old population.
Who doesn't love dinosaurs? Well sure, there's these guys, but rational people love dinosaurs, right? Well, Nathan Myhrvold, an inventor and Microsoft's former CEO sure does, and he believes that dinosaurs might actually help us fight malnutrition. Here's how:
They like freezing conditions, but the Emperor penguins struggled during the last Ice Age, a new study concluded. In fact, if they hadn't been able to change their breeding habits and even their genetic make-up, they might have not survived.
We all know how therapeutic and soothing (or on the contrary, motivating) music can be; and we all know that different people like different types of music... so it seems safe to say that different animals also like different types of music. Now, a joint team of scientists and musicians believe they found how to compose the purr-fect music for animals, including monkeys and cats.
The world's first grid-connected wave power station has just been activated off the coast of Australia. Taking energy directly from the waves and sending them to the grid is a remarkable achievement which will hopefully be replicated in Australia, as well as in other parts of the world.
If you've ever wondered what happens inside an egg, then science has you covered - researchers have developed transparent artificial eggshells; but they didn't do this just out of curiosity - they want to create a controlled environment for bird embryo growth and development to aid stem cell studies.
Scientists at the University of Sydney in Australia have achieved 5G speeds of 1Tbps, far exceeding existing the speeds of existing technologies. At 1 Terrabyte per second, you could download 10 movies per second.
This gentle and secluded creature is called a pangolin. Bet you've never heard of him. It looks sort of like a walking pinecone, a dragon or a dinosaur. It's tongue is as long as its body and can curl, then roll in a scaly ball. It's a pretty amazing animal and it's a shame so few people know of its existence. But more worrisome is that the pangolin might cease to existence entirely, with or without we knowing about it. Many believe it's the most trafficked animal in the world.
Memories aren't infallible - even for those with photographic memory - so, more often than not, they'll seem fuzzy. And the older these get, the fuzzier they're recalled. Mixing names, faces and events in your head can sometimes be embarrassing, but at least we're not alone. Seems like bees have false memories too, according to a study made by British researchers at Queen Mary University of London. Previously, false memories had been induced in other animals, like mice, but this is the first time natural false memories have been shown to happen. Research like this might help us, in time, understand how false memories are formed and, in a more general sense, how we recall events.
One of the prime arguments climate change skeptics throw about is how surface temperatures have remained more or less constant for the past 15 years, hence there is no man-made global warming – it’s all a sham, a conspiracy to keep scientists busy with gratuitous grants and fill Al Gore’s pockets. I’ve written previously about […]
Like most things in our modern day life style, we tend to take vaccines for granted. Some, in ever growing numbers, are on the contrary pushing and inciting against vaccination for all the wrong reasons. It’s easy to forget, however, that since their introduction hundreds of millions of lives have been spared. Vaccines given to […]
A complex artificial intelligence program developed by DeepMind, a London-based company which was acquired by Google last year for $400 million, mastered classic ATARI video games, like Breakout, Video Pinball, and Space Invaders. It was so effective that it outperformed professional game testers in 29 of the 49 games it tried out. As is the case with such demonstrations, there's more to it than just humiliating humans. The same algorithms could be used to develop and improve autonomous robots or self-driving cars.
Paleontologists have excavated and analyzed the remains of an ancient hypo ancestor in Kenya. The 28 million-year-old fossils paint a broader picture revealing the missing link between modern day hippos and the earliest ancestor who lived some 53 million years ago. As an interesting tidbit, the closest living relatives of the hippo are whales and […]
Building vertical farms is innovative and can have significant advantages, done properly; but building a vertical farm in the middle of a city... that's just awesome! In downtown Jackson, Wyoming, developers are working on a vertical veggie farm which just might revolutionize urban food growing.
A while ago I wrote that the applications for graphene are endless, and it seems like scientists just want to make prove me right - University of Manchester scientists have used graphene to target and neutralise cancer stem cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
