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Nine years and three billion miles later, NASA’s New Horizon probe awoke once it neared a strip close to Pluto. The probe was kept in hibernation for more than two thirds of its trek and will is soon expected to finally explore the dwarf planet and, most importantly, the world that surrounds it – the Kuiper belt. […]
Australian solar researchers have converted over 40 percent of solar light’s energy into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported by any team for this kind of system. The key for the design is a custom filter which captures sunlight that is normally wasted by commercial solar cells on tower. “This is the highest efficiency ever reported […]
Malaria is one of the most common and dangerous diseases in the world, with the World Health Organization estimating over 200 million cases every year. There are several ways to try to treat malaria, but the results are debatable and often times not as effective as desired. Now, a team has demonstrated a new compound […]
It’s one of England’s better kept secrets – Old Sarum is a hidden gem among gems, one of the most spectacular ancient sites in Europe and in the world. Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury in England. The site contains evidence of human habitation as early as 3000 BC, but only […]
Just one week of camping in the wild (or in any area without man-made light) can reset your body clock and return your natural sleep patterns, a new study has found. If you’re a night owl, if you’re having problems sleeping and just can’t set up a good sleep pattern – science has your problems […]
Using a pulse of infrared light, physicists at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter have turned an insulating material into a superconductor even at room temperature, a property that was retained for only a few millionths of a microsecond. Superconductivity is a state where a material can conduct electricity with […]
More than 80 people were hospitalized after inhaling noxious fumes after a pipeline failure caused some 600,000 gallons of oil to spill into a nature reserve in the desert near Eilat, a southern Israel city. The city with a population of about 50,000 people was not directly affected, however local fauna and flora was severely damaged, according […]
We already wrote about driverless cars hitting the streets several times (California, University of Michigan) but until now, the talk was all America. Now, cars without drivers will also hit the street in the UK, in 4 selected cities: Greenwich (south-east London), Bristol, Coventry and Milton Keynes. There will be a total of three projects, […]
The Electric Eel, a scaleless fish from the Amazon possesses an electroshock system very similar to a Taser. Not only can it stun its prey with the shock, but it can also make it twitch involuntarily, revealing its position. The electric eel is able to generate powerful electric shocks of up to 650 volts, which it uses […]
Pulsars and black holes, two of the most enigmatic celestial bodies in the Universe may actually hold the key to understanding how Einstein’s theory of relativity and gravity interact. A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. Pulsars are from when a star that turns becomes a supernova and then […]
According to a new study published by researchers working with the American Geophysical Union, the drought that California is experiencing now is the worst one in over 1,200 years. They show that the current California drought is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and also record high temperatures. With the effects of global warming being […]
High speed photography is no longer a new thing… but then again, it depends what you mean by high speed photography; you likely don’t mean one hundred billion frames per second (100,000,000,000 fps) – but that’s exactly what Liang Gao, Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University means. He and his team have developed the world’s fastest […]
Archaeologists have identified the oldest engraving known to mankind – a 500,000 shell scratched by a human ancestor. In 2007, Stephen Munro was a graduate student in archaeology; while he was studying some shells from Java, Indonesia, he had the shock of his life: he found that one shell had a pattern of zig-zag lines […]
A breakthrough in optical communications has been reported by Stanford engineers who used a complex algorithm to design a prism-like device that splits light into different colours (frequencies) and at right angles. This is the absolute first step towards building a circuit, and ultimately a computer, that uses light instead of wires to relay signals. This […]
A series of setbacks, including a strayed boat, gusts of wind and other technical issues, have ruined NASA’s plans of launching its much anticipated Orion capsule into space today. Just before the launch window closed, officials announced that the launch would be scrubbed until a later time. The next attempt might be on Friday, 7:05am ET. […]
The elevator was invented over 150 years ago, and now, we’re entering a new era in vertical transportation: the first ropeless elevator has been developed. The Germany company ThyssenKrupp developed this technology, and it looks straight out taken from a Willy Wonka movie! But this technology is not about being cool, it’s about being effective. MULTI elevator […]
Butcher shops are very traditional – they’ve been around for ages, and they’re probably the best place to get quality, cheap meat. But meat consumption is also cruel and not environmentally friendly, and I’m very happy to see more and more vegetarian establishments across the world. Such is the case with this Vegan Butcher shop […]
People who chronically abuse marijuana may be able to quit by replenishing the supply of a molecule that normally activates cannabinoid receptors in the brain, thus reducing anxiety and relieving mood. A truly natural high In the 1980s and 90s, researchers identified cannabinoid receptors, long, ropy proteins that weave themselves into the surfaces of our […]
After studying 118 newlywed couples for up to four years and regularly surveying the women, researchers Florida State University found that choosing a partner while on the pill might affect a woman’s marital satisfaction. After discontinuing hormonal contraceptives, women reported a drop in marital satisfaction. There’s a trick to it, though. Apparently, the drop in […]
It just seems like Ukraine can’t catch a break – Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday an accident had occurred at the Zaporizhye nuclear power plant (NPP) in south-east Ukraine. What exactly is meant by “accident” is not clear; we don’t know the scale of the damage and how the situation is likely […]
A team of UK researchers led by none other but Nobel Laureate Andre Geim – one of persons involved in graphene’s discovery in 2004 – has shown that the wondrous two dimensional material graphene can used as a proton exchange membrane in fuel cells. The find took everybody by surprise since no one expected graphene could […]
The Mediterranean diet has long been known to provide a myriad of health benefits, reducing the risk of heart disease and cancer among others; but until now, no study has shown that it also protects telomeres, one of the biomarkers of aging. As the name gives it away, the Mediterranean diet follows the nutritional patterns of […]
The University of Texas at Austin is missing about 100 brains, about one half of the entire collection from the University… and no one seems to know what happened to the brains. University staff are scratching their heads trying to figure out what happened to the brains; it may be an act of vandalism or […]
Ants often get a lot of bad rep for being “pests” in the city, but a new study has shown that ant populations are actually very helpful in urban environments. Scientists researching the behavior of ants have found that they dispose of garbage with remarkable efficiency, keeping rats and other garbage-dependent pests at bay. “Urban green […]
Many thousands of miles above our planet’s surface, electrons whiz through close to the speed of light. These electrons can streak past Earth in under five minutes, but can also become dangerous and have been known to destroy satellites and even injure astronauts in extreme cases. Most of the time, however, our gear and astronauts can rest […]
You often hear people complaining that kids don’t play outside anymore – instead just hanging in the house all day long, playing on the computer (tablet/xbox/whatever). This is a pretty big problem, because there is a myriad of advantages to playing outside; this study has added yet another advantage to that list: playing outside reduces […]
The remains of King Richard III have been confirmed with pin-point accuracy by the latest round of sequencing; exclusive details on how the late tyrant king might have looked like are also now available. A few years back, a most surprising find was made under a car park in Leicester: none other than King Richard […]
It’s very small and incredibly old – scientists have found the egg of a 240 million year old parasite – a pinworm, to be more precise. It’s the oldest pinworm ever found, and one of the oldest evidences of parasitism ever found. The pinworm, also known as threadworm, is a parasitic intestinal worm, pretty common […]
The past couple of months have been really tense for the people who are often times labeled as coming from ‘uncontacted’ tribes. The truth of is most of these tribes are often times intruded upon by neighboring communities and, worse and most dangerous of all, illegal loggers and drug traffickers. As such, tribesmen have come out […]
Yoga, coffee and even chocolate can do wonders for your mood – it’s already a known fact. But what if technology stepped in – would you take a few electrical shots to substitute your urge for caffeine? If the answer is yes, or if you want to have more control on your mood, then good […]
Have you ever wondered why you crave for a drink from time to time or why you can drink alcohol in the first place, for that matter? Our ability to ingest and metabolize ethanol can be traced back to a common primate ancestor who lived some 10 million years ago, according to US researchers who […]
Charle’s Darwin’s original notes during which he first scribbled down the ideas which led to evolution have been digitized and published online by Cambridge University. Over 12,000 high-res images have been published online – including the ones with the pages where he actually coins the term ‘natural selection’. “One may say there is a force […]
Nature, one of the biggest academic journal groups has announced that they will make all their articles free to view. While the articles will be available for anyone to read, they cannot be copied, printed or downloaded, the journal’s publisher Macmillan announced on 2 December. “Subscribers to 49 journals on nature.com will be able to share a […]
Oh, boy. This week’s freaky science story comes from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York where researchers grafted mouse pups with human glial cells. Within one year, half the brain cells of the by now adult mice were human. A study made last year by the same team suggests that mice whose […]
An Israeli company has developed a battery that can charge a smartphone in just 30 seconds; to make things even more interesting, the technology could be scaled and power up electric cars in a matter of minutes. Demonstrated at the 2014 Microsoft Think Next Conference in Tel Aviv earlier this year, StoreDot‘s prototype battery fully charged […]
There is currently no Lyme borreliosis vaccine available for humans available for purchase, but a new research has shown how such a vaccine could be made. Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis) is an infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. Each year, approximately 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are […]
Music is almost ubiquitous in our lives – we hear it in commercials, in the car, on the radio, at the movies, when you go out, when you stay in… we’re quite a musical society nowadays. But we still don’t understand many things about how music affects our bodies and our brains; now, a new […]
Geologists are close to cracking the mystery of one of the biggest earthquakes in American modern history – the 1872 North Cascades event. Now, over one century later, they believe they have finally found the origin of the earthquake. An ancient mysterey Current research points to a newly discovered fault near the town of Entiat in Chelan […]
Solar cell technology has improved dramatically over the past couple of year, yet it will be a long time before multi-junction cells – then kind that can reach efficiency well over 40% – will become affordable to small home owners or even large scale installation. New methods are always explored, however, each with its own angle […]
Dr Nick Longrich from Bath University was studying bones from two horned dinosaurs from the ceratopsian family (related to Triceratops), when he discovered that the two were actually previously unknown species. The findings highlight that dinosaurs in area were more diverse than previously thought, and they also show that sometimes, museum archives can yield surprising information. “We […]
It might not come as a surprise to hear that the world’s strongest material, graphene, was found to be a great impact absorber as well. After all, there always seems to be a study that adds to the growing list of graphene’s useful properties, be its lightness, flexibility, or electrical conductivity. It’s been labeled as […]
Genetic diversity is essential to our survival, but its exactly the huge variance in genetic information that makes all so sought for personalised treatment so difficult. And you don’t need to look at an entire population or even two different people to experience the power of diversity. It’s enough to look inside your own, personal […]
Look at this incredibly big rock. Take a moment, ponder its dimensions, and its weight. Oh, but if you’re looking at the one in the middle, that’s not it – look over to the right. The one to the right, not fully excavated yet, is the biggest ancient stone block, weighing an impressive 1,650 tons (that’s 3,300,000 […]
Being a teen can be difficult at times – but being a parent of a teen can be even more difficult. Sometimes, it’s like kids just close inside themselves and nothing from the outside can reach them. Well, according to a new study from Harvard, Pittsburgh and California Berkeley – that may actually be the […]
If you thought the bubonic plague is a thing of the past… then think again! The dreadful disease is making a resurgence in the island of Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa. There have already been 138 suspected cases of the disease, with a total of 47 victims. You may know the black plague as […]
For the first time, researchers in Germany have been able to create spinal cords in a Petri dish. To be more precise, they didn’t grow complete spinal cords, but neuroepithelial cysts, which are ellipsoid like and were about 60 μm in diameter. These cells express factors that are associated with spinal cord tissue and are in many […]
An experiment fortuitously called DARE (DNA atmospheric re-entry experiment) has come to a most unexpected conclusion: DNA can indeed survive full exposure to space flight and atmospheric re-entry. The findings were reported after DNA molecules placed onto the outer surface of a rocket were collected and analyzed upon its return. Moreover, even after bearing these extreme […]
Since ancient times, people living in hot climates learned if they paint their rooftops white, then their quarters would stay cooler during the scorching heat. In an attempt to curve energy consumed on air conditioning, which accounts for 15% of all electricity consumed in the US, scientists have devised a multi-layered surface that acts in […]
Today, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving – a special time of the year when families gather together and share what they’re most grateful for. And they eat turkey, of course. While they may be hundreds of miles above their families’ home, the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station upheld the tradition and had their own Thanksgiving meal, […]
US researchers demonstrated an implantable device that can deliver a drug payload when triggered by a remote wireless signal. After the payload is delivered, the whole system, including electronics, dissolve within weeks without harming the body in any way. Doctors would leave behind the resorbable packaging and electronics post surgery for infection management by either thermal treatment or […]
