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No, it's not Asimov's Three Laws but the Common Law that a robot designed for art infringed. Devised by !MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK, the Random Darknet Shopper is an automated online shopper that's programmed to randomly buy items on the Deep Web. With a limited budget worth $100 in Bitcoin for every purchase, the bot went on a spree where it bought a number of items ranging from Chinese blue jeans, Nike shoes or Moldavian cigarettes.
Princeton researchers demonstrated a novel type of microwave laser - called a maser - so small that's the size of a grain of rice. The laser is powered by individual electrons that tunnel through artificial atoms known as quantum dots.
The most important message mommies are missing is that pregnant women and their babies need vaccines to stay healthy, according to Saad Omer, a researcher the Royal Society for Public Health.
At the beginning of the year, ZME Science reported 2014 was the 18th straight year to have surpassed average 20th-century US temperatures and the warmest year yet, according to the Japanese meteorological agency. Now, both NOAA and NASA have confirmed 2014 to be the warmest on record, despite there was no El Niño event.
German researchers have designed shoe devices which harvest power as you walk. The technology could be used to power wearable electronic sensors without the need for batteries.
Curiosity is preparing for its second drill on Mars - its eyeing a rock which may have a salty story to tell. The rock may be a former lake bed, from which all the water has evaporated.
A recent study has shown that no matter the culture, circumcised boys have a significantly larger chance of developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). According to the Danish researchers who conducted the study, the risk is especially larger for infantile autism, before the age of 5.
In a groundbreaking analysis based on data extracted from hundreds of studies, scientists concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented and irreparable damage to the ocean environments. The patterns are clear, and extremely worrying, researchers say - but we still have time to act.
The statistics of children drinking milk at school may be skimmed by the fact that many kids actually only drink chocolate milk. A new study has found that when chocolate milk is removed from the menu, total milk consumption drops by 41%.
Astronomers hunting for habitable Earth-like planets now believe that the best place to look is not around stars like our Sun, but rather around smaller, cooler stars—orange and red dwarfs. These are by far the most abundant stars in our galaxy, and all of them have at least one exoplanet.
Republican voters, not to mention those in power, are notorious for their refutal of man-made climate change, yet according to a report issued by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication many of them have shifted and believe it to be real. As more and more republican voters become convinced of the reality of man-made global warming and its effects on the climate, it's only common sense that those elected will come to terms as well.
According to a report issued by the Solar Foundation, jobs in the solar industry were added at a rate 20 times that of the national average. In absolute numbers, 31,000 solar jobs were added in the U.S. between November 2013 and November 2014, bringing the total number of employees to 173,807, 87 percent more than five years ago. […]
Despite ebooks and their corresponding electronic reading devices have become extremely popular, surprisingly most young adults and children prefer reading in print than digitally. Moreover, this trend seems to be on the rise after a momentary preference for ebook readers.
Hearing loss can be devastating: you lose friends, become ever trapped inside your head and alienated from society. Yet, only one in five Americans choose to use a hearing aid. Some ignore their problem, others can’t afford treatment or installing a hearing aid, but really a lot of people choose not to wear a hearing […]
Forget potato clocks – this is the real deal. Plant-e, a start-up company in the Netherlands created promising new technology which harvest electricity from plants. So far this month, more than 300 LED lights were illuminated by the Dutch company, in a promising proof-of-concept. They also demonstrated that they could power up cell phones and Wi-Fis. […]
People tend to follow the norm – that’s pretty well documented, and well understood. However, a new study has found that not only do people tend to follow other people, but they also follow the lead of a computer – even when it is blatantly wrong. In modern society, real life interactions and discussions are […]
The World Health Organization reports a drop in the Ebola cases in the three Western African countries hit most by the disease. However, as farmers abandon their fields in the infected areas, a new problem seems to emerge: a food crisis. Liberia only reported 48 cases in the past three weeks, but Sierra Leone is still struggling, with […]
The threat of a possible ammonia leak in the US sector of the International Space Station (ISS) forced the American astronauts to abandon their research and relocate to the Russian quarters. The hatch was reopened hours later after no leak was detected, NASA reported. Mission control, NASA/ESA confirmed there was no ammonia leak, hoping to get astronauts […]
For decades, astronomers have believed that meteorites are the building blocks of our solar system - the lego blocks for planets. But a new study from scientists at MIT and Purdue University suggests that this may not be the case after all - and we've given meteorites too much credit.
Most kids believe that human and animal characteristics are innate - that is, looks, personality and language are intrinsic, inherited, and not something which can change over time. However, learning a second language can help them learn that some characteristics are acquired than inherited, enabling them to see the world in a different way.
Researchers at Stanford University coated flexible textile fibers with metallic nanowires to form a cohesive network that acts as a fantastic thermal insulator. The flexible material, made of silver nanowires and carbon nanotubes, is knitted together so closely that the space between individual strands is smaller than the wavelength of infrared radiation. As such, the radiation emitted by our bodies bounces between the skin and cloth.
The New Zealand tuatara (Sphenodon) is one of those unique animals that warrants revision for biology textbooks. The lizard-like reptile that is the only survivor of a group that was globally widespread at the time of the dinosaurs uses its highly specialised jaws to slice its food like a "steak knife". Typically, chewing is associated with high metabolism in animals, but in this instance this is far from being the case.
A far from definite, yet highly interesting explanation for the origin of language was recently proposed – not by linguists or geneticists, but by a psychologists who took an archaeological route. Thomas Morgan, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley presents us with a chicken or the egg dilemma: was tool use proliferated by language […]
Three public parks will cover an Autobahn (highway) that passes through the city of Hamburg, in Germany. The 8,000-mile road network runs through Hamburg’s city center, dividing the city into an eastern and western half and creating a lot of disturbing noise. The problem will be solve through the addition of the green spaces. The highway […]
A new study has shown that women who experience racial discrimination while pregnant suffer significant health impacts - and they pass them on to their children.
China’s has reached a new milestone in its space program – its latest spacecraft service module has entered orbit around the moon, after being successfully tested on Earth a few months ago. Chinese media reports that the service module of a test lunar orbiter has successfully began orbiting the Moon. The goal of this mission is to […]
Having a smart strategy doesn't require a brain, a new study has shown. Researchers found an insect-eating plant from Borneo which can outsmart ants and temporarily turn off its trap to attract more prey.
The people in charge of funding for NASA and environmental research, Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Inhofe, have a record of not understanding science and making pseudoscientific affirmations. While I won't discuss the politics here (we never do), the fact that such important matters fall onto the shoulders of people known to be pretty much adversaries of science cannot be left unchecked.
For the first time, scientists have created a human muscle in a lab which can contract responds to external stimuli just like a real muscle. The engineered muscle responds to electrical pulses, biochemical signals and pharmaceuticals. The development will allow researchers to test the effect of drugs on human muscles without needing human subjects and in time, may lead to the creation of artificial muscles.
America's young scientists are constantly losing the battle to receive more funding. They're losing research dollars, leaving research altogether and creating a brain drain which puts a big question mark regarding the future of science.
While this study may seem hilariously obvious at first, it was actually necessary. When Mormon religion meets homosexuality, the results are often so mind blowing and saddening that you just need studies like this to explain how things really are. In a society which believes that homosexuality is something treatable just like alcoholism, you need a study to tell people that if a gay man marries a woman, divorce is very likely.
Children nutrition in schools in the US has a big problem - not only are the kids not eating enough fruits and vegetables (which leads to health issues later on in life), but a study has shown that kids waste millions of dollars every day by throwing away the fruits and veggies. Now, a new study has found that a no-cost trick could greatly improve that: just have recess before lunch - not after.
People spend more of their time asleep as babies than at any other point in their lives, but even if this has been common knowledge for some time we're only beginning to understand what role sleep plays during this key stage. University of Sheffield researchers claim that sleeping is key to leaning and forming new memories for infants as old as 12 months. Babies who didn't nap were far less able to repeat what they had been taught only 24 hours earlier.
Swiss scientists demonstrated a flexible ribbon-like implant that attaches itself to a paralyzed rat's spinal cord, allowing the animal to walk again. The prosthetic, described by foremost experts in the field as 'remarkable', works by delivering timed electrical impulses and drugs along the spinal cord. In this particular case, rats aren't that different from humans, and true enough clinical trials are now one step closer. In the future, paralysis might just be another word for "walking funny."
A novel type of nanowire crystals was demonstrated by researchers at the University of Copenhagen that can fuse together both semiconductor and metallic materials with atomic precision at their interface. This way, nanowires and their electrical contacts have been fused in one hybrid material which might lay the foundation for the next generation of semiconductor electronics. […]
Based on fossil evidence and genome analysis, scientists know that the two groups diverged from a common ancestor around 420 million years ago, but we've yet to find actual fossil of it. Things are shaping up though after paleontologists have identified an Early Devonian fish from Siberia, approximately 415 million years old, which bears features of both classes.
Apart from sand castles and elaborate water pranks, many beach goers enjoy drawing in the sand, be it simple doodles, love statements or football pitch size intricate works of arts (you have to check out Tony Plant's work). To put human beach drawing to shame, Disney just unveiled a mechanical rake wielding robot, designed to look like a cute turtle, that can automatically draw any planar shapes with ease.
Researchers have found that just by analyzing your Facebook Likes, a computer can judge your personality better than even your close friends. They went even further than that, and calculated how many Likes the algorithm has to analyze to figure your personality traits.
When the flu hits, an unmistakable feeling of drowsiness sinks in. Washington State University Spokane scientists have now found a specific protein that is uniquely involved in sleep responses triggered by the influenza virus in mice. They found that the protein boosts the healing power of sleep and helps recovery. The researchers speculate that it might be possible to develop treatments based on it that might speed up recovery even more.
Buttereflies are pretty awesome insects - the pupal transformation into a butterfly through metamorphosis is one of the most spectacular processes in the biological world. For one month, until February 16, Drexler University will exhibit a spectacular sample: a butterfly suffering from bilateral gynandromorphism - in other words, a butterfly that is half male, half female.
A new study may have finally found where Earth’s water came from. There are currently two competing theories, with one claiming that our planet generated its own water geologically, while the other suggests that water was brought by icy comets or asteroids from outside. A new study concluded that most of the water we see […]
Keeping insects at bay is more than eliminating a simple nuisance - in many some parts of the world, it's vital. Malaria, an infectious mosquito-borne disease kilss over 500,000 people every year, and the disease could be kept under control if the mosquito population was kept under control; this is where this study steps in.
If the leaf really works as the hype would have us believe, then it's really a fantastic display of ingenuity.
The administration of New York City mayor Bill De Blasio announced today that styrofoam will be banned in the city starting in July this year, in an attempt to "green up" the city.
A female orangutan born in the wild has learned to use her tongue to whistle and produce vowel sounds just like a human - suggesting that all giant apes are able to do so. Although orangutans are known to create diverse vocalisations, what Tilda can do is unique.
Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, Japan claims he has proven the ABC conjecture, one of the longest standing mysteries of mathematics. However, even though his 500-page paper was published in 2012, no one has managed to understand it. Mochizuki says his fellow mathematicians are failing to get to grips with his work.
In 1833, biologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger showed that animals with warm blood that live closer to the equator tend to be darker. The finding took surprised biologists at the time and now, a new study has shown that this applies for flowers too.
Hydraulic fracking is responsible for a swarm of earthquakes, one of which was felt by Ohio residents in March 2014, a study has found. While the earthquake hag a magnitude of only 3.0 degrees, it is believed that it may have activated a geological fault and may ultimately lead to more significant temblors.
A new study has shown that people with optimistic views of life tend to have much healthier hearts and have much lower risks of cardiovascular disease.
A giant reptile which looked somewhat like a dolphin but had the behavior of a dinosaur was discovered around what is now the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. The predator, an Ichtyosaur lived 170 million years ago and its diet probably consisted of fish and invertebrates, but it may have also eaten sharks and even dinosaurs.
