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It’s glorious and depressing at the same time: NASA used its official Facebook account to shut down one user who was misrepresenting climate science: It’s climate change denial 101: you take some random fact, gobble it up without even thinking about it, add in some buzzwords to make it look more scientific and spit it […]
Religion should be promoting peace, not this...
Believe it or not, this is actually lava.
Every picture you're likely to see of it shows planets and moons too close together prevents you from getting a feel of the size of our solar system. A group of friends plans to change that, however.
One week from now, on April 22, officials representing 130 countries are expected at a high-level signing ceremony in New York. If enough countries sign, the landmark Paris agreement on climate change reached in December in Paris could enter into force two years earlier than expected. This enthusiasm and seemingly genuine spirit of cooperation can only be saluted. But we need action, not words. This is an urgent matter that can't suffer any delay.
Helicoprion is an extinct genus of shark-like, cartilaginous fish that lived from the early Permian (~290 m.y. ago) all through to the massive Permian-Triassic extinction episode (roughly 250 m.y. ago.)
That's not how the internet should work...
Heat engines, whether they're as big as a five-story building or as small as an atom, operate using the same thermodynamic processes. This was proven by Johannes Roßnagel at the University of Mainz in Germany who made a single calcium-40 atom behave like a Stirling engine. Nothing short of amazing!
A massive portion of the Greenland ice sheet has started to melt, taking researchers by surprise. The vast region is experiencing a freakishly early spring thaw, with 12% of Greenland’s ice melting on Monday, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. “We had to check that our models were still working properly,”6 Peter Langen, climate scientist at […]
No matter who you ask, they’ll tell you the same thing: butter isn’t good for you, just use vegetable oil. But while butter may not be the healthiest of foods, new research has found that replacing it with vegetable oils does not decrease risk of heart disease. The main culprit is linoleic acid – a polyunsaturated […]
Some 600 feet deep, at the bottom of the Loch Ness lake in Scotland, researchers have found the much famed monster... but it's not the monster you're thinking of. It's only a prop from the 1970 movie The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.
As far as innovations go, it stands in a class of its own by allowing us to virtually alter the real world around us. It carries an echo of the changes mass media and computers brought into our lives, but there hasn't been anything quite like it in our history. Among other things, VR could have a very powerful impact on our home life.
Using two sets of electrodes, scientists have successfully restored finger movement in a paralyzed patient for the first time in history. The results could be the starting point to developing methods that would allow people around the planet to regain limb mobility.
We tested Microsoft's CaptionBot and had some laughs.
The prettiest carbon allotropes of them all, diamonds have fascinated royalty, collectors and window shoppers since ancient times. Some gem-grade diamonds, no bigger than a thumb, sell for tens of million. Most, however, aren't worth much. But even the most prized diamonds aren't perfect, and it is these imperfections that might settle and age long debate among chemists and geologists: what's the source of gem-grade diamonds? A recent analysis suggests both gem diamonds and the largely impure fibrous diamonds stem from the same source.
Westerners are horror-struck by the prospect of an Ebola or Zika pandemic in their very own neighbourhood. Media panic aside, that's extremely unlikely thanks to modern medical science. Our close cousins, the Neanderthals, weren't so lucky tens of thousands of years ago when they first met us, humans. British researchers analyzed ancient bone DNA and sequenced pathogens and found some infectious diseases are far older than we thought. They argue that it's very likely that humans passed many diseases to Neandertals, the two species having interbred, like tapeworm, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers and types of herpes.
After an A.I. beat the human champion at Go, a game almost infinitely more complex than chess, some might feel like tossing the towel and let our robot overlords take their rightful place. Not so fast! We're still good for something. Pressed to find a solution for a complicated quantum physics problem that neither the researchers themselves nor an algorithm could properly solve, Danish physicists turned to the gaming community. They devised a game which mimicked the task at hand while also keeping it fun, and found some gamers came up with novel "outside the box" solutions which the algorithm couldn't even touch. Points for humanity!
Deep radio imaging from researchers working in South Africa have revealed that supermassive black holes in a region of the distant universe are all spinning out radio jets in the same direction. The results show, for the first time, an alignment of the jets of galaxies over a large volume of space. Astronomers believe this is due […]
A Russian billionaire wants to fund the first ever interstellar probe – and he wants to do it in the span of a generation. If this comes to fruition, it will be by far the most ambitious space endeavor ever attempted by mankind. Space is incredibly vast, we all know that, but sometimes it can […]
This huge destroyer is apparently too stealthy for its own good – at least at peace. The U.S. Navy’s new Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer (DDG 1000) is so hard to detect that its crew plans to sail with giant reflectors just to make sure other ships can see it. The USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) is the lead ship of the Zumwalt […]
Scientists have completed the most precise measurement of the Universe's rate of expansion to date; but the result just isn't compatible with speed calculations from remanent Big Bang radiation. Should the former results be confirmed by independent techniques, we might very well have to rewrite the laws of cosmology as we know them.
This is the first time a two-stage model has been proposed for how consciousness arises, and it offers a more complete picture than the purely continuous or discrete models. It also provides useful insight into the the way our brain processes time and relates it to our perception of the world.
What if you could read a book three times faster? That definitely sounds appealing, which si why speed-reading training and, most recently, apps are very popular. Research suggests, however, that for the most part speed-reading hurts comprehension. The best thing you can do to read faster, and still understand something, is to improve your language and vocabulary, scientists say.
It’s one of the most common confusions in the English language. In short, silicon is the chemical element Si, while silicone is a synthetic polymer. Although it appears like the words are synonyms and can be used interchangeably, they’re not and they designate completely different things. Let’s detail a bit on what each of them are, […]
A Silicon Valley billionaire who made a fortunate investing in Facebook wants to beat cancer once and for all.
On the desk of Seokheun "Sean" Choi sits a 3x3 array that at first glance looks like a lemon squeezer. It is, in fact, a solar panel but not like any you've seen or heard about before. Instead of using semiconductors like silicon crystals to convert sunlight into electricity, the array employs a complex system that nurtures cyanobacteria -- beings whose metabolism create free electrons which can be harnessed.
Don’t believe your eyes – nothing you see is real, and everything can be manipulated. Many people have a long-standing belief that images are easy to forge, while videos are authentic because they’re impossible to tamper with. Well… that’s not really true. Several companies are making millions by tweaking how actors look on film, and […]
There are six components that make or break an apology, a new study finds. Depending on many of these you include, your feelings of regret will either be accepted or get a cold shoulder.
The richest American men may live up to 15 years longer than the poorest ones, and the richest women 10 years more than their poorest counterparts, a new study found.
We don’t give it a lot of through, but things in space are generally round. Not the Red Rectangle though – this nebula is… well, rectangular. According to NASA, this is actually a binary star system. The stars at its center are similar to the Sun, but they are reaching the end of its lifetime […]
There's no "gene for" anything, and there is no "gold standard" or "scientific method" - you're using all those terms wrong.
It could be water, and not air pollution that’s China’s biggest problem. The Chinese government has published some extremely worrying statistics about the water quality in rural areas, showing that over 80% of it is not drinkable due to contamination from industry and farming. Considering the government’s tendency to underestimate pollution levels, it seems safe to […]
Designer/molecular biologist Eleanor Lutz is back with yet another awesome science feature: virus trading cards.
It took a while, but scientists have finally imaged the brains of people on LSD -- a psychedelic used recreationally by millions, but whose therapeutic potential is only recently beginning to be recognized. Judging from the scans, it seems like Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) "completes the brain". Essentially, the brain functions less like a compartmentalized entity and more like a whole, very much akin to how the brain of an infant works.
Fresh from the GE Global Research lab is this tiny monster: a turbine small enough you can hold in your hands, but powerful enough to provide energy to a whole town. It's secret lies in a couple of design features, but also the power agent. Instead of steam, the "minirotor" as it's been nicknamed is driven by supercritical carbon dioxide.
Most of the life we see around us -- plants, animals, humans and other so-called eukaryotes -- actually comprise a tiny minority of the planet's biodiversity. The rulers of this planet are actually bacteria and Archaea. A new research which includes genome sequencing data from over 1,000 new organisms has produced a refined tree of life that better matches reality. In this expanded tree of life two-thirds of all diversity on Earth is bacterial, while nearly a third is Archaea.
In Europe and the United States, an increasing number of employers have adopted a smoke-free policy and may not hire people who smoke. This is because of the negative perception of smoking. Stanford researchers wanted to quantify just how large the economic burden of tobacco use is on the labour market. Their analysis suggests that nonsmokers are twice as likely to get hired than smokers. Tobacco users also earn $5 less per hour on average than nonsmokers.
Antarctic researchers are in need of help - specifically, they need people to study photos of penguins to help them understand how the birds are dealing with climate change.
Acetaminophen, commonly sold as Tylenol or Paracetamol may affect our ability to solve errors, a new study has found. The impairment is minor, but noticeable.
The Environmental Defense Fund’s Oil and Gas program has released a new nation-wide report of the most common sites of methane leaks at oil and gas pads. Surprisingly, most of the leaks were traced back to faulty piping, vents or doors on gas tanks in newer, not older, wells.
Astrophysicists have discovered a new class of exoplanets whose atmospheres and volatile elements have been blown away by the star they're orbiting. Their findings help cover a previously uncharted gap in planetary populations, and offers valuable insight for locating new worlds to colonize.
One new research on rats suggests that the magic brew could be very potent against anxiety if ingested over a prolonged time.
For archiving purposes, at least, DNA -- the blueprint or genetic recipe that codes all life -- might be worth considering. One team, for instance, coded digital images into synthetic DNA using a novel method, then decoded and read this data.
The great physicist who invented Calculus in his 20s and gave the world the universal law of gravity transcribed countless pages from a famous alchemy manuscript which describes how to manufacture a key element for the Philosopher's Stone.
For the first time in over one hundred years worldwide tiger numbers have increased, but there are still only 3,900 specimens in the wild.
The best public speakers have mastered these key factors.
A team of NASA researchers has developed the first ever method for identifying and studying underground forest fungi from outer space, providing information that will help us better understand how forests will develop. Mycorrhizal fungi (underground fungus) are more similar to a city network than to individual organisms. They are complex intertwined networks that can […]
They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and unfortunately, that seems to be the case for HIV viruses.
A new solar cell prototype developed by Chinese researchers may change the way we use solar panels.
Curiosity is probably the single most powerful force behind our species' scientific discoveries. It can drive us to explore and discover even if the outcome might be painful or harmful. But this need to discover and learn can also become a curse; a new study found that people are willing to face unpleasant outcomes with no apparent benefits just to sate their curiosity.
