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Whether it’s Meatless Monday, Weekday Vegetarianism or simply cutting down meat consumption – people from developed countries are eating less meat, and it’s already making a difference. Even though some argue that cutting-back-consumption campaigns don’t push enough of a paradigm-shift, we’re already seeing the changes: 400 million animals were spared in the US alone in 2014 because […]
Today, ray-finned fish make up 99% of all fish species, but it wasn't always like this. In an attempt to find out what triggered this spectacular multi-niche dominance, paleontologists traveled back in time sort of speak and analyzed ancient fossils to see what the fish diversity makeup looked like millions of years ago. Intriguing enough, the ray fish practically exploded in their diversity right after the last great mass extinction which occurred 65 million years ago. An asteroid impact wiped out thousands of species, including all dinosaurs. But there was now enough room for other creatures to take their place. On land, mammals started filling in the large-scale niches eventually reaching a dominant position. In the water, it was the ray-finned fish that seized the opportunity.
A study conducted by assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick, surveyed almost 7,000 people about their viewing of cat videos and how it affects their moods, to try and find out why so many of us enjoy seeing the furry little pets on video.
Just as it seemed Ebola was gone for now, the disease starts to rear its ugly head again; a 17-year old was killed a month after Liberia was declared free of Ebola. Liberian authorities on Tuesday quarantined the Nedowein close to the capital of Monrovia, where the boy lived. The official announcement came quickly after. “Liberia […]
The effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are great and long reaching - a new study has found that pink salmon in the Pacific Ocean are threatened by increasing ocean acidification.
In a paper published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of scientists explain the process through which plants like mustard came to be - as it turns out, an evolutionary arms race with a caterpillar played a key role.
Some 10% of the energy generated by a car's engine is lost due to friction between tires and the pavement. What if you could harness this lost energy somehow? A group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in collaboration with researchers in China have found a ingenious way to collect and use this friction energy by effectively inserting nanogenerators into tires.
Just before sport camps and marathon training begins in the US, doctors report a new set of guidelines that should be reviewed to ensure athletes don't consume more water than they should. Drinking excessive amounts of water can result in potentially serious reductions in blood sodium a condition called hyponatremia. Last year, two high school football players died of exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH). So, what do you need to do to be on the safe side? Just drink water when you're thirsty. If you have to drink in advance for various reasons - say, if you're a marathon runner - keep the excess water at sensible levels.
Paleontologists working in China have discovered fossils of an impressively armored worm that lived during the Cambrian, 500 million years ago. Called Hairy Collins’ Monster, this is one of the first creatures to develop a spiky armor. Today, the 180 species of velvet worms are pretty similar – they have tiny eyes, antennae, multiple pairs of […]
A few days ago, the US supreme court ruled that same-sex marriage was hence forth legal in all states. To mark the occasion, Facebook released the "Celebrate Pride" tool which overlays a low-opacity rainbow over your profile pic. More than a million people changed their profile photos just a couple of hours after the feature was integrated into the Facebook. While its intentions might seem noble, Cesar Hidalgo - an MIT network scientists - doesn't buy it. He says it's all in fact a huge social experiment whose end game is to see how long it takes for you to change your profile pic to something else.
Paired with recent advances in graphene deposition and manufacturing, this sort of tech of could very well end up powering your notebook or phone a couple years from now.
By now, we've all hopefully at least heard of graphene, the new wonder material that promises to revolutionize a swarm of applications. But now, a team of researchers from Finland have predicted the existence of atomically thin, free-standing 2D liquid phase - a liquid analogue of graphene.
Mars has over 250,000 craters created by asteroid impacts, the Moon has millions - too many to count. But the Earth has an atmosphere, which means we're protected against most threats and we have much to be thankful for. But even the craters that we do have are constantly eroded by wind and water, so finding and identifying them is quite a challenge.
Despite what you might have seen or not seen, there are actually some fireflies living west of the Rocky Mountains, though they mostly keep to themselves and are rarely spotted by humans. Every once in a while, people spot some. This time, one undergrad who was busy insect hunting in the Los Angeles County hit the jackpot after he discovered a new firefly species.
A new study has found that monarch butterfly populations have went down at alarming rates in the past couple of decades, going down on average by 80%. In the forests of Mexico, they went down by as much as 90%.
It's not just us humans that dream of a better future - rats do too. When rats rest, their brains imagine a favorable future such as a tasty treat, a new study by UCL researchers found.
Tomorrow, something extraordinary will happen, even though you might not notice it: right before 8 p.m. Eastern time, we will be adding an extra second – a leap second. Aside for being an interesting quirk, this is another reminder that our time isn’t exactly synced with solar time, and every once in a while, we need […]
We seem to be losing the war on elephant poachers, but a new toolset that involves tracing slaughter hotspots in Africa based on DNA taken from ivory might be exactly what law enforcement needed all these years. This way, researchers at University of Washington, in collaboration with INTERPOL, found that most of the ivory seized since 2006 originates in just two areas.
In his book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", one of my favorite writers Philip K. Dick explores what sets apart humans from androids. The theme is more valid today than it ever was, considering the great leaps in artificial intelligence we're seeing coming off major tech labs around the world, like Google's. Take for instance how the company employs advanced artificial neural networks to zap through a gazillion images, interpret them and return the right one you're looking for when you make a query using the search engine. Though nothing like a human brain, the networks uses 10-30 stacked layers of artificial neurons with each layer doing its job in incremental order to come to an "answer" by the final output layer is finished. While not dead-on, the network seems to return results better than anything we've seen before and as a by-product, it can also "dream." These artificial dreams output some fascinating images to say the least, going from virtually nothing (white noise) to something's that out of a surrealist painting. Who says computers can't be creative?
Studying ants could help us reduce or even eliminate traffic jams, but only if we let go of our ego. Physicist Apoorva Nagar at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology found that ants don't have traffic jams, and we have much to learn from them when it comes to using a road.
Today was a bad day for science after SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket exploded shortly after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This is the second successive botched mission whose goal was to re-supply the International Space Station, and the third in the past 8 eight months. The Dragon Capsule was supposed to reach the space station with 5,200 pounds of space station cargo, including the first docking port designed for future commercial crew capsules and the custom tailored Microsoft HoloLenses for virtual reality.
Rwanda's Akagera national park will soon be home to seven lions flown in from South Africa. This is the first time in 15 years that lions will set foot in the country after the entire population was wiped out by cattle herders in the chaos that followed the 1994 genocide. The predators will hopefully mate and steadily replenish lion numbers back to a historical level.
Studying the fossil remains of an ancient reptile-like creature, paleontologists gained valuable clues and insights that help explain how turtles got their most uncanny feature: the shell. The newly named species, Pappochelys, Greek for “grandfather turtle", lived some 240 million years ago and fills an evolutionary sweet spot sitting between earlier turtle ancestors and more recently established species.
A new mobile Ebola test can detect the virus using a single drop of blood and reports a positive or negative result in under 15 minutes. When the ReEBOV test was applied in the field, it identified 100 percent of all infected patients who also got positive results with the lab test. Coupled with other recent advances in the fight against Ebola, like antiviral vaccines, the new test will help prevent another outbreak and hopefully contain the virus for good.
Neuroscientists have long posited that memories last as long as the connections in the brain, but putting this theory to test has always proved challenging. Using the latest imaging techniques and sheer innovation, a group at Stanford confirmed this as being true after the researchers literally peered into the brains of mice and studied brain connections as they formed or were replaced. Once the connection was lost, so was the memory.
Love and Marriage In a landmark decision, the US supreme court overruled 26 states and cracked down on their same-sex marriage bans – this means that effectively, same sex marriage is now legal in all the US. “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, […]
It can reach 100 km/h (60 mph) in 2 seconds, it has a 700 horsepower engine, it weighs 90% less than traditional cars, it has less emissions and it’s 3D printed – it may very well be the car of the future. Despite technological developments, the automobile industry has remained relatively stagnant in the past […]
A new extensive report carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found approximately 1 in 8 Americans with human immunodeficiency disease (HIV) are unaware of their condition. Overall, that means 14 percent of undiagnosed cases among 1.2 million patients with HIV in the US. An undiagnosed population is the prime contributor to the spread of the disease. Clearly, there's much room for improvement.
The city of Utrecht will start experimenting with a new concept that could revolutionize society as we know it: basic income. Unconditional basic income is a form of social security system in which all residents receive an unconditional sum of money, regardless of whether or not they have another source of income.
Self-driving cars were one of those technologies that we sort of visualized as part of the future, much like jetpacks or hoverboards... but it seems like the future is already here, at least for driverless cars (you've got a lot to prove, Lexus!). Google's cars are already hitting the street in California.
Racing at a pace of about 1 millions per day, the New Horizon craft is getting closer to Pluto and so are the pictures itțs beaming back. Previously, we've shown you the first colored pics of Pluto taken by New Horizon, and its moons. Some of you were disappointed when you got to see only a couple of pale pixels, so this latest shot taken just this morning might be more exciting to watch.
Coral reefs are as important to oceanic ecosystems as they are vulnerable to global warming and ocean acidification. Coral reefs are being destroyed around the world, not only because of risint temperatures, but also due to coral mining, agricultural and urban runoff, pollution (organic and inorganic), overfishing, blast fishing, disease, and the digging of canals and access […]
The whole media is abuzz after NASA released some pictures of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But while it's somewhat expected for pseudoscientists and alien fanatics went crazy after they spotted what appears to be a huge pyramid-shaped mountain, I was expecting more from the mainstream media. I know, right?
The weekends should be devoted to disconnecting from your job and focusing more on leisure, family and personal development. A global study made by Munster paints a different picture (who's surprised?). Seems like no less than 76% of American workers get the "Sunday blues". In other words, they stress and fret during the depressing night that separates them from a new workweek. Of course, it may be natural to feel a bit stressed knowing you're about to start a new busy work week, but It's also worth noting that these 76% have "really bad" Sunday blues. That doesn't sound normal. In fact, over the pond just 47% Europeans felt that way at the time.
This weekend, SpaceX is scheduled to deliver cargo and other much needed supplies to the International Space Station via its Dragon capsule. Among the supplies is a surprise for the astronauts on board: the latest high tech gadget from Microsoft, the HoloLens. If you missed ZME Science's feature of the HoloLens, well you're in for a treat if this is the first time you hear about it. Basically, the tech involves using holographic computing which enables you to mix virtual reality with ..actual reality. Holograms following in your kitchen, weather reports on your coffee cup. Really, anything is possible with the HoloLens, let alone in the final frontier: space.
Anecdotal observations and even some studies claim that listening to extreme music like heavy metal, punk or hardcore causes anger and expressions of anger, like delinquency or violent behavior. Researchers in Australia, however, found that this isn't the case. After closely following 39 extreme music listeners aged 18–34 years, the psychologists found that extreme music didn't make the participants angrier - even after they were purposely made angry. Instead, when they tuned to their favorite extreme music, the participants exhibited a lower heart rate, which is associated with less angry response, showed an increase in positive emotions.
The team looked at 15-years worth of data on California's grasslands, and documented declining plant diversity from 2000 to 2014 at both the local community (5 m2) and landscape (27 km2) scales, across multiple functional groups and soil environments. They found a link between wildflower diversity decline to significant decreases in midwinter precipitation.
"Fat is bad" seems to be a general rule when concocting dietary guidelines, but fatty foods may be making a comeback for all the right reasons. The latest version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is due out later this year will eliminate the upper limit for total dietary fat intake.
Meet Matthew, a bright eyes, chubby cheeked baby. On the outside he looks and behaves like any regular baby his age, with one exception: an usually oblong-shaped head. At first, his parents dismissed it as a family feature, but when Matthew turned two months and visited the pediatrician for his regular check-up the doctor immediately […]
Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have identified a warm Neptune-sized planet that is "bleeding" a huge hydrogen cloud - thus increasing the odds of finding liquid oceans on gas giants.
Scientists have discovered and described the only known species of Yeti Crab that resides in Antarctica's Southern Ocean. The crab, which has a white fur all over its body, survives in an extremely inhospitable environment, close to the hydrothermal vents that spew hot water in the freezing ocean.
It's a touchy issue for some - the matter of adoption by homosexual couples. Some argue against this type of adoption, while others claim that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Now, a new study conducted by University of Colorado Denver research found that children of same-sex parents experience 'no difference' in terms of social and behavioral outcomes to children of heterosexual couples.
Fasting has been practiced since ancient times as a cleansing process, often accompanied by prayer and periods of seclusion. Famous enlightened historical figures like Jesus or Buddha are prime examples of such ascetic practice. The latter raised fasting to an artform. But fasting needs not be merely associated with spiritualism or religion - it could very well be a great tool to improve your health. Several studies have documented the benefits of fasting, but on the other hand how many of us could go through such excruciating torments, living on water alone for days at a time (some Buddhist monks do it for weeks). After all, low calorie diets are hard enough, let alone not eating altogether. A new study, however, suggests that there might be a way to trick your body it's in fasting mode, and thus reap the benefits, without actually going overboard.
NASA released the breathtaking image you see below, announcing that it is basically X-ray light echoes reflecting off clouds of dust. But this image does more than thrill us amateur stargazers – it helps astronomers figure out how far away the double star system Circinus X-1 is from Earth. “It’s really hard to get accurate distance measurements […]
Lexus, better known for its luxury cars, just released a teasing video unveiling what looks like a genuine hoverboard. But is it the real deal or some lame marketing stunt? I feel like the latter, while a possibility, would severely backfire for Lexus, a highly respectable brand. On the other hand, I guess the kid in me is just rooting for this whole thing to be real.
An extensive meta-analysis of 79 trials which studied the medical benefits of marijuana found that the various cannabinoid compounds did not improve nausea, vomiting, or appetite, but slightly improved chronic pain and plasticity. Moreover, most of the studies were poorly made, lacking control or placebo groups and also showing increased risk of bias. In short, this rigorous analysis found no conclusive evidence that supports the much heralded added benefits of medical marijuana. Side effects were common and included dizziness, dry mouth and sleepiness. The authors note that this doesn't mean that marijuana compounds aren't working as advertised, it's just that the science so far is inconclusive - mainly because of bad reporting and investigative techniques. They suggest more research is necessary, along with more support from the authorities and other able bodies given that we're talking about an extremely widespread drug ingested by millions of Americans each day, legally or not.
A group of UK teenages have invented a condom that changes colors and glows if you/he have/has an STD. Aptly named the S.T. EYE, the condom has a built-in chemical detector that detects infections such as chlamydia and syphilis, and lets you (and your partner) know.
The European Space Agency has confirmed that the Rosetta mission will continue until at least September 2016, when it will most likely land on a comet called Comet 67P.
Researchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have been trying to figure out how Titan's seas formed - more exactly, how the depressions in which the seas are formed.
Viagra does things to you... but not skin cancer.
