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When fine art is concerned, or visual arts in general for that matter, complex cognitive functions are at play as the viewer analyze it. As you go from painting to painting, especially different artists, the discrepancies in style can be recognized, and trained art historians can catch even the most subtle of brush strokes and identify a […]
I sometimes found myself shocked when I see just how brightly colored some flowers, insects, or even grass can get. But this little, relatively obscure plant has managed to find a fantastic way to send out a signal to every bird out there – and it has done so without using any pigment. Most of […]
For decades now, scientists have known what are the biochemical reactions that trigger a penile erection, however not those that actually maintain it. In a breakthrough, physicians at Johns Hopkins Medicine have finally uncovered the exact biochemical chain of events involved in the process. The findings will hopefully lead to novel medical treatment for patients suffering […]
Australian scientists say that persons with psychopathic tendencies could be spotted through a smell test, correlated with a psychological questionnaire. The link doesn’t lye in the actual odor emanated by a potentially psychopathic person, though, but rather in their sense of smell. The study conducted by Mehmet Mahmut and Richard Stevenson, from Macquarie University, is based on […]
Since they were first invented in 1931, aerogels have become widely used in the industry, mostly for insulation purposes, thanks to their low thermal conductivity and light weight. Traditional silica aerogels, however, are brittle and obtuse, typically unsuited for applications where flexing of the material would occur. A novel class of polymer aerogels seeks to fix […]
These little spiny African mice can do something no other mammal can: they completely regenerate damaged tissue, a feat once thought impossible. They may not look as impressive as Wolverine, but they held quite the surprise: Acomys kempi and Acomys percivali have skin so brittle and easily torn that one can only ask… why? What […]
The past few years have been marked by numerous seismic events, some of dramatic magnitude; aside from the huge 9.1 temblor in Japan, the world was also shocked by the pair of massive earthquakes that rocked the Indian Ocean on 11 April 2012. However, as geophysicists warn, this may only be the beginning – the […]
A Buddhist statue brought to Germany by a Nazi expedition to Tibet has been proven to be of extraterrestrial origin. Sounds like an Indiana Jones movie, right? Well, it isn’t. Known as the ‘Iron man’ the 24 cm high sculpture was carved out from a Chinga meteorite (rich in iron) found near the Mongolian-Russian border […]
In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, and as always Chernobyl, as anti-nuclear manifestos are quick to remind every time nuclear powered energy is concerned, there seems to be a sort of stigma applied to nuclear power. Countries are revising their policies – some for the better, being long overdue, while other […]
Japanese researchers announced they’ve seen evidence of the reclusive element 113, a super-heavy, super-unstable element near the bottom of the periodic table (you know, the ones you usually don’t even look at?). It is still not verified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry which regulates and verifies the chemical elements’ name, but […]
Fantastic news for physics lovers: pretty much all particle physics articles will now be open-source, thanks to a deal between a consortium and 12 journals. In the most remarkable attempt to make hard, peer-reviewed science available to readers, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3) is close to securing all particle-physics […]
Researchers managed to construct a three dimensional (3D) portrait of two nymphs that inhabited our planet 305 million years ago by scanning their fossils with X-Rays. Old insects At the moment, they are by far the most detailed pictures of juvenile insects that inhabited that period; nymphs are the immature form of some invertebrates, particularly […]
After the most recognized physics figure in the world, Albert Einstein, past away on April 18, 1955, the whole world was left in shock, seeing how he was even by then considered the most famous physicist in history. His dying wish was that of being cremated, however an eccentric physician by the name of Thomas Harvey, a […]
Considering how long has passed since Curiosity landed on the Red Planet, it was about time the rover started mingling with martian rocks. Its first stop was ‘Jake’. Martian geology and Curiosity‘s equipment Curiosity rover stepped down from its crystal palace and made contact with one of the Martian beauties – in other words, for […]
Every scientist dreams of getting his hands on a Nobel prize – it’s the highlight of one’s career, unless you’re Obama. But winning a Nobel Prize spoof… is that really something you want to get? Apparently… why not? The Ig Nobel prize, the whimsical award for research which is useful, but also really cooky is […]
This might sound hilarious, but the Department of Homeland Security takes no humor when US waters are concerned. Collaborating with Boston Engineering Corporation’s Advanced Systems Group, the DHS science division have created a tuna inspired robot designed for versatile maneuvrability in harsh conditions, like tumultuous waters and crammed ship tanks. Called the BIOSwimmer, the tuna robot can swim inside the interior […]
We often like to think us humans have achieved a remarkable standard of efficiency and development – but a look at the animal life around us is often enough to humble us. Replicating bacteria and physics The common gut bacteria, Escherichia coli (E. coli, in short) typically takes about 20 minutes to duplicate itself in […]
Two studies conducted by scientists at NASA based on data gathered by the Dawn spacecraft, which orbited around the Vesta asteroid, showed that the giant space rock holds tantalizing signs of water on its surface – albeit in very small amounts, in the form of hydrated minerals. These conclusions were drawn after scientists found that volatile, or easily […]
The moment many of us have been waiting for is almost here: Curiosity prepares to make its first contact with a Martian – a Martian rock, that is. The rover has been on the Red Planet for six weeks now, still preparing its devices, namely its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) which will be used […]
Boy, oh boy. Here’s a run for your dollar – DARPA’s latest ultimate threat detection system seems like it’s stripped from a bad war movie, but crazy as it may sound, it works and very well, according to officials. The system, called Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS), consists of an extremely high resolution camera of […]
Neuroscientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle have created an atlas of the human brain, which highlights the activity of genes across the entire organ. The brain map was created after many hard years of labor, and might help scientists from across the world identify factors that underlie neurological and psychiatric conditions. The human brain is […]
Known for its sobriety and cumbersome bureaucracy, the European Commission rarely gives good news, especially lately; to bring even more surprise to the table, the announcement was centered around Romania, a country not so well known for its high tech facilities: a new state of the art nuclear physics research facility will be built near […]
By doping graphite, researchers in Germany have reported that they found tantalizing hints of superconductivity at room-temperatures and far above, like water boiling point (100°C.). Superconductivity is a property which describes zero resistance electrical conductivity, however this property has only been observed at temperatures lower than -100°C. Graphite has been found to exhibit superconductivity in […]
Rethink Robotics has been in the attention of the industry for a few years now since it was first founded by Rodney Brooks, possibly the most celebrated roboticist in the world, as the company promised from the get-go that they’re aiming to completely revolutionize the manufacturing industry. Bold claims, but giving the reputation of the […]
A team of archaeologists led by Professor Michael Hoff, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has unearthed a Roman mosaic measuring 148 square meters. Judging by its quality and appearance, researchers believe it to be the largest Roman mosaic of its type ever found. “Its size signals, in no small part, that the outward signs of […]
Russia announced the declassification of a huge diamond deposit, twice as hard as average ones, and about 10 times bigger than the global supply available today. The sensational announcement was made by Novosibirsk scientists of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and it could detonate […]
We’ve seen a lot of concepts cross the realm of SciFi into reality, however transferring fabrics of imagination to practical applications which respect the laws of physics can be troublesome, if not sometimes impossible. If in a book or TV show, like Star Trek for instance, things like teleportation, time travel or faster than light speeds are […]
A group of archeologists have identified the oldest known Roman military fortress in Germany, located near the small town of Hermeskei. The site has been hypothesized as once being a roman military encampment since it was first discovered in the 19th century, however only after recently surfaced evidence, coupled with modern analysis tools, could it be confirmed. […]
In the past couple of months, all Mars-related attention has been almost unanimously shifted towars the Curiosity rover. Not to discredit any of its achievements thus far, which are just appetizers for marvelous fings to come off Curiosity, but the Opportunity rover has been trailing the Martian surface for the past eight years now, long […]
Atomic level imaging has come a long way in the past decade, and after scientists first managed to image molecular structure and even electron clouds, now a group of researchers at IBM Research Center Zurich have visually depicted how chemical bonds differentiate in individual molecules using a technique called non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM). In the image below […]
Trust is in your genes. Humans are social beings, and from the dawn of the first community humans had to work together in order to survive. One of the most important elements of social interactions is trust, and evaluating trust has becoming deeply rooted in our subconscious. For years psychologists have been studying what exactly […]
Last May, European scientists managed to teleport photons using quantum phenomena over a distance of 143 kilometers, across two Canary islands; however, it is only now that their paper was accepted in a peer reviewed magazine. Beam me up, Scotty While the technology used in Star Trek is still only science-fiction, the quantum teleportation of […]
If you thought the computer devised out of soldier crab swarms was cool, wait till you hear what scientists at Aalto University managed to make. In a recently published study, the researchers built a hydrophopic set-up through which they channeled water droplets, and in the process encoded information, practically building a computer. The researchers used the term […]
The Japanese scientific deep sea vessel Chikyu managed to set a new world record by drilling down to over 2.200 meters below the seafloor, obtaining samples from Shimokita Peninsula of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Drilling for science Whenever you hear about drilling, it’s almost always about oil. Given the humongous amount of oil […]
A team of experts in mechanics, materials, medicine and tissue engineering have managed to create a self replicating gel which can stretch about 21 times its length. The water-based tough gel is also self-healing and biocompatible, which means it could be perfect for people with cartilage injuries. When 1+1 isn’t 2 The new hydrogel (names […]
University of Leicester announced the discovery of what they believe to be the medieval Grey Friars Church – the almost mythical burial place of Richard III. Richard III only ruled England for two years, but his reign was memorable from a number of points of view. He was the last king of the House of […]
I really don’t want to go into politics – we’ve never done that at ZME Science, and we never will. But the future president of the United States will have an extremely important role to play in the future of science in America. The two main candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney explained where they […]
Anthropologists have discovered an ancient skull in a cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos, which according to subsequent dating is the oldest evidence of modern human presence found in Southeast Asia. This would clock on modern human migration through the region by as much as 20,000 years, and adds weight to the theory which states that […]
Researchers often study and analyze what goes wrong with the brains of people with dementia; but this is not the case here – researchers from Northwestern Medicinecasked themselves exactly the opposite: what happens with the brains of the so-called ‘Super Agers’, elder people who still have terrific memories. Emili Rogalski identified an elite group of […]
If you did intermediate math in school, then you’ll most likely remember how to split numbers into prime factors; basically, any number can be written out by multiplying prime factors. Now, a group of researchers from UC Santa Barbara has designed and fabricated a quantum processor capable of factoring a composite number. Don’t get overexcited […]
Huge leaps in research within the field of genetics have enabled fetal DNA sequencing from maternal blood. This has made it possible to determine whether the unborn baby is suffering from any autoimmune conditions or chromosomal abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome, Turner’s syndrome or Neural tube defects such as Spina Bifida. Up until the recent […]
Was there an interaction between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis – better known as Neanderthals? It is a long-standing question that has had scientists baffled for years. Only months ago scientists reported that there was a definitive genetic connection between modern humans and Neanderthals of the past. However, there are now studies showing that perhaps […]
After UAVs inspired by hawks, robotic stability control spun from leaping lizards, wall climbing derived from geckos or the swimming artificial jellyfish made from rat cells, in yet another remarkable feat of robotics which draws inspiration from nature scientists at Harvard University have created a robot which mixes the blending capabilities of a squid with the locomotion […]
In an archeological dig in the Danish bog Alken Enge wetlands lies the remains of an army long dead. There scientists recently uncovered hundreds of skeletons, some presenting clear evidence of a violent death, along with a slew of shields, armors, spears or axes. Researchers are still trying to determine the soldiers’ identities, places of origin, […]
Not one, but two independent high-energy particle physics laboratories in New York (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider – RHIC) and Geneva ( Large Hadron Collider – LHC) have managed to create quark-gluon plasma after smashing particles into another at very high speeds. The resulting plasma, which only lasted for a fraction of a moment, is the hottest […]
Spintronics, or spin transport electronics, is a sort of emerging technology that scientists have been studying for a while in an attempt to leverage the encoding posibilities in an electron’s spin, in addition to its electrical charge. Recently, researchers at IBM Zurich have made a huge leap forward in turning spintronics into a viable technology […]
During the Neolithic period, man made the big jump from hunter-gatherer to farmer and agriculturalist, eventually moving on to larger and larger settlements, with a variety of animals and plants. The transition also brought significant changes in terms of economy, architecture, and apparently, woodworking. Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University‘s Department of Archaeology and […]
Dr. Jay Bradner, a physician and chemical biologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, makes beating cancer sound easy – darn easy! Through the wonderful information that epigenetics science has delivered in the past decade, he believes cancer can be defeated simply by re-writing its genetic information such that it forgets that it’s a cancer, and […]
Researchers have found evidence that the crater in case was formed when the ground was slammed by a massive meteorite, millions of years ago. Prince Albert crater Measuring about 25 kilometers across, Prince Albert crater was named after the peninsula in which it was discovered. Researchers never were really sure when it was formed, the […]
Would you eat shark fin soup? Please, tell me that the answer is ‘NO!’. Nearly a third of all shark species are endangered, due to wreckless killing – mostly for soup. Proceed at will, but the article contains some gruesome pictures. The champions’s tragedy Sharks are on top of the food chain – they have […]
