Sci/Tech

September 22, 2016 – The universe is expanding uniformly according to research led by UCL which reports that space isn’t stretching in a preferred direction or spinning. The new study, published today in Physical Review Letters, studied the cosmic microwave background (CMB) which is the remnant radiation from the Big Bang. It shows the universe […]

Sept. 21, 2016 – The Internet is a teeming tangle of billions of pages, where brilliant information is buried in dubious content. All the information is there, somewhere; you just can’t find the best and most relevant quickly. The new Dutch startup DOT.world, a spinoff company from the University of Twente, has a modest goal: […]

Sept. 21, 2016 – If you chop a magnet in half, you end up with two smaller magnets. Both the original and the new magnets have “north” and “south” poles. But what if single north and south poles exist, just like positive and negative electric charges? These hypothetical beasts, known as “magnetic monopoles,” are an […]

September 19, 2016 – An international research team discovered a human skeleton during its ongoing excavation of the famous Antikythera Shipwreck (circa 65 B.C.). The shipwreck, which holds the remains of a Greek trading or cargo ship, is located off the Greek island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea. The first skeleton recovered from the […]

September 16, 2016 – The Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization has just announced two new lightning extremes determined by a World Meteorological Organization committee of experts: the longest reported distance and the longest reported duration for a single lightning flash in, respectively, Oklahoma (United States of America) and southern France. The lightning flash over […]

ITHACA, NY, Sept. 13, 2016 – In a study that shatters a cornerstone concept in linguistics, an analysis of nearly two-thirds of the world’s languages shows that humans tend to use the same sounds for common objects and ideas, no matter what language they’re speaking. Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of […]

Sept. 12, 2016 – Measurements of an element in Earth and Moon rocks have just disproved the leading hypotheses for the origin of the Moon. Tiny differences in the segregation of the isotopes of potassium between the Moon and Earth were hidden below the detection limits of analytical techniques until recently. But in 2015, Washington […]

September 8, 2016 – This November, several states will vote whether to legalize marijuana use, joining more than 20 states that already allow some form of cannabis use. This has prompted a need for effective tools for police to determine on the spot whether people are driving under the influence. Stanford researchers have devised a […]

September 7, 2016 – Thank you all for being a part of the journey! From #CometLanding to #GoodbyePhilae.

September 7, 2016 – A Johns Hopkins University researcher noticed the bats he works with cocked their heads to the side, just like his pet pug. “It’s an adorable behavior, and I was curious about the purpose,” said Melville J. Wohlgemuth, a postdoctoral fellow in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychological […]

Sept. 7, 2016 – Tiny magnetic particles from air pollution have for the first time been discovered to be lodged in human brains– and researchers think they could be a possible cause of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at Lancaster University found abundant magnetite nanoparticles in the brain tissue from 37 individuals aged three to 92-years-old who […]

September 7, 2016 – Terzan 5, 19 000 light-years from Earth, has been classified as a globular cluster for the forty-odd years since its detection. Now, an Italian-led team of astronomers have discovered that Terzan 5 is like no other globular cluster known. The team scoured data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the […]

ELK GROVE, IL, September 5, 2016 – Most parents who are hesitant about vaccines are not opposed to immunizing their children, but rather are unsure or have questions. And the best source of answers is their pediatrician. To equip pediatricians for these conversations, the American Academy of Pediatrics is publishing a new clinical report, “Countering […]

September 5, 2016 – Less than a month before the end of the mission, Rosetta’s high-resolution camera has revealed the Philae lander wedged into a dark crack on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The images were taken on 2 September by the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera as the orbiter came within 2.7 km of the surface and clearly show […]

September 2, 2016 – NASA’s Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter’s north pole, taken during the spacecraft’s first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. The images show storm systems and weather activity unlike anything previously seen on any of our solar system’s gas-giant planets. Juno successfully executed the […]

August 31, 2016 – The effective use of national television broadcasts by white segregationists during the civil rights movement could provide valuable insights into the persistence of white nationalism in the United States today in a project by a PhD student from the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham. Scott Weightman is the recipient of a […]

MIAMI, Aug. 29, 2016 – In a new study, University of Miami (UM) scientists found high concentrations of toxins linked to neurodegenerative diseases in the fins and muscles of 10 species of sharks. The research team suggests that restricting consumption of sharks can have positive health benefits for consumers and for shark conservation, since several […]

August 29, 2016 – Explosive growth of cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, is nothing new. In fact, such cyanobacteria probably produced the original oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere billions of years ago. But when certain kinds of cyanobacteria multiply rapidly and release toxins, the result is a harmful algal bloom (HAB), a subject of intense concern […]

August 25, 2016 – Early-stage breast cancer patients whose tumors carry genetic markers associated with a low risk of disease recurrence may not need to undergo chemotherapy, suggests a new study that employed a test devised by a UC San Francisco researcher. In the study, reported today, August 24, 2016, in The New England Journal […]

BOULDER, Colo. August 24, 2016 – A cutting edge forecasting system developed by a national team of scientists offers the potential to save the solar energy industry hundreds of millions of dollars through improved forecasts of the atmosphere. The new system, known as Sun4CastTM, has been in development for three years by the National Center […]