Powered by cultured heart cells, tiny, self-organizing bio-hybrid machines that swim like sperm have been created by scientists at the University of Illinois. A report on the synthetic self-propelled bio-bots appears in the journal Nature Communications. “Micro-organisms have a whole world that we only glimpse through the microscope,” said Taher Saif, lead scientist on the […]
A controversial new study in the journal Science argues that increasing population density, rather than growth in the power of the human brain, is what catalyzed the emergence of modern human behavior. The University College London (UCL) scientists behind the study say that high population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and […]
Scientists have long known that DNA carries the genetic sequence for advanced organisms and that RNA is dependent on DNA for performing roles such as building proteins. But one prominent theory about the origins of life, called the RNA World model, postulates that because RNA can function as both a gene and an enzyme, it […]
SETI and other ET initiatives are wasting their time if a scientist from the University of East Anglia, UK, is correct. Professor Andrew Watson has just completed a new mathematical model that suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are extremely low. Central to Watson’s new model, published inAstrobiology, is […]
