Ultrasound used to enhance senses
Ultrasound is widely used in medicine to reveal what’s happening inside the body, but scientists at Virginia Tech have found…
Mysterious “hypervelocity stars” observed fleeing the galaxy
Astronomers have discovered dozens of solitary stars that are moving fast enough to escape the gravitational grasp of the Milky…
Rhubarb battery could finally free solar households from the electricity grid
Harvard scientists have developed a metal-free flow battery based on the electrochemistry of the naturally abundant, inexpensive, organic molecules that…
First exoplanet images from Gemini
After nearly a decade of development, construction, and testing, the world’s most advanced instrument for directly imaging planets around other…
Triple star system could reveal true nature of gravity
Astronomers have discovered a unique stellar system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense neutron star, all packed within…
The entropy of nations
In his book The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argued that as individuals strive to maximize their advantage in life,…
Researchers reveal how emotions are mapped in the body
Emotions affect not only our mental state, but also different areas of the body. These conscious feelings help individuals fine-tune…
Testosterone enhances desire to sing, but not song quality
Scientists listening to the effects of testosterone on birdsong say their findings have broad implications for understanding how steroid use…
A good book can rewire your brain
The scientists behind a novel study into reading say that when we immerse ourselves into a work of fiction, lingering…
Eye reflections can identify criminals
A new study published in PLOS ONE shows that the high resolution images produced by modern digital cameras can be…
Hunting humans imitate honeybees
Working with the Hadza tribe in Africa, researchers have found that human hunter-gatherers follow the same mathematical pattern in their…
Modern crops’ lack of adaptability threatens global food chains
Using the largest dated evolutionary tree of flowering plants ever assembled, new research suggests how plants developed traits to withstand…
Radical new data compression method delivers significant gains in quality and speed over existing techniques
To create an entirely new way to compress data, UCLA researchers drew inspiration from physics and the arts. The technique,…
Loved-up bonobos stay young longer
Bonobos and chimpanzees are closely related but bonobos lack of aggression, playfulness, and strong familial ties make them very different…
Athletes show significant performance boost from stroboscopic glasses
Professional hockey players who trained with special eyewear that only allowed them to see the action intermittently recorded an 18…
Innovative fiber optic imager may soon photograph exoplanets
A new instrument that combines two high-resolution telescope techniques – adaptive optics and interferometry – has for the first time…
First pics from Chinese Moon rover Yutu
The Chinese lunar probe Chang’e-3 has successfully touched down on the Moon in the Sinus Iridum crater (also known as…
Collapse of Universe may be sooner rather than later
It could happen tomorrow, it could happen in a billion years, but whenever it is, calculations by physicists at the…
Read my skin: chameleon color communication deciphered
Chameleons can change color to blend in with the environment, but biologists from Arizona State University now say that chameleons’…
Water vapor seen gushing from Europa
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered water vapor erupting from the south pole of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Astronomers have long…
Poor diet shown to have dramatic effects on sperm and future health of offspring
A startling new study from McGill University suggests that a father’s diet before conception plays a major role in fetus…
Hipster or Goth? Software algorithm identifies your urban tribe
Social networks like Facebook may soon be able to tell which urban tribe you belong to. University of California, San…
Alzheimer’s may begin in childhood
The people who carry the high-risk SORL1 gene for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease show changes in their brains beginning in early…
Curiosity rover finally demystifies radiation hazards on Mars
A manned mission to Mars doesn’t just depend on overcoming technological hurdles. With no magnetic field and only a thin…
Gene expression altered with meditation
Previous studies have shown that meditation can trigger changes in the brain and body but the biological mechanism for these…
The cloning of quantum information from the past may be Achilles’ heel of quantum cryptography
While the notion of physically travelling through time may still be the stuff of science fiction, a new research paper…
Entangled quarks hint at reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity
Building on related research that showed how two entangled black holes could be linked by a wormhole, an MIT physicist…
Europa report: moon’s ocean currents make life possible
A team of scientists who have been modeling the subsurface ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa say that the ocean’s deep…