[…] “The image was captured on a summer evening in São José dos Campos [in São Paulo state] while a negatively charged lightning bolt was nearing the ground at 370 km per second. When it was a few dozen meters from ground level, lightning rods and tall objects on the tops of nearby buildings produced Read more about Unique image obtained by scientists with high-speed camera shows how lightning rods work[…]
[…] An interdisciplinary team of scientists have released a complete reconstruction and analysis of a larval fruit fly’s brain, published Thursday in the journal Science. The resulting map, or connectome, as its called in neuroscience, includes each one of the 3,016 neurons and 548,000 of the synapses running between neurons that make up the baby Read more about First Complete Map of a Fly Brain Has Uncanny Similarities to AI Neural Networks[…]
Drop a flat piece of paper and it will flutter and tumble through the air as it falls, but a well-fashioned paper airplane will glide smoothly. Although these structures look simple, their aerodynamics are surprisingly complex. Researchers at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences conducted a series of experiments involving paper airplanes to Read more about Experiments with paper airplanes reveal surprisingly complex aerodynamics[…]
Geology textbooks almost inevitably include a cutaway diagram of the Earth showing four neatly delineated layers: a thin outer shell of rock that we live on known as the crust; the mantle, where rocks flow like an extremely viscous liquid, driving the movement of continents and the lifting of mountains; a liquid outer core of Read more about Does the Earth’s core have an innermost core?[…]
Think of bringing a pot of water to the boil: As the temperature reaches the boiling point, bubbles form in the water, burst and evaporate as the water boils. This continues until there is no more water changing phase from liquid to steam. This is roughly the idea of what happened in the very early Read more about The bubbling universe: A previously unknown phase transition in the early universe resolves Hubble (constant) tension[…]
Eight years ago, a patient lost her power of speech because of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which causes progressive paralysis. She can still make sounds, but her words have become unintelligible, leaving her reliant on a writing board or iPad to communicate. Now, after volunteering to receive a brain implant, the woman has been Read more about An ALS patient set a record communicating through a brain implant: 62 words per minute[…]
[…]In a study published Monday in the journal Biosensor and Bioelectronics, a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University (via Neuroscience News) said they recently created a robot that can identify a handful of smells with 10,000 times more sensitivity than some specialized electronics. They describe their robot as a bio-hybrid platform (read: cyborg). It Read more about Locust antenna / AI driven cyborg can identify scents[…]
The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation. The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, Read more about Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider Verra are worthless, may be damaging, analysis shows[…]
Contrails — the wispy ice clouds trailing behind flying jets — “are surprisingly bad for the environment,” reports CNN: A study that looked at aviation’s contribution to climate change between 2000 and 2018 concluded that contrails create 57% of the sector’s warming impact, significantly more than the CO2 emissions from burning fuel. They do so Read more about Contrails Cause 57% of a Plane’s Climate Impact. Can That Be Changed?[…]
[…] While all scientific results from the LHCb collaboration are already publicly available through open access papers, the data used by the researchers to produce these results is now accessible to anyone in the world through the CERN open data portal. The data release is made in the context of CERN’s Open Science Policy, reflecting Read more about Large Hadron Collider Beauty releases first set of data to the public[…]
[…] Researchers have announced that they simulated two miniscule black holes in a quantum computer and transmitted a message between them through what amounted to a tunnel in space-time. They said that based on the quantum information teleported, a traversable wormhole appeared to have emerged, but that no rupture of space and time was physically Read more about Scientists simulate ‘baby’ wormhole in quantum computer[…]
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) recently announced that plants could be used to produce nanobodies that quickly block emerging pathogens in human medicine and agriculture. These nanobodies represent a promising new way to treat viral diseases, including SARS-CoV-2. Nanobodies are small antibody proteins naturally produced in specific animals Read more about Scientists produce nanobodies in plant cells that block emerging pathogens – using plants to grow bodies that block Covid (and more?)[…]
[…] For the past 50 years, scientists around the world have debated why lightning zig-zags and how it is connected to the thunder cloud above. There hasn’t been a definitive explanation until now, with a University of South Australia plasma physicist publishing a landmark paper that solves both mysteries. […] The answer? Singlet-delta metastable oxygen Read more about Physicists solve 50-year lightning mystery – why does it zigzag and what does it have to do with thunder[…]
UCSF researchers use ISRIB to block the molecular stress response in order to restore cognitive function. ISRIB, a tiny molecule identified by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers can repair the neural and cognitive effects of concussion in mice weeks after the damage, according to a new study. ISRIB blocks the integrated stress response Read more about New Drug Reverses Neural and Cognitive Effects of a Concussion[…]
[…] Dr. Jiang, an assistant professor in the UBC faculty of forestry and the Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Functional Biomaterials, started developing a “biofoam” many years ago both to find new uses for wood waste and reduce pollution from packaging foam. “Styrofoam waste fills up to 30 percent of global landfills and can take Read more about Environmentally friendly ‘biofoam’ could address plastic pollution crisis[…]
[…]An important clinical trial is now underway in the UK. The study is the first to transfuse red blood cells grown in the lab from donated stem cells into humans. Should this research pay off, these blood cells would be incredibly valuable for people with rare blood types, though they wouldn’t replace the need for Read more about For the First Time Ever, People Are Getting Transfusions of Lab-Grown Blood Cells[…]
A new experiment has shown that zapping clouds with electrical charge can alter droplet sizes in fog or, potentially, help a constipated cloud to rain. Last year Giles Harrison, from the University of Reading, and colleagues from the University of Bath, spent many early mornings chasing fogs in the Somerset Levels, flying uncrewed aircraft into Read more about Scientists zap clouds with electricity to make them rain[…]
Dr. Bik is a microbiologist who has worked at Stanford University and for the Dutch National Institute for Health who is “blessed” with “what I’m told is a better-than-average ability to spot repeating patterns,” according to their new Op-Ed in the New York Times. In 2014 they’d spotted the same photo “being used in two Read more about Science Has a Nasty Photoshopping Problem[…]
Certain star clusters do not seem to be following current understandings of Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity, according to new research published on Wednesday. The study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, analyzed open star clusters which are formed when thousands of stars are born in a short time period in Read more about Behavior of star clusters challenge Newton’s laws of gravity, point at MOND theory[…]
[…] The finding, which researchers made by measuring the electrical fields around honeybee (apis mellifera) hives, reveals that bees can produce as much atmospheric electricity as a thunderstorm. This can play an important role in steering dust to shape unpredictable weather patterns; and their impact may even need to be included in future climate models. Read more about Swarming bees generate so much electricity they may potentially change the weather[…]
Researchers have succeeded in growing brain cells in a lab and hooking them up to electronic connectors proving they can learn to play the seminal console game Pong. Led by Brett Kagan, chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs, the researchers showed that by integrating neurons into digital systems they could harness “the inherent adaptive computation Read more about Scientists grow human brain cells to play Pong[…]
plant machete This installation enables a live plant to control a machete. plant machete has a control system that reads and utilizes the electrical noises found in a live philodendron. The system uses an open source micro-controller connected to the plant to read varying resistance signals across the plant’s leaves. Using custom software, these signals Read more about plant controls machete[…]
When ice sheets melt, something strange and highly counterintuitive happens to sea levels. It works basically like a seesaw. In the area close to where theses masses of glacial ice melt, ocean levels fall. Yet thousands of miles away, they actually rise. It largely happens because of the loss of a gravitational pull toward the Read more about Researchers detect the first definitive proof of elusive sea level fingerprints[…]
Tiny nets woven from DNA strands cover the spike proteins of the virus that causes COVID-19 and give off a glowing signal in this artist’s rendering. Credit: Xing Wang, University of Illinois Tiny nets woven from DNA strands can ensnare the spike protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, lighting up the virus for a Read more about DNA nets capture COVID-19 virus in low-cost rapid-testing platform[…]
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed microscopic robots, called microrobots, that can swim around in the lungs, deliver medication and be used to clear up life-threatening cases of bacterial pneumonia. In mice, the microrobots safely eliminated pneumonia-causing bacteria in the lungs and resulted in 100% survival. By contrast, untreated mice all Read more about Tiny swimming robots treat deadly pneumonia in mice[…]