Turning the virus into a videogame.
Ireland’s RTÉ Brainstorm reveals how researchers are turning ordinary personal computers into a virus-killing supercomputer and recruiting gamers to solve puzzles that figure out COVID-19 […]
Science
Smell makes music inside our brains. Each aroma, a different melody.
Scientific American organizes some notes on the neurology of scent, with experiments that show the brain distinguishes between similar scents in the same way we […]
Science Art: Structures of Brain (Взаиморасположение структур мозга – зрительный анализатор), by Coxer
Click to embiggen A brain with its structures, including the eyes and the olfactory bulb, labeled in Russian. The thinking part. Found on Wikimedia Commons.
Maybe ‘Oumuamua was a hydrogen iceberg. Not a comet. Not an asteroid. Hydrogen.
Scientific American has an unexpected explanation for the mysterious interstellar object dubbed “‘Oumuamua” that drifted into our solar system in 2017. Maybe the monolithic object […]
Best COVID outcomes were where people stayed home on their own, cell phone data shows.
The Lancet looks at pandemic spread in the U.S. and finds that the places that seem to respond the best took precautions and stayed home […]
The world’s second-deadliest Ebola outbreak just ended.
Nature has some good news about an infectious disease – the outbreak that had killed 2,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to […]
Science Art: Florarctus antillensis Van Der Land 1968, from “Tardigrades marins des Bermudes,” 1970
Click to embiggen A water bear from Bermuda, as published in 1970 (a good time to be in Bermuda). Florarctus antillensis was apparently first discovered […]
CERN is building a supercollider 100 km around.
Nature looks into a new push to build a really big (and really expensive) machine to work with really small particles: CERN has taken a […]
This T-shirt conceals you from digital surveillance.
Wired reveals a garment that doesn’t exactly make its wearer invisible, but makes it harder for an AI system – like those used in CCTV […]
Science Art: StyleGAN2 Example 2, Jan 2020
Click to embiggen Wikimedia Commons’ description of this average-looking guy simply reads: The man in this image does not exist. This face was constructed by […]
Growing Neanderthal brains in the lab (using European stem cells).
CNN covers an odd project, using Svante Paabo’s reconstructed Neanderthal genome and European stem-cell banks to recreate mini-brain cell-clusters that are up to 20% Neanderthal […]
Substituting soap-bubble robots for pollinating insects.
Cell reveals a potential replacement for pollinators – the vital insects who keep plants from almonds to corn to quinoa reproducing – by using flying […]
Snot palaces reveal a new way of life
Scientific American‘s “60-Second Science” looks into the mucus mansions built by sea creatures with complex (if slimy) home lives: Kakani Katija, a bioengineer at the […]
Science Art: Russ Arasmith Skylab Artwork, date unknown.
Click to embiggen NASA’s Marshall Gallery lists this image as “date unknown,” but since Skylab was crewed from 1973 to 1974, and fell out of […]
Bringing otters back really paid off.
Science News breaks down the costs and benefits of restoring a predator like otters to an ecosystem, and finds that the ecological conservation approach pays […]