How can slime mold learn? But it does….
Wired investigates an organism – not even an animal, doesn’t even have internal organs or nerves, much less a brain – that still somehow learns […]
Month: April 2016
A new moon in the outer solar system.
So first, there’s a dwarf planet called Makemake. And now, says Space.com, Hubble found out that it has a moon: Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space […]
Transcranial magnetic stimulation isn’t doing what we thought.
Science magazine has some interesting – and rather weird – findings about the new “brain-zapping” technology that uses magnets to affect brain states. Apparently, as […]
Science Art: Restoration of Pliocene fauna of North America, Smithsonian Museum.
Click to embiggen vastly This is a mural at the Smithsonian Museum, showing how the Great Plains would have looked about 3 million years ago. […]
SONG: “Meat Man”
SONG: “Meat Man”. [Download] ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: “High-Protein Diet May Have Shaped Neanderthals,” Archaeology, 30 March 2016, as used in the post Protein Diet Shaped […]
Well, *anyone* could misplace a 600-mile barrier reef! Right?
The Atlantic (the magazine, not the ocean) just located a giant reef no one knew existed near the mouth of the Amazon River: A team […]
We’re closing in on Planet Nine. (Or X. Whatever.)
Wired (with a little help from Cassini) narrows our search for the hidden, big planet orbiting the fringes of the solar system: Matthew J. Holman […]
New skin-cancer combo wipes out 20% of tumors.
Another BBC story, this one about a family of immune-boosting drugs that eat away melanoma in a fifth of patients: The first survival data on […]
Monarch migration mystery – solved! (We think.)
BBC reports on the computer model that seems to explain how the monarch butterflies make their amazing Canada-to-Mexico trek: Lead researcher Prof Eli Shlizerman, from […]
Science Art: Artist’s impression of JWST, European Space Agency, 2013
Click to embiggen This is an artist’s conception of the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble. The European Space Agency is working […]
New astronomy from old sources: Planetary system found in a photographic plate from 1917.
Science Daily reveals how a century-old spectrographic analysis is probably the first ever evidence of an alien planetary system: bout a year ago, the review’s […]
These gloves translate sign language.
University of Washington undergrads have won $10,000 for designing gloves that translate sign language into text or speech: The Lemelson-MIT Student Prize is a nationwide […]
Inflatable space station could orbit by 2020.
New Scientist expands upon the company that just sent an inflatable room to the ISS… and what they’d like to do next: Bigelow Aerospace, which […]
Chinese researchers edit genes in human embryos – again.
Nature has more on the (non-viable) human embryos that were modified to resist HIV before being destroyed: Researchers in China have reported editing the genes […]
Science Art: Nutmeg Tree, from 40 drawings of plants at Bencoolen, Sumatra, c.1824.
Click to embiggen Spice. In watercolor. It looks like it would smell delicious. From 40 Drawings of Plants at Bencoolen, Sumatra, a collection of natural […]