Lake Vostok is still and lifeless. Perhaps.
You remember Lake Vostok, yes? The Antarctic lake where scientists pulled up some water from 20 million years ago, just to see what things might […]
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The oldest un-translated language is getting clearer.
BBC reports on the linguists who have started puzzling out how to read and write in proto-Elamite: “I think we are finally on the point […]
Science Art: Sordes by John Sibbick
A prehistoric non-bird, found via Scientific Illustration. (Not to be mistaken for the rather unpleasant crusts on the mouths of fever sufferers.) If there’s something […]
We’ve got a neighbor (in Alpha Centauri).
The nearest solar system to ours, National Geographic confirms, actually has a planet in it: The planet orbits very close to Alpha Centauri B—the smaller […]
Face transplantee can see, smell, taste… and SMILE again.
Laboratory Equipment has some good news about a guy who’s had a pretty hard time… Richard Lee Norris needed a new face, and he got […]
We built a blimp to hunt Bigfoot….
Oh, yes we did. We’ve already used zeppelins to hunt for aliens (or at least meteorite strikes). And now, MSNBC tells us, we’ve got an […]
Amateur astronomers find planet with four suns.
BBC has one for the planet hunters – or, indeed, for Planethunters.org, which has just discovered a truly bizarre solar system using a pretty offbeat […]
Once-in-a-lifetime comet comes around.
Watch the skies next year, warns Scientific American, or you’ll miss something you’ll never see again: As it flares out of the distant Oort Cloud, […]
Science Art: Fig. 2 – Slit Mechanism from “The Scattering of Hydrogen Positive Rays, and the Existence of a Powerful Field of Force in the Hydrogen Molecule” by G. Thompson in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
Click to embiggen I looked for molecules in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character […]
Don’t tell DeBeers: Diamond twice the size of Earth found.
AsiaOne has more on the new planet made of hot, compressed carbon: The rocky planet, called ‘55 Cancri e’, orbits a sun-like star 40 light […]
Draw your own circuits with nanotube pencils.
Extreme Tech gets right to the point of a new technology – a mechanical pencil that can draw functional electronic circuits: With MIT’s carbon nanotube […]
Scientists: You can’t trust scientists.
Fraud, reports Laboratory Equipment, is a growing problem in published research papers: A review of retractions in medical and biological peer-reviewed journals finds the percentage […]
M&M waste gives bees honey of different colors.
French beekeepers, Russia Today tells us, were mystified when their hives started producing rainbow-colored honey – but were even more concerned when they found out […]
The Force is strong in this worm.
Thrilled, Guardian is to introduce to its readers a new submarine species they’re calling the Jedi acorn worm: Yoda purpurata is one of three new […]
Science Art: Pneumatische Fundation (Senkkasten Caisson), from Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1889
A caisson is a machine for working under water. Meyers Konversations-Lexikon is a German encyclopedia. Rise, German engineers. Rise. Dive, German engineers. Dive. Image found […]