These germs join carbon to silicon.
Nature reports on a critter in Iceland’s hot springs that binds silicon to carbon – which could lead to all sorts of weird breakthroughs: Researchers […]
Science
Science Art: Oral Cavity and Paranasal Sinuses – Coronal View exhibit, from Our Body: The Universe Within
Click to embiggen Someone went to the museum today. This has always been one of my favorite bits of human anatomy, the spirals inside our […]
Chernobyl goes solar.
Popular Mechanics celebrates a plan to turn the nuclear disaster zone into a 1-gigawatt solar farm: The high levels of radiation make the zone unsuitable […]
Jordan’s Black Desert was once bustling with life
Live Science looks over thousands of inscriptions from 2,000 years ago, opening a window to a time when this arid, sandy landscape was once filled […]
Science Art: “Various Forms of Trachelomonas” (detail of “INFUSORIA”), 1883
Aren’t they the cutest little things? These are kinds of Euglena, the weird little microscopic critters that are animals with plant-like characteristics – some of […]
How a Twitter-bot can stop harassment: a study in social programming
Washington Post checks the results from a NYU researcher’s experiment using bots to prevent racial harassment on Twitter – and what automated anti-racism says about […]
Insect biobots are ready to respond to disasters.
Science Daily reports on the cybernetic insects that can be used alongside drones to quickly map out unfamiliar terrain: “The idea would be to release […]
Young people’s blood plasma rejuvenates old mice.
New Scientist has an anti-aging discovery with some grisly ramifications, as researchers find the blood of human teens can make aging bodies young again: The […]
China’s used CRISPR in human subjects, to treat cancer.
Nature reports on gene-editing technology that’s being used for the first time in human beings: On 28 October, a team led by oncologist Lu You […]
Spain’s “King of Coal” jailed for destroying Neolithic site.
The Telegraph reports on multimillionaire mine-operator Victorino Alonso’s demolition of a 10,000-year-old archaeological site, an act courts have described as a “crime against heritage”: The […]
Science Art: 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel, 1990
Click to embiggen This might look like a jet plane’s engine, but it’s really a thing to test jet planes – supersonic ones. It’s a […]
GMO mosquitoes will fly. Probably.
Just a short note (from a Fusion story), but one kind of overlooked story from election day is that the Florida Keys approved releasing genetically […]
So ISIS is using homemade drones. Here’s how they work.
Popular Science looks at the the backyard engineering that goes into an effective homemade military drone: To better understand ISIS drones, I spoke with an […]
Science Art: Schéma de montage d’un turbopropulseur by Nerijp
This is a turbine – a “turbopropulseur” – used as an example of a “réducteur” – a reducing gear. The one end spins a lot […]
World Power: How Africa can leapfrog the world with renewable energy.
Nature looks into the future of Africa and sees a sunny outlook – at least as far as solar and wind power generation go: Africa’s […]