Sharks to tuna: fearsome predator, convenient backscratcher.
PLOS One has revealed a strange secret of the sea, in which researchers have observed tuna and other pelagic (free-swimming) teleosts (bony fishes) intentionally rubbing […]
Science
A bee swarm can generate 8 times more electricity than a storm cloud.
New Scientist reveals an accidental discovery that happened when a passing swarm of bees got close to a weather station on a clear day – […]
India has built an all-solar village.
Reuters reports on Modhera, Gujarat, the first 24/7, all-solar village built in India for ordinary folks to live without a local power plant: The project […]
A mother’s diet can affect children’s – and grandchildren’s – behavior.
The Scientist reports on mice fed a high-fat diet, whose children and grandchildren still felt the effects in social behavior and overall health: High-fat diets […]
Science Art: Lunar Lander, Surveyor
This is one of the first American spacecraft to land on the moon. We sent machines there before we sent people. From the Smithsonian Open […]
An end to nightmares
Science News reveals a new therapy based on memory exercises that shows promise in totally doing away with nightmare disorder: Frequent, terrifying dreams disturb sleep […]
Science Art: Flower of Polygonum persicarium distorted by Utricle smut and following figures, by J.E. Sowerby, 1872.
This is a bunch of smut. Mostly, it’s smut in the genus Ustilago growing on plants in the same genus as knotweed and buckwheat. The […]
Robot honeybees can steer hives to safer flowers.
MIT Technology Review offers a strange solution to a serious problem. They’ve got robot bees who can dance inside a bee hive to direct workers […]
Probiotics are curing sick coral reefs.
University of Florida (go gator research!) is looking into a treatment that could help stop the loss of coral, which is nice because coral reefs […]
Sleep-deprived people are more selfish and lonely.
As a habitual night-owl, it pains me to consider this Scientific American interview with UC Berkeley neuroscientist Eti Ben Simon, whose research has shown that […]
Drone photos reveal ancient Mesopotamian island suburbs.
The discovery, as Science News explains, is rewriting the evolution of the first cities. Instead of gradually growing inside walled enclosures around a temple, the […]
Science Art: “Get Squid Facts” street art, Philadelphia, 2022.
A friend of mine clued me into this project. It really works and I encourage you to try it. Did you know cephalopods have been […]
Otters as big as lions, there were. As big as grizzly bears.
Atlas Obscura introduces us to Enhydriodon omoensis, a newly classified prehistoric otter that roamed the Omo river valley of Ethiopia, hunting its prey and weighing […]
NASA moved an asteroid.
NASA reports that the DART mission was a success. For the first time ever, human beings have changed the course of a celestial object: Analysis […]
Science Art: Reducing Apparatus, in “Phoney Patent Offizz,” The Electrical Experimenter, April 1917.
This is nerd humor from the dawn of the electric age. The “Phoney Patent Offizz” was apparently a regular column in Hugo Gernsback’s The Electrical […]