The disposal of plastics is a global problem. They are nearly indestructible in natural conditions but are discarded worldwide on a large scale. The world produces around 359 million metric tons of plastics each year. Nature cannot address the amount of their disposal at a speed fast enough to prevent harm to living beings. There […]
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The English town of Lyme Regis is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. It was here in the 1830s that William Buckland, better known for the discovery of the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus, collected fossils with another pioneering paleontologist, Mary Anning. One of their discoveries was the remains of fossilized crinoids, sometimes known as […]
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Coronavirus in Context is a weekly newsletter where we bring you facts that matter about the COVID-19 pandemic and the technology trying to stop its spread. You can subscribe here. Hola Pandemic Pals, Just so you know, I spent well over 10 minutes trying to find a joke to start this newsletter off with. But nothing seems particularly […]
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In 1879, French polymath Gustave Le Bon wrote that even in “the most intelligent races” there “are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains.” He continued his insult with: “This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it […]
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A growing range of face masks are popping up around the world, but many haven’t proven their effectiveness against COVID-19. A new technique developed at Duke University aims to measure which ones provide the most protection by counting the respiratory droplets they emit during speech. The system is compromised of a black box, a laser, and […]
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Dos personas toman fotos al volcán Sinabung mientras hace erupción en Karo, Indonesia, el lunes 10 de agosto de 2020. (AP Foto/Sugeng Nuryono) Más MEDAN, Indonesia (AP) — El volcán Sinabung, en Indonesia, hizo erupción el lunes, arrojando material volcánico a una altura de hasta 5.000 metros (16.400 pies) y depositando ceniza en las aldeas. […]
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Since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, the potential role of animals in catching and spreading the disease has been closely examined by scientists. This is because the virus that causes COVID-19 belongs to the family of coronaviruses that cause disease in a variety of mammals. The evidence suggests that this virus arose in bats […]
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Although political leaders have closed borders in response to COVID-19, scientists are collaborating like never before. But the coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) is novel – and we don’t yet have all the facts about it. As a result, we may have to change our approach as new scientific data comes in. That doesn’t mean the science isn’t […]
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If you’re looking to keep track of things like in a database, then using Microsoft Excel is one way to go about it. It is a great spreadsheet tool that can be useful when keeping track of things like names, phone numbers, finances, and more, but it seems that no thanks to Excel’s formatting, it […]
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Interbreeding gets a bad rap these days, but early humans loved a bit of interspecies action. Genes from fossils show our ancestors had entanglements with both Neanderthals and an ancient group called Denisovans. But new research suggests they also got it on with another mystery relative, whose DNA still exists in people today. Scientists from Cornell University […]
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Las marcas apuntan a una mancha de guano de pingüino en una imagen capturada por el satélite europeo Sentinel-2 el 26 de agosto del 2019. Científicos británicos dicen que existen más colonias de pingüinos emperadores en la Antártida de lo que se pensaba. (Copernicus Sentinel-2/ESA via AP) Más BERLÍN (AP) — Científicos británicos dicen que […]
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Every once in a while the scientific community comes up with a discovery so important that it immediately changes the course of human evolution. I’m talking of course about the invention of the word blanet. I think we can all agree that it is the cutest word science has ever created. However, if you’re like […]
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Coronavirus in Context is a weekly newsletter where we bring you facts that matter about the COVID-19 pandemic and the technology trying to stop its spread. You can subscribe here. Hola Pandemic Pals, I took a walk on the beach this morning before work. Everyone has a story about what they were going to do in 2020 if […]
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I evolve best under pressure The first lunar colonies could start the next step of human evolution in just a few short decades. Image credit: NASA/Dennis Davidson How will this affect human evolution in a completely unknown environment? What would happen when humans decide to leave the Earth and explore different planets? Considering that the environment […]
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Sperm is critical for the fertilization of almost every living organism on our planet, including humans. To reproduce, human sperm have to swim a distance equivalent to climbing Mount Everest to find the egg. They complete this epic journey simply by wiggling their tail, moving fluid to swim forwards. Though over 50 million sperm will […]
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In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the world has rushed to deploy infrared thermal imaging cameras (also known as infrared radiometers) to measure people’s temperature and the technology has become big business. Since the pandemic began, thermal cameras have been deployed in areas of high-density foot traffic such as airports, shopping centers, nursing homes, factories, […]
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Next spring is going to be a busy time for Mars. In close succession, three spacecraft will arrive at the planet, joining the dozen or so craft already circling Mars. Two of the spacecraft were launched in the past couple of weeks by newcomers to martian exploration: the United Arab Emirates’ Al-Amal (meaning Hope) and […]
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XICHANG, June 23, 2020 — A carrier rocket carrying the last satellite of the BeiDou Navigation … [+] Satellite System blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, June 23, 2020. China launched the last BDS satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 9:43 a.m. on Tuesday. (Photo by […]
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What if I told you all your favorite time-travel films and books were actually created by big tech in order to wrest control of the time-travel industry from the proletariat? Think about it. Back to the Future, The Terminator, The Time Machine, all of these stories share a central theme where traveling through time is […]
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It’s no news that the United States has an uneasy relationship with science. While students come here from around the world to earn their college or post-graduate science degrees in our excellent research programs, our own high-school age students exhibit lower scientific literacy than those in many other developed nations. Many Americans hold religious or […]
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We take our sense of touch for granted. Simple tasks like opening a jar or tying our shoelaces would be a whole lot more complex if we couldn’t feel the object with our hands. Robots typically struggle to replicate this sense, restricting their ability to manipulate objects. But researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) might have […]
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There is growing concern that because of the amount of antibiotics we are prescribed, that eventually our bodies will develop resistance against them which means that it will make it harder to fight off infections in the future, especially when we need to. However, thanks to a 1,000 medieval recipe, it appears that maybe a […]
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There are many challenges that come with sending people into space, one of which is actually protecting the astronauts that are being sent there from issues such as radiation. Given that when in space, astronauts are not protected by the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field, naturally we wouldn’t want them to come back irradiated. Advertising […]
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It’s well-documented that chemical compounds found in cannabis, especially cannabidiol (CBD), are effective at treating the symptoms of many forms of cancer. But now there’s evidence that it could potentially cure the disease by attacking cancer cells. Cancer researcher Matt Dun, of the University of Newcastle in Australia, recently finished a three-year long study indicating […]
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Coronavirus in Context is a weekly newsletter where we bring you facts that matter about the COVID-19 pandemic and the technology trying to stop its spread. You can subscribe here. Hola Pandemic Pals, Sorry we’re late today. My toddler has a stomach bug and we’re out of toilet paper. I had to print out a bunch of copies […]
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Singularities – also known as black holes – are so powerful that even light cannot escape their grasp. But what happens when a black hole meets something even stronger, like a wormhole? We know a black hole would win in a fight against Godzilla, Earth’s yellow sun, and even the entire Milky Way. But a wormhole? […]
Read MoreWelcome to the latest article in TNW’s guide to the AI apocalypse. In this series we’ll examine some of the most popular doomsday scenarios prognosticated by modern AI experts. It’s pretty easy to think up new ways for robots to destroy us. We’re pretty squishy. But what if AI doesn’t want us dead? Maybe our future […]
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Birdwatchers armed with binoculars and fields books can be great at spotting species, but they struggle to identify individuals in a flock. Luckily for them, a new AI tool can do the tricky task for them — and potentially offer new insights into bird behaviors. Scientists first trained the AI on labeled images of wild […]
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A Polarizing Subject Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe. ― Clifford D. Simak, Way Station Just a few weeks ago, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) released an image of a nascent solar system being born. […]
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My route home was badly overgrown and I made slow progress, looking down at the rocky, uneven ground and concentrating on keeping a good foothold. Bees and small moths swirled up from around the wild flowers and long grass at the base of the hedge, then something much bigger blundered away from under my feet. […]
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At the dawn of the industrial revolution, the Earth’s atmosphere contained 278 parts of CO₂ per million. Today, after more than two and a half centuries of fossil fuel use, that figure is around 414 parts per million (ppm). If the build-up of CO₂ continues at current rates, by 2060 it will have passed 560 […]
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