David Gelernter, a pioneering computer scientist, foresaw the modern internet but thinks computers are still too hard to use
IBM scientists were able to measure for the first time how charge is distributed within a single molecule. This achievement will enable fundamental scientific insights into single-molecule switching and bond formation between atoms and molecules. Furthermore, it introduces the possibility of imaging the charge distribution within functional molecular structures, which hold great promise for future…
Natural fluctuations alone do not explain warming in the upper layers of the planet’s oceans, confirms a new computer modeling study. The ingredient necessary to fully account for rising water temperatures in the last 50 years? Humans’ greenhouse gas emissions. While attributing global warming to humans is hardly a new conclusion, this study adds to…
A team of researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the National Research Council of Argentina recently fitted a South American sea bird called an imperial cormorant with a small camera, then watched stunned as it became “superbird” — diving 150 feet underwater in 40 seconds, feeding on the ocean floor for 80 seconds…
The popular notion of infinity may be of a monolithic totality, the ultimate, unbounded big tent that goes on forever and subsumes everything in its path — time, the cosmos, your complete collection of old Playbills. Yet in the ever-evolving view of scientists, philosophers and other scholars, there really is no single, implacable entity called…
Most primates make rudimentary calls that consist of one or two syllables. But the gelada—native only to the grasslands of the Ethiopian plateau—displays “rapid fluctuations in pitch and volume” akin to human speech. The similarity has researchers’ tongues wagging. “Our finding provides support for the lip-smacking origins of [human] speech, because it shows that this…
This incredible image of fern spores is just one of the many mind-blowing images that won the Olympus BioScapes Imaging Competition in 2012. Check out the top ten images and videos captured by life-science researchers. Author Metanexus Editors