Is our universe just one of many? The idea may sound a bit bizarre, but it could be a reality, scientists say.
Microbes that convert electricity into methane gas could become an important source of renewable energy, according to scientists from Stanford and Pennsylvania State universities. Researchers at both campuses are raising colonies of microorganisms, called methanogens, which have the remarkable ability to turn electrical energy into pure methane—the key ingredient in natural gas. The scientists’ goal…
Astronomers have discovered what they believe to be a rogue planet floating through space without a star. The super-Jupiter, called CFBDSIR2149, has a mass four to seven times that of our own gas giant, and is probably a scorching 800 or so degrees Fahrenheit. It appears to sit in a moving group of stars that,…
The capacity to notice the distress of others, and to be moved by it, can be a critical component of what is called prosocial behavior, actions that benefit others: individuals, groups or society as a whole. Psychologists, neurobiologists and even economists are increasingly interested in the overarching question of how and why we become our…
The ancient Greeks called it “the madness of the gods”; the author Sherwood Anderson dubbed it “the divine accident of life.” But as it turns out, love is neither madness nor an accident. The more we understand how the brain works, the more it seems we are programmed for love, just as we’re programmed to…
Life-bearing planets may exist in vast numbers in the space between stars in our Milky Way galaxy. An international team of researchers argue a few hundred thousand billion free-floating Earth-sized planets may exist in the space between stars. Writing in the journal Astrophysics and Space Science, they propose the planets originated in the early universe…
Researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Seoul National University have created a robotic worm. “So what?” you ask. They’re also making robotic horses—and robot hummingbirds, for goodness sake. What’s promising about the new robot worm, though—the Meshworm, as it’s called—is that it’s a different kind of robot. Robots are machines, and we’re accustomed to their looking…