In the future, when our kids’ kids are studying the origins of cybernetic humans, they will learn that one of the first pieces of the anatomy to be invented was the butt. And they will learn that the first robot butt was named Shiri, and its creators wanted it to be happy. Inventors at the…
Novel generator uses harmless viruses to create an electric charge.
Teleportation is the extraordinary ability to transfer objects from one location to another without travelling through the intervening space. The idea is not that the physical object is teleported but the information that describes it. This can then be applied to a similar object in a new location which effectively takes on the new identity….
British and American scientists have discovered a previously unknown sub-glacial basin nearly the size of New Jersey beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) – and say it puts this area of the ice sheet at risk of collapse. The team discovered the basin Using ice-penetrating radar instruments flown on aircraft, and say its location,…
Drawing on powerful computational tools and a state-of-the-art scanning transmission electron microscope, a team of materials science and engineering researchers has discovered a new nanometer-scale atomic structure in solid metallic materials known as metallic glasses. Published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the findings fill a gap in researchers’ understanding of this atomic structure. This…
Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why it was so troubling to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.” If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it…
International diversity is just as important as diversity of discipline when it comes to scientific discovery
For the first time, archaeologists have uncovered shrines from the time of the early Biblical kings in the Holy Land, providing the earliest evidence of a cult, they say. Excavation within the remains of the roughly 3,000-year-old fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, located about 19 miles southwest of Jerusalem, have revealed three large rooms used…
One of Europe’s main contributions to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is built and ready to ship to the US. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) will gather key data as the $9 billion observatory seeks to identify the first starlight in the Universe. James Webb – regarded as the successor to Hubble – is due…
Not long ago, the story was simple. A vanguard of modern humans left their African birthplace 50,000–60,000 years ago and quickly conquered Asia. They turned left into Europe some 40,000 years ago, later crossing the Bering Strait and marching southward into the Americas. With their advance, Neanderthals and other earlier peoples dwindled and vanished. But…