There’s far more little bits of plastic in the ocean than previous studies have indicated, according to new research. While armadas of plastic ducks might make the headlines, it’s tiny pieces that cause most concern to environmentalists. Fish are believed to suffer liver damage from ingesting plastic, for example, and there’s evidence it can even…
A star already known to host five alien planets may actually be home to a whopping nine full-fledged worlds – a planetary arrangement that, if confirmed, would outnumber our own solar system and set a new record for the most populated system of extrasolar planets yet found. The sun-like star, called HD 10180, is located…
Detectable changes in the brain precede the appearance of symptoms like memory loss or other changes in cognitive function resulting from repeated blows to the head, according to Dr. Charles Bernick, who presided over the Professional Fighters Brain Health Study. The physical changes are a reduction in size in the hippocampus and thalamus of the…
Research by a Danish physicist suggests that the explosion of massive stars – supernovae – near the Solar System has strongly influenced the development of life. Professor Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark sets out his novel work in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. When the…
The World Flora catalog is being planned, to be comprised of scientific information and images of plant species worldwide. The project was created in part to help halt the loss of plant biodiversity around the world. Researchers at four institutions will look at historic data on known plants and review and update it before adding it to the catalog.
Are creative people more adept at justifying immoral behavior, and thereby more likely to transgress ethical boundaries? Or does unethical behavior require people to be more inventive, causing them to be more imaginative? Whatever the relationship between creativity and immorality, a growing body of evidence, including a recent paper published in the Journal of Personality…
When we meet new people, we assess their character by watching their gestures and facial expressions. Now a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA suggests that those nonverbal cues are communicating the presence of a specific form of a gene that makes us more or less responsive to others’ needs….
As militaries develop autonomous robotic warriors to replace humans on the battlefield, new ethical questions emerge. If a robot in combat has a hardware malfunction or programming glitch that causes it to kill civilians, do we blame the robot, or the humans who created and deployed it? Some argue that robots do not have free…
Generating wind energy is more than twice as cheap as solar photovoltaic energy production, a study of alternative energy in six developing countries has found. The findings, published in Nature Climate Change, could help inform global debates on financing initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries. The authors note that differentiating technologies…
Scientists have uncovered clues as to how our genomes became riddled with viruses, some dating back 100 million years. More than 90 per cent of every mammal’s genome has no known function, with much of this genetic ‘dark matter’ harboring pieces of DNA from ancient viruses that infected our ancestors. The new investigation, by researchers…