Over the last thousand years Christianity has adopted many things from other religions, but it also took from science too. A Spherical Harmony The earliest ancient civilizations all shared the same fundamental view of the universe; that our earth lay at the centre. The characteristically inventive Sumerians of what we now call Iraq; the Amorite […]
By tracking brain activity when an animal stops to look around its environment, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University believe they can mark the birth of a memory. Using lab rats on a circular track, James Knierim, professor of neuroscience in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins, and a team of brain scientists […]
Development of cryptic worms provides new insights into molluscan evolution There are still a lot of unanswered questions about mollusks, e.g. snails, slugs and mussels. The research group of Andreas Wanninger, Head of the Department of Integrative Zoology of the University of Vienna, took a detailed look at the development of cryptic worms. The larvae […]
Cloud-chamber experiments show that clouds on Mars form in much more humid conditions than clouds on Earth At first glance, Mars’ clouds might easily be mistaken for those on Earth: Images of the Martian sky, taken by NASA’s Opportunity rover, depict gauzy, high-altitude wisps, similar to our cirrus clouds. Given what scientists know about the […]
Researchers discover that an important clue to diagnosing Parkinson’s disease may lie just beneath the skin. Although Parkinson’s disease is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder in the U.S., there are no standard clinical tests available to identify this widespread condition. As a result, Parkinson’s disease often goes unrecognized until late in its progression, when […]
A pair of breakthroughs in the field of silicon photonics by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Micron Technology Inc. could allow for the trajectory of exponential improvement in microprocessors that began nearly half a century ago—known as Moore’s Law—to continue well into the future, allowing for […]
Current spaceflight depends on a rocket that burns fuel and oxidizer, which turns out to be both expensive and deficient as a means of propulsion for long-distance space travel, explains Lozano. Chemical-based rockets get terrible fuel efficiency, achieving very little thrust per kilogram of propellant used, and their exhaust velocity can’t exceed 5,000 meters […]
A tiny chip used in smart phones to adjust the orientation of the screen could serve to create a real-time urban seismic network, easily increasing the amount of strong motion data collected during a large earthquake, according to a new study published in the October issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of […]
‘Rotelle’ molecules depolarize light; more efficient than ‘spaghetti’ One problem in developing more efficient organic LED light bulbs and displays for TVs and phones is that much of the light is polarized in one direction and thus trapped within the light-emitting diode, or LED. University of Utah physicists believe they have solved the problem by […]
‘Optic flow’ is especially important for people with low vision, says study in optometry and vision science Blurred images that are unidentifiable as still pictures become understandable once the images are set in motion. That’s because of a phenomenon called “optic flow”—which may be especially relevant as a source of visual information in people […]
100 uses for Muesli 