Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world for lots of reasons, including that it gives people a pleasant lift in the morning. New research shows that it also helps their memory. Researchers had 160 people who were not regular coffee drinkers look at pictures of objects; five minutes later they gave them either a placebo or […]
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Most people would agree that fossil fuels simply need to go. They’re the cause of pollution, wars and climate change. Scientists have been researching alternative energy solutions like wind and solar power, and hydrogen fuel for cars, for years. But while some automakers — like Toyota and Honda — are bringing hydrogen-fueled cars to market, wind and solar are still […]
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Scientists from the University of Delaware’s Bartol Research Institute in the Department of Physics and Astronomy have discovered very-high-energy gamma rays in the Cigar Galaxy (M82), a bright galaxy filled with exploding stars 12 million light years from Earth. The gamma rays observed by the team have energies more than a trillion times higher than the energy of visible light […]
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Modern-day mousetraps wouldn’t stand a chance against the supersize rodents that roamed South America about 2 million years ago, National Geographic reports. A giant ancestor of the guinea pig, Josephoartigasia monesi weighed more than 2,000 pounds and stood 5 feet tall, roughly the size of a modern buffalo. Because the critter also sported foot-long buckteeth, University of York scientists wanted […]
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Why is America a nation of growing inequality? The yawning economic and cultural gap between the well-to-do and the working class—now wider than at almost any point in our history—has academics and pundits searching for explanations. Now, a new Harvard study provides an illuminating—and “horrifying”—insight into what’s going on. The affluent and the working classes, the study found, are raising […]
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Scientists in the US who have been checking on the health of the Arctic over the last year are worried by what they’ve learned: it’s warmer, has less ice, and some of its animals and fish are facing new stresses. And in a surprise finding , which they cannot yet explain, the scientists discovered that green vegetation over much of […]
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Ocean temperatures first collected during one of the great 19th-century voyages of exploration confirm one of the consequences of climate change: humans have managed to warm even the deepest parts of the ocean. A new study in Nature Climate Change calculates that the amount of heat absorbed by the ocean has doubled in the last 18 years. A third of […]
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Scientists believe is a new whale species is doing the exact opposite of other whales. It is being as heard as it is seen. Recordings taken near the polar continent captured a strange, never-before-heard whale sound — a signal they are calling “Antarctic BW29”. Researchers say that they located the signal 1,000 times in 14 separate recordings. The unique sounds […]
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The brain develops faster during early childhood and more than any other time in our life. In children, it is a magnificent thinking machine that learns and grows by interacting with the world. Not surprisingly, experts say that the foods kids eat not only fuel their bodies but their minds as well. Research shows that healthy eating can improve children’s […]
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The city of San Francisco is praising an addition to their “311” mobile application that is supposed to help the city deal with its growing homeless population. But the app is already under heavy criticism by anti-gentrification groups who say its unnecessary to report the homeless for interacting with the public, or for simply existing. Under Mayor Ed Lee’s watch, San Francisco’s homeless population has skyrocketed, increasing […]
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