People always wonder how the moon was made. The birth of the planets 4.5 billion years ago was extremely violent. They grew to full size by absorbing rival planet embryos in a series of titanic collisions—one of which probably gave Earth its moon (below). The moon’s large size, low density, and other features suggest that it emerged from an explosion […]
Read more
If you’re worried about infertility, don’t try to Google the term with a computer on your lap, says the London Telegraph. A new experiment suggests that radiation from a single Wi-Fi-enabled laptop may be strong enough to cause cell damage in sperm. Argentine researchers took samples of ejaculated semen and left them directly under a computer—simulating holding a laptop directly […]
Read more
Are the scientists working to save Antarctica’s fragile ecosystem inadvertently contributing to its destruction? Could they possibly be Destroying Antarctica? A new study has linked a chemical used in flame-retardants—called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)—that is contaminating the Antarctic environment to Australia’s Casey research station. Researchers found that dust and treated wastewater at the station contained PBDEs and another chemical that […]
Read more
Just eight months ago, 6-year-old Emma Whitehead was gravely ill with leukemia and running out of options.Two rounds of chemotherapy had already failed, and a bone marrow transplant was no longer possible, The NewYorkTimes reports. So her parents opted for an experimental therapy developed at the University of Pennsylvania that aimed to enlist Emma’s own immune system in the fight […]
Read more
“Turns out the rumors are true,”. Word has spread through the scientific community that “researchers in China have successfully edited the genomes of human embryos.” Those rumors were confirmed when a team from Sun Yat-sen University published laboratory results revealing that they had crossed an ethical red line, using a gene editing tool on embryos to modify the gene responsible […]
Read more
The species of bacteria that dominate our guts may strongly affect whether we’re thin or fat. Researchers at Washington University collected samples of gut bacteria from pairs of twins in which one was obese and the other thin. Then they transplanted the bacteria into mice. The mice that received the bacteria from the obese twins became obese; the mice that […]
Read more
The discovery of nine brains which were found along a street in the upstate town of Gouverneur, NY had residents turning their heads. However, authorities confirmed that they were believed to have been part of a collection for educational or research purposes. Criminal activity has been ruled out, but nobody seems to know how they got there. Local residents discovered […]
Read more
WASHINGTON, D.C. During a press conference last month, NASA released a slew of odd sound recordings and video from the Messenger probe just moments before it’s impact on Mercury. Scientists are working to decipher the meaning of the data, but some agree that the recordings sound like human voices crying out in agony. The Messenger probe had been orbiting Mercury […]
Read more