George Dvorsky

Brain Stimulation Induces Feelings Of Extreme Thirst In Mice

By directing pulses of light onto specific regions of the brain, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center induced feelings of extreme thirst in perfectly well hydrated mice — causing them to drink the equivalent of seven pints of water for a human. Top image: A mouse brain showing the two neurons, CAMKII (red) that triggers…

Freakishly Old System Of Planets Hint At Ancient Alien Civilizations

Kepler scientists have discovered the oldest known system of rocky, Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way. This suggests that terrestrial planets have appeared throughout most of the Universe’s 13.8 billion year history — a potential indication of just how ancient some extraterrestrial civilizations could be. Sadly, these five planets are not habitable; they’re all parked…

How To Create A Virtual “Body” For Your Uploaded Mind

The prospect of uploading your brain into a supercomputer is an exciting one — your mind can live on forever, and expand its capacity in ways that are hard to imagine. But it leaves out one crucial detail: Your mind still needs a body to function properly, even in a virtual world. Here’s what we’ll…

Neuroscientists have captured the first-ever video of neural activity in the brains of freely moving nematode worms. Using an elaborate camera setup and software, researchers were able to observe 78 individual neurons—an advance that will help them better understand how the nervous system controls animal behavior.

Experts Say King Tut’s Busted Burial Mask May Be Repairable

Late last week it was revealed that the beard from King Tut’s burial mask was hastily glued back on with epoxy after being accidentally knocked off by a maintenance crew. After inspecting the priceless artifact, a German restoration specialist says it can probably be fixed. https://gizmodo.com/king-tuts-burial-mask-has-been-irreversibly-damaged-1681085211 Above: A photo from August 12th, 2014 by the…

Millions Of Mutated Mosquitoes Could Be Unleashed In Florida—On Purpose

The U.S. Food and Drug administration is considering a plan in which millions of genetically modified mosquitoes would be set loose in the Florida Keys as a way to combat the spread of tropical diseases. Top image: A modified Aedes aegypti mosquito (Oxitec). As the climate warms, tropical diseases like Dengue and Chikungunya are starting…

Researchers Slow The Speed Of Light As It Travels Through A Vacuum

Normally, light zips through a vacuum at a blazing 186,282 miles per second. But as a new experiment by Scottish physicists has shown, this isn’t always necessarily the case. We know that light slows down when it travels through a dense medium, such as water or glass. But when there’s no obstruction — like when…

The 10 Greatest Tank Battles In Military History

Ever since the first armored vehicles crawled across the tortured battlescapes of World War I, tanks have become an indelible fixture of land warfare. Many tank-on-tank engagements have occurred over the years, some more significant — and epic — than others. Here are 10 you need to know about. Top image: An Iraqi tank burns…

The Mystery Of What This Toddler Swallowed Was Quickly Solved

A 16-month-old boy was recently taken to the hospital after he appeared to swallow an object. Looking at the X-ray, the doctors were surprised to see a rather familiar face staring right back at them. Yup, that’s SpongeBob, all right. When the toddler arrived at the hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the doctors didn’t know…

Edge Asks The Intellects: What Do You Think About Machines That Think?

This year’s Edge.org question asks, “What do you think about machines that think?” Editor John Brockman collected 182 individual responses from such prominent thinkers as Nick Bostrom, Daniel Dennett, Rodney Brooks, Susan Blackmore, Alison Gopnik, Andy Clark, and Martin Rees. Holy smokes, but is there a lot to chew through here. And it certainly looks…

Researchers Engineer ‘Kill Switch’ To Keep GM Bacteria In Check

As we venture deeper into the era of GMOs and synthetic life, it’s critical that we develop safeguards to prevent the contamination of natural systems. To that end, researchers have devised a clever solution to ensure this never happens – at least in GM bacteria. The solution, the details of which now appear in two…

Watch Jumbo Squid Turn Into Strobe Lights When They Communicate

By attaching “Crittercams” onto the backs of jumbo squid, marine biologists have captured unprecedented video showing how these brazen sea creatures flash in red and white as they attempt to communicate with each other. As Jane J. Lee reports in National Geographic, scientists have known for some time that Giant Humboldt squids “talk” to each…

King Tut’s Burial Mask Has Been “Irreversibly Damaged”

The most famous archaeological relic in the world has been damaged during a botched cleaning attempt. After being knocked off, the blue and gold braided beard on King Tut’s burial mask was “hastily” glued back on with an inappropriate adhesive, damaging the item even further. Above: King Tut’s burial mask before the incident. (Egyptian Museum…

A Dramatic Swirling Vortex At Venus’s South Pole

There’s a mass of swirling gas and cloud located some 37 miles (60 km) above Venus’s south pole. This image was captured by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) aboard ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft. Astronomers have actually known about this vortex for quite some time. And in fact, it was one of the…

Leading AI Experts Are Gathering To Improve The Turing Test

This coming weekend at Austin’s annual convention of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a group of AI experts will attend a workshop in hopes of hammering out a new-and-improved version of the Turing Test. The Turing Test, as a means to determine if a machine is truly thinking, is wholly inadequate in…

Could This Be The Answer To Ceres’s Mysterious White Spot?

As Dawn slowly approaches Ceres, this dwarf planet’s inexplicable white spot is increasingly coming into focus. Thanks to xkcd’s Randall Munroe, we may finally have the answer. https://gizmodo.com/what-do-you-see-in-the-latest-images-of-ceres-1680561534 Seriously, though — what the hell is that thing? Here’s the latest clip from Dawn, in which you can see the spot at top left of Ceres.…

How Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative Will Revolutionize Healthcare

During last night’s State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama called for a new initiative to fund precision medicine. Here’s what the proposed initiative entails and what it could mean to your health. Here’s what the President had to say last night: I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome…

Obama’s 2015 State Of The Union Address Peaked At A Grade 10 Level

Last night’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama was tailored around a tenth-grade comprehension level, which is actually higher than his previous speeches. The speech analysis was conducted by Vocativ who used the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, a widely recognized reading comprehension algorithm. Using this test, large swaths of text can be assigned…

When Facts Threaten Our Beliefs, We Resort To Bullshit Rationalizations

Facts are great, except when they undermine our worldview. As a new study shows, when confronted with factual challenges, we often retreat by presenting weak explanations that are difficult — if not impossible — to disprove. More proof that you just can’t win. https://gizmodo.com/lokis-wager-is-why-you-cant-win-arguments-on-the-inter-1679484756 The new study, which was led by York University psychologist Justin…

Excavations at Amphipolis in Greece have uncovered five intriguing skeletons. An elderly woman, a newborn child, a cremated corpse, and two middle-aged men were among another 550 bone fragments found in a lavish tomb dating back to the Alexander era. Experts say the remains may belong to one of his generals, or a relative. Image:…