Tim Barribeau, Author at Gizmodo

New Archeological Proof for the Oldest Tsunami in Recorded History

Tucked away in the 8th volume of Herodotus’ Histories is a reference to a town that was saved from attack by the Persians when the sea retreated — then returned higher than ever, drowning those who tried to cross the shallows. This account of 479 BCE is regarded as the first historical reference to a…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 25

Would you drop $10,000 a year to stop yourself from getting HIV?

Thanks to advances in fighting HIV/AIDS over the last decades, these diseases are no longer the death sentences they once were — and some drugs offer the chance to protect against infection in the first place. Considering the huge price associated with these pills, would it make sense to do so? And for whom? The…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 25

Blame underage drinking on Bollywood!

It seems that every country has their own version of pinning a moral panic on popular culture. Be it music, video games, or film, the behavior of fictional characters is often linked to that of adolescents. At this year’s World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai, researchers will be presenting a link between movies and underage…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 20

Artificially evolved enzyme could protect us against nerve gas attacks

Evolution is generally regarded as pretty good at specializing species for certain ecological niches, but with a glacial pace of adaptation, sometimes it needs a helping hand. Meet the team of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who decided they wanted to beef up the paraoxonase 1 (PON1) to the point it could combat…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 19

Traditional Chinese Medicines Linked to Cancer

Traditional Chinese medicines often exist in a legal, scientific, and ethical grey area. Despite concerns over ingredients sourced from protected animals and limited evidence of their effectiveness, the market in these products is still very, very large. And now, two new studies have looked at the health and legal implications of a number of these…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 13

Is the bat-killing “white nose” fungus a European import?

Millions of American bats have died since 2006 from a fungal infection known as white nose syndrome. Caused by the fungus Geomyces destructans, amongst some species it has a mortality rate of 95%, but its origins and mechanism aren’t fully understood. It’s thought that the fungus, which infects the noses and wings of the animals,…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 13

Wait, maybe birds don’t have compasses in their beaks after all

One of the theories for the incredible navigational skills of birds is that they can sense magnetic fields through the magnetite in their beaks — essentially giving them a built-in compass. It’s one of the more pervasive explanations, but it looks like it might not be true, at least for pigeons. New research published in…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 13

No, baboons can’t actually read. Yet.

You’ve probably seen the headlines saying “Baboon Reading Skills” all over the internet. But don’t worry — the rise of the apes isn’t coming quite so quickly. It’s true that another barrier between us an our simian cousins has been brought down — it seems that certain apes can identify words from gibberish, even though…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 12

Study reveals that people over 65 are smoking more pot than ever before

As the psychedelic warriors of the 60s and 70s continue to age, it should come as no surprise that these shifting demographics mean that older adults are now more likely to have used drugs in the past, and to continue to do so. A new study of over 50s in Britain looked at past and…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 6

Now you can replace your antibacterial soap with a plasma jet

There are some bacteria that are remarkably hard to clean off your body. A perfect example of this is the heat- and antibiotic-resistant Enterococcus faecalis — it’s notoriously hard to expunge, and kills many hospital patients. Now a group of Chinese and Australian scientists have found a way to beat this bacteria and others like…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 6

Once again, pandas prove they have the world’s most byzantine mating habits

Pandas, as a species, seem absolutely resolute in their desire not to breed, regardless of how much panda porn we seem to show them. Just to further drive this point home comes new research — not only do females pandas have a reproductive window, but the males do too. The reproductive cycle of female pandas…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 6

We can already program nanodrugs to fight cancer

Everybody’s looking for a “magic bullet” to fight cancer, but progress remains frustratingly slow. But that could change soon — because nanomedicine is finally coming of age. https://gizmodo.com/cancer-is-just-as-deadly-as-it-was-50-years-ago-heres-5883180 The first treatment using nanomedicine to target a specific area has reached human trials, and is proving to be remarkably effective in attacking tumors. Top image: Victor…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 5

MIT wants to make printable robots

The newest wonderfully insane concept out of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) aims to democratize and simplify the creation of robots, by having ones you can print as needed. The five-year project, dubbed “An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines,” brings together researchers from MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and…

io9 Tim Barribeau Apr 5

Carbon breakthrough could mean cheap, eternally stretching graphene

Graphene, the eternally stretching two-dimensional form of carbon, is one of the most promising synthetic materials in existence, but is still costly to produce to specification. New research released in the PNAS shows a simple and cheap way to produce the stuff, and could herald a graphene revolution. The technique involves taking graphite and frozen…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 31

Green coffee bean extract is your next miracle weight loss pill

Ready for the next extract that everyone’s going to be taking to try and lose weight? Move over, green tea; green coffee beans are next up to the plate. Dr. Joe Vinson presented his research at the Spring conference of the ACS, and in a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study, the extract actually did quite…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 31

The First Structure to Incorporate Crumpling as a Design Element

Generally, something that buckles under strain is regarded as a bad idea, but the newly devised buckliball is designed to do just that. Crafted by a team of MIT and Harvard engineers, it marks the first morphable structure to incorporate buckling as a desirable engineering design element. Named from its visual similarity to the buckyball,…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 30

So where did life on comets come from in the first place?

There’s an increasing body of evidence that suggests organic molecules that formed the origin of life on Earth got their start on meteors — but then how did the organic compounds get there to begin with? https://gizmodo.com/more-evidence-that-life-first-came-from-comets-5895604 Top image: Michael Jacger According to research published in Science Express, it may all go back to ice,…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 30

Mimicking butterfly wings could boost hydrogen fuel production

Chinese researchers have turned to the light absorbing properties of butterfly wings to significantly increase the efficiency of solar hydrogen cells, using biomimetics to copy the nanostructure that allows for incredible light and heat absorption. Butterflies are known to use heat from the sun to warm themselves beyond what their bodies can provide, and this…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 30

Tens of billions of inhabitable planets could be floating around red suns

Great news in the search for planets that could hold life. New research suggests the search for habitable worlds should look to dim red dwarf stars, which may hold billions of chances for life — some of them in our own galactic neighborhood. A new survey from the European Southern Observatory shows that red dwarf…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 29

One capsule could make radioactive liquids potable

In the wake of last year’s disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the world is once again dealing with contamination from a nuclear catastrophe. Now researchers have repurposed mining technology into a capsule that could make radiation tainted water drinkable. Dr Allen Apblett’s research with Oklahoma State University in Stillwater has been presented…

io9 Tim Barribeau Mar 29

Tim Barribeau

New Archeological Proof for the Oldest Tsunami in Recorded History

Would you drop $10,000 a year to stop yourself from getting HIV?

Blame underage drinking on Bollywood!

Artificially evolved enzyme could protect us against nerve gas attacks

Traditional Chinese Medicines Linked to Cancer

Is the bat-killing “white nose” fungus a European import?

Wait, maybe birds don’t have compasses in their beaks after all

No, baboons can’t actually read. Yet.

Study reveals that people over 65 are smoking more pot than ever before

Now you can replace your antibacterial soap with a plasma jet

Once again, pandas prove they have the world’s most byzantine mating habits

We can already program nanodrugs to fight cancer

MIT wants to make printable robots

Carbon breakthrough could mean cheap, eternally stretching graphene

Green coffee bean extract is your next miracle weight loss pill

The First Structure to Incorporate Crumpling as a Design Element

So where did life on comets come from in the first place?

Mimicking butterfly wings could boost hydrogen fuel production

Tens of billions of inhabitable planets could be floating around red suns

One capsule could make radioactive liquids potable

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