Science

Can You Supercharge Your Brain With Electricty?

Applying mild electrical currents to your head could take away pain, help memory and improve attention – and the US military is very interested. Emma Young reports. In the summer of 2010, Ryan Clark twisted his ankle during a gym class. It was painful, but inconvenient more than anything. He was put on crutches for…

How Your Brain Responds to Pain

Pain is a strange medical phenomenon: dull or sharp, mild or intense, it’s difficult to describe and so often tough to treat, too. But we’re increasingly understanding how pain affects the brain—and this video explains what we know. You’ve probably noticed that some people can ignore pain and focus on what they’re doing, while other…

NASA Satellite Spies on the Tiniest of Sea Critters from 450 Miles Up

Plankton are tiny. With the exception of critters like jellyfish and cephalopods, which are technically “megaplankton,” most plankton are smaller than 2 millimeters long. Phytoplankton, the plants of the plankton world, are microscopic. But when plankton hang out in large aggregations, you can see it from space. The mind reels at the notion that those…

iOS Health: All the Important Data About Your Body in One Place

Apple just pulled back the curtain on a new native app called Health at WWDC. Yes, this is the same health tracking app we heard about a few months ago. And yes, you can buy a variety of compatible fitness tracking devices at the Apple Store. Health does more than count your steps, though. Health…

This Six Minute Satellite Studies Star Nurseries

Not every scientific exploration of the cosmos requires a multi-year, multi-billion dollar effort a la the Hubble Space Telescope Program. In fact, sometimes all it requires is a reusable sounding rocket, an ultraviolet camera, and six minutes in space. Built by a team of researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and dubbed the…

How an Organizational Breakdown at NASA Let the Challenger Lift Off

The “massive malfunction” that killed seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 also forever changed NASA, an agency that seemed infallible. What breakdown in the decision-making process led to the shuttle lifting off? The organizational structure of NASA itself played a bigger role than you might imagine. In a new 20-minute documentary produced…

What Causes Dark Circles Under Your Eyes?

It is often claimed that periorbital dark circles are caused by tiredness or working too hard or even just staying up late. While this can be true, the truth is that your genes play a huge role here. So what exactly is happening when you get dark circles under or around your eyes? Simply put,…

This close-up view of the Moon’s dark south shows its pock-marked surface, captured by the European Space Agency’s SMART-1 spacecraft. It uses 40 individual images to cover an area of about 500 x 150 km. You can see an annotated map of the same view here. [ESA]

What Does the Rx on Prescription Drugs Mean?

The phenomenon of ubiquitous prescription drugs is a relatively new experience in human history. However, its common abbreviation, ℞, has deep roots in the relatively distant (and some even claim ancient) past. Recipe for Wellness While there are a few commonly put forth explanations as to how we ended up with the ℞ symbol, it’s…

WSJ: Google Spending $1 Billion on Satellites to Cover Earth in Wi-Fi

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google plans to spend over $1 billion on a fleet of satellites that will be used to provide internet to parts of the world that currently lack digital connections. According to “people familiar with the project,” Google will use 180 “small, high-capacity satellites” that will orbit the Earth…

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?

It’s a constant tease that here on the Space subsite we have a surprisingly strong overlap with the Animals subsite. This gallery-game takes that concept to a new level, challenging you to identify photographs as animal, vegetable, or mineral. https://gizmodo.com/can-you-guess-the-subject-of-this-photograph-1584431929

Do Wild Animals Get Drunk and High On Purpose?

In South Africa, local legend has it that the elephants like to get drunk. They seek out the marula tree, overindulge on its sweet fruits, and enjoy the intoxicating effects of the slightly fermented juice. Tales of the tipsy pachyderms go back at least two centuries. In the 1830s, a French naturalist called Adulphe Delegorgue…

One Man’s Crazy Quest To Build a Tiny House on the Moon

There’s no end to fantasies about living on the moon. Actually possible moon bases, fictional Nazi moon bases, insane Newt Gingrich moon bases. Swedish artist Mikael Genberg has a more modest goal: one, tiny, uninhabited lunar house by 2015. Of course it takes a whole lot to make that possible. First there’s the matter of…

Super Rare Footage of the World’s Fastest Whale

One lucky research assistant caught a rare show in the Straits of Gibraltar last week, as a fin whale was spotted breaching the water three times in a row, right in front of her. While fin whales do sometimes breach, it’s rarely seen and even more rarely caught on camera. The videographer, Séréna, is a…

Rat Poison Manufacturer Will Change Recipe; Wildlife and Pets Rejoice

The LA Times reported today that d-Con rat traps has agreed to discontinue a line of traps containing poison that has made its way into young children, wildlife, and pets. “This is a significant victory for environmental protection and corporate responsibility,” Jonathan Evans of the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco told the LA…

Can YouTube Help Doctors Study the Science of Faceplanting?

When YouTube arrived at the beginning of this millennium, viral videos were not so different from what had long entertained us on America’s Funniest Home Videos: adorable pets, funny kids, and painful accidents. And so we have faceplant gifs and faceplant supercuts and now, a scientific journal article based on a faceplant video on YouTube.…

A Rain of Grasshoppers in New Mexico

For three nights running, the satellite radar near Albuquerque has been spiking with higher reflectivity as the sun goes down. This usually indicates rain, but it hasn’t correlated properly with the few sunset showers. So, what is it? Swarms of grasshoppers. Normal afternoon radar reflectivity near Albuquerque [left, credit: NOAA], and a grasshopper [right, credit:…

New Method of Quantum Teleportation Could Bring Us a Quantum Internet

A team of Dutch scientists just announced a new method of quantum teleportation that uses entanglement as a form of communication. They can successfully teleport data over a distance of ten feet. But, more importantly, they can also do so with 100 percent reliability. The feat in and of itself isn’t such a big breakthrough.…

Virgin Galactic Is Finally Cleared for U.S. Take-Off

It came to light earlier this year that, despite promising to fly you through space, Virgin Galactic didn’t actually have Federal Aviation Administration approval to take off from the U.S.. Now, it’s struck a deal which should see it able to take to the skies. https://gizmodo.com/virgin-galactic-doesnt-have-faa-permission-to-fly-you-1506559077 The company, already deep in testing, has signed a…

The new SpaceX Dragon V2: Everything you need to know

This is the new SpaceX Dragon V2, an incredible spaceship that—at last—feels worthy of the beginning of the 21st century. SpaceX claims that it is capable of taking seven astronauts to orbit and then soft-land anywhere on Earth using retro-rockets and retractile legs. Here’s how it works. https://gizmodo.com/first-look-at-dragon-v2-the-first-manned-spaceship-by-1583376826