Science

These Are the Most Complete Pictures Yet of the Sun’s Atmosphere

You’re looking at the most complete photograph yet taken of the sun’s atmosphere—and it reveals complex patterns of expanding bubbles and mushrooms of matter, which are thought to cause the solar winds that the star spits out toward the rest of the Solar System. The image was captured using a high-resolution eclipse-imaging technique by a…

Why Doesn’t the Heart Get Tired Like Other Muscles?

Anywhere from 60 to 100 times every minute of every day of every year of your (hopefully) long life, your heart beats. Unlike the other muscles in your body, however, your heart almost never gets tired . . . until it stops for good. Here’s why. Three Kinds of Muscles The human body is composed…

Your Future Flu Vaccines Could Be Grown Inside a Tobacco Plant

Finally, some good news about tobacco and your health. No, there is no nicotine involved, but there will be lots and lots of virus-like particles. Tobacco plants could be one of the fastest and most effective ways of making the seasonal flu vaccine—much faster than the current method using chicken eggs. The flu shot you…

Meet the Woman Who Singlehandedly Saved Two Species

Journalist Julia Whitty had an incredible story in the May/June 2012 issue of Mother Jones, and we’ve just rediscovered it. It tells the tale of Enriqueta Velarde, a woman who has worked tirelessly, and often alone, to save not just one, but two species of Mexico’s seabirds: the Heermann’s gull and the elegant tern. The…

War Dogs In Afghanistan Are Getting Their Own Air-Conditioned Kennels

The U.S. military’s war dogs are a pretty badass bunch, but that doesn’t mean they like being stuck inside stuffy kennels during 120 degree Fahrenheit summer weather (Who would, really?). That’s why the army’s designing them some swankier digs complete with AC and exercise areas. Boy, do they deserve it. Highly trained war dogs are…

Build Your Favorite Space Gadgets With LittleBits’ Awesome NASA Kit

The Mars Rover. The ISS grappling arm. An infrared light meter. You can build working models of all of those and more with LittleBits‘ new space-themed electronics kit, which is NASA scientist-approved and here to let kids experience simpler versions of the challenges that space scientists and engineers face every day. By following the kit’s…

Alligator fat can be made into biodiesel (and, yes, they have a lot of fat). Extreme cavers descend into the dark and dangerous depths of Earth’s deepest cave. And we tour the original, long-lost SeaWorld that never was. It’s time for the week’s Landscape Reads! Mapping the Deepest Cave on Earth Exploring the deepest cave…

Quick: Is This A Jackson Pollock Painting, or Insect Flight?

Can you distinguish a clever data visualization from an abstract expressionist painting? This happens to be the former, rather than the latter, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing. According to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Flight trajectories of fruit flies during exploration of a 30 cm wide wind tunnel are reconstructed as…

Sleep Disorders in Disney Cartoons Were Surprisingly Accurate

“Sometimes,” said Walt Disney, “we can recognize ourselves in animals. That’s what makes them so interesting.” He was more right than he knew. One group of people may have had particular insight into human sleep behavior and its disorders: Disney animators. It wasn’t until the 1980s that “REM Sleep Behavior Disorder,” or RBD, became formally…

Lions and Cheetahs Are Dancers in Africa’s “Carnivorous Ballet”

The lion, as they say, is king of the jungle. More accurately, it might be called the king of the savannah. It was once thought that lions posed a serious risk to other, smaller carnivores, like cheetahs and African wild dogs, but new research suggests that things aren’t quite so clear-cut. Once upon a time,…

Watch Where 26 Asteroids Recently Slammed Into Earth

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Detection Network, that’s usually used to monitor for covert nuclear weapons testing, serves and alternative use in its spare time: it detects asteroid impacts. This video visualizes the data it’s managed to collect since 2000. In total, it’s helped detect 26 asteroids entering Earth’s atmosphere between then and now which…

Celebrate Earth Day With Baby Elephants

Every day, poachers kill 96 elephants in Africa. That’s something to keep in mind today, the 45th Earth Day. The celebration was first proposed in 1969 at a UNESCO conference as a day to recognize the environment and the hope for world peace. In honor of this year’s Earth Day, the 96 Elephants Campaign, together…

These Are The World’s Weirdest Birds

There are almost 10,000 bird species flying the skies, roaming the lands, and diving the waters of our planet. Some of them are pretty similar to one another, perhaps because the two species diverged only relatively recently. But some of them are so unique you won’t believe they’re not made up. The species listed below…

What Your Poop Is Trying to Tell You

What the hell is that? Seriously, did that just come out of you or did it crawl up the pipe? If you’ve just exorcised a poo that looks nothing like what you’ve eaten recently, it could be a sign of a serious illness. It could also just be that curry from last Wednesday, so it’s…

Mind Readers: The Scientists Setting Coma Victims Free

Thousands remain trapped between life and death. Three scientists are working to free them. Roger Highfield reports. “Imagine you wake up, locked inside a box,” says Adrian Owen. “It’s only just big enough to hold your body but sufficiently small that you can’t move. “It’s a perfect fit, down to every last one of your…

Using Plastic Surgery To Keep Astronauts Human On Long Space Missions

A brief exchange in the back of last week’s issue of New Scientist asks: “I understand that the lines and sagging skin we acquire as we age are due to the sun and gravity. If I lived in a space station in zero or microgravity away from the sun, would I stay looking young?” A…

Hippos Are The Most Underappreciated of African Megafauna

There’s the “big 5” of African game animals: lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino. Most people area also obsessed with giraffes and zebras, and occasionally crocodiles and meerkats and hyenas. But for such a large charismatic critter, folks tend to forget the noble hippo. One reason why hippos are the coolest? The chompers on a…

How You Can Make Graphene at Home in Your Blender

Graphene may be the supermaterial to rule them all—but it turns out you can make it at home. In your kitchen blender. Here’s how. A team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland have been trying to work out the best way to mass produce graphene, those sheets of carbon that are just one…

Why Thyroid Conditions Are So Bad

It seems like just about everyone knows someone with a thyroid condition. Their symptoms can sometimes be wide ranging. Much like the IRS and their tax code, it can leave you a little confused about what exactly it does and why it can cause so many problems. In an effort to put this ignorance to…

Why Smoking Pot Makes You So Hungry

If you’ve ever smoked weed, chances are you’ve also taken that regrettable trip to 7 Eleven and stocked up on cheese puffs, microwave burritos, and, well, everything else edible. Then, when you wake up surrounded in wrappers, you wonder: WHY? Long story short, your body thought you were starving. Research published in Nature Neuroscience reveals…