Science

At the end of August this year, the US Department of Transport’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new standards to significantly improve the fuel economy of cars and light trucks by 2025. Last week, we took a look at a range of recent engine technologies that Continue Reading →

Most people, if asked to contemplate a snakebite, would probably imagine a world of pain. But the venoms of snakes are very complex mixtures of chemicals, many of which have unexpected effects on the body. Now, researchers have dug through the contents of venom from the black mamba, and found it contains a potent painkiller, Continue Reading →

White dwarfs are the glowing lumps of carbon left over after stars have used up all their fuel. They are hot, dense and small, typically with the mass of the Sun packed into the volume of the Earth. The structure of these objects is complex. Astronomers cannot see the glowing carbon embers because white dwarfs Continue Reading →

Yes, seriously. NASA announced on Wednesday that its Curiosity rover had “checked in” on Mars via Foursquare. Marking the first check in from another world, the robotic rover will utilize the location-minded social network to share updates and pictures while visiting the Red Planet. While Curiosity will continue to explore the possibilities of Mars being Continue Reading →

Last year, we heard about the first article of Catalytic Clothing, an experimental dress that pulls pollutants out of the atmosphere. Now the technology is moving along to the point where it could be used as a liquid laundry additive and become part of our regular clothes washing chores. According to a release from the Continue Reading →

The story goes that one of the world’s greatest geniuses had a slightly different shaped brain than mere mortals. Now anyone can verify the tale for themselves with a new iPad app. The National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago launched an interactive app today that has about 350 scanned and digitized slides of Albert Continue Reading →

Bumblebees foraging in flowers for nectar are like salesmen traveling between towns: Both seek the optimal route to minimize their travel costs. Mathematicians call this the “traveling salesman problem,” in which scientists try to calculate the shortest possible route given a theoretical arrangement of cities. Bumblebees, however, take the brute-force approach: For them, it’s simply Continue Reading →

One of the most enjoyable facets of studying other species is discovering the amazing things they’re capable of. As humans, the things we tend to find most amazing are the abilities that remind us the most of, well, us—parrots that can speak, bonobos that play Pac-Man, monkeys that use rocks like hammers to crack nuts, Continue Reading →

Paleoartist Tyler Keillor has long specialized in sculpting realistic clay dinosaur heads for museums and universities, but for his next project — an exacting replica of a full Dryptosaurs built entirely as a 3-D digital object — Kiellor needed a little help from the crowd. He set up a modest Kickstarter campaign to help buy Continue Reading →

A team of scientists led by Jon Kellar at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology have come up with a special QR code—using nanoparticles combined with blue and green fluorescent ink—that can be used to prevent counterfeiters from getting away with passing along forged cash. The code is designed with standard computer-aided design Continue Reading →