Tag: Science
Did you know that any porn site ever and this picture of Morgan Freeman can be linked to each other on the internet in 19 clicks or fewer? We are all connected. Hungarian physicist Albert-László Barabási published his study yesterday, and for an estimated 14 billion webpages, every one can be linked to another in […]
A group of researchers led by grad student/metalhead Jesse Silverberg took it upon themselves to analyze the physics of mosh pits, pulling videos from YouTube and using software designed to look at particle physics. What they found was astounding–that the statistical distribution of speeds of various moshers matched that of particles moving freely in a […]
Imagine living in a permanent augmented reality. Imagine walking around and all that you cast your gaze upon emits an infinite amount of metadata. All the images, maps and information associated with whatever you’re looking at becomes accessible to you in real time. Imagine doing it without looking quite so douche-y with those Google Glasses […]
You’ve already got that awesome, high-speed cardboard robot cockroach, so here’s a rodent companion for it to play around with. Beware though–this robot rat is designed with the explicit purpose of making other animals stressed, depressed, and otherwise upset. With the intent of studying how mental disorders affect lab rats, the Japanese researchers programmed this […]
After disparaging rats yesterday, it seems that vitriol was unwise. Today, science just said that humans share some anatomical qualities to a creature that was the size of a rat. We might as well just call ourselves rat people now. After six years of sifting through mammalian family trees, scientists believe that a common ancestor […]
First turbo-speed cockroaches, now sex-crazed moths? LORD HAVE MERCY. In attempt to improve the navigational skills of robots, Japanese researchers devised this utterly disturbing contraption that allows male silkmoths to steer themselves towards female moths. Well, actually just their pheromones. What a tease! The experiment is part of a study on the sensory motor and tracking skills of […]
I’M SORRY. But this is important. Behold: the laboratory feeding rituals of bed bugs — for science! About a decade ago, bed bugs reemerged onto the scene after a 40-year hiatus and researchers were all like, oh, snap! Time to start studying these suckers! In order to test pesticides and whatnot, labs far and wide began harvesting […]
A group of Scottish scientists has pulled off what they believe to be the first instance of 3D-printing using human embryonic stem cells. They believe the breakthrough could lead to synthetic organs used for drug testing–removing innocent animals from the process and giving more accurate results on how a drug interacts with human tissue–and eventually […]
The New York City medical examiner’s office, which handles forensic investigation of crime scenes, announced yesterday it had failed to send critical DNA samples from crime scenes to a state database. The office’s deputy director of quality assurance has been fired, and the forensic biology director has been suspended over the incident. Sending DNA samples to […]
The above image comes from NASA’s Black Marble series of satellite photos, which caused quite a stir when it was released online last month–look at all the beautiful lights, the tiny cities! But as it turns out, one of those clusters of illumination isn’t a city at all; it’s an enormous cluster of fracking outposts, sending hundreds […]
