Cigarettes are “widely contaminated” with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study.
Cigarettes are “widely contaminated” with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon [...]

Paleontologist Paul Sereno with his Saharan discoveries — SuperCroc, BoarCroc (upper right), PancakeCroc (lower right), RatCroc, DogCroc and DuckCroc.
A suite of five ancient crocs, including one with teeth like boar tusks and another with a snout like a duck’s bill, have been discovered in the Sahara by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Paul Sereno. The five fossil [...]

Volcano eruption on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.
Much of our planet’s mineral wealth was deposited billions of years ago when Earth’s chemical cycles were different from today’s. Using geochemical clues from rocks nearly 3 billion years old, a group of scientists including Andrey Bekker and Doug Rumble from the Carnegie Institution have made the [...]

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Shown is the view from the far downstream end into the test section of the U.S. Air Force Academy water tunnel.
The ocean is a potentially vast source of electric power, yet as engineers test new technologies for capturing it, the devices are plagued by battering storms, limited efficiency, and the need to be tethered to [...]

An ear of corn on the stalk in a field ready for harvesting.
A four-year, multi-institutional effort co-led by three Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists culminated today in publication of a landmark series of papers in the journal Science revealing in unprecedented detail the DNA sequence of maize (Zea mays). Maize, or corn, as it [...]

So you’re sure you have worked all the angles to get your band off the ground and on its way to mega fame? Have you tried hocking your musical wares on Sell-A-Band? No, you don’t have to sell your soul to some label douche in preparation of getting reemed at some later date, but you may meet the [...]

Courier Water
Water shortages are a growing problem around the world, especially in developing countries. Desalination, or turning seawater into potable water, is one way of increasing water supplies, but desalination plants require vast amounts of energy and infrastructure. Now a Japanese team has developed Courier Water, a mobile desalination unit that has tremendous potential for [...]

Feeling Sleepy Yet?

Having problems sleeping?  Tried every solution in the book?  Lord knows there’s a good lot of them, from outright superstitious behavior to drowning your room in scents to popping the good ol’ pill.  Here’s another one you can try: sleeping with the light on.  Huh?!?
Well, not the big, bright light in your room.  [...]

This tiny worm became temporarily paralyzed when scientists fed it a light-sensitive material, or “photoswitch,” and then exposed it to ultraviolet light.
In an advance with overtones of Star Trek phasers and other sci-fi ray guns, scientists in Canada are reporting development of an internal on-off “switch” that paralyzes animals when exposed to a beam of [...]

Scientists from the UCLA Department of Neurology have confirmed that blindness causes structural changes in the brain, indicating that the brain may reorganize itself functionally in order to adapt to a loss in sensory input.
Visually impaired people appear to be fearless, navigating busy sidewalks and crosswalks, safely finding their way using nothing more than a [...]

A reconstructed image of the giant extinct moa.
The evolutionary history of New Zealand’s many extinct flightless moa has been re-written in the first comprehensive study of more than 260 sub-fossil specimens to combine all known genetic, anatomical, geological and ecological information about the unique bird lineage.

Laboratory mouse.
At birth, children with Down syndrome aren’t developmentally delayed. But as they age, these kids fall behind. Memory deficits inherent in Down syndrome hinder learning, making it hard for the brain to collect experiences needed for normal cognitive development.

In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency.
In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency. But new research points [...]

A research laboratory at Japan’s Ritsumeikan University has developed a monitoring system for wet diapers that consists of a self-powered sensor/transmitter and a receiver and is supposed to assist staff in hospitals and nursing homes in performing diaper checks with elderly patients. The sensor kit has to be placed inside the diaper and sends signals [...]

If you are too bored with all the lava and plasma lamps and displays then make way for the Spica Speakers, which bring out the best from the world of water. Although water isn’t an illuminant like lava and plasma, it does give you a fantastic effect in the form of shape shifting patterns and [...]

The vaccine is injected and works by creating anti-bodies
Smokers could soon have access to an injectable vaccine to help them break the habit following a deal between GlaxoSmithKline and Nabi Pharmaceuticals, the company that developed the drug.  The NicVAX vaccine works by preventing nicotine in tobacco entering the brain, where it creates an addictive sensation [...]

The new TKTS booth in Times Square supports glass benches atop two-inch-thick windows
The largest load-bearing glass structure in the world, the new TKTS booth in Times Square, supports glass benches atop two-inch-thick windows. Sounds delicate, but it regularly holds 500 foot-stomping Jumbotron watchers. For reinforcement, engineers at Dewhurst Macfarlane used a plastic film called SentryGlas [...]

Postdoctoral student Greg Welch removing a sample from the microwave reactor.

Professor Guillermo Bazan and a team of postgraduate researchers at UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Polymers and Organic Solids (CPOS)  have announced a major advance in the synthesis of organic polymers for plastic solar cells.

Graphene layers are found in graphite flakes like those from pencil lead.
First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken wire.

This image shows the mummy of Esankh, male, Third Intermediate Period (1070-712 BCE), undergoing CT scanning.
Hardening of the arteries has been detected in Egyptian mummies, some as old as 3,500 years, suggesting that the factors causing heart attack and stroke are not only modern ones; they afflicted ancient people, too.

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles, found in everything from cosmetics to sunscreen to paint to vitamins, caused systemic genetic damage in mice.
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles, found in everything from cosmetics to sunscreen to paint to vitamins, caused systemic genetic damage in mice, according to a comprehensive study conducted by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Credit card fraud is something that we’ve heard of for a long time now, but it is comforting to know that those in authority are doing something about it. Emue Technologies has improved on their anti-fraud credit card by combining a world first embedded 14-segment E Ink display with a 12-button numeric keypad, microprocessor and [...]

Think prayer is all you can do to keep your home safe in the middle of a warzone?  With the X-Flex bomb-surviving wallpaper, you just might have another line of defense.  It’s not exactly salvation, but it could help keep your fortress intact for just a little while longer.
Invented by Berry Plastics in conjunction with [...]

Blast Your Ashes Into Space…

As cremations have become more and more popular in recent years, people have devised a number of unusual ways to commemorate the dearly departed. If you’re looking for a unique way to be remembered, here are 12 strange things you can do with your cremated remains.

Behold the helmet of head health

Stressed from all the pretending that you do at the office?   Forget medicating, all you need is some liberating pressure on your skull.  At least, that’s what Kinatech is thinking with the new Headtime Scalp Massager, a huge, head-crowning bowl that looks like it’s raring to fry your brains.
Looking like [...]