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ScienceHealthThe Science of Snot Is Even Grosser Than You Think
Snot, you perplexing green goop, you smell-stopping slime that oozes forth from my face, what secrets do you hide? What message, O poor sick body, who do you telegraph me through this globby gak? As we enter the depths of winter, a pair of videos from PBS Digital Studios’ Reactions and Gross Science have offered … Continued
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SciencePhysics & ChemistryThese Dinosaur Bones Have a Little Meat On Them
Organic matter decomposes and sediment takes its place during the fossilization process, turning bones to rock. Soft tissue and proteins do not stick around. But in at least one 195-million-year-old dinosaur rib bone, some ancient bits of collagen protein found a way. A team of Chinese, Taiwanese and Canadian scientists used a kind of particle accelerator, … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
You Aren’t Living in a Hologram, Even if You Wish You Were
You may have read today that the entire universe is a giant hologram. Maybe your mind was blown while you hit your Big Bong and contemplated a 2D universe, or that researchers had somehow found substantial evidence you were “living in an illusion.” No, nope. Not what happened. Rather, physicists figured out that one of … Continued
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Tech News
You Are Related to a Horrible Assless Creature
Here’s a joke for you: What has one horrible mouth and no butt? Your great-great-great-great-great-(etc.) grandpa, probably. Chinese researchers have collected dozens of these tiny sea creature fossils, called Saccorhytus coronarius and over 500 million years old, in South China. They think the newly-discovered critters predate the earliest deuterostomes, animals that grow two openings early … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
The Earth Is Farting on the Moon
The man in the Moon knows a lot more about us than we think. For instance, it’s keeping tabs on the air we breath by collecting samples of it. Kaguya, the nickname for Japanese spacecraft SELENE, collected data with its particle sensors while orbiting 62 miles above the Moon from 2007 to 2009. The Moon, … Continued
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Tech News
Fish Pee On Each Other to Show Who’s Boss
Animals, like humans, communicate in lots of different ways. One of those ways, in animals as in humans, involves urinating on one another. Well, not right on one another, since the fish are in the water. Scientists at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the University of Bern wondered whether cichlids were peeing simply … Continued
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ScienceSpace & SpaceflightIncredible Animations Show Real Exoplanets Orbiting Their Stars
Scientists have detected thousands of exoplanets in recent years, by catching dips in light as they orbit their parent stars. These days, finding new ones isn’t usually such a big deal. But taking direct images of exoplanets, and turning them into videos so we can watch their orbits, makes these faraway worlds a little more real. That’s … Continued
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Tech NewsWhy McDonald’s Big Mac Sauce Tastes Like Ketchup
Burger fans recognize the power of the special sauce, whipping up their own custom batches to recreate the savory, delectable bite they know and love from their favorite burger chains. Usually, those sloppy creations mirror thousand island dressing: ketchup and mayonnaise, ketchup, relish and mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, mustard and mayonnaise, et cetera. Except here’s the … Continued
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SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Did Scientists Actually Turn Hydrogen Into a Metal?
The more scientists achieve the same result, the more robust that result is. On the flip side, there’s reason to be skeptical when a single group claims to make a discovery based on a single observation. One of yesterday’s biggest headlines was the announcement that scientists had achieved a feat they’d been attempting for over … Continued
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Tech News
Human-Pig Chimeras Suggest a Long Road to Organ Farming
Several dozen embryos sat in a lab that seemed straight out of a David Lynch film—part pig, part human. It’s just the first step in a strange journey that may one day lead to a new way to grow and harvest human organs. Human organs are a scarce commodity, and almost 80,000 people are currently … Continued
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SciencePhysics & Chemistry
New Measurements of the Universe Expanding Tell a Confusing Story
Humans don’t know much about the universe, but we do know that most of the gravity holding it together—around 85 percent of it—comes from something we can’t see or touch called dark matter. And some other force we can’t see or touch, called dark energy, is simultaneously causing the universe to expand, at an ever-increasing … Continued
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Tech News
Ridiculous Rat-Grown Mouse Organ Transplant Cures Diabetic Mice
It’s a beautiful tale of graciousness and sacrifice. Hopeless, drug-addled mice, suddenly stricken with diabetes, are offered a cure at the mercy of their all-knowing scientist overlords. Their rat-tailed comrades miraculously grew functioning mouse pancreases and the higher power, blessed be, healed the mice with the bounty. Amen! Or at least, that’s how a bunch … Continued
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ScienceBiology
This Newborn Seal Will Get You Through Your Garbage Day
I, and I’m sure many of you, could not get out of bed this morning. I stared through my laptop screen wondering if I would feel this empty for the rest of my life as I waited for society to collapse around me. But then, I saw an image of this puny pup—a baby gray … Continued
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Tech NewsAustralian Zoo Wants You to Catch Deadly Venomous Spiders
Today has been a stressful day in American science news. So, it seems like the perfect time to site back and relax with a nice, comforting story about an Australian Zoo asking people to catching deadly fucking venomous spiders for it. You probably already knew that Australia has some really terrifying spiders (though apparently they aren’t … Continued
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Tech News
USDA Ordered to Stop Talking to Public [Update: Order Rescinded]
Folks at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service received an email Monday morning from their chief of staff telling them not to talk to the public about their work. The ARS solves agricultural problems, like balancing fertilizer and water use, developing healthier plants, and protecting the beloved honeybees. The email seems to … Continued
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Tech News
Here’s Why Some Scientists Refuse to Just ‘Stick to Science’
The incoming administration and science do not get along. President Donald Trump has already met with vaccine critic Robert Kennedy Jr., called climate change a hoax on several occasions, once said that environmentally friendly light bulbs cause cancer… the list goes on. Things got especially heated this past weekend, when scientists reacted to press secretary … Continued
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SciencePhysics & Chemistry
Scientists Just Melted a Solid Below Its Freezing Point
Imagine you are standing in a freezer. You look at an ice cube. “Ah, a solid, yes, this makes a lot of sense to me,” you think. But suddenly, it begins to melt. “Did someone turn up the temperature?” No. The laws of physics you remember from high school tell you this is impossible. You … Continued
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ScienceHealthHow Pickles Got Caught Up in the Latest Health Fad
For 15 years, pickle makers from across the East Coast have gathered to celebrate brined vegetables at New York City’s Lower East Side Pickle Day. Last year, thirty thousand people squeezed in lines beside white tents that stretched over a quarter mile. A word appeared on some of the sauerkraut tents: “probiotic.” Several of the … Continued
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Tech NewsCan You Brew Beer On the Moon?
When some apocalyptic event in the very near future forces humans scurrying to another planet, we’re probably going to have the same question. Can we still get shitfaced? A team of University of California, San Diego students are competing to send an experiment aboard a spacecraft built by Indian startup TeamIndus, which received a million … Continued
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EartherClimate Change
How Long Until Sea Level Rise Prevents an Inauguration From Happening in DC?
Donald Trump was excited about hosting the inauguration at the Lincoln Memorial. So excited, in fact, he bragged that he “didn’t know if it has been done before.” It has, of course—both of his predecessors had an event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Trump is also excited about burning fossil fuels like coal … Continued
Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Ryan F. Mandelbaum's posts