ScienceHealth

This Simple Test Can Predict Whether a Comatose Patient Will Ever Wake Up

For friends and family, fewer things are more agonizing than not knowing if or when a loved one in a coma will regain consciousness following a severe head injury or drug overdose. Researchers have shown that a common test can measure awareness in comatose patients—and even predict when they might wake up. As described in … Continued

ScienceSpace

The Time To Nuke Mars Is Now

Good news, prospective Martian colonists: that frigid hellscape where you hope to spend out your days alone and in darkness is currently in a “warm phase.” Scientists are now reporting the first observational evidence that Mars recently emerged from an ice age, which can only mean one thing. It’s time to bring out the bombs … Continued

ScienceSpace

NASA’s New Inflatable Space House Failed and Nobody Knows Why

The International Space Station was supposed to get its very first attachable, expandable space house this morning. Instead, the structure refused to inflate—and nobody’s quite sure what went wrong. At first, things were looking pretty good for BEAM in its first inflation attempt early this morning. The space house had been attached to the hull … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Notorious Bird Criminal Stole Knife From Crime Scene

Vancouver is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Canada, filled with tourist-friendly parks and beaches. It’s also home to Canuck, who the CBC describes as “Vancouver’s most notorious crow,” suggesting some sort of city-wide crow notoriety ranking. Why so notorious? Well, Canuck stole a knife from an active crime scene among other things. … Continued

SciencePhysics

New Evidence Suggests a Fifth Fundamental Force of Nature

We all know about the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong forces between atoms. But could there be a fifth force still waiting to be discovered? A new experiment performed in Hungary suggests this may very well be the case. Nature News reports that a team of physicists led … Continued

ScienceSpace

A Little Box Like This Should Tell Us What Life Is Like on the Asteroid Didymoon

You’re looking at a half-scale model of the European Space Agency’s appropriately adorable-sounding Mascot-2 asteroid lander. Come 2022, a device like this will give us an unprecedented glimpse into what it’s like on an asteroid. The space agency’s plan is for the Mascot-2 microlander to be released from a spacecraft called AIM in six years … Continued

ScienceSpace

Watch the ISS Crew Inflate Its New Space House [Updated]

The ISS is getting a little renovation done, courtesy of its very first attachable space house, which is almost ready to inflate. Will it pop? Float away? Let’s watch to find out. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, arrived on the ISS back in early-April aboard the same Dragon launch that gave SpaceX its … Continued

ScienceSpace

 These Martian Rocks Hint at Ancient Alien Life

Mars may be a frigid, dusty wasteland today, but evidence is mounting that the Red Planet was warm and wet long ago. Future missions to Mars will seek out signs of life from that livelier era—and a recent geologic analysis has revealed where we should begin our search. A new study led by researchers at … Continued

SciencePhysics

New Solar Cell Turns Light Into Heat to Potentially Double Efficiency 

There’s a annoying theoretical limit on the efficiency of solar cells that limits the amount of electricity they can create from sunlight. But now a team of MIT engineers has developed a system that overcomes the problem by first converting light to heat—and it could double the efficiency of solar cells. Most solar cells have … Continued

SciencePhysics

Why Certain High-End Golf Clubs Make Such an Ear-Splitting Sound

Back in 2006, Nike introduced the high-performance SUMO 2 golf club driver, specially engineered to help golfers hit straighter shots, even for slightly off-center hits. There was just one problem: the newly designed club made an unpleasantly loud, tinny sound when it struck the ball—so much so, that most players proved unwilling to tolerate it, … Continued

ScienceSpace

Researchers Just Answered One of the Big Questions About How Black Holes Form

Among the (many) mysteries surrounding the gigantic black holes that live at the center of galaxies is just how they managed to get so big, so fast. Finally, scientists have come up with an explanation for their improbably large existence. Based on what we know about black holes and how quickly they grow, the incredible … Continued

SciencePhysics

Earth’s Core Is Younger Than We Thought

Without a Tardis, a journey to the center of the Earth might be your best option for traveling to the past. Because of the way gravity warps spacetime, physicists have now calculated that the Earth’s core is 2.5 years younger than its surface. This represents a much more significant time dilation effect than anybody realized. … Continued

SciencePhysics

It Takes Just Four Minutes To Explain the Entire Universe

In need of a quick refresher course on, well, the science of pretty much everything? Here’s a cheeky, irreverent summation of the universe in just four minutes from Exub1a, YouTube purveyor of “spacey stuff and existential angst.” Loosely reminiscent of the classic “Powers of Ten” motif, the video starts with “the Tyrion Lannister of physics,” … Continued

ScienceSpace

Astronomers Might Have Just Solved a Key Mystery About the Origin of Life

If a massive solar storm struck the Earth today, it could wipe out our technology and hurl us back to the dark ages. Lucky for us, events like this are quite rare. But four billion years ago, extreme space weather was probably the norm. And rather than bringing the apocalypse, it might have kickstarted life. … Continued

ScienceSpace

The Images From India’s First Ever Space Shuttle Launch Are Astonishing

Early this morning, India launched its very first reusable space shuttle. These remarkable photos illustrate just how majestic the teensy shuttle looked as it took off. One of the things these photos underscore is the scale of the launch. NASA’s space shuttle orbiters each measured over 122 feet in length, and the cost of just … Continued

ScienceSpace

India Just Launched an Adorable Mini Shuttle Into Space

India is joining the reusable space race. Its space agency has today launched a 22-foot space shuttle, that will be used test the country’s plans for creating a spacecraft that can be used multiple times. The 1.75-tonne un-manned spacecraft—known as Reusable Launch Vehicle—will travel to 43 miles above the Earth’s surface then descend back to … Continued

SciencePhysics

How Flowers Help Us Understand Why Bridges Collapse

The catastrophic collapse of Washington State’s Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940 launched intensive research into the aerodynamics of bridge design. Now a team of South Korean scientists have identified a geometric structure that can better withstand the complicated aerodynamic forces at play—and they found their inspiration in the shape of a daffodil stem. When wind … Continued

ScienceSpace

This Incredibly Hostile Desert Looks Beautiful (From Above)

This colorful image may look like a work of modern art, but it’s actually a false-color satellite image of Rub’ al Khali—the largest contiguous sand desert in the world, and home to insanely hostile conditions. Situated on the southern Arabian Peninsula, it’s a harsh environment: There’s usually less than 1.4 inches of precipitation per year, … Continued

ScienceSpace

New Mars Portrait Reveals Strange Changes to the Planet’s Surface

Mars is nearing its closest approach to us in a decade, so Hubble took that opportunity to capture a brand new up-close look at the red planet. And in the process, it captured some intriguing changes. The planetary portrait reveals the Martian surface so closely that researchers were able to make out details just 20 … Continued

ScienceSpace

Martian Author Andy Weir Tells Congress What We Really Need to Be Focusing on in Space

Yesterday, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee met with NASA and leading aerospace companies to discuss future deep space habitats. As Congressional hearings go, it sounds like an enthralling topic. But the most interesting part of the meeting was not a spirited debate over the merits of expandable space houses versus magnetic force fields: … Continued