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Genetically modified animals that glow in the dark
Scientists inserted a gene into cats that helps them resist Feline immunodeficiency virus—a close relative of HIV and tracked it with a green fluorescent protein. These cats appeared normal during the day, but can glow at night if prompted.
Thanks science.
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Can cloning redwoods help fight climate change?
A recent study revealed Earth is currently warmer than any given point in the past 11,300 years. So what should we do?
One idea: Clone and plant a lot of gigantic trees with a glutton’s appetite for carbon dioxide. Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is spearheading a movement to plant California’s towering redwood trees in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Germany, and other parts of the United States.
According to NASA previous research has demonstrated that these monstrous organisms are capable of digesting much more carbon than any other tree on the planet.
Photo from: DLILLC/Corbis
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4 annoying ways climate change will make your life a bummer
Get ready for bumpy flights, horrible allergies, and watered-down beer. Climate change will definitely affect you. -
8 brilliant scientific screw-ups
Anesthesia (1844)
Mistake leading to discovery: Recreational drug use
Lesson learned: Too much of a good thing can sometimes be, well, a good thingFor decades Nitrous oxide was considered no more than a party toy. Finally, in 1844, a dentist came upon the idea after witnessing a nitrous mishap at a party. High on the gas, a friend of fell and suffered a deep gash in his leg, but didn’t feel a thing. In fact, he didn’t know he’d been seriously injured until someone pointed out the blood pooling at his feet.
7 other accidental scientific discoveries
Photo from: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
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Scientists: Why penis size does matter
Women prefer big penises, thunders a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. (Say it out loud.) Researchers had 105 women rate computer-generated nude images of male bodies on a scale of 1 to 7.
“As you increase penis size, the amount of attractiveness scores gets bigger,” said post-doctoral researcher Brian Mautz.
Since early humans didn’t wear clothes, male penises were obvious to women. So if women chose their mates based on the size of their genitalia, it’s possible that these decisions influenced the evolution of bigger penises, according to National Geographic.
Oh. Thank goodness for clothes, then. And having a face.
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This 19th century shark-tooth sword reveals extinct biodiversity in the Gilbert Islands. These “badass” weapons feature dagger-like teeth from eight different shark species, one of which oddly isn’t found in the area. While trading with other far-away cultures could explain how the teeth got there, it’s more likely the spottail sharks were fished out.
Photo from Drew J, Philipp C, Westneat MW (2013)
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Look at this baby picture of our universe. Wasn’t it cute?
The European Space Agency on Thursday released this image yesterday, which depicts what the universe looked like a mere 380,000 years after the Big Bang. While that may sound like a fair amount of time, the universe was virtually an infant then, giving scientists new insight into its origins.
“The new satellite data underscored the existence of puzzling anomalies that may yet lead theorists back to the drawing board. The universe appears to be slightly lumpier, with bigger and more hot and cold spots in the northern half of the sky as seen from Earth than toward the south, for example. And there is a large, unexplained cool spot in the northern hemisphere.”
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Where did the Russian meteorite come from? Most likely from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Poring over crowd-sourced footage, researchers Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin from the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, were able to use “simple trigonometry to calculate the height, speed, and position of the rock as it fell to Earth,” says BBC News. More importantly, the duo was able to find out where Russia’s most famous meteorite was likely born.
Using astronomy software developed by the U.S. Naval Observatory, Zuluaga and Ferrin gathered enough data to trace the meteorite’s origins in outer space. The information included the meteorite’s relative angle to the horizon, the shadows it cast, and video timestamps of the rock’s screaming descent.
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Everything you need to know about meteor strikes
Meteors are space rocks that find their way into Earth’s atmosphere. They can be as small as a grain of sand or as big as a boulder. They usually burn up during their descent. The ones that survive are called meteorites, and they can hit the Earth at speeds of up to 18,600 mph.
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The Chelyabinsk region of Russia, in the Ural Mountains about 930 miles east of Moscow, was pelted by at least one meteorite on Friday, freaking out residents with bright streaks across the sky and loud, window-shaking explosions.
No serious injuries have been reported from the blasts, and Russian authorities are providing slightly different explanations for what happened. The growing consensus is that a meteorite exploded about 32,000 feet in the air, scattering smaller chunks around the region. “Verified information indicates that this was one meteorite which burned up as it approached Earth and disintegrated into smaller pieces,” Russian Emergency Ministries official Elena Smirnykh tells Russia’s RIA Novosti.
There’s some amazing video footage emerging after the explosions. Watch.
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Since the 1980s, a hole in the ozone layer has loomed over Antarctica for three months of every year. During these months, the concentration of the ozone decreases, and harmful ultraviolet light, which causes sunburn and skin cancer, seeps through to the Earth’s surface. Environmentalists have long looked to the ozone hole as evidence of man’s negative impact on the atmosphere, but recent findings may ease their minds: Measurements indicate the hole in the ozone layer is the smallest it has been in 10 years, and could be completely gone within a few decades.
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We won’t try to tell you that hi-Fun gloves ($70) aren’t “pointless and completely laughable.” But it’s still hard to resist a Bluetooth-enabled glove that hides a microphone in its pinkie finger and a speaker in its thumb so that the wearer needs only to make the “call me” sign to carry on a phone chat.
You must have your smartphone nearby, but you can receive a call or redial a number by merely touching the back of the glove. “If you have cold hands and you hate headsets and you’re cool with looking like a total crazy person, here you go.”
