WEIRD SCIENCE
By Michael Irving – Researchers have managed to recreate cell division outside of a cell. (Credit: vjanez/Depositphotos). Cell division is one of the most fundamental biological functions, vital to life – but there’s still so much about it that we don’t understand. …
It just takes three elements to make a fire. By Peter Hess – Complications like infections or perforations can arise in the operating room, but one man had a much closer brush with disaster, as doctors reported at the European Society of Anesthesiology’s …
Observer editorial. This absurd ruling restricts highly targeted plant breeding but allows random changes caused by carcinogenic chemicals. The techniques used to modify this rice in Norfolk in the last century have been overtaken by new methods that do not involve introducing …
By Michael Irving – Fashionable fungi: A colored image shows the particles of gold collected by the fungus species fusarium oxsporium. (Credit: CSIRO). Shiny, pretty and useful in electronics, gold has been prized by humans for millennia, but we’re not the only ones …
By Michael Irving – An illustration of a collision between two huge celestial bodies, similar to that now theorized to have given the Moon its asymmetrical face. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech). While we can only see one “face” on the Moon from our vantage point …
By David Szondy – An exoplanet smaller than Neptune with its own atmosphere has been discovered in a Neptunian Desert. (Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick). An international team of astronomers led by the University of Warwick has found a “forbidden” planet orbiting …
Scientists say surge of radiation led to lightning causing forest fires, making adaptation vital. Ian Sample, Science editor – According to the researchers, a series of stars in our corner of the Milky Way exploded in a cosmic riot that began about 7m …
Largest global study finds the drugs in two-thirds of test sites in 72 countries By Natasha Gilbert – Of the European rivers tested, the Danube had the highest level of antibiotic pollution. Photograph: Nick Ledger/Getty Images/AWL Images RM. Hundreds of rivers around …
By David Szondy – Isotope analysis indicates that Earth’s water may have arrived when the Moon was formed. (Credit: NASA Goddard). The question of where Earth’s large amount of water came from may find its answer by looking to the Moon. According …
By David Szondy – Carbon-14 from above ground nuclear testing in the 20th century has been found in the deepest parts of the ocean. (Credit: US Department of Energy). A new study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou indicates that radioactive …
