WEIRD SCIENCE
By Nick Lavars – The Z-pinch confinement system at the University of Washington. Nuclear fusion holds untold potential as a source of power, but to recreate the colliding atomic nuclei taking place inside the Sun and generate inexhaustible amounts of clean energy scientists …
By Rich Haridy – Uncovering the mechanism by which calcium deposits accumulate on the walls of arteries could help develop new treatments for everything from heart disease to dementia. (Credit: Melinda Duer). A landmark study, led by a team of scientists from …
By Michael Irving – A gene known as mcr-3.1 that grants bacteria like Salmonella resistance to “last resort” antibiotics has been detected in a patient in the US. (Credit: katerynakon/Depositphotos). Antibiotics were one of the most important scientific developments of the 20th century, helping …
By Ben Coxworth – The disposable patch gathers genetic material containing both plant DNA, and the DNA of disease-causing organisms. (Credit: NC State University). When farmers find sickly plants in their crops, it’s important that they find out which malady is responsible, as quickly as possible. …
By Michael Irving – Comet Wirtanen, which buzzed Earth in December 2018, has been found to harbor “ocean-like” water. (Credit: NASA). Earth is a famously wet planet, but where all that water came from in the first place remains a mystery. The most …
By Rich Haridy – Research suggests the fertilizer industry’s methane emissions is three times higher than the EPA assumed was emitted by all industrial production in the United States. (Credit: BespaliyA/Depositphotos). A disturbing new study from researchers at Cornell University and the …
By Ben Coxworth – A preproduction EVE r3, on display at ICRA 2019. (Credit: Ben Coxworth/New Atlas). You might think that most new robots are designed to head off into factories or other workplaces, but the fact is that many of them are …
By Joseph Stiglitz – Critics of the Green New Deal ask if we can afford it. But we can’t afford not to: our civilization is at stake. ‘The war on the climate emergency, if correctly waged, would actually be good for the economy.’ …
By Loz Blain – Compact and portable, the Jyrowheel is launching on Indiegogo. (Credit: Jyroball). Weighing just 20 lb (9 kg) and folding into a 10-inch-diameter (25-cm) ball for transport, the Jyroball is a super-compact self-balancing urban monowheel that its creators say is …
By Ben Coxworth – Brown tube sponges on a reef in Belize. (Credit: dsabo/Depositphotos). We’ve recently been hearing about how scientists can tell which creatures are present in an aquatic environment, by detecting their cast-off DNA in the water. A new study …
