By Michael Irving – A new battery cell design could help us tap into the vast stores of geothermal energy beneath our feet. OlgaSinenkoBO/Depositphotos. – One of the largest natural sources of renewable energy could be right under our feet – literally. The Earth …
By Michael Irving – The thermoelectric generator uses a black aluminum disk to radiate heat into the atmosphere, and a polystyrene enclosure to keep the air inside warm. Aaswath Raman. – As effective as solar panels are, one of their major downsides is that …
By Ben Coxworth – The majority of the environmental DNA found in the study came from eels – although not necessarily giant ones. mikelane45/Depositphotos. – Last year, we heard about a scientist who was headed to Loch Ness to search for the monster’s DNA. …
Not that they need another reason. By Peter Hess – Whether it’s a hassle with spiral notebooks or a struggle with scissors, left-handers don’t have it easy in this right-handed world. But new research suggests that their uniqueness shows up in more significant …
Woodhull sought to unite a coalition of African Americans, abolitionists, laborers, suffragists and 19th-century Spiritualists — groups that found themselves without a voice in government and relegated to the fringes of power. By Kayla Epstein – Five women are running for president of …
By Ben Coxworth – A diagram of the energy-harvesting device. Gao et al. – As compared to most other joints in the human body, the knee has quite a large range of motion … so why not put that motion to use, as a …
Meet Greater Adria. By Sarah Sloat – Around 180 million years ago, Earth fundamentally changed when Gondwana began to dismember. Today, present-day places, including South America and Australia, are visible chunks of this former ancient supercontinent, as well as not-so visible slices of …
The exoplanet K2-18b isn’t exactly Earth, but it’s as close as it gets. By Passant Rabie – Good news: We’re all moving 110 light-years away! Well, maybe not quite yet, but scientists just made a major breakthrough in the search for habitable worlds …
By Michael Irving – The new whale species, Berardius minimus, in the wild. Tadasu K. Yamada et al., Scientific Reports. – New species turn up on Earth with surprising regularity, but most of the time they’re small, like ants and tarantulas. You’d be forgiven …
Apple Pay, but for crypto? By Mike Brown – Is cryptocurrency coming to the iPhone? While Apple’s smartphone supports apps that provide access to wallets and exchanges, recent comments from an executive have suggested the company could offer deeper integration. “We’re watching cryptocurrency,” …
