The dawn of the cyborg bacteria is here
Elizabeth Beattie and Denise Wong aren't mad scientsts. They promise.But the two women, doctoral students in robotics at the University of Pennsylvania, are taking on a project that sounds a lot like...
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NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is already historic, and it’s just getting started
In terms of big unanswered questions in our planet’s history, you don’t get much bigger than “How did life start?” It certainly didn't start without water, and the latest turn in a seven-year NASA...
View Article'The leaders I’m supposed to look up to have 100 percent failed me'
Harvard senior Chloe Maxmin has been fighting powerful interests since she was 12 years old.Maxmin grew up in rural Maine, where she campaigned against development that threatened her beloved woods....
View ArticleMeet the tech activist who works for the White House
Activists and campaigners aren't the only people trying to use digital tools for social change: Even the White House is getting in on the act.President Barack Obama recently appointing the country's...
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How to save rhinos? By turning their dung into paper.
In a small factory in the northeastern India, a strange type of swill churns in a vat. Bits of chopped-up old hosiery swirl around in almost 200 gallons of water while, at six-second intervals,...
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What do you do when a new volcanic island arises from the great blue ocean?...
The boat trip took two hours from Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga.Branko Sugar piloted his son Zandy and GP Orbassano to a place he'd been many times before to spearfish.That's when they came upon an...
View ArticleHow disease and genocide marked the start of the 'human age'
We've long known that human activity can change our environment, but when exactly humans started to irreversibly alter the Earth has been an open question. Now new research from scientists at...
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At LA's Institute for Art and Olfaction, the science and history of perfume...
The corner near Los Angeles' Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO) is bustling — crowded, and gritty. On Sixth Street and Vermont Street in Koreatown, the atmosphere exudes odors of loose asphalt, car...
View ArticleSeeing a total solar eclipse is 'like standing on another planet and looking...
The skies will go dark over the Faroe Islands for about two minutes on Friday.A total solar eclipse will take place just after 9:40 a.m. over the remote islands, which lie far, far north in the...
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When climate sinks high-tech rice, older varieties may save the day
In May 2009, Cyclone Aila wreaked havoc across eastern India, flooding villages, killing hundreds of people and leaving 1 million homeless. Aila's heavy winds and high waves breached the mud...
View ArticleThere's nothing like an eclipse to make Russians feel closer to the West
People fly around the globe to watch the solar eclipses. The events get intense media coverage these days. But what if you weren't aware that one was going to happen?That's what happened to one woman...
View ArticleA new fossil may date humanity's ancestor further back than we thought
Don't call it a "missing link" — Brian Villmoare doesn't like that phrase — but a group of archaeologists including Villmoare has found a new fossil that fills in an important gap in the record of...
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Welcome to the 'Double El Niño'— and more extreme weather
We’re about to experience a “double El Niño” — a rare weather phenomenon that climatologists had warned about several months ago. That means two consecutive years of the concentration of warm water in...
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Poisoning rhino horns doesn't hurt the rhinos, but it may keep poachers away
Rhinos with poison-infused horns are roaming the bush in South Africa, frightening away poachers who don’t want sell a toxic product to their clients in Asia. At least that’s what Lorina Hern...
View ArticleWhy we're all overconfident
Here's a phenomenon we've all noticed: a friend insists they're right about something, refuses to waver in spite of doubters, and then consults Wikipedia, only to realize that they're dead wrong.We...
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A remote, forgotten Nazi hideout? Archaeologists shine light on Argentine...
Sorry, folks: Despite some breathless headlines, no one has found actual Nazis hiding out in a remote stone building in northeastern Argentina.But a team of Argentine archaeologists says it may have...
View ArticleA bright new seadragon species emerges from the shadows
With its vibrant red coloring, the ruby seadragon hardly seems like a stealthy creature. Yet the marine fish evaded discovery until only recently.The delicate seadragons live exclusively in the waters...
View ArticleWill the next David Foster Wallace be a robot?
An algorithm could have written this. Well, maybe not this exact article; that still might be a couple years off. But computers are producing journalism.Forbes already outsources some of its earnings...
View ArticlePaul Greenberg's guide to eating seafood ethically
Here's yet another food dilemma for the 21st century: Ethically speaking, what's left that you can actually eat from the ocean?Given how hard it is to know the backstory of the fish on your plate, is...
View ArticleA crash in Europe lays bare some of aviation's myths
Officials are still trying to figure out why an Airbus A320 flown by discount airline Germanwings slammed into the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 passengers on board.One possible explanation...
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