과학 기사

For many of us the onset of winter means shorter daylight hours and therefore less exposure to the sun, but for the 35,000 residents of Rjukan in Norway it means complete darkness. That's because the tiny town situated deep in a valley floor is surrounded by high mountains that block out the sun entirely, during the winter months....

With the advent of smart devices, classroom curriculum is starting to become increasingly interactive. Now neuroscience PHD student Greg Gage and his team at Backyard Brains are taking it to a new level with their robo kits that can transform any cockroach into a RoboRoach! All that is required is a smart phone, steady hands and a living insect....

While you may never find money growing on trees, there is a chance that you could strike gold - literally! The best part is that the precious metal bearing trees are not in some far out planet, but right here on earth, in the Australian Outback....

Mention oysters and the two things that come to mind are slurping them down or wrenching them open for pearls. But now these mollusks may have a bigger role - that of protecting our waterfront cities from rising sea levels and giant storm surges like the one experienced by New York during Hurricane Sandy and helping clean our increasingly polluted waters....

On October 14th 2012, over eight million people worldwide tuned in to YouTube to watch Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner leap from the edge of space - 128,000 feet (24 miles) above sea level - and break the sound barrier as he came zooming down to earth....

They say that when it rains, it pours. That certainly seemed to be case in Southern California last week, except that it was not water falling from the skies, but ginormous rare oarfishes that appeared from deep inside the oceans....

While scientists have built many artificial organs individually, they have never before been put together to create an entire human body. Rex or as he has recently been renamed Frank (after Frankenstein), the world's first fully functional bionic man has just changed that. Now on display at the National Air And Space Museum in Washington D.C., the human clone was assembled in three short months using state-of-the-art organs that were donated by 17 manufacturers - A good thing given that the total cost came to about $1 million USD!...

With thousands of beautiful flamingos crowding around, at first glance Lake Natron, a salt lake in Northern Tanzania looks like your typical picturesque African landscape. But look closer and you will find something eerily unusual - Perfectly preserved dead animals strewn all along its shores. And while many have likened the lake to Medusa, the monster from Greek mythology who turned anyone that looked her in the eye to stone, most experts assert that the lake itself is not deadly....

When Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Jim Bredt and Tim Anderson created the first 3-D printer in 1995 by modifying an inkjet printer so that it would extrude a binding solution on to a bed of powder, instead of ink on paper, they probably had no idea of its tremendous potential....

Similar to the giant crop circles that sporadically appear in different parts of the world, strange grass circles that mysteriously emerge in South Africa's Namib Desert have dumbfounded both locals and scientists for many years. Measuring between 6 - 40 feet across, each 'fairy circle' is outlined by a ring of vegetation taller, than the surrounding grassland....

Most people are grossed out by insects and believe them to be just a nuisance. However, a group of students from Montreal-based McGill University think of them as protein that can be used to feed millions of malnourished people worldwide, an idea so powerful that it won them the prestigious 2013 Hult Prize on September 23rd....

To say that 11-year old Michal Bodzianowski knows very little about beer would be an understatement. He has of course never tasted the drink and till his dad explained, had no clue what a microbrewery was. But that didn't deter the sixth-grader from suggesting that astronauts brew the drink in Space as his entry for the Spring 2013 Student Spaceflight Experiments Challenge organized by the National Science Earth And Space Education whose main goal is to inspire the next generation of America's scientists and engineers....

For decades scientists lamented about the demise of the gorgeous Pinocchio lizard. Now it turns out that the reptile, while still rare, is very much around in the cloud forests of South America, an area known for its stunning flora and fauna....

For many years now, Dutch architect Ramon Knoester has been harboring a dream - To recycle the plastic that is polluting our oceans and transform it into a beautiful inhabitable island. He began his work in earnest in 2010, after receiving a grant from the Netherlands government. While it has taken a few years, and he has had to make some tweaks to his original plan, it seems as though this rather impossible sounding idea may actually become a reality, in the very near future....

Living in an era when airplanes can run on autopilot with no humans at helm, it is hard to imagine that there was once a time not too long ago, when pilots in the USA had to navigate their way across cities using rudimentary aviation maps and . . . ginormous arrows!...

The fact that kids seem to have an inordinate amount of energy is indisputable. What if this energy could somehow be harnessed and turned into electricity? That was a question that Ben Markham, a retired Vice President of Engineering at ExxonMobil asked himself a few years ago. The result? Empower Playgrounds Inc., non-profit company that has transformed the lives of thousands of young kids in Ghana with a simple yet brilliant idea!...

If you think conning or swindling others is something that was invented by the amazingly bright human mind, think again - the cuckoo finch has been doing it for centuries and their con is much more convincing than anything humans have been able to pull, because it entails tricking other birds into raising their chicks!...

Patrick a 23-year-old Western lowland gorilla has been a fixture at the Dallas Zoo since 1995. And while the gregarious male seems to love humans, his attitude toward his fellow gorillas especially females, has left much to be desired, leaving officials with no choice but to ship him off to a new home....

Going to a new school is tough - Not only does one have to seek out new friends but also be able to navigate around an unknown campus which can be a harrowing task depending on how big it is. Most schools assign seniors to help the newcomers, which is great, but wouldn't it be more fun if the campus guide was not human but a drone helicopter? Welcome to SkyCall....

The fact that kids love to play games is obvious. But do they love them enough to be convinced to not only eat, but also, enjoy 'yucky' vegetables like carrots, broccoli, tomatoes and even . . . green pepper? That is what Takayuki Kosaka, an assistant Professor at Japan's Kanagawa Institute for Technology is hoping to achieve with a new gaming console that he calls Food Practice Shooter!...

Imagine a scenario where you get to lounge in bed all day and watch as much television, play as many video games or read as many books as you want. If that is not awesome enough, here is the icing on the cake - You even get paid for doing that and not just a tiny amount amount, but an astounding $18,000 USD, for the duration of the fifteen week study!...

What is better than silly putty - that gooey mixture that flows like a liquid when handled gently, but turns as hard as a rock, when punched or stomped upon? How about one that flows through your hand like sand but can still be used to shape your favorite creations?...

With plans underway to lasso asteroids, establish settlements on Mars and send tourists out for quick jaunts, the fact that our future lies in Space is indisputable. However some of these dreams will be left unfulfilled unless we do something about all the junk we have abandoned in Space in the last 55 years....

Just as we humans are feeling all smug about our abilities to broadcast our daily schedule and plans via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, comes news that we are no pioneers - Male orangutans have been doing it for years, without requiring computers or sophisticated technology....