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Tech News
Microwaving Rubies Makes Them Prettier
Not all gemstones are of the same quality. While some rubies are clear and beautiful, others are dull, filled with flaws, and the color of old blood. Scientists have found that chucking them in a serious microwave can really improve them. This is not the first time people have used technology to improve gemstones. Lasers … Continued
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Tech News
Scientists Have Created Both a New Type of Stem Cell and a Video To Tell You About It
Almost all the cells in your body have two sets of 23 chromosomes, for a total of 46 chromosomes. These are diploid cells. Your sperm or your egg cells, called haploid cells, only have 23 chromosomes. For the first time, scientists have made human stem cells with haploid cells. This could lead to a lot … Continued
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Tech News
This Necklace Can Tell What You’re Eating By How It Sounds Going Down
Scientists at the University at Buffalo are developing a necklace that will track your food intake by the sound you make when you’re chewing it and gulping it down. No more embarrassing food journals! Just embarrassing accessories! The latest issue of IEEE Sensors Journal describes the development and testing process for AutoDietary, a device that … Continued
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Tech News
Sydney is Getting the Library of the Future
The city of Sydney is setting up a new library inside a building that looks, depending on who you ask, like a stack of plates, a spaceship taking off, or a cyborg hairdo. The library will occupy two floors, and will house a lot more than just books. There are a lot of gorgeous libraries … Continued
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Tech News
These Microbots Steer Using Electricity and the Bacteria That Causes Urinary Tract Infections
Because the world keeps getting more bizarre, it turns out that the best way to get these microbots to navigate around obstacles is to smear them with the bacteria that causes urinary tract infections and send them through an electrical grid. See a demonstration! In a recent issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Robots, … Continued
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Tech News
How to Tell if a Fossil T-Rex Is Pregnant
Researchers have confirmed that a 68-million-year-old fossil found in Montana came from a pregnant Tyrannosaurus Rex. This not only will make it easier for other scientists to sex different fossils, it gives us an insight into the evolution of birds. Scientists from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences have … Continued
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Tech News
We Have a 30-Year ‘Nitrate Legacy’ That No One Wants to Pay For
A new study done by Canadian researchers takes a look at nitrates in ground water in the Mississippi Basin and finds bad news. If we stop using nitrogen fertilizers today, there will still be a three-decade legacy of excess nitrogen in water—and there’s a lawsuit right now that will decide who will foot the bill. … Continued
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Tech News
This Heart in a Jar Could Make Heart Transplants Safer
What looks like a prop from a steampunk movie is actually a partially decellularized heart in a bioreactor. And this heart has the potential to save the lives of heart attack patients, and, one day, people who need heart transplants too. In a new paper in Circulation Research, scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital describe a … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
There’s a Bald Eagle Serial Killer on the Loose
In February, the bodies of 13 bald eagles were found in a Maryland field. Now, US Fish & Wildlife Services have announced that the deaths were “human caused” and are issuing a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of those responsible. Apparently the recent political debates aren’t enough of a metaphorical strike … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
How Ants, Once Blind, Evolved to See Again
About 80 million years ago, several kinds of tropical army ants went underground. Like many predominantly subterranean species, they lost their sight. They also lost the parts of the brain associated with sight. Eighteen million years ago, a few species of army ant—Eciton hamatum, Eciton mexicanum and Eciton burchellii—resurfaced. Researchers from Drexel University have found … Continued
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Tech News
This Is What Happened When Instagram Banned Certain Pro-Anorexia Words
In 2012, Instagram started moderating certain terms used by pro-anorexia groups, making it one of the more tightly moderated social media platforms. A group of Georgia Tech researchers decided to study if banning such words helped the communities using them. Instead, they found that it may make matters worse. Like many social media sites, the … Continued
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Tech News
Behold the Transgenic Limes of the Future
We’re bored to tears with ordinary green limes. Fortunately, we don’t have to suffer much longer. New, transgenic limes are on the horizon, taking their hues from blood oranges and red seedless grapes. The Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science has published the first pictures of transgenic Mexican limes (above). Developed by researchers … Continued
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Tech News
Monkey Brains Reveal How We Know Which Way Is Up
These are some of the 500 images recently shown to rhesus monkeys while their brains were being monitored. None are meant to correspond to any real-world physical object, but the experimental results revealed certain cells in the object area of the brain that let us recognize up and down, and to grasp that those directions … Continued
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Tech NewsSploid
Watch a Hydra Rip Open Its Own Skin to Eat
Hydra are small, tentacled beasties that spends their time floating around freshwater, stinging and eating small shrimp. To eat, a hydra has to rip open its own skin. This behavior is well known, but it hadn’t been captured on video—until now. As described in a new paper in Biophysical Journal, scientists from the University of … Continued
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Tech News
Four Cities Are Screwing Themselves Over By Not Using Rainwater in Toilets
Four cities could exclusively use rainwater to flush their toilets. But by demanding drinkable water to be pumped to their houses, just so they can poop in it and throw it back out, they are burdening their infrastructure in two different ways. A new study, done by environmental engineers at Drexel University and published in … Continued
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Tech News
How Many Nights of Mediocre Sleep Are the Same as No Sleep At All?
Scientists deprived a group of study participants of different amounts of sleep. Some got a full night’s sleep, others got their hours of sleep cut down, and some got no sleep whatsoever. After a while, the slightly-deprived people were as bad off as the people who had gotten no sleep. The difference was, they didn’t … Continued
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Tech News
This Meteorite Settles a Question About Which Elements Made Up the Early Universe
Scientists from the University of Chicago have taken a look at the Curious Marie, a bit of meteorite containing perhaps the most valuable ceramic in the world. These ceramic elements can tell us whether the early universe created heavy particles—without containing any of those elements. The journal Science Advances contains images of an unremarkable-looking rock. … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
Why Self-Fertilizing Worms Have Shorter Lifespans
Self-fertilization isn’t uncommon in the animal world. Nematode worms have made the switch from sex to self-fertilization several times. A new study found that switching to self-fertilization shaves time off lifespans in a population, and researchers have a few ideas as to why. Multiple species have managed to get along without males. Many are anomalous, … Continued
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Tech News
A New Technique Could Get Companies to Start Producing Coral Snake Antivenom Again
A few years ago, the only FDA-approved coral snake antivenom in the United Statesgot discontinued. The antidote was rarely used and expensive to make, so few companies had an interest in producing it. A new technique could cut the cost for making this and other antivenoms, and may make staying alive a little cheaper. Up … Continued
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Tech News
This Stretchy, Light-Up Skin Is the First Step to a Robot Octopus
The future could belong to robot octopuses: soft, flexible, durable, with displays written across their super-stretchy skin. Scientists at Cornell University have just taken the first step toward such robot with a light-up flexible skin that stretches to nearly six times its original size, splitting the difference between skin and screen. In a new paper … Continued