Plants really do respond to the way we touch them, scientists reveal

It's something that plant lovers have long suspected, but now Australian scientists have found evidence that plants really can feel when we're touching them. Not only that, but different sensations trigger a cascade of physiological and genetic...

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How the arts promote healthy aging.

Music, dance, poetry, painting and other arts are pumping new life into older minds and bodies.

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Measuring the Milky Way: One massive problem, one new solution

It is a galactic challenge, to be sure, but Gwendolyn Eadie is getting closer to an accurate answer to a question that has defined her early career in astrophysics: what is the mass of the Milky Way?

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Japan Is Getting High-Speed “Invisible” Trains

Reflective material will make them blend into the landscape.

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Ten unique Basque words you need to learn right now

The Local looks at some key unique words in Basque you can try out during your next visit to northern Spain.

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What Are You?

So. Are you your body? And if so, how exactly does this work? Lets explore lots of confusing questions.

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Bumblebees' Little Hairs Can Sense Flowers' Electric Fields

Flowers generate weak electric fields, and a new study shows that bumblebees can actually sense those electric fields, using the tiny hairs on their fuzzy little bodies to tell the difference between flowers and locate pollen.

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Scientist suggests possible link between primordial black holes and dark matter

Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes. Now a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, suggests that this interpretation aligns with our knowledge of cosmic infrared and X-ray background glows and may explain the unexpectedly high masses of merging black holes detected last year.

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Inside the World of Fire Ants!

A song of ants and fire… and ant-decapitating flies

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You Are Two

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American Archeologists Need To Get Wet

Sea levels were lower during the ice age, when the first humans made their way into North America. That means the next big find is underwater.

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Why Some Flies Have Mega Sperm

Ridiculously long sperm evolved in fruit flies because picky females want only the best genes, researchers found.

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What is the Great Attractor and its pull on our galaxy?

Something mysterious is pulling our Milky Way through space at a much faster rate than expected. So what could it be?

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Schrodinger's Bird: The art of mind-bending physics

Schrodinger's Bird brings the mesmerising concepts of quantum quirkiness to life in a new animation and exhibition.

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8 Great Philosophical Questions

Philosophy goes where hard science can't, or won't.

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Harvard Scientist Engineers Bacterium That Inhales CO2, Produces Energy

The chemist who gave us the artificial leaf has genetically engineered bacteria to absorb hydrogen and carbon dioxide and convert them into alcohol fuel. When Harvard Professor of Energy Daniel G. Nocera announced he was working with bacteria last year, other scientists cautioned it would be difficult to achieve a productive level of efficiency. At the time, Nocera was aiming for 5 percent efficiency—about 5 times better than plants. This month at the University of Chicago, he announced his bug converts sunlight ten times more efficiently than plants.

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Why do we talk to ourselves? A new book investigates the voices in our heads

"The Voices Within" by Charles Fernyhough is an ear-opening book – and an important corrective to myths about schizophrenia, the brain and even our self of sense.

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If climate scientists are in it for the money, they’re doing it wrong

One of the more unfortunate memes that makes an appearance whenever climate science is discussed is the accusation that, by hyping their results, climate scientists are ensuring themselves steady paychecks, and may even be enriching themselves.

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Do You Really Have a New Body Every 7 Years?

You may have heard the rumor. Every seven years your body becomes a whole new person. But is there anything to this? Check out this SciShow episode to find out!

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Awake in a Nightmare

Ancient demons. Alien abductions. Sex-crazed witches. Are the terrifying hallucinations of sleep paralysis as old as sleep itself? By Karen Emslie.

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Most Drugs Aren’t Tested on Pregnant Women. This Anti-nausea Cure Shows Why That’s a Problem

For years, Zofran was the most popular morning-sickness medication in the U.S. Now it’s being accused of causing birth defects. The larger issue is a drug-safety system that excludes women from clinical trials, potentially putting them and their babies at risk.

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All scientific papers should be free by 2020

This week was a revolutionary week in the sciences - not because we discovered a new fundamental particle or had a new breakthrough in quantum computing - but because some of the most prominent world leaders announced an initiative which asserts that European scientific papers should be made freely available to all by 2020. This would legally only impact research supported by public and public-private funds, which are a vast portion of the papers produced annually; however, the goal is to make all science freely available. Ultimately, the commitment rests on three main tenets: "Sharing knowledge freely", "open access", and "reusing...

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Space experts say sending humans to Mars worth the risk

There’s a long-standing joke that NASA is always 20 years from putting astronauts on Mars. Mission details shared at a recent summit shows that the space agency is right on schedule. A to-do list from 2015 looks remarkably similar to one compiled in 1990. One difference: NASA is now building a rocket and test-driving technologies needed to get a crew to Mars. But the specifics for the longest road trip in history — and what astronauts will do once they arrive — remain an open question.

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Resistance is futile: the super science of superconductivity

A primer on what superconductors are and how they work.

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M34 (NGC1039)

Open cluster in Perseus

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American Lawyers Apparently Have a Drinking Problem

America’s lawyers aren’t happy. One in five licensed lawyers having a drinking problem, while almost one in three experienced symptoms of depression, according to a new study published in the February issue of the Journal of Addiction Medicine. Men and young lawyers were found to be particularly at-risk for drinking problems. For instance, 25% of male lawyers tested positively for hazardous, potentially dependent drinking. And over 30% of lawyers 30 years old or younger had similarly alarming scores on the alcohol use test. Only about 11.8% of the highly-educated workforce has a drinking problem...

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This 'Tricky' Math Puzzle Will Probably Make You Throw Your Computer Across The Room

You've gotta be joking. [From JoAT: I dare you to find it in less than 30 seconds!]

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42 Visions For Tomorrow From The Golden Age of Futurism

Smartwatches? Check. Self-driving cars? Check. Corn on the cobs the size of London Eye pods? Hmm

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How Might Cell Phone Signals Cause Cancer?

An expert answers questions about what could happen at the cellular level after a report links radiofrequency signals to tumors in rats. The release of a study Friday linking cancer in rats to the type of radiation emitted by cell phones presents some of the strongest implications in more than two decades of research that higher doses of such signals could be linked to tumors in laboratory animals—unsettling news for billions of mobile phone users worldwide. Still missing, however, is a clear understanding of exactly how radiofrequency (RF) radiation used by mobile phones might create cellular-level changes that could lead to cancer.

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Maths mystery solved after 40 years

A proof for graph theory's Kelmans-Seymour conjecture.

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Food advice from the Guardian: don't eat octopus... they have more genes than you ...so do onions.

Last year the Guardian‘s food police deemed HP sauce to be the condiment of ‘the establishment’, barbecues to be borderline racist…

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Could Thinking Positively About Aging Be The Secret Of Health?

People who have positive images of aging and have a purpose in life live years longer than those who are negative, studies find. They also have less risk of stroke and Alzheimer's disease

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Watch lightning bolts creep through the sky in slow motion

A new high-speed camera captures a series of lightning strikes in remarkable detail

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Isaac Newton Once Tried To Invent His Own Language

The great 17th century physicist Isaac Newton is known for many things. There’s his laws of motion and theory of gravity. Plus, the dude invented calculus, wrote a lengthy treatise about optics, and dabbled in alchemy for good measure. But few people know that as a young college student, Newton tried to invent his own universal language.

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"Gluten Exposed" Is a Nuanced Take on Nutritional Science. So People Probably Won’t Read It.

"Gluten Exposed" is a non-revolutionary, non-miracle-promising book of genuine science by Dr. Peter Green, director of Columbia University’s Celiac Disease Center, and medical writer Rory Jones. It comes on the heels of such best-sellers as "Wheat Belly" and "Grain Brain"—and for people who have learned about gluten from these titles, it will be somewhat perplexing. "Gluten Exposed" contains no stories about astonishing autism reversals. No promises of Alzheimer’s prevention. No weight-loss secrets the establishment doesn’t want you to know. Dr. Oz has not endorsed it. There aren’t even recipes in the back!

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Chicken embryo tests can prevent practice of gassing billions of cockerels

The current practice of gassing billions of male chicks within a day of hatching because they cannot lay eggs could be stopped thanks to a new embryo gender test. Globally some 3.2 billion cockerels are killed within hours of breaking free of their eggs each year. Now Dutch scientists have developed a simple test that identifies the sex of chicken embryos within eggs, meaning males could be terminated long before hatching.

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After Tens of Thousands of Pigeons Vanish, One Comes Back

At first the whole thing seemed preposterous. No way this could happen.

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Is Standing Really Better Than Sitting At Work? Try Doing Both

Standing desks have generated a lot of news and considerable hype over the last few years. Frankly, all of this coverage has been missing something important. Sitting for hours on end isn’t wise, true enough, but nothing in the research proves that the remedy is merely standing up all day instead. A new study may nudge us a little closer to the real issue.

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Millennials Show Us What ‘Old’ Looks Like

What age do you consider to be old? AARP posed that question to millennials and asked them to show what “old” looks like. Then they introduced them to some real “old” people. Watch what happens when folks let go of their outdated beliefs and embrace the idea that aging is not about decline - it’s about growth.

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Construction of world's largest dam in DR Congo could begin within months

The largest dam in the world is set to begin construction within months and could be generating electricity in under five years. But 35,000 people may have to be relocated and it could be built without any environmental or social impact surveys, say critics. The $14bn (£9.5bn) Inga 3 project, the first part of the mega-project, is being fast-tracked by the Democratic Republic of Congo government will span one channel of the vast river Congo at Inga Falls. It involves a large dam and a 4,800MW hydro-electric plant.

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Does the yeti exist? Scientists use DNA evidence in bid to solve mystery

It is one of the world's greatest enduring mysteries. Stories of a yeti, or an abominable snowman, have been entrenched in Himalayan folklore for hundreds of years - but there has never been any definitive proof of its existence.

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Tales of African-American History Found in DNA

Geneticists have studied clues in the DNA of African-Americans about the history of slavery and the Great Migration.

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Tropical storm forming in Atlantic cuts path toward South Carolina

The first tropical storm to threaten the United States this year is expected to slam into the coast of South Carolina during the Memorial Day weekend, bringing heavy rain and strong winds, federal officials said on Saturday.

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What happens to your body on Mount Everest

"Human beings aren't built to function at the cruising altitude of a 747," the voice in the trailer for the film "Everest" warns. "Our bodies will be literally dying." It's Rob Hall, played by actor Jason Clarke, as he prepares to lead an expedition up the world's highest peak. The film, also starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin, is based on a 1996 climb, when eight people died during a blizzard. This particular journey is well known: Its horrifying details were chronicled in Jon Krakaue

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Sea sponge the size of a minivan discovered in ocean depths off Hawaii

Scientists find immense creature 2,100m below surface of the ocean; researcher says it is ‘probably in the order of centuries to millennia old’

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Mapping the Creatures Living Beneath Our Feet

A new atlas catalogs the strange and spectacular species that live in the soil.

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Afraid of floods and hackers? Put your data in space

Satellite-based data centers with room for petabytes of data may start orbiting Earth as early as 2019. But when it comes to keeping secrets safe from the long arm of the law, the black void may not be far enough.

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DNA 'tape recorder' to trace cell history

Researchers invent a DNA "tape recorder" that can trace the family history of every cell in a body.

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Some women regret their abortions. That doesn't mean others shouldn't have the choice

This week, the wife of a Republican legislator did something you might find shocking: she wrote about having an abortion. Stephanie Chatfield, who is married to Michigan’s state representative Lee Chatfield, posted on Facebook about ending a pregnancy in high school after she was sexually assaulted at a party. “To tell you the truth, I desperately wish that I had the courage as a teenage girl to accept and welcome my child into this world,” she wrote. “But I didn’t, and I made a decision that I’ve thought about and regretted nearly every day since.”

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Rosetta spacecraft finds key building blocks for life in a comet

Scientists discover ingredients regarded as crucial to the origins of life on a comet the European Space Agency has been probing for two years.

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