Bitcoin’s carbon footprint could be offset by blockchain’s green applications, experts say

'What we need is not just these taxes or labels. What we need is impact. What we need is measurable action,' said Pedro Baiz of the Blockchain & Climate Institute.

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Mystery brain disorder baffles Canadian doctors

Spasms, memory loss and hallucinations among symptoms of patients, mostly in Acadian peninsula of New Brunswick province

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Elon Musk’s new Dragon capsule will let astronauts stick their head out into space

‘Probably most “in space” you could possibly feel by being in a glass dome”, Elon Musk tweeted

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NASA's Oxygen-Making Machine Could Change Mars Forever

Whether for breathing or sending rockets back home, we'll need to make oxygen on Mars. Soon, we'll know if it's possible.

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Growing up in a rough neighbourhood can shape kids' brains, so good parenting and schooling is crucial

Social disadvantage can cause stress that leads to changes in 'connectivity' between brain regions, potentially harming adolescents' ability to plan, set goals, and self-reflect.

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This is What Happens When You Fly a Drone Into a Volcano

While drones allow photographers to get very close to erupting volcanoes, it's not without risk: the drones don't always emerge unscathed.

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Sleeping Octopuses May Have Dreams, But They're Probably Brief

Octopuses have an "active" phase of sleep, the kind that might involve dreaming, but they probably don't have long, complicated dreams like people do.

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We know hand dryers can circulate germs through the air. Why are they still used everywhere?

What side are you on, paper or dryer? In either case, here's the bottom line on what to do after using the toilet.

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Boston Dynamics unveils Stretch: a new robot designed to move boxes in warehouses

Coming to a warehouse near you in 2022

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First flight on Mars? Ingenuity helicopter preps for takeoff

In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew a plane for 12 seconds, 120 feet in the air, on what is now known as the first powered-controlled flight on Earth. Now, 118 years later, the first powered-controlled attempt at a flight on another planet is about to take place.

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Dismantling the anti-vaxx industry

Investigations show that those spreading misinformation that undermines the rollout of vaccines against COVID-19 are well financed, determined and disciplined. To counter their activities, we need to understand them as an industry actively working to sow doubts about the deadliness of COVID-19, vaccines and medical professionals’ integrity.

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It’s rarer than gold and critical for green energy — and it’s about to be mined in Utah

One of the least common elements on Earth will soon be recovered at Rio Tinto’s Bingham Canyon Mine in the Salt Lake Valley through the copper smelting process. Tellurium’s main use is in the manufacturing of solar panels.

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Cern experiment hints at new force of nature

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva have spotted an unusual signal in their data that may be the first hint of a new kind of physics. The LHCb collaboration, one of four main teams at the LHC, analysed 10 years of data on how unstable particles called B mesons, created momentarily in the vast machine, decayed into more familiar matter such as electrons.

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Shanna Swan: 'Most couples may have to use assisted reproduction by 2045'

The professor of environmental medicine explains how chemicals in plastics are causing our fertility to decline – and what we can do about it. Shanna Swan is a professor of environmental medicine and public health at Mount Sinai school of medicine in New York City, studying fertility trends. In 2017 she documented how average sperm counts among western men have more than halved in the past 40 years. Count Down is her new book.

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Boy finds 480 million-year-old fossil in garden using set he got for Christmas

A six-year-old boy has found a fossil up to 488 million years old while digging in his garden with a fossil-hunting set he received for Christmas. Siddak Sing Jhamat, known as Sid, had been digging in his garden in Walsall, in the West Midlands, "for worms and things like pottery and bricks", he said.

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Octopuses may be able to dream and change colour when sleeping

Octopuses cycle between quiet and active phases of sleep, similar to reptiles and birds, and may experience dreams during the active parts

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The Discovery That Transformed Pi

For thousands of years, mathematicians were calculating Pi the obvious but numerically inefficient way. Then Newton came along and changed the game.

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Scientists Are Sizzling Sausages On The Lava From Iceland's Erupting Volcano

Science can be hungry work, and when you’ve spent the day sciencing next to an incredibly hot heap of lava only a fool would turn down the opportunity to cook up some sausages. The sizzle-fest kicked off on Sunday on Geldingadalir, a volcano close to Reykjavik, Iceland, which recently erupted with glorious enthusiasm.

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MIT engineers make filters from tree branches to purify drinking water

The interiors of nonflowering trees such as pine and ginkgo contain sapwood lined with straw-like conduits known as xylem, which draw water up through a tree’s trunk and branches. Xylem conduits are interconnected via thin membranes that act as natural sieves, filtering out bubbles from water and sap.

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NASA wants companies to develop and build new space stations, with up to $400 million up for grabs

NASA this past week unveiled the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) project, with plans to award up to $400 million in total to as many as four companies.

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The Amazon Rainforest Now Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Absorbs

Climate change and deforestation have transformed the ecosystem into a net source of planet-warming gases instead of a carbon sink

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NASA declares Earth is safe from 'Apophis' asteroid for 100 years

NASA announced this week that Earth will remain safe from the threat of a specific asteroid's impact for at least the next 100 years.

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The ‘USS Jellyfish’ emits strange radio waves from a distant galaxy cluster

The unusual pattern of radio waves dubbed the USS Jellyfish tells a story of intergalactic gas meeting black hole by-products.

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NASA to offer funding for initial studies of commercial space stations

NASA is shifting direction in its effort to support development of commercial space stations, with plans to issue a series of awards for initial studies.

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How the AstraZeneca vaccine became a political football – and a PR disaster

Newly accused of data manipulation by the US, AstraZeneca has faced unprecedented scrutiny over the past six months. Embattled scientists at AstraZeneca feel they have been unfairly targeted for trying to do something that goes against the profit-driven grain in the pharmaceutical industry – not making money from the vaccine.

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Bill Gates Is Thinking About Dimming the Sun

The billionaire is backing a study of the controversial technology called solar geoengineering.

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Why Russian scientists just deployed a giant telescope beneath Lake Baikal

Russian scientists have deployed Baikal-GVD, an enormous underwater telescope that will search for neutrinos beneath Lake Baikal.

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President Biden Should Push for the Human Exploration of Mars

Robotic rovers like Perseverance are great, but they can’t answer the most fundamental questions about the Red Planet

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A gene defect may make rabbits do handstands instead of hop

Mutations in a gene typically found throughout the nervous system rob rabbits of their ability to hop. Instead, the animals walk on their front paws.

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Farming fish in fresh water is more affordable and sustainable than in the ocean

Aquaculture is a growing source of healthy protein for millions of people around the world, but there are big differences between farming fish on land and at sea.

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First Covid-19 cases may have been infected in October 2019, says new study

The earliest Covid-19 cases in Hubei province might have emerged as early as October 2019 – weeks before the first known cases – according to new research. A study published in the journal Science last week said these cases would have been difficult to detect and the disease would have established a firm foothold among the human population before it was identified.

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Interstellar object 'Oumuamua is a pancake-shaped chunk of a Pluto-like planet

The first known visitor from interstellar space, 'Oumuamua, was likely a pancake-shaped chip off a Pluto-like world, researchers say. These findings may shed light on the stuff a new class of planet, an exo-Pluto, is made of, scientists added.

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Lawyers used sheepskin as anti-fraud device for hundreds of years to stop fraudsters pulling the woo

Medieval and early modern lawyers chose to write on sheepskin parchment because it helped prevent fraud, new analysis suggests. Experts have identified the species of animals used for British legal documents dating from the 13th to 20th century, and have discovered they were almost always written on sheepskin, rather than goatskin or calfskin vellum.

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First 3D Images of a Giant Molecule

Capturing the structure of large molecular complexes with variable shape is an extremely difficult task. Scientists from Würzburg and Montpellier now have been able to do it – thanks to a new approach regarding an important protein machine.

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Tiny robots can now smuggle drugs into brain tumors

Researchers have discovered a way to camouflage microrobots in the body using white blood cells to pass through the blood-brain barrier.

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Why drones are on the brink of changing our world

UAV Training Australia’s Wayne Condon explains how the industry went from recreational to commercial in the last few years.

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Are Plastics and Pesticides Responsible for Declining Sperm Counts?

A Q+A with Shanna Swan on the alarming rise in human reproductive problems.

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Part of Wright brothers’ 1st airplane on NASA’s Mars chopper

A piece of the Wright brothers’ first airplane is on Mars.

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Stanford study finds walking improves creativity

Stanford researchers found that walking boosts creative inspiration. They examined creativity levels of people while they walked versus while they sat. A person's creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.

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Why do Americans share so much fake news? One big reason is they aren’t paying attention, new research suggests

Americans who share fake news on social media might not lack media literacy skills. Chances are they don't stop to check accuracy, a new study suggests.

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Big banks’ trillion-dollar finance for fossil fuels ‘shocking’, says report

The world’s biggest 60 banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal in 2015, according to a report by a coalition of NGOs. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic cutting energy use, overall funding remains on an upward trend and the finance provided in 2020 was higher than in 2016 or 2017, a fact the report’s authors and others described as “shocking”.

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Scientists Find New Patterns In Mysterious Radio Pulses From Distant Galaxies

The strange signals known as “fast radio bursts” (FRBs) have long mystified the astronomy community. The sudden, strong radio pulses, often emanating from distant galaxies, appear at regularly timed intervals, from every few of milliseconds to weeks — and we still aren’t entirely sure what they are or why they exist.

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Coronavirus: How the common cold can boot out Covid

It looks like the viruses that cause colds wins in the battle to infect our cells.

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Scientists find a new way to map darker parts of the cosmic web

The method paves the way for future experiments.

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Scientists plan to drop limits on how far human embryos are grown in the lab

As technology for manipulating embryonic life accelerates, researchers want to get rid of their biggest stop sign.

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Itching to discover a new species? Follow this map

Ecologists involved in mapping all life on Earth have now taken the next step: predicting where the life we don’t know about is waiting to be discovered. As a first pass, they have created an interactive map showing diversity hot spots with the richest potential for new mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian species. They describe their results today in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

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Processed Meat Linked to Increased Dementia Risk, Study Finds

People’s love of processed meat might come back to bite them in the long run, new research from the UK suggests. The study found a link between greater consumption of processed meat and higher rates of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. At the same time, it also found a possible link between eating unprocessed meats and a lower risk of dementia.

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Could an accident have caused COVID-19? Why the Wuhan lab-leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

I have reported on safety lapses at elite U.S. labs. There is no reason to believe they aren’t happening at labs in other countries as well.

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Venus Could Have Been Habitable for Billions of Years

New simulations show the planet could have maintained moderate temperatures and liquid water until 700 million years ago

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Making honey without bees and milk without cows

Firms are using fermentation to produce honey and milk and say they can match the taste of the real thing.

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