Huge fire ripped through Titanic before it struck iceberg, fresh evidence suggests

The sinking of the largest ship ever built, the Titanic, may owe as much to a enormous fire onboard as it did to a gigantic iceberg, it has been claimed. The doomed vessel, which measured more than 880ft long and 100ft tall, went down with the loss of more than 1500 lives on April 15, 1912 during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

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The Deepwater Horizon Aftermath

The oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) rig in 2010 contaminated more than 1,000 square miles of seafloor. The complexity of the event has made it difficult for scientists to determine the long-term fate of oil in this ocean environment. But researchers from UC Santa Barbara, with colleagues from three other institutions, are making progress.

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Where Does Alzheimer's Treatment Go From Here?

The failure of an experimental drug that targets clumps of protein inside the brains of Alzheimer's patients called into question one of the leading theories about the cause of the dementia.

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Slavery’s Traces

In Search of Ashley’s Sack. By Mark Auslander.

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Self-Driving Cars Will Exacerbate Organ Shortages Unless We Start Preparing Now

Much has been said about the ways we expect our oncoming fleet of driverless cars to change the way we live—remaking us all into passengers, rewiring our economy, retooling our views of ownership, and reshaping our cities and roads. They will also change the way we die. As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It’s a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation.

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"The Vegetarian" and the Puzzling Link Between Diet and Mood

“If you’re going to be a vegetarian, you have to be more thoughtful about what you eat.”

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Why Google co-founder Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

Tiny electric airplanes could become mainstream sooner than you think. People have dreamed about flying cars for decades, but the technology has always seemed far out of reach. Airplanes have long been too big, expensive, dangerous, loud, and complex for personal aviation to be more than a hobby for rich people. But that might be about to change. “There’s a couple of technologies that are maturing and converging” to make small, affordable airplanes feasible, says Brian German, an aerospace researcher at Georgia Tech. German argues that lighter and more powerful electric motors, batteries that can store more energy...

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Fewer children per man than per woman: Birthrates for men in Germany made available for the first time

Research on men's birthrates have so far been rather a blind spot. Max Planck researchers have now calculated the missing age data for men using statistical methods. Their figures show that men on average have less children than women and have them later in life. Differences are especially strong in eastern Germany, where men set a new world record for low fertility.

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iPhone manufacturer Foxconn plans to replace almost every human worker with robots

Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant behind Apple’s iPhone and numerous other major electronics devices, aims to automate away a vast majority of its human employees, according to a report...

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BREAKING: Passenger plane grounded after bomb alert MID-AIR

Police and emergency services rushed to the scene. EnterAir flight B737 from Las Palmas to Warsaw was forced to land in Prague after the incident. Police later confirmed they "neutralised" the suspect and all 160 passengers were safely evacuated.

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Hedgehogs Hold the Secret to Preventing Concussions

If you ever find yourself watching hedgehog go about its day, you’ll notice that they tend to fall out of trees — a lot. Wild hedgehogs climb trees as high as 30 feet, looking for insects and food to eat. Sometimes they fall by accident, other times they fall on purpose to evade a predator or because falling is a lot faster than climbing down.

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Holidays and Alzheimer's families.

Holidays can be challenging for families living with Alzheimer's and other dementias. Get tips on planning, gifts and managing stress, whether at home or a care facility. Find caregiver help and support, online and from your local chapter.

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The Creative Architect: Inside Psychology’s Most Ambitious and Influential Study of What Makes a Creative Person

Until the middle of the twentieth century, creativity was considered a nebulous and hokey subject unfit for scientific study. It may be a rather curious system bug of our consciousness that we so easily dismiss the most elemental and highest-order objects of human aspiration as somehow unserious and unworthy of rigorous research. Harvard’s pioneering study of happiness, which began in 1938, had to upend enormous cultural and academic norms, as did the first systematic study of love in 1958. The turning point for creativity came in 1959, thanks to a researcher by the name of Dr. Donald MacKinnon.

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Alzheimer's: Every minute counts.

The PBS documentary film ALZHEIMER'S: EVERY MINUTE COUNTS is an urgent wake-up call about the national public health threat posed by Alzheimer’s disease. Premiering January 25, 2017

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What Does Any of This Have To Do with Physics?

Einstein and Feynman ushered me into grad school, reality ushered me out. By Bob Henderson.

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Your App Isn’t Helping The People Of Saudi Arabia

On March 15, 2002, 15 Saudi girls burned to death inside their school in Mecca. They were not trapped by fallen debris, or unaccounted for by firefighters. The mutaween, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, would not allow the girls to leave their burning school because they were not covering their hair or wearing their abayas... By Felix Biederman.

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Autonomous Cars: The Future of Uber, and the World

"95% of vehicle accidents are due to human error. When autonomous cars come out, it's going to reduce vehicle deaths by 95%. If you think about that on a worldwide scale, that impact is going to be more than curing certain diseases." The GM for Uber in Western Canada, Ramit Kar, discusses the company's plan for autonomous vehicles, and why Uber knew they had to jump on board once the market started heading towards autonomous.

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Alzheimer's Falls More Heavily on Women than on Men

Distinct biological and genetic factors may shape how it progresses in women—and understanding them could be crucial to prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

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Drowning the World in Oil

Trump’s Carbon-Obsessed Energy Policy and the Planetary Nightmare to Come. By Michael T. Klare.

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Massive object frozen under Antarctica

SCIENTISTS believe a massive object which could change our understanding of history is hidden beneath the Antarctic ice. The Sun reports the huge and mysterious “anomaly” is thought to be lurking beneath the frozen wastes of an area called Wilkes Land. It stretches for a distance of 151 miles across and has a maximum depth of about 848 metres. Some researchers believe it is the remains of a truly massive asteroid which was more than twice the size of the Chicxulub space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs.

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Will We Miss Our Last Chance to Save the World From Climate Change?

Will We Miss Our Last Chance to Save the World From Climate Change? By Jeff Goodell, with James Hansen.

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The widowhood effect: What it’s like to lose a loved one so young

When her husband died at 36, Christina Frangou was a statistical outlier, a young widow. She soon discovered that there was a name for the phenomenon surrounding her devastating grief and the toll it takes on those left behind.

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Russian space agency Roscosmos to 3D print living tissue on ISS

Russian scientists are planning to install and operate a 3D bioprinter aboard the International Space Station, according to an official source. They believe that microgravity conditions could actually improve the bioprinting process.

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Trump's EPA Pick Rouses Suspicions Over Ties to Koch Brothers

Scott Pruitt is under fire for his supposed ties to a nonprofit controlled by billionaire oil tycoons, Charles and David Koch. By Lorraine Chow.

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85-Year-Old Marathoner Is So Fast That Even Scientists Marvel

Ed Whitlock remains at the forefront among older athletes who have led scientists to reassess the possibilities of aging and performance.

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Madrid bans half of cars from roads to fight air pollution

Odd- and even-numbered vehicles will swap use of roads in Spanish capital until smog eases

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Brain activity is too complicated for humans to decipher. Machines can decode it for us.

Why we need artificial intelligence to study our natural intelligence.

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How Smart Is an Octopus?

A scuba-diving philosopher explores invertebrate intelligence and consciousness.

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Anthrax in the Arctic

Why wolves are the least of a reindeer’s worries this Christmas. By India Bourke.

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Gift of the fungi: Mushrooms — yes, mushrooms — could help save the world

What can't mushrooms do? From cleaning chemical spills to mitigating topsoil loss, they're nature's unsung heroes. By Samuel Blackstone.

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What to Do When Grandma Has Dementia

"Why take on the burden of caregiving? Grandma lived her life already; why give up yours? Why put everything on hold just to take care of her? There were several slices to the pie of why...." By Larry Handy.

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As North Carolina continues its sharp right turn, some feel abandoned

North Carolina attracted legions of new workers on the promise of a progressive lifestyle in the New South. But they feel betrayed by a dramatic political shift.

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Tibetan Plateau Discovery Shows Humans May Be Tougher than We Thought

Converging genetic and archaeological evidence hints that early migrants clung to the frigid, oxygen-starved “roof of the world” through the worst the climate could throw at them. By Jane Qiu.

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The Time 19th-Century Paleontologists Punched It Out

Famous fossil hunter E. D. Cope got into a fistfight over a matter of tarnished honor. By Brian Switek.

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What will all the ‘stuff’ you own mean when you're older?

Which objects would you choose to tell the story of your life? By Gemma Carney.

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Birds migrating earlier as temperatures rise

Migrating birds are arriving at their breeding grounds earlier as global temperatures rise, an Edinburgh University study finds.

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See the Nighttime Acrobatics of Montana’s Flying Squirrels

Wintertime in a remote Montana forest heralds the arrival of mating season for the flying squirrel—and one of nature’s most spectacular air shows. By Alexander V. Badyaev and BioGraphic.

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There will be much less work in the future. Societies need to get ready, now

A war on wheels has been raging in London since Uber started operating there four years ago. Traditional black cab drivers have been up in arms about the new high tech disruptor. Uber has accused London’s Mayor of siding with the black cabs and has taken legal action against Transport for London, which is planning new regulations to limit the number of private hire vehicles. In November, more than 100 Uber drivers mounted a “go slow” protest in London to put pressure on the company to pay the minimum wage.

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Work. Walk 5 Minutes. Work.

Standing up and walking around for five minutes every hour during the workday could lift your mood, combat lethargy and even dull hunger pangs.

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Why are we so attached to our things?

After witnessing the “violent rage” shown by babies whenever deprived of an item they considered their own, Jean Piaget – a founding father of child psychology – observed something profound about human nature: Our sense of ownership emerges incredibly early. But why do we become so attached to things? Christian Jarrett details the psychology of ownership.

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Apes can guess what others are thinking - just like humans, study finds

Research indicates apes are able to predict one another’s beliefs and suggests that other primates have complex inner lives

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How Does Alcohol Get You Drunk?

It’s almost time to ring in 2017. And since most New Year’s celebrations include alcohol, Reactions’ latest episode explains the chemistry behind its effects – drunkenness, frequent bathroom breaks and occasionally poor decision-making.

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Early Alzheimer's Gene Is A Curse For Families, A Gift For Science

Rosemary Navarro was living in Mexico when her brother called from California. Something wasn't right with their mom, then in her early 40s. She was having trouble paying bills and keeping jobs as a food preparer in convalescent homes. Navarro, then 22, sold her furniture to pay for a trip back to the U.S. for herself and her two young children. Almost as soon as she arrived, she knew her mother wasn't the same person. "She was there but sometimes she wasn't there," she said. "I thought, 'Oh, man, this isn't going to be good.' "

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Metformin Plus Syrosingopine Effectively Combats Cancer Cells

A combination of a diabetes medication and an antihypertensive drug effectively fights cancer cells, according to a team of researchers at the University of Basel. They also report that specific cancer cells respond to this combination of drugs. Metformin is the most widely prescribed drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Besides its blood sugar lowering effect, it also displays anti-cancer properties. The usual therapeutic dose, however, is too low to effectively fight cancer. The research team led by Prof. Michael Hall, at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, has now made an unexpected discovery. The antihypertensive drug

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Tesla Autopilot’s new radar technology predicts an accident caught on dashcam a second later

Just a few weeks ago, we published a report about how Tesla’s new radar technology for the Autopilot is already proving useful in some potentially dangerous situations. We now have a new piece of evidence that is so spectacularly clear that it’s worth updating that report. The video of an accident on the highway in the Netherlands caught on the dashcam of a Tesla Model X shows the Autopilot’s forward collision warning predicting an accident before it could be detected by the driver.

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Organisms might be quantum machines

If there’s any subject that perfectly encapsulates the idea that science is hard to understand, it’s quantum physics. Scientists tell us that the miniature denizens of the quantum realm behave in seemingly impossible ways: they can exist in two places at once, or disappear and reappear somewhere else instantly. The one saving grace is that these truly bizarre quantum behaviours don’t seem to have much of an impact on the macroscopic world as we know it, where “classical” physics rules the roost.

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Giant robot takes first steps

A giant robot designed by scientists based in South Korea has taken its first steps.

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A New Approach to Alzheimer’s: Restore Defective Brain Waves

In a completely new approach, scientists reduced a hallmark of the disease in mice by stimulating their neurons with flickering lights.

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White House: Robots may take half of our jobs, and we should embrace it

Artificial intelligence is coming, and policymakers need to prepare the economy for it, the White House said in a report released Wednesday. The report, “Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy,” suggests the U.S. should invest in and develop AI, because it has “many benefits,” education and train Americans for the jobs of the future, and aid workers in the transition and empower them to share in future growth.

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Cheetahs Heading Towards Extinction as Population Crashes

A new study estimates there are just 7,100 now left in the wild as they face growing conflict with humans.

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