Scientists Edge Closer To Elusive Lab Test For 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'

Stanford University scientists have found an array of proteins in the blood whose levels correlate closely with the severity of symptoms of the mysterious illness that's increasingly known as ME/CFS.

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The Evolution of Trust

an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other

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Newly Discovered Garbage Patch in the South Pacific Is 1.5 Times the Size of Texas, Study Says

A largely unstudied area of the South Pacific Ocean is home to a newly discovered garbage patch that researchers estimate to be 1.5 times the size of Texas, according to a recent study. This new patch found in the ocean's gyre is estimated to be as large as 965,000 square miles, reports ResearchGate. Gyres are areas of the ocean that are surrounded by circulating currents. They help circulate ocean waters around the world, but they also suck in pollution.

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It is easy to expose users' secret web habits, say researchers

Porn browsing habits and confidential documents are found in supposedly anonymised data.

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Pilot lands plane with 127 passengers 'blind' after hailstones shattered cockpit windscreen

A pilot carried out a heart-stopping emergency landing during which he couldn't see – after giant hailstones shattered the windscreen of his severely damaged jet. Captain Alexander Akopov picked up the Ukrainian Order For Courage in his home country after landing the Airbus A320 at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on Thursday.

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The polygamous town facing genetic disaster

In a remote region of the US, a town is struggling with a chilling health crisis caused by a recessive gene. The reason? Here, polygamy is still practised.

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The Speed in Which You Perceive The World Can Be Altered With a Video

The speed in which you see moving objects around you, can be shifted up or down with the help of a stimulus such as a video. In their study, Visual adaptation alters the apparent speed of real-world actions, researchers from University of Lincoln and University of Stirling have shown that the perceived speed of a moving object can be altered with a stimulus, such as an adapting video, which was used in their experiment.

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Religious Children Have Trouble Distinguishing Reality from Fiction

A study conducted by researchers led by Kathleen H. Corriveau of Boston University examined how religious exposure affects a child’s ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. They found that religious exposure at an early age has a surprising effect: it makes children less able to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

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Controversial New Theory Suggests Life Wasn't a Fluke of Biology—It Was Physics

Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing.

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A biohacker’s plan to upgrade dalmatians ends up in the doghouse

The FDA wants to regulate animals altered using the gene-editing technique CRISPR.

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Growing food in the post-truth era

The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades. Having constructed food scarcity as a justification for a second Green Revolution, Big Agriculture now employs its unethical marketing tactics to selling farmers “climate-smart” agriculture in the form of soils, seeds and chemicals.

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Your kitchen sponge harbors zillions of microbes. Cleaning it could make things worse

That sponge in your kitchen sink harbors zillions of microbes, including close relatives of the bacteria that cause pneumonia and meningitis, according to a new study. One of the microbes, Moraxella osloensis, can cause infections in people with a weak immune system and is also known for making laundry stink, possibly explaining your sponge’s funky odor. Researchers made the discovery by sequencing the microbial DNA of 14 used kitchen sponges, they report this month in Scientific Reports.

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Renewable Energy Is A "Powerful New Reality."

At least since 2013, one of the biggest concerns in the climate change debate has been the so-called carbon budget.

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Gearing up to search for life on Enceladus

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Here are the ages your brain peaks at everything throughout life

At almost any given age, most of us are getting better at some things and worse at others.

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How US climate machine has left 180 deniers in Congress

This anti-environmentalist tactic of countering critiques of industrial impacts on the planet with lies, obfuscation and defamation has a long history. It goes back at least to establishment attacks on the US municipal housekeeping movement in the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th century.

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Utility Helps Wean Vermonters From the Electric Grid

In a new low-income development that replaced a trailer park here, rooftop solar panels sparkle in the sun while backup batteries quietly hum away in utility closets. About an hour away, in Rutland, homes and businesses along a once-distressed corridor are installing the latest in energy-saving equipment, including special insulation and heat pumps.

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The giant panda is herbivore but has the gut microbiota of a carnivore

However, despite his exclusively herbivorous diet, surprisingly the giant panda has a typical carnivorous gastrointestinal tract, anatomically similar to dog, cat or raccoon, with a simple stomach, a degenerated caecum and a very short colo

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Report: Iran successfully launches satellite-carrying rocket into space

Iran successfully launched a satellite-carrying rocket into space on Thursday, the country's state media reported without elaborating. Iranian state television described the launch as involving a "Simorgh" rocket that is capable of carrying a satellite weighing 550 pounds. The state media report did not elaborate on the rocket's payload.

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Study shows how high fat diets can alter gut bacteria to combat harmful inflammation

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have shown a high fat diet may lead to specific changes in gut bacteria that could fight harmful inflammation--a major discovery for patients suffering from Crohn's disease.

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Nasa needs you: space agency to crowdsource origami designs for shield

In the search for ways to efficiently pack a radiation shield to protect manned spacecraft on deep space missions, Nasa is looking to the public for help

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The First Farmers

The world’s oldest grindstones dating back to 30,000 BCE, plentiful harvests as far as the eye can see and rolling pastures of green straight out of a golf course. An idyllic image bringing u…

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Four huge airlines on three continents are creating a virtual super-airline

Four huge airlines on three continents want to create a virtual super-airline. They plan to spend more than $1 billion to do it. In a series of transactions announced Thursday, Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Shanghai-based China Eastern (CEA)are each buying 10% of Air France/KLM (AFLYY)Group. And Air France/KLM will buy 31% of Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airways. The roughly $1.2 billion worth of investments will deepen business ties between the carriers, giving them the ability to coordinate across the busy air corridor between Europe and the United States.

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Lukas Graham - 7 Years

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What We Can Learn From Finland’s Basic Income Experiment

At the beginning of this year, Finland launched a national experiment to determine the feasibility of universal basic income. However, due to problems with the trial and the country's economy, the results may not prove to be particularly useful.

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Acute angina

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How Intelligence Might Make You More Biased

A new study complicates the trope of the stupid bigot.

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What happens when you have a concussion?

Each year in the United States, players of sports and recreational activities receive between 2.5 and 4 million concussions. How dangerous are all those concussions? The answer is complicated and lies in how the brain responds when something strikes it. Clifford Robbins explains the science behind concussions.

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'Incredible shrinking airline seat': US court says seat size a safety issue

Passenger group challenged Federal Aviation Administration after agency rejected request for rules on seat size and distance between rows...

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Boom! Powerful Cosmic Explosion May Hint at How Black Holes Form

New research has revealed more about how superpowerful gamma-ray bursts are generated and how they evolve over time. By Elizabeth Howell.

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The Mass Grave in the Garden

A Brazilian family discovers the world’s largest mass grave of enslaved people in their backyard.

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Secrets of the world's toughest creatures revealed -

DNA analyses of tardigrades has given scientists an insight into their incredible survival abilities.

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Keyboards are overrated. Cursive is back and it's making us smarter

Louisiana grade-school students will resume penmanship study this fall, and there are reasons why you too should consider it.

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This Big Hole in the Sun is Not a Good Thing

A hole bigger than the Earth on the surface of the Sun could result in massive solar flares that can knock out communications satellites and power grids. By Paul Seaburn.

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Solar eclipse will reveal mysteries of the sun

Scientists observing the Aug. 21 solar eclipse hope to learn more about what heats up the sun's outer atmosphere

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The reason all human faces are unique

Genes controlling face shape are almost identical for everyone, so what gives your face that one look that’s uniquely you? Here’s what happens…

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Newfound Dino Looks Like the Creepy Love Child of a Turkey and an Ostrich

A newly identified bird-like dinosaur has a head crest that is uncannily similar to the crest of a cassowary. By Laura Geggel.

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Mediterranean Sea 'trashed' by plastic waste

The Mediterranean - Europe's summer playground - is being trashed by accumulating plastic waste. Research suggests about 3,000 tons of the material is floating on the surface, with more added every year. And because the sea is almost fully enclosed the plastic is trapped - taking decades to break down. Not only are tourists swimming in the debris, marine creatures are mistaking it for food.

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Researchers Just Launched a Prototype of Humanity's First 'Interstellar Spacecraft'

Last year, extraterrestrial exploration venture Breakthrough Initiatives announced an ambitious plan to send tons of tiny spacecraft to our nearest neighboring star system, Alpha Centauri. The project, called Breakthrough Starshot, is focused on launching lightweight ‘nanocraft’ to the stars at rip-roaring speeds. Recently, the project took a big leap toward achieving its ultimate goal by successfully sending six test craft into Low Earth Orbit.

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Bone Machine: 3D Printing Is Revolutionizing Plastic Surgery

At first glance, the line of cheerfully colored plastic skulls atop professor Laurent Lantieri’s bookshelf might be out-of-season Halloween decorations. But a closer look reveals something less than cheery: jagged holes, missing jaws and crumpled eye sockets. The skulls represent something very real — injuries that Lantieri has fixed.

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She thought she was Irish — until a DNA test opened a 100-year-old mystery

How Alice Collins Plebuch’s foray into “recreational genomics” upended a family tree.

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Amazon Completes New Suspension Tank To House Psychic Beings Who Foresee Customers’ Future Orders

SEATTLE—Explaining that the larger containment center was necessary to keep up with increased demand, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Thursday the completion of a new suspension tank that will allow the online retailer to house even more of the psychic beings who foresee each shopper’s future orders.

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Why religious people 'cling' to beliefs even when contradicted by evidence

Religious people "cling" to certain beliefs in the face of evidence because those views are closely tied to their moral compasses, new studies have suggested. Dogmatic individuals hold confidently to their faith even when contradicted by experts because those beliefs have "emotional resonance," researchers said. In contrast, militant atheists struggle to see anything positive about religion because their brains are dominated by analytical thinking, scientists found.

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Claude Shannon, the Las Vegas Shark

The father of information theory built a machine to game roulette, then abandoned it.

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Scientists dim sunlight, suck up carbon dioxide to cool planet

Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun's rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet. Backers say the risky, often expensive projects are urgently needed to find ways of meeting the goals of the Paris climate deal to curb global warming that researchers blame for causing more heatwaves, downpours and rising sea levels.

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These highly social birds can make ‘sentences,’ just like humans

Tits amazing are birds Japanese. If you didn’t get that, you wouldn’t be alone: Humans figure out the meaning of sentences like this using grammatical rules such as word order. It turns out that Japanese tits, social birds that live in Japan and the Russian Far East, do it too. These wild birds respond to calls they’ve never heard before only if the chirps are in the right order, researchers report today in Current Biology.

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Donald Trump and the Coming Fall of American Empire

Famed historian Alfred McCoy predicts that China is set to surpass the influence of the U.S. globally, both militarily and economically, by the year 2030. By Jeremy Scahill.

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A molten puddle deep under Iceland may reveal where volcanoes get their lava

Ultralow-velocity zones may anchor volcano-feeding mantle plumes

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An asteroid came knocking, but no one was home

Asteroid 2017 001 made a close pass by Earth, but wasn't detected until three days later.

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It Turns Out Glasses Don´t Make You Smarter

Donald Trump’s secretary of energy, Rick Perry, once campaigned to abolish the $30 billion agency that he now runs, which oversees everything from our nuclear arsenal to the electrical grid. The department’s budget is now on the chopping block. But does anyone in the White House really understand what the Department of Energy actually does? And what a horrible risk it would be to ignore its extraordinary, life-or-death responsibilities? By Michael Lewis.

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