Transparent Solar Technology ‘Wave of the Future’

See-through solar materials that can be applied to windows represent a massive source of untapped energy and could harvest as much power as bigger, bulkier rooftop solar units, scientists report today in Nature Energy. Led by engineering researchers at Michigan State University, the authors argue that widespread use of such highly transparent solar applications, together with the rooftop units, could nearly meet U.S. electricity demand and drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels.

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Stone Tools at Arabian “Crossroads” Present Mysteries of Ancient Human Migration

Nearly 200,000 years ago, at the confluence of two long-vanished river systems in the heart of Arabia, people climbed a jagged, rocky dyke rising nearly 200 feet above the surrounding plains. There they crafted hand axes and other edged tools from plentiful volcanic stone—and left thousands of them behind. Today, many millennia after the more temperate Arabia the toolmakers knew vanished, those stone tools endure as tantalizing clues to the mysteries of human evolution and migration in the ancient world.

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How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime

Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. Prosecutors, including future Trump labor secretary Alexander Acosta, cut Epstein an extraordinary plea deal. By Emily Michot, Julie K. Brown.

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Beavers are engineering a new Alaskan tundra

Climate change has enabled the recent expansion of beavers into northwestern Alaska, a trend that could have major ecological consequences for the region in the coming decades.

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Plot twist: Mitochondrial DNA can come from both parents

Study confirms rare paternal mitochondrial transmission in three families.

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CDC says life expectancy down as more Americans die younger due to suicide and drug overdose

"We are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable," CDC director warns

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AI shown to successfully predict changes in DNA

AI is now at the forefront of DNA structural analysis thanks to new genomics research from a team at Stanford University, California. The paper, published in Nature Genetics reveals that deep learning AI is now capable of understanding and predicting pattern changes in DNA structures. These findings suggest that AI analysis of DNA structures now surpass human capabilities due to its speed and accuracy. This also means that genomics is likely the next field of research to benefit from developments in artificial intelligence.

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A Space Force is worth the price

One of the most hotly debated proposals in the FY 2020 budget cycle is likely to be the creation of a military service for space. One of the main arguments being made against the creation of a Space Force is the cost. In September, an internal Air Force memo leaked to the media estimated that cost at $13 billion — an eye-popping figure, if true.

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A billionaire’s plan to search for life on Enceladus

Russian entrepreneur and physicist Yuri Milner wants to send a probe back to Saturn's ocean moon Enceladus, to search for evidence of life there. NASA wants to help him.

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Is The Sun Conscious?

Rupert Sheldrake

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Early humans hooked up with other species a whole bunch

One thing about our ancestors has become increasingly clear: early humans loved to get down, even with other species

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Strange waves rippled around the world, and nobody knows why

Instruments picked up the seismic waves more than 10,000 miles away—but bizarrely, nobody felt them.

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Physics can explain the fastball’s unexpected twist, new study finds

Pitches vary as a result of different spin speed, spin axis, ball orientation.

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Inside the mind of a bee is a hive of sensory activity

Are insects ‘philosophical zombies’ with no inner life? Close attention to their behaviours and moods suggests otherwise. By Lars Chittka, Catherine Wilson.

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All I want for Christmas is a 90% efficient solar panel

NovaSolix hopes to use carbon nanotubes to capture a broader portion of the sun's electromagnetic spectrum, a process they hope will yield a 90% efficient solar cell at a tenth of the cost of modern solar modules. By John Weaver.

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McGill researchers use lobster shells to make biodegradeable plastic

Researchers at McGill say they've discovered a simple way to make biodegradable plastic from the hard shells of lobsters, shrimps, crabs and insects such as crickets and beetles. Audrey Moores, an associate professor of applied chemistry, came up with the process along with graduate student Thomas Di Nardo. "It remains biodegradeable, so if it goes in the environment it's not going to pollute," Moores told CBC Montreal. "But by processing it well we can make it into a durable plastic."

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The Insect Apocalypse Is Here

What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?

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CO2 Rises for the First Time in Four Years

Global efforts to tackle climate are off track says the UN, as it sees a rise in CO2 after years of decline.

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Radical Findings Show Mitochondrial DNA Can Be Inherited From Dads

Not all DNA is the same, and science has long held that not all kinds of DNA are passed down from both your mother and your father. But it looks like the time has come to rewrite the textbooks.

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What It's Like To Breathe Some Of The Most Polluted Air In The World

In New Delhi, the air has a dusty, burnt taste, says NPR's Furkan Latif Khan. And sometimes the air is so bad she wears a face mask.

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The Science Is Clear: Dirty Farm Water Is Making Us Sick

This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding.

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Elon Musk: Humans must merge with machines

Elon Musk, the inventor and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, told "Axios on HBO" that humans must merge with machines to overcome the “existential threat” of artificial intelligence. The big picture: Musk said artificial intelligence is "just digital intelligence. And as the algorithms and the hardware improve, that digital intelligence will exceed biological intelligence by a substantial margin. It's obvious." And he said we're way behind: "We're like children in a playground. ... We're not paying attention. We worry more about ... what name somebody called someone else ... than whether AI will destroy humanity. That's insane."

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Watch Live as NASA's InSight Lander Descends to Mars

Today NASA will attempt its eighth successful landing of a robot on the red planet by venturing to place its InSight lander—a spacecraft almost 10 years and nearly one billion dollars in the making—as gently as possible on the vast planes of Mars' Elysium Planitia.

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Christian historians may have exaggerated persecution of faithful at the hands of Romans: archaeologists

According to a report at the Daily Beast, archaeologists working in Jordan claim that Christian historians may have inflated reports about the torture of the faithful at the hands of Romans. The report states that “In his Church History, Eusebius of Caesarea, the first Christian historian, tells the story of the rise of Christianity from a regional Jewish splinter group to the dominant religion of the Roman empire. Eusebius wrote in the fourth century and was at least acquainted, if not actually friendly, with the Roman emperor Constantine.

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Spider silk is five times stronger than steel—now, scientists know why

The next time you brush aside a spiderweb, you might want to meditate on its delicate strength—if human-size, it would be tough enough to snag a jetliner. Now, scientists know just how these silken strands get their power: through thousands of even smaller strands that stick together to form this critter’s clingy trap.

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Forget shiny Rolexes and Louis Vuitton handbags — rich people are investing more in education and health, and it shows that discreet wealth is the new status symbol

Owning a Louis Vuitton handbag, multi-million dollar Bugatti, or shiny Rolex has always been a marker of elite status. But such flashiness is becoming less ubiquitous among the ultra-high-net-worth crowd. They're spending more than ever before on security and privacy, trading in hilltop houses for homes in hidden neighborhoods invisible on Google street view.

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Cosmic expansion rate remains a mystery despite new measurement

A new value for the Hubble constant – the expansion rate of the universe — has been calculated by an international group of astrophysicists. The team used primordial distance scales to study more than 200 supernovae observed by telescopes in Chile and Australia. The new result agrees well with previous values of the constant obtained using a specific model of cosmic expansion, while disagreeing with more direct observations from the nearby universe – so exacerbating a long-running disagreement between cosmologists and astronomers.

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The Chinese scientist who claims he made CRISPR babies has been suspended without pay

He Jiankui claims he created twin girls who had been edited so they were resistant to HIV. Was that ethical? Or even legal?

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How to Land on Mars

On Monday afternoon, NASA’s InSight spacecraft will try to land on Mars.

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Elephant-Sized Mammal "Cousin" Lived Along Dinosaurs, Say Scientists

Scientists on Thursday unveiled the discovery of a gigantic mammal-like reptile the size of an elephant that they believe rubbed shoulders with large Triassic-era dinosaurs, including the relatives of sauropods such as Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus.

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First gene-edited babies claimed in China

A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world's first genetically edited babies — twin girls whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life. If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. A U.S. scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes. Many mainstream scientists think it's too unsafe to try, and some denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation.

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Children mirror weight gain and losses of their mothers but not fathers

Children mirror the weight gain and losses of their mothers but not their fathers, a study has found.

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Elon Musk Denies That SpaceX's Mars Colony Will Be a Ticket Out for the Rich

As Mars colonization inches ever closer to becoming a reality, some have argued that the ability to afford a ticket to the Red Planet is a luxury afforded only to the wealthiest members of society. Billionaire Elon Musk has said it’ll run potential Mars inhabitants traveling with his company SpaceX hundreds of thousands of dollars to get there. But in a new interview, he rebuffed the assertion that a one-way ticket to Mars is an easy ticket out for the rich.

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A.I. Can Predict Alzheimer's Years Before Diagnosis

A new study published in Radiology showed that a deep learning model predicted Alzheimer’s disease with 82% specificity and 100% sensitivity about 6 years before diagnosis by using fluorine 18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET imaging studies of the brain. According to the study published in the journal Radiology, artificial intelligence can help predict Alzheimer’s disease, a disease where early diagnosis can be pivotal for the introduction of treatments and interventions.

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Russia to ‘verify’ U.S. moon landings on upcoming mission

Conspiracies surrounding NASA’s moon missions nearly 50 years ago are common in Russia.

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New Scientist calls for the end of the scholarly publishing industry:

New Scientist calls for the end of the scholarly publishing industry:

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The Electric Airplane Revolution May Come Sooner Than You Think

Eviation’s Alice is an all-electric, nine-person aircraft that may help replace fossil fuel-burning commuter planes.

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Elon Musk: There's a 70% chance that I personally go to Mars

"Does that sound like an escape hatch for rich people?"

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Breathing Through the Nose May Offer Unique Brain Benefits

Could nasal breathing be more helpful for our brains than breathing through the mouth?

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The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?

Coal, the fuel that powered the industrial age, has led the planet to the brink of catastrophic climate change. Scientists have repeatedly warned of its looming dangers, most recently on Friday, when a major scientific report issued by 13 United States government agencies warned that the damage from climate change could knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end if significant steps aren’t taken to rein in warming.

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There’s new evidence giving cash to the poor is more transformative than we thought

When it comes to poverty alleviation in the developing world, cash transfer schemes have been at the center of a difficult debate. For years, donor agencies and governments were urged to integrate the poor into their economies by providing them with a basic amount of cash. Yet those programs have been dogged by controversies, with critics arguing they encourage dependency, negatively impact labor, and pit community members against each other.

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Air Pollution Is Killing Kids, But Trump's EPA Doesn't Seem To Care

As a fourth-year medical student and future family medicine provider, I have a moral obligation ― as does any doctor ― to keep my current and future patients healthy and thriving. It’s for that reason I must speak out against acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s pending proposal, misleadingly named the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” to dismantle the Obama-era 2015 Clean Power Plan, which set the first and only federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

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Researcher: Alzheimer's vaccine could cut dementia in half, human trials may be next

An experimental vaccine that could hold off Alzheimer's disease is showing results in animal testing, according to researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Testing in mice has shown that the vaccine safely prevents the buildup of substances in the brain associated with the fatal disease, the team reported this week in the journal Alzheimer's Research & Therapy.

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Diet, Health and the Wisdom of Crowds - 2018 Version

Fathead creator discusses why it's better to get information from peers than one expert.

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One in four young women has mental illness

Review finds growing number of children and young people in England struggling with problems.

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Sperm count 50% lower in sons of fathers who smoke

Studies have repeatedly linked maternal smoking during pregnancy with reduced sperm counts in male offspring. Now a research team at Lund University in Sweden has discovered that, independently of nicotine exposure from the mother, men whose fathers smoked at the time of pregnancy had half as many sperm as those with non-smoking fathers.

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Beneath Antarctica’s Ice Is a Graveyard of Dead Continents

The eastern section of Antarctica is buried beneath a thick ice sheet. Some scientists simply assumed that under that cold mass there was nothing more than a “frozen tectonic block,” a somewhat homogeneous mass that distinguished it from the mixed up geologies of other continents. But with the help of data from a discontinued European satellite, scientists have now found that East Antarctica is in fact a graveyard of continental remnants.

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Mesmerising Science: The Franklin Commission and the Modern Clinical Trial

Benjamin Franklin, magnetic trees, and erotically-charged séances — Urte Laukaityte on how a craze for sessions of 'animal magnetism' in late 18th-century Paris led to the randomised placebo-controlled and double-blind clinical trials we know and love today.

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Scientists find remains of huge ancient herbivore

A giant, plant-eating creature with a beak-like mouth and reptilian features may have roamed the Earth during the late Triassic period more than 200 million years ago, scientists said Thursday.

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Why ‘flammable ice’ could be the future of energy

Buried below the seabed around Japan, there are beds of methane, trapped in molecular cages of ice. In some places, the sediment covering these deposits of frozen water and methane has been eroded away, leaving whitish mounts of what looks like dirty ice rearing up out of the seafloor. Take a chunk of this stuff up to the surface and it looks and feels much like ice, except for a give-away fizzing sensation in the palm of your hand, but put a match to it and it doesn’t just melt, it ignites.

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