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Yearly Archives: 2018
Light momentum: Researchers shine a light on 150-year-old mystery
The idea that light has momentum is not new, but the exact nature of how light interacts with matter has remained a mystery for...
How the brain suppresses the act of revenge
The desire for revenge can be the consequence of a feeling of anger. But is this the case at the cerebral level? What happens...
Bigger proteins, stronger threads: Synthetic spider silk
Spider silk is among the strongest and toughest materials in the natural world, as strong as some steel alloys with a toughness even greater...
Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo caused in part by Indonesian volcanic eruption
Electrically charged volcanic ash short-circuited Earth's atmosphere in 1815, causing global poor weather and Napoleon's defeat, says new research.
Historians know that rainy and muddy...
Species-rich forests better compensate environmental impacts
To offset CO2 emissions, China is reforesting. If a mixture of tree species instead of monocultures were planted, much more carbon could be stored....
Stars memorize rebirth of our home galaxy
The Milky Way galaxy has died once before, and we are now in what is considered its second life. Calculations by Masafumi Noguchi (Tohoku...
New research suggests evolution might favor ‘survival of the laziest’
If you've got an unemployed, 30-year-old adult child still living in the basement, fear not.
A new large-data study of fossil and extant bivalves and...
Genetic error led humans to evolve bigger, but more vulnerable, brains
Newly-discovered genes that helped supersize human brains along with DNA retrieved from extinct humans, which can still be found in people living today, are...
Enigmatic African fossils rewrite story of when lemurs got to Madagascar
Discovered more than half a century ago in Kenya and sitting in museum storage ever since, the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi was long...
Optogenetics – controlling neurons with light – may lead to cures for PTSD, Alzheimer’s
Through the emerging field of optogenetics, a technology that allows genetically modified neurons in living tissue to be precisely controlled by means of light,...
Ecosystems are getting greener in the Arctic
In recent decades, scientists have noted a surge in Arctic plant growth as a symptom of climate change. But without observations showing exactly when...
