Guest post by Steven Du Creamistry – n.  the science of creating ice cream using Liquid Nitrogen and not to be confused by the Ice Cream shop with the same name [4]. Ice cream does not seem complicated to make, but contrary to popular belief it is not as simple as just freezing cream and sugar; rather, this complex process requires slowly freezing cream to allow for small ice crystals to form, which results in a creamy ice cream texture.   While the ice cream making process ...read more

Diamonds found in meteorites on Earth may have come from an ancient long-dead planet the size of Mercury or Mars, the first potential known relics from these lost worlds, a new study finds. Scientists examined a ureilite, a kind of meteorite that is rich in carbon and sometimes even possesses diamonds. More than 480 ureilites have been discovered so far, says study lead author Farhang Nabiei, a materials scientist and electron microscopist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in L ...read more

Our first question upon hearing that someone has a new baby is usually "Is it a boy or a girl?" But our first question upon hearing that someone has gotten a new puppy is more often "What breed is it?" Breed is at the heart of how we perceive dogs. It affects many of our expectations of them - energy level, intelligence, friendliness - for better or for worse. With mutts, however, our urge to make breed-based assumptions can be stymied by the lack of a known breed to which to attach those assump ...read more

Jupiter may be one of the most recognizable sights in the solar system, but it still manages to surprise us. (And not just the everyday folks unfamiliar with its nighttime appearances.) With NASA’s Juno probe in orbit around the gas giant, we’re seeing a new side to the planet, answering some questions but raising others. The latest came out last week at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, where researchers showed off twisty patterns of the ...read more

Several years ago, after Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house in Vermont, lightning struck a backyard maple tree. There was a ferocious crack and the darkness outside the kitchen windows briefly turned day-bright. It wasn’t until spring that we knew for certain the tree was dead. This maple was a youngster, its trunk the diameter of a salad plate. Were its life not cut short by catastrophe, the tree might have lived 300 years. But death by disaster is surprisingly common in tree ...read more

It’s easy to tell what color someone’s hair is, but figuring out the genetics behind how it got that way is anything but simple. A new study from a team of international researchers analyzing 300,000 people of European descent finds more than 100 new genes related to hair color in some way. But even with their newfound knowledge, the researchers have only partial success predicting hair color based solely on genes. It's a testament to the knotty genetics of pigmentation, but th ...read more

The trout lily is a North American spring wildflower that's cuter than its name suggests. Dappled leaves frame a little yellow blossom that keeps its face shyly toward the ground. Inside the bloom, the flower's anthers and pollen vary from bright yellow to dark red. Researchers could find no purpose for the different colors—except, maybe, to satisfy the whims of pollinating insects. Plenty of flowers come in multiple petal colors, and other research has explored the reasons, w ...read more

In 1917, at the height of the Great War, a new and mysterious disease emerged into the world, before vanishing a few years later. Although it was to prove less destructive than the 1918 influenza pandemic which occured at around the same time, the new outbreak had a persistent legacy: some of the victims of the disease remained disabled decades later. The new syndrome was first reported by Constantin von Economo, a neurologist in Vienna. He dubbed the disease 'encephalitis lethargica', after ...read more

Month-long events include hands-on activities like nature festivals, museum events, trainings, bioblitzes, and more. The “citizen science” movement is gathering momentum, as scientists, policy makers, and the public themselves recognize that EVERYONE can make meaningful contributions to research. SciStarter is teaming up with the Citizen Science Association to raise awareness of hundreds of events and research opportunities that will be offered as part of Citizen Science Day activit ...read more

Last week I waxed mildly poetic on the ephemeral nature of living beings and the inorganic reality of a fossil. Fossils are just shadows, I said, or memories ... or something like that. Well, this week I've got something much more exciting and less poetic. It's an ancient pygmy grasshopper, Electrotettix attenboroughi, and it's no rocky fossil, no sir. This is a genuine, mint condition, honest-to-God organic grasshopper, encased in a shiny amber shell and preserved for something like 20 m ...read more