A number of so-called scientific journals have accepted a Star Wars-themed spoof paper. The manuscript is an absurd mess of factual errors, plagiarism and movie quotes. I know because I wrote it.
Inspired by previous publishing “stings”, I wanted to test whether ‘predatory‘ journals would publish an obviously absurd paper. So I created a spoof manuscript about “midi-chlorians” – the fictional entities which live inside cells and give Jedi their powers in ...read more
A new soft robot grows like a creeping vine to weave its way around obstacles and nose into tiny spaces.
From researchers at Stanford University, the robot consists mostly of an inflatable tube that’s been folded in on itself and coiled up. To move, a pneumatic pump fills the tube with air, pushing it forward by drawing material from the inside. In initial tests, the robot stretched as far as 72 meters from an initial length of 28 centimeters and reached speeds of over 20 mph.
Grow Robot, ...read more
Now abandoned, part of Sidoarjo town is entombed in mud metres thick. (Credit: sawerigading)
The world’s most destructive mud volcano was born near the town of Sidoarjo, on the island of Java, Indonesia, just over 11 years ago – and to this day it has not stopped erupting. The mud volcano known as Lusi started on May 29, 2006, and at its peak disgorged a staggering 180,000 cubic meters of mud every day, burying villages in mud up to 40 meters thick. The worst event of its kind in re ...read more
With its vastly improved capabilities, the new satellite has the potential to save the lives of firefighters
Heat and the massive smoke plume from California’s Detwiler Fire are seen in this animation of visible and infrared imagery from the GOES-16 satellite acquired on July 18, 2017. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA)
For decades, satellites have been helping fire managers identify and monitor blazes, based on their smoke plumes and the hot spots they create in infrared imagery.
But as the animation ...read more
We exist in a veritable flood of digital images, with at least 350 million a day uploaded to Facebook alone, and odds are significant number of those images are fake. And, given results from a recent study, most people can’t tell the difference.
Can you identify the part of the top photo that’s been altered? Don’t worry, we’ll tell you later.
Psychologist Sophie Nightingale and her colleagues at the University of Warwick used photo-editing software to doctor real-world p ...read more
A map showing the Earth’s antipodes — the places where you’d appear on the other side if you dug straight down. Most are in the middle of the ocean. (Credit: imgur)
Almost every child, shovel in hand, is struck by a tempting thought. What if I just kept digging and popped out on the other side of the world? The imagination conjures a muddy face emerging in the middle of a Shaolin temple or some such, China being the nominal “other side of the world” to Americans.
...read more
