I’ll just come right out and say it: Scientists have created human-controlled rat cyborgs. Lest you think this is some media sensationalism at work, here’s the actual title of the paper under discussion, which came out last week in Scientific Reports: “Human Mind Control of Rat Cyborg’s Continuous Locomotion with Wireless Brain-to-Brain Interface.” That pretty much says it all. Some of this tech — such as brain-brain interfaces (BBIs) and rat cyborgs — ...read more

From the NIH/ National Network of Libraries of Medicine Libraries are hubs for discovery and community engagement; imagine your library joining a real-time event with others around the world and contributing to real scientific research to speed up Alzheimer’s research! Citizen Science Day 2019 is Saturday, April 13. You and your library are invited to participate in the Stall Catchers Megathon, in which people all over the world will analyze real research data in a game format that ...read more

It's finally here. This morning, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made it official: El Niño conditions are present in the tropical Pacific Ocean. There's a 90 percent chance that they'll continue through winter, and a 60 percent chance through spring. True to predictions, this El Niño is a weakling. Climate scientist Emily Becker summarized the situation at the ever-awesome ENSO blog: After several months of flirting, the tropical Pacific ocean and atmosp ...read more

Citizen science (public participation in scientific research) often calls for tools you won’t find lying around the house, such as a rain gauge to record precipitation or an air quality sensor. “I think a database of water quality monitoring tools is something that anyone who samples recreational water quality dreams of: the idea of a one-stop-shop for such information would be incredibly helpful and save a lot of time for the people and volunteers that run water quality monitor ...read more

(Inside Science) -- Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Valentine's Day falls at a chilly time of year. In biological terms, social drives like love may be bound up with the need to keep warm. The same hormone, oxytocin, helps regulate both physical and emotional warmth, increasing body heat and facilitating social bonding. And according to recent research, baby mice deprived of the hormone are less likely to cuddle with other mice or crawl toward heated surfaces. "We're working with i ...read more

(Inside Science) -- In 60 years, the climate of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will feel kind of like a contemporary Jonesboro, Arkansas, with higher temperatures and more winter precipitation, according to a new study. That's assuming fossil fuel emissions continue to rise; if instead we succeed in curbing emissions, Pittsburgh will instead become more like Madison, Indiana. Pittsburgh is one of 540 cities in the U.S. and Canada for which scientists have found doppelgangers of their climate f ...read more

On January 24, 2004, the Opportunity rover sent back its first signal from the Red Planet. That marked the start of a 90-day planned mission for the six-wheeled, golf cart-sized rover. Fifteen years later, the rover’s mission has finally ended, NASA announced today. Its longevity and discoveries are a testament to Opportunity’s design and construction. The rover ultimately sent back more than 200,000 raw images and traveled a total of 28 miles (45 kilometers), farther than a standar ...read more

The Opportunity rover, like its twin Spirit, was designed for an original mission of just three months. When engineers lost contact on June 10 of last year, it had been exploring for fourteen years. And today, mission scientists finally declared an official end to the mission. Here are just a few of Opportunity's many successes during its long Red Planet expedition. Heat Shield Rock Opportunity discovered the first meteorite on Mars, sitting near its own heat shield. While a few mete ...read more

Hailing from East Africa, the newly described giant, plant-eating dinosaur Mnyamawamtuka moyowamkia lived around 100-110 million years ago, during the middle of the Cretaceous. The animal, a member of the titanosaur lineage, is helping paleontologists understand how, where and when the mightiest of land animals evolved. Sauropodomorphs are some of the most common and geographically diversely dinosaurs in the fossil record, and their shape — small head, long neck, big torso, ele ...read more

After some 15 prolific years on the Martian surface, NASA's Mars Opportunity rover has gone silent. And after an all out effort to re-establish contact, the space agency says it's given up hopes of ever hearing back from the rover. We talked to the NASA engineers and scientists whose lives have been touched by the Opportunity rover about their experiences and what the craft meant to them. For some researchers, the mission has encompassed their entire career. For others, ...read more