The average human body expends a rough equivalent to 800 AA batteries of energy per day. But the body’s mechanical efficiency is only estimated at around 15 to 30 percent, meaning most of the energy we gain from food is released as heat.At the same time, humans are increasingly in need of a safe, reliable source of power for the growing arsenal of implantable devices that researchers are developing to improve and save lives. At present, cardiac pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, neurostim ...read more

In the latest wave of popular weight-loss treatments, several types of drugs commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes have been making headlines. Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and other diabetes medications aim to target different types of glucose receptors in the body, which helps to lower blood sugar in diabetes patients. Yet you may be more familiar with them for a different reason — these drugs can also help curb patients’ appetites by binding to these same receptors.  This discovery has u ...read more

Though they spend the vast majority of their lives in hiding, cicadas will be all the buzz this spring as they prepare to return to the surface in enormous numbers. Over the next several weeks, in the spring of 2024, billions (and possibly more than a trillion) of cicadas will emerge from the ground in what some experts are calling “cicada-geddon.” Yet while John Cooley, a biologist at the University of Connecticut, says he’s noticed apprehension about this historic co-emergence, he says ...read more

The Cascade Range is one of the most accessible spans of active volcanism on Earth. Running from southern British Columbia to northern California, many of the volcanoes are located within a day's drive from major cities like Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and San Francisco. If you've never visited a volcano, it is hard to describe what it is a like to see one in person. They're big. They are imposing. Many times they are covered with snow and ice. Sometimes they are just a big hole in the ground ...read more

For ages, humans have ridden on horses, hunted alongside dogs, and curled up with cats, big and small. Along the way, humans have also managed to make companions out of far more unusual animals — from hissing snakes to wily ferrets to even colorful, ornamental fish.Nowadays, the exotic pet market and trade — both legal and illegal — have exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry. The U.S. alone is a major consumer, with over 11 billion animals imported into the country between the year ...read more

We all know too well how easily things get dirty. Dust gathers, and stains appear, seemingly out of nowhere. That’s no exception for the Animal Kingdom, either. But for some of these critters, staying clean isn’t just a matter of being comfortable. It’s also a matter of survival.The question of how animals manage to stay squeaky clean is something that researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology dug into in 2015 — and certainly, there are quite a few inventive evolutionary metho ...read more

To call King Tut’s genealogy complicated might be one of the biggest understatements in Egyptology. For example, Queen Nefertiti, once thought to be Tutankhamun’s birth mother, was actually his stepmother, as well as his mother-in-law. His parents were siblings and Tut’s wife may have also been his half-sister.Tut has fueled fascination ever since archeologists discovered his tomb in 1922. Although the Valley of the Kings burial place held over 5,000 artifacts, much of his heritage remaine ...read more

The fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex, the undisputed king of the Cretaceous, is easily the most famous dinosaur to have ever lived. Since its first fossil was unearthed in the late 1800s, T. rex has been immortalized in academic research, museums, and the public imagination. If your diet of T. rex knowledge comes strictly from pop culture, though, you might come away with a skewed perspective on what these titanic predators ate. (In the first Jurassic Park film, its seen chomping on a live goat, a rub ...read more

In the battle to build the world’s first useful quantum computers, one company has taken an entirely different approach to the other frontrunners. The conventional approach is to gradually increase the size and power of these devices and test as you go. But PsiQuantum, a startup based in Palo Alto, California, is gambling on the opposite approach. The company is investing heavily in quantum technologies that are compatible with chip-making fabrication plants that already exist. By using these ...read more

If you’re concerned about getting back to or maintaining a healthy weight, the world is full of companies who are happy to lighten your wallet, at least, by selling you miracle drugs and supplements that they promise will help curb appetite, reduce fat, and cut weight. Unfortunately, far too many weight-loss aids and supplements are heavy on hype and light on evidence. That only adds to the frustration of people struggling with their weight — of whom there are many. According to the Centers ...read more