Here be drugs. (Credit: Wanna Thongpao/Shutterstock)
Obtaining information about illegal drug use isn’t a simple task. The illicit nature of the subject makes gathering information on the who and the what of drug consumption problematic. Self-reported surveys, a common tool, aren’t always accurate because people aren’t always honest about their drug use.
But reliable information on drug use is a requisite for public health officials, and to gather the kind of detailed data ne ...read more
Love is a battlefield, and in the case of the hooded grebe, that battle takes place on the dance floor. These endangered freshwater divers have a mating ritual that is not only extremely intricate, but also highly entertaining. And lucky for us, we now have it on film.
Not much is known about the hooded grebe, Podiceps gallardoi, as these aquatic birds were discovered only 43 years ago in the frigid waters of Patagonia. Though they tend to keep to themselves, footage of them is incredibly ...read more
A new paper asks why neuroscience hasn’t had more “impact on our daily lives.”
The article, Neuroscience and everyday life: facing the translation problem, comes from Dutch researchers Jolien C. Francken and Marc Slors. It’s a thought-provoking piece, but it left me feeling that the authors are expecting too much from neuroscience. I don’t think insights from neuroscience are likely to change our lives any time soon.
Francken and Slors describe a disconnect betwee ...read more
(Credit: Modern Meadow)
Leather jackets are a must-have in many wardrobes. While some adore genuine leather straight from our bovine buds, others seek alternatives to genuine leather, whether due to price or their stance on animal products. This could be their new go-to substitute: lab-grown leather.
New York-based Modern Meadow has ditched the cow in favor of growing leather in a lab. Growing materials otherwise found in nature isn’t new; we’ve seen scientists working on in vitro ...read more
Watch out dummy, there’s a drone coming at you! (Credit: Virginia Tech)
Thanks to a dummy we now have a better idea of what happens when a drone hits a person’s head.
A study by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) one of the Federal Aviation Administration’s UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) test sites, suggests that commercial-sized drones can cause a wide range of injuries to people on the ground.
In the United States, drone fligh ...read more
The remains of a Neanderthal boy who died 49,000 years ago is revealing information about the skeletal and physiological growth of our instinct cousins. (Credit: Paleoanthropology Group MNCN-CSIC)
Though his life was short — he never reached the age of 8 — his fossil remains could have far-reaching influence in hominin research.
A paper to be published Friday in Science reveals the discovery of the well-preserved skeleton of a Neanderthal boy who lived in Spain 49,000 yea ...read more
Upside-down jellyfish in a tank. (Credit: Caltech)
Bees, sharks, anteaters, humans, we all share the need for sleep. Why we do it is of course still largely a mystery, but the fact of it remains incontrovertible. Now, new research on jellyfish is pushing the origin of sleep even further back down the evolutionary tree, before even the appearance of brains.
It’s long been known that any creature with a central nervous system needs to sleep, but jellyfish are effectively bra ...read more
The Parkes radio telescope “heard” the first fast radio burst in 2001. Could bursts actually be going off every second? (Credit: CSIRO)
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the hottest topics in astronomy right now. These short but extremely powerful bursts last only milliseconds, but release tremendous amounts of energy during that minute period of time. Since publication of their initial discovery in 2007 (the burst itself occurred in 2001), just over 25 of these sources have been ...read more
