(Inside Science) -- The 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to three scientists who have used evolution to incite a chemical revolution, with the hopes of improving drug discovery and reducing the use of harsh chemicals in industrial processes.
Half of the prize goes to Frances H. Arnold from the California Institute of Technology and the other half is shared between George P. Smith from the University of Missouri and Sir Gregory P. Winter from the University of Cambridge in th ...read more
A community of frogs in Panama may have built up resistance to a deadly fungus that has imperiled one third of the amphibian population around the world, according to a paper published Wednesday [Oct. 3] in Ecological Applications.
The fungus is called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd. It's also commonly referred to as chytrid fungus. In 1999, researchers linked amphibian deaths, mostly frogs, to specific strains of the fungus, which attacks the animals’ skin. Frogs use their skin fo ...read more
The earthquake and tsunami that happened last week on Sulawesi in Indonesia has been more devastating than anyone expected. The number of deaths in and around Palu has topped 1,400 and aid has been slow to reach the survivors due to the damage to infrastructure in the area. It is still unclear exactly what triggered the tsunami that followed the M7.5 earthquake -- there is speculation it was an undersea landslide that followed the temblor. What is known is that this earthquake ruptured a lon ...read more
If you watched or read “The Martian,” and wanted to try your hand at living on Mars or becoming a Martian farmer like Mark Watney, then today is your lucky day. Astrophysicists at the University of Central Florida have developed a scientific, standardized method to create soil like future space colonies might encounter on Mars. They’re selling it for about $10 per pound (or $20 per kilogram) plus shipping.
This soil, also called simulant, is designed and created to mimic the r ...read more
We’ve long thought that planets formed solely from the dust and gas that surrounds their young host stars, but that theory is now being challenged.
A new study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics found that, more often than not, planetary systems actually outweigh the protoplanetary disks that they formed in — suggesting a severe lack of dust and gas around infant stars. The findings are causing researchers to question how planets accumulate so much mass, and wonde ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine