New research clarifies the genetic exchange that brought us today’s domesticated apples.Silk Road travelers, trading their goods and ideas across Eurasia, brought with them hitchhiking apple seeds, discarded from the choicest fruit pulled from wild trees. This early selection would eventually lead to the 7,500 varieties of apple that exist today.
Read MoreLast summer, a research group from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) quietly published the results of a new approach in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Read MoreOn October 5th, 2017, Vice President Mike Pence announced the Trump administration’s plan to return astronauts to the Moon. Looking to the long-term, NASA and several other space agencies are also intent on establishing a permanent lunar base there. This base will not only provide opportunities for lunar science, but will facilitate missions to Mars and beyond.
Read MoreResearchers in Switzerland have developed a new form of molded roofing capable of harvesting solar power. The design is expected to help a residential building produce more energy than it uses up.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever felt your heart race as you looked down from the top of a tall ladder, you’re not alone. But for some people, their distress is far more serious. Simply thinking about climbing a ladder can lead to intense fear and anxiety.
Read MoreA team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has identified a conserved molecular pathway that controls health and lifespan in nematode worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) — a frequently studied model organism in biological research.
Read MorePowerful solar eruptions could electrically charge areas of the Martian moon Phobos to hundreds of volts, presenting a complex electrical environment that could possibly affect sensitive electronics carried by future robotic explorers, according to a new NASA study. The study also considered electrical charges that could develop as astronauts transit the surface on potential human missions to Phobos.
Read MoreA team of researchers from NASA and Binghamton University have identified boron nitride nanotubes as a material that could be used to boost aircraft travel to hypersonic speeds. The problem, however, is that a gram of the material costs $1,000.
Read MoreThe furthest galaxy ever observed is so far away that the starlight we now detect was emitted less than 500m years after the Big Bang. It has taken about 13 billion years to reach us. But there’s a lot of things about a galaxy that we can’t see. For example, we think galaxies are immersed within gigantic “halos” of an invisible substance dubbed dark matter. Scientists don’t actually know what dark matter is, but they know it exists because it has a gravitational pull on surrounding matter.
Read MoreThanks to decades of exploration using robotic orbiter missions, landers and rovers, scientists are certain that billions of years ago, liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars. Beyond that, many questions have remained, which include whether or not the waterflow was intermittent or regular. In other words, was Mars truly a “warm and wet” environment billions of years ago, or was it more along the lines of “cold and icy”?
Read MoreCigarette filters were initially introduced by the tobacco industry in the 1960s to make cigarettes “safer”. But we now know they provide no safety, no health benefits, and are a major cause of environmental littering.
Read MoreResearchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have crunched NASA's data regarding high-altitude winds to discern the best heights for harvesting wind energy.
Read MoreRumours have been swirling for weeks that scientists have detected gravitational waves – tiny ripples in space and time – from a source other than colliding black holes. Now we can finally confirm that we’ve observed such waves produced by the violent collision of two massive, ultra-dense stars more than 100m light years from the Earth.
Read MoreSaturn’s largest moon, Titan, is a mysterious place; and the more we learn about it, the more surprises it seems to have in store. Aside from being the only body beyond Earth that has a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, it also has methane lakes on its surface and methane clouds in its atmosphere. This hydrological-cycle, where methane is converted from a liquid to a gas and back again, is very similar to the water cycle here on Earth.
Read MoreWhen LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, first detected gravitational waves from merging black holes, it opened up a new window in astrophysics and provided the most powerful confirmation yet of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Now LIGO has done it again, together with the Virgo interferometer, this time by observing merging neutron stars – something astrophysicists had known must happen but had never been able to detect definitively until now.
Read MoreThe prospect of artificial gravity on space stations is actually possible, but highly expensive and resource-demanding
Read MoreThe most accepted theory of the origin of the universe is still the Big Bang. The theory proposes the universe started from a small singularity (the gravitational kind), then began to expand over the succeeding 13.8 billion years. Although this expansion has its own issues, a bigger question remains: what preceded the Big Bang?
Read MoreAlcohol is a well-known disinfectant and some have speculated it may be useful for treating gut infections. Could alcohol be a useful agent to treat tummy bugs and throat infections?
Read MoreThere are two theories for time travel that are most popular: wormhole tunneling and cosmic strings.
Read MorePhysicists have created a quantum atomic clock that uses a new design to achieve unprecedented levels of accuracy and stability. Its broad range of potential applications could even stretch to research into dark matter.
Read MoreUniversal-Sci - A Regularly updated selection of the most interesting news stories in the world of science. Including: Space, Physics, Biology, Health, Technology, and Environment.
