Science

When I was 13, I just wanted to be 14. Alyssa Carson, however, seems to be made of stuff that is sterner and more imaginative than most humans. She positively insists that she will be the first person on Mars. You might think this the quaint dreaming of an impressionable teen. But Carson told the Continue Reading →

A recent study from Florida State University pitted Portal 2 against a piece of software specifically designed to train one’s brain. The result: Portal 2 was more effective at that sort of thing. The study, popularised by Popular Science and captured below via Gamasutra, had its 77 participants randomly assigned to play either eight hours Continue Reading →

Decades from now, maybe we’ll forget about smartphones and start communicating via electronic telepathy. In a new experiment, scientists were able to show that one person could communicate to another–thousands of miles away–without typing or talking. The technology is rudimentary at the moment and a little more complicated than someone simply reading another’s thoughts. In Continue Reading →

It’ll be a long time (if ever) before someone sets foot on the moon again, but you can now go on a few lunar excursions of your own without leaving the comfort of Google Maps. Just pop into the ‘Earth’ view and keep zooming out — once you’ve reached escape velocity and can see our Continue Reading →

After a ten year journey through space, the European Space Agency’s satellite Rosetta has finally rendezvoused with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko—making it the first satellite to ever begin orbiting a comet. Referred to by ESA scientists as “the sexiest, most fantastic mission ever,” Rosetta spent the early hours of this morning conducting a series of maneuvers and Continue Reading →

Like their fellow future doctors down the road in Irvine, medical students at Stanford University will learn surgical methods with a hand from Google Glass. Those studying cardiothoracic techniques are set use Mountain View’s high-tech spectacles to stream their views in real-time to instructors with the help of CrowdOptic — a company that’s part of Continue Reading →

If humanity hopes to realize its dreams of exploring the stars, we’re going to need to find ways to recreate life on Earth aboard a spaceship. Simply stockpiling enough vital supplies isn’t going to cut it, which is what led Julian Melchiorri, a student at the Royal College of Art, to create an artificial biological Continue Reading →

Stanford researchers have found that it’s “technically and economically” feasible to move California to an entirely clean energy system by 2050, using existing renewable sources like wind, water and sunlight. Published in Energy this week, the study concluded that the upfront capital costs would be more than offset by lower energy expenses. Bonus points: It Continue Reading →

It turns out that a decontextualised asteroid looks a lot like a Kipfler potato — although we’re not entirely sure that’s the takeaway intended from a recent release by NASA. The space agency has made a whole bunch of files available for free so that you can 3D print your own space stuff. Included in Continue Reading →

Google has embarked on what may be its most ambitious and difficult science project ever: a quest inside the human body. Called Baseline Study, the project will collect anonymous genetic and molecular information from 175 people—and later thousands more—to create what the company hopes will be the fullest picture of what a healthy human being Continue Reading →