This Week: Tracking traveling toads
In the News: Cal. autism study: Older parents linked to more autism
Coming Thursday: Energy and climate: The hidden stories
In a recent issue of Nature, U.S. seismologists report that the devastating earthquake of 2004 that caused tsunamis in the Indian Ocean had also affected California’s San Andreas Fault. The tsunamis that resulted from the earthquake, which was recorded as a magnitude of 9.2, the second largest reading ever recorded, caused the death of [...]
A research trip to South America by a biology professor and colleagues from San Francisco State University has led to the discovery of seven new varieties of luminescent fungi. Four of the species are new to science, while the three others have never before been recorded with luminescent characteristics. Researchers hope that these [...]
Owning a StarCAVE, an interactive virtual reality theater where scientific models are projected stereoscopically on every surface, including the floor, is probably a biologist’s single best bet at getting on MTV’s “Cribs.” Now showing: RNA.
“You can fly over a strand of DNA and look in front, behind and below you, or navigate through the superstructure [...]
The green Jell-O torpedo you see above is called a salp. Typically the gelatinous little ocean creatures are less ostentatious, but researchers have lent this one some flouresceine dye for a photo-op. They’re interested in the swimming habits and propulsive wakes — here seen as a green plume on the left — of [...]
Through infancy and childhood, our ability to discern and reproduce the unfamiliar speech sounds of other languages declines. Due to a severe lack of preschool-aged linguists perhaps, precise classification of the click consonants of the N|uu click language of the southern Kalahari has evaded linguistics for nearly 100 years.
Some N|uu clicks are produced by breathing [...]
We’ve all seen optical illusions, but this illusion will surprise you like a hammer blow to your thumb. Check out the short video above if you haven’t already now.
As Olaf Blanke indicates, up to 75 percent of us are partial to the rubber hand’s cheap mind trick. For this experiment, paintbrushes were used to induce [...]
Everyone’s seen them do it. They’re out in the yard, rooting out who knows what, pawing at all sorts of dirty things that ought to be left alone, and then they come in and kiss the unsuspecting right on the mouth! For the sake of good hygiene, humans should be trained better.
At least [...]
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, artist Aaron Koblin processed U.S. Federal Aviation Administration data to create a portrait of America using brushstrokes of light 1,000 miles across.
Over time, the flight paths of nearly 20,000 planes filled in the shape of the country without directly depicting any of its geographic features. The emergence of artistic [...]
In an experiment that could only have come out of California, UC Berkeley researchers decided to see what would happen if they chucked a gecko into a wind tunnel. Who says science can’t be fun?
Looking for inspiration for building more maneuverable robots, the researchers pointed a powerful fan straight up to simulate freefall conditions and [...]