A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth.This hypothetical cell membrane, modeled by a team of researchers, is composed of small organic nitrogen compounds and capable of functioning in liquid methane temperatures of 292 degrees below ...

A strong electric field applied to a section of the Keystone pipeline can smooth oil flow and yield significant pump energy savings, found a new study.The physics basis is to electrically align particles within the crude oil, which reduces viscosity (thickness) and turbulence. Traditionally ...

3753 Cruithne's wacky orbit around the Sun. Image: YouTube, CC BY-SAWe all know and love the moon. We’re so assured that we only have one that we don’t even give it a specific name. It is the brightest object in the night sky, and amateur astronomers take great delight in mapping its craters ...

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, and NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will arrive at this dwarf planet on March 6, 2015. Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt, and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will arrive at this dwarf planet on July 15, 2015. Launch of NASA’s ...

Sewage sludge, green waste, even animal excrement can be utilized for energy recovery with  the biobattery modular concept. Biogas plants are an important element for decentralized energy supply. They produce electricity from renewable resources and can compensate for highly fluctuating ...

Reefs are made up of many coral species that live in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with microscopically small algae hosted in their tissue. These symbiont algae produce sugars that contribute to the diet of the coral in return for shelter and nutrients that are vital for algal growth ...

Stockholm is considered the world's most sunlight-deprived capital - in November of 2014 the Swedes living there had just a few hours of the stuff and in winter months, it will get dark at 3 PM anyway, so if the sun is hidden by clouds, it can be a real downer. Yet not everywhere in Sweden ...

Potatoes are an essential food for humans and now two new varieties produced by the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development have been added to the Registry of Commercial Varieties. ‘Entzia’ has a purple flesh and has been created to have high antioxidant components ...

Cats seem to use their eyes rather than follow their nose when it comes to finding the location of food, according to a new paper by animal behaviorists.Felines have keen smell and vision, so a small study investigated which sense they prefer to use under test conditions – and suggests sight ...

There is microbiology and then there is micro-micro-microbiology.The existence of ultra-small bacteria has been debated for decades, but now there is comprehensive electron microscopy and DNA-based evidence of the elusive microbes that are about as small as life can get. The cells have an ...

New transcriptome data for underutilized legumes means underappreciated crops could soon become valuable tools in agriculture. Thousands of species belong to the legume family, the Fabaceae, yet only a few of them are used in mainstream agriculture. Dozens more are underutilized. Unlike soybean ...

A new paper challenges a long-accepted hypothesis about the role the hippocampus plays in our unconscious memory. For decades, neuroscientists have believed that this part of the brain is not involved in processing unconscious memory, the type that allows us to do things like button a shirt ...

Nature is all about booms and busts - it is common for species to grow too large to be sustainable. Humans were once that way too, but science has now made it possible for even the poorest people to be fat. We no longer have a feast or famine existence.And the worst thing you can do to lose weight ...

The latest outbreak of Ebola virus disease has caused the deaths of more than 9,400 people worldwide and created an international outcry so loud even the National Institutes of Health decided to start funding work on it again. Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever in humans and currently has ...

A connection between persistent insomnia and increased inflammation and mortality from all causes has been identified by a group of researchers in The American Journal of Medicine. The results apply to those with persistent insomnia, not intermittent insomnia. Persistent (chronic) insomnia  ...

Each year millions of infants, toddlers and preschool children require anesthesia or sedation for various procedures and a new review suggest caution about their use.A team of anesthesiology investigators and toxicologists writing in the New England Journal of Medicine reviewed existing ...

Life is unpredictable, and we move forward the best we can despite not knowing every detail.It's no different in the natural world. The Earth is warming in some places and in some places it isn't, the weather is more variable today except it was always worse in the past when you talk to old people ...

Parents of kids with severe autism are willing to try anything - unfortunately, a lot of people who claim to be experts in psychology and communication disorders don't understand science and may continue to try things long after they have been debunked. Hope and desperation among parents ...

If I scratch your back and you scratch mine, then we’re both better off as a result – so goes the principle of reciprocity, one of the most popular explanations for how co-operative behavior has evolved. But what if one partner provides a better service than another? A paper by Dolivo and Taborsky ...

Children show a vastly improved ability to absorb knowledge when they are allowed to make some of their own decisions about what they want to learn.Testing, in other words, gets in the way – and worse.Indeed, as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation comes up for re-authorization this week ...

Centrality and nodes are an important concept in the theory of social networks. Centrality of an individual - a "node" in network theory - measures its relative importance within a network, and a recent paper in Scientific Reports studies the problem of dynamics and evolution of node's centrality ...

The Intrexon synthetic biology company announced today that it is acquiring Okanagan Specialty Fruits, the science start-up behind the non-browning Arctic apple, for $31 million in Intrexon common stock and $10 million in cash. One of the fastest-growing categories of the fruit and vegetable industry ...

Researchers focusing on a new way to discuss statistical mechanics have modeled "World War Z", an oral history of the first zombie war, to explore how an "actual" zombie outbreak might play out in the U.S.  Why model the mechanics of fictional zombies? "Modeling zombies takes you through a ...

The National Academy of Sciences is presenting its 2015 Public Welfare Medal to astrophysicist Dr.Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, in recognition of his "extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science, from ...