Can big data analytics predict population-level societal events such as civil unrest or disease outbreaks?

That is the subject of a two-year analysis of the Early Model Based Event Recognition using Surrogates (EMBERS) system. The usefulness of this predictive artificial intelligence system for population-level events could be important. If existing models, which successfully predict the past, were good enough no one would ever lose money in the stock market.

GOCE gravity satellite. ESA

We might like to think of the earth as fixed and unmoving but that is not the case. Things are always shifting, even if we may not have noticed in the past.

More than 2 million years of life have been saved by solid-organ transplants since 1987, according to a new report in JAMA Surgery.

The two hemispheres of Mars are dramatically different - more distinct from each other than any other planet in our solar system.

The northern hemisphere is non-volcanic, flat lowlands while highlands punctuated by countless volcanoes extend across the southern hemisphere. Although theories and assumptions about the origin of this so-called and often-discussed Mars dichotomy abound, there are very few definitive answers. 

Wine has gotten more than its share of Miracle Product mainstream media coverage so it's no surprise that beer has been left behind - smooth, balanced beers, the kind of thing that made large brands famous, are out of fashion and now everyone wants hoppy drinks, or something else wildly exaggerated.

But beer has always been a science favorite. Sometimes you hear of breakthroughs being celebrated with a bottle of Mogen David, though it is rare.

Balloons are common at childrens' birthday parties - we can thank Professor Michael Faraday of The Royal Institution for inventing "caoutchoucs" - but ever since the Montgolfier brothers took their lives in their hands and flew a hot air balloon over Paris in 1783, they have been common in science too.

They're affordable and they're reusable and since the 1950s, with the invention of the 'natural' shaped polyethylene balloon, there has been a surge in the quality and amount of science being performed with them. Researchers in everything from high-energy astrophysics (particle, x-ray and gamma-ray) to geospace uses them.