The drinking straw seems pretty simple and unassuming, but it’s contributing to one of the most pressing environmental problems today. To help cut back on that, a start-up in Singapore is getting ready to launch the Chew, a reusable straw with a “chewable” rubber tip and a spin-dry mechanism.
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The galaxy W2246-0526 sits 12.4 billion light-years from Earth – almost the entire radius of the observable universe – and is the most luminous galaxy ever discovered, with the brightness of 350 trillion Suns. Now, astronomers have found that W2246-0526 is cannibalizing three neighboring galaxies.
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Studying the effects of once-in-a-century rainfall in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert in Chile, a team of astrobiologists found that instead of causing a bloom of growth, the unexpected abundance of water killed off three quarters to seven/eighths of the microbe species present.
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Research has revealed that people with a preference for drinking coffee over tea tend to display a genetic variant that signals a higher sensitivity to tasting bitterness in caffeine. This counter-intuitive finding suggests the bitterness of caffeine reinforces an attraction to the beverage.
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A new study has revealed a possible association between intellectual disability and some specific forms of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). Experts are urging caution when interpreting these results as it is unclear exactly what may be causing the increased rates of intellectual disability.
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Scientists have found an ancient meteor crater under the Greenland ice cap that's larger than Paris. Discovered using ground-penetrating radar, the possibly three-million-year-old impact crater is 19 miles in diameter, about 1,000 ft deep, and is buried under 3,200 ft of glacial ice.
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According to the American Podiatric Medical Association, approximately 15 percent of diabetics will develop chronic foot ulcers. A large percentage of those people will in turn require amputations. Help could be on the way, though … in the form of a rubber insole.
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Passive RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are small, inexpensive, battery-less labels that are already used to track and identify a wide variety of items. If MIT's experimental RFIQ system enters general use, they may also soon allow consumers to check if food products are contaminated.
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It's well reported that oil spills can have a catastrophic biological and environmental impact. But to date, few studies have examined the effect of whole crude oil on senses of a marine vertebrate. A new study is the first to confirm effects on stingrays' sense of smell.
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Jodrell Bank Observatory has released an audio recording from a 1968 Soviet mission that could have seen the United States losing the race to the Moon. The audio recording intercepted by the radio telescope is from the unmanned Zond 6 mission that might have put the Soviet Union on the Moon first.
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