Sci-Tech news

• Using nature to build nanomachines

  09-03-2017 17:50
  
  Flagella are tiny rotary motors that move bacteria. A research team led by Keiichi Namba, professor at Osaka University has used electron cryomicroscopy to show that a small difference of only several amino acids can have a large impact on flagella function. The study gives new insight on the construction of synthetic nanomachines and can be read in Nature Communications.
  
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• Powerful image of a grieving elephant wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year

  15-10-2026 22:11 via popsci.com
  
  In the Huab River Valley of Namibia, a female elephant carries the body of a deceased calf. It’s a tragic scene that offers a rare glimpse at the complex social behaviors of animals. Photographer Federico Veronesi documented the moment and his striking image took top honors at 2026 Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards.
  “This photograph works on so many levels. Emotionally it’s a gut punch, heartbreakingly poignant,” Kathy Moran, Chair of the Wildlife Photographer of t
  
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• Nanotyrannus named Jodi needs a new home (if you have $9M)

  15-10-2026 21:28 via popsci.com
  
  Almost one year ago, paleontologists finally settled a longstanding debate about Tyrannosaurus rex, arguably Earth’s most famous dinosaur. After reviewing decades of mounting evidence, researchers documented around 150 morphological differences across multiple supposed juvenile T. rex skeletons. Instead of young dinosaurs, these were actually adult examples of an entirely separate species now known as Nanotyrannus lancensis.While Nanotyrannus was dwarfed by its massive relative, it still r
  
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• Super El Niño influencing ‘strange uptick’ in illegal Galápagos iguana trafficking

  15-10-2026 20:23 via popsci.com
  
  Marine biologists are sounding the alarm on behalf of the Galápagos Islands’ marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus). Without tightened regulations on the often abused exotic pet trade, researchers warn that a recent “strange uptick” in illegal animal trafficking combined with this season’s Super El Niño is further endangering the already vulnerable reptiles living on the Eastern Pacific archipelago.“They are already shrinking in size and facing mass m
  
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• Sony wants to DAP up your digital audio with the Walkman Signature Series

  15-10-2026 18:00 via popsci.com
  
  Just when you think Sony’s 2026 product parade is over, there’s one more thing for audiophiles to add to their Christmas wishlist. While the first half of the year focused on playback devices (flagship true wireless earbuds, powerful party speakers), and just last week there was a spatial microphone for content capture, now there’s something to bridge the gap: The Walkman. But this isn’t the portable cassette player of the ’80s and ’90s, even though those are
  
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• 75,000 years ago, this Neanderthal was stabbed with a spear

  15-10-2026 17:00 via popsci.com
  
  A small puncture wound through a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal shoulder blade may be the earliest evidence of death by spear on humanity’s family tree. Given forensic details such as the entry angle and overall damage, researchers believe the injury was made as an intentionally fatal “heart shot” that killed the ancient hominin within moments. The discovery is detailed in a study published today in the journal Scientific Reports. In addition to the grisly injury, the nearly
  
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• Astronomers discover first green star and the reddest star ever recorded

  15-10-2026 16:26 via popsci.com
  
  Despite the name, the universe’s white dwarfs can glow in a wide range of colors—even green. For the first time, astronomers have spotted a star that appears green to the human eye, and the reddest ever recorded. These outlier stars help explain how certain white dwarf stars would shine in green, pink, cyan, yellow, and purple if we actually saw them up close in space. These colorful findings are described in a study recently published in the journal RAS Techniques and Instruments.Lo
  
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• In 1976, a college paper blamed the Salem witch trials on moldy bread. It wasn’t true.

  15-10-2026 15:02 via popsci.com
  
  In the mid-1970s, Linnda Caporael was a college student facing a seemingly mundane decision. A science major at U.C. Santa Barbara, she needed a humanities course to graduate. The course she chose, on women in American history, came with a term paper, and she had to pick a topic.Caporael’s first choice—Lydia Wardell, a Quaker woman who protested Puritan persecution by walking naked into a meeting house in the 1660s—was intriguing, but already taken. So Caporael instead set
  
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• These four companies ain’t playin’ when it comes to playback

  15-10-2026 14:00 via popsci.com
  
  The death of the disc has been greatly exaggerated. Whether your preferred platters are shiny or groovy, companies are producing new … spins … on how to play CDs and LPs. Just this week, NAD Electronics announced a CD player, while Cambridge Audio and Andover Audio have turntables. Meanwhile, Focal-Naim elevates its immersive connected audio hub, for those audiophiles that have embraced an all-in-one system with expressive Dolby Atmos. Below you’ll find more information on al
  
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• Jackie the bald eagle’s final cause of death revealed

  15-10-2026 13:41 via popsci.com
  
  The Ojai Raptor Center released the final necropsy results for Jackie, an internet-famous bald eagle mother who was in their care this summer. Jackie was brought into the bird rehabilitation center weak and dehydrated following an altercation with another eagle in July. Officially designated as Patient 26-519, Jackie’s necropsy revealed a “complex and unusual disease process involving severe, chronic inflammation and ulceration of the stomach, persistent internal bleeding, anemi
  
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• The moon is shrinking. Astronomers finally know how fast.

  14-10-2026 21:55 via popsci.com
  
  It’s true, the moon is shrinking. And astronomers now know how fast it’s contracting. While only satellite observations and the most delicate instruments can detect these shifts, the consequences of this shrinkage means moonquakes can occur anywhere on the lunar surface at a moment’s notice.A team led by Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum planetary geologist Thomas Watters detailed their findings in a study recently published in The Planetary Science Journal. Researchers
  
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• When ‘T. rex’ died, a new giant fungus named ‘D-rex’ took over

  14-10-2026 20:34 via popsci.com
  
  It’s a fungi-filled world and we are just living in it. There are roughly 150,000 to 157,000 known species of fungi, and now there is a new giant species to add to that tally. A team of scientists exploring the forests of Yunnan in southern China discovered the new fungus, which shows just how large these organisms can grow. The new species Dianjunus rex grows vertical fruiting bodies (the top part of the fungi that we usually see as a mushroom) that can grow as high as a foot (50 cen
  
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• An AI-racing drone beat the best humans and set a world record

  14-10-2026 20:00 via popsci.com
  
  Artificial intelligence is undeniably good at playing games, regardless of its larger societal and environmental impact. In 1997, IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue famously beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and nearly two decades later, Google’s AlphaGo managed to defeat a human champion at the much more complex game Go. Since then, another AI seems to beat humans at incredibly complex video games like StarCraft or Dota 2 every few months. Impressive as these feats are, AI has mostl
  
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• Scientists Unlock 700,000-Year-Old Secrets Hidden Inside a Giant Elephant Tooth

  14-10-2026 18:25 via scitechdaily.com
  A giant elephant’s tooth has preserved clues to the watery world that sustained early humans nearly 700,000 years ago. Researchers studying elephant remains from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY-NBA) in northern Israel have reconstructed a Pleistocene environment rich in water, vegetation, and wildlife. Published in Quaternary Science Reviews, the study reveals the landscape shared by enormous [...]
  
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• Trump Announces “Massive” Greenland Oil Exploration Plans

  14-10-2026 18:08 via technocracy.news
  
  Trump is roping in the North American Technate from Venezuela to Greenland, just like the early Technocrats wanted to do in the 1930s. The US doesn’t own Greenland, but that doesn’t deter him from declaring, “Massive Oil, Gas, and Mineral Exploration is getting ready to begin in our new and beautiful Greenland!” Have Denmark and Greenland agreed to this? Apparently, control trumps ownership. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.“Massive” oil, gas, and minerals explora
  
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• They Almost Vanished. Now 183,000 Giant Tortoises Rule This Remote Paradise

  14-10-2026 17:50 via scitechdaily.com
  Once pushed to the brink, giant tortoises on a Seychelles atoll now outnumber the country’s people, with a new survey estimating nearly 183,000 animals. Aldabra Atoll, home to the world’s largest free-roaming giant tortoise population, supports an estimated 180,000 animals, according to research led by the Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) and the University of Exeter. [...]
  
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• One of the World’s Rarest Animals Is Facing a Devastating Problem: It Can’t Find a Mate

  14-10-2026 17:15 via scitechdaily.com
  One of the world’s rarest rhinos faces a devastating problem: finding another of its kind before it is too late. Small, hairy, and cheekily charismatic. Those words sprung to mind when I first met a Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) after traversing the maze of wooden slatted paths at the conservation center in the dense, humid [...]
  
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• Sled dogs have stubby legs for a reason

  14-10-2026 17:00 via popsci.com
  
  They’re some of Earth’s most powerful athletes, traversing thousands of miles of rough terrain in sub-zero temperatures, through blinding snow, and biting winds. Sled dogs have been helping humans travel across the planet’s coldest regions for centuries, hauling supplies, people, and equipment across the snow and ice. In the process, this important role that goes above and beyond simply being “man’s best friend” could have a visible impact on their evolution.S
  
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• New weather model may finally offer a reliable six-week forecast

  14-10-2026 17:00 via popsci.com
  
  Even after decades of meteorological advances, weather forecasting remains infamously difficult. Today’s most trusted models are rarely accurate beyond a two-week window due to a constant cascade of atmospheric and climatic variables. These unpredictable meteorological interactions are the foundations of chaos theory. The interdisciplinary field studies how even the world’s most predictable systems can still produce completely unpredictable results, and was first developed by MIT mat
  
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• They Created a Cell That’s Almost Alive. What to Do With It Now?

  14-10-2026 16:00 via nytimes.com
  SpudCells may one day produce new medicines and materials. But first scientists have to improve them — and make sure they aren’t misused.
  
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• The criminal behind Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory

  14-10-2026 14:57 via popsci.com
  
  Griffith Observatory is one of Los Angeles’s most iconic landmarks. Part of the city’s sprawling “urban wilderness,” Griffith Park, the free public science center boasts dozens of exhibits and displays, including one of the first planetariums in the United States and the most-viewed telescope in the world. But there’s a dark secret behind Griffith Observatory’s founding. It might never have been built if it weren’t for the desperation of its namesak
  
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• Ukraine says new Starlink restrictions disrupt military as it reels from intel gaps and Trump clash

  14-10-2026 14:51 via nbcnews.com
  
  Ukraine has accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX of disrupting its military operations by limiting Starlink internet services, as the country reeled from a pair of intense Russian missile attacks that it said came without the usual advance warning from allies.
  
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• Inflation jumps to 3.7% as gas and diesel prices squeeze consumers ahead of the midterms

  14-10-2026 14:34 via nbcnews.com
  
  Inflation in September picked back up again after three months of largely stagnating.
  
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• Patagonia now sells its Worn Wear collection of refurbished gear right alongside new products

  14-10-2026 14:25 via popsci.com
  
  People tend to hang onto their Patagonia gear, which can make it tricky to find second-hand. You flip through thrift racks, squint at blurry tag photos on eBay, or check WornWear.com, the separate storefront Patagonia has run its resale business through since 2017. That used shop is moving. As of October 14, Worn Wear’s used inventory lives on Patagonia.com, where secondhand garments and new ones share a cart, a checkout, and sometimes a shipping box.It’s the same site that runs Pata
  
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• Patagonia now sells it Worn Wear collection of refurbished gear right alongside its new products

  14-10-2026 14:25 via popsci.com
  
  People tend to hang onto their Patagonia gear, which can make finding it tricky to find second-hand. You flip through thrift racks, squint at blurry tag photos on eBay, or check WornWear.com, the separate storefront Patagonia has run its resale business through since 2017. That used shop is moving. As of October 14, Worn Wear’s used inventory lives on Patagonia.com, where secondhand garments and new ones share a cart, a checkout, and sometimes a shipping box.It’s the same site that r
  
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• A Quantum Breakthrough Inside a Diamond Could Help Solve One of Einstein’s Greatest Mysteries

  14-10-2026 14:14 via scitechdaily.com
  Electrons inside a diamond have given a floating, centimeter-sized device a quantum nudge, opening a new path toward testing how quantum physics and gravity fit together. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have used electron spin inside a diamond to drive the motion of a centimeter-scale (roughly 0.4-inch-scale) levitating device. Published [...]
  
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• Mars’s Strangest Cloud Just Got Even Stranger

  14-10-2026 13:39 via scitechdaily.com
  Modeling suggests Mars’s Arsia Mons cloud may form ice without dust, pointing to a process never before observed in a planetary atmosphere. A white cloud grows downwind of Mars’s Arsia Mons volcano each morning during spring and summer in the planet’s southern hemisphere. Rising beside a volcano 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) tall, this wisp [...]
  
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• A Star Exploded 850 Years Ago. Somehow, It’s Still Alive

  14-10-2026 13:04 via scitechdaily.com
  With roughly ten times as many gas filaments now resolved, the supernova remnant Pa 30 could guide searches for other stellar explosions that left surviving stars. A star survived the explosion that left behind Pa 30, a dandelion-shaped cloud of debris. The sharpest images yet show that the apparently smooth streaks around this “zombie star” [...]
  
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• OpenAI employee accused of bugging an executive conference room

  14-10-2026 05:02 via nbcnews.com
  OpenAI said the FBI has arrested Abdulrahman Alfozan, one of its employees, after being accused of bugging an executive conference room at the company's San Francisco office. Alfozan is a Saudi national and began working with OpenAI in 2025. NBC News' Liz Kreutz has more on the arrest and charges. 
  
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• Unstable Blood Pressure Linked to Higher Risk of Death and Stroke

  14-10-2026 03:06 via scitechdaily.com
  People with type 2 diabetes and highly variable systolic blood pressure had nearly triple the death risk of those with normal blood sugar and steadier readings in an observational study. At a blood pressure check, the cuff around your arm captures a moment in the pressure inside your arteries. Readings that rise and fall across [...]
  
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