Rocket scientists and brain surgeons are no smarter than the general population, suggests a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. Despite the commonly used phrases “It’s not rocket science” and “It’s not brain surgery” the findings show that both aerospace engineers and neurosurgeons have similar levels of intelligence to those in the general population. As such,...
OneZoom is a one-stop site for exploring all life on Earth, its evolutionary history, and how much of it is threatened with extinction. The OneZoom explorer – available at onezoom.org – maps the connections between 2.2 million living species, the closest thing yet to a single view of all species known to science. The interactive tree of life...
The impact of robots on human life is evident everywhere, from service sectors such as healthcare and retail, to industrial settings like automobile manufacturing. But it’s one thing to leverage robots as helpers — it’s another to connect with them emotionally, which could lead to better trust. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found...
Scientists have often invited the public to see what they see, using everything from engraved woodblocks to electron microscopes to explore the complexity of the scientific enterprise and the beauty of life. Sharing these visions through illustrations, photography and videos has allowed laypeople to explore a range of discoveries, from new bird species to the...
As the holiday road trip season approaches and more workers are headed back to offices and daily commutes, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has released the federal government’s new 2022 Fuel Economy Guide. The report provides the latest fuel efficiency stats and money-saving tips for new and used vehicles. For the first time, two electric vehicles...
We all know that the dinosaurs died in a mass extinction. But did you know that there were other mass extinctions? There are five most significant mass extinctions, known as the “big five,” where at least three-quarters of all species in existence across the entire Earth faced extinction during a particular geological period of time....
An international team of researchers has identified genes associated with plant survival in one of the harshest environments on Earth: the Atacama Desert in Chile. Their findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may help scientists breed resilient crops that can thrive in increasingly drier climates. “In an era of accelerated climate change, it...
A man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted from Sitting Bull’s scalp lock. This is the first time ancient DNA has been used to confirm a familial relationship between living and historical individuals. The confirmation was made possible using a new method to...
In his autobiography, Miles Davis complained that classical musicians were like robots. He spoke from experience – he’d studied classical music at Juilliard and recorded with classical musicians even after becoming a world-renowned jazz artist. As a music professor at the University of Florida, which is transforming itself into an “AI university,” I often think...
India is one of the world’s largest food producers. However, insufficient refrigeration possibilities and other bottlenecks in the supply chain result in a waste of up to a third of the food produced – an estimated billion-dollar loss. Only 6% of the food moves through the cold chain, compared to about 60% in developed countries....
