Tag: SCIENCE

You heard it here first, folks; Stephen Quake is coming for the colonoscopy. The scientist has made a career of replacing invasive, painful, and dangerous procedures with simple, cheap tests that can be performed almost anywhere. Just this year, a blood panel he developed to detect genetic birth defects has been taken by more than…

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas humanoid robot can do a lot of things I can’t, including backflips and running through snow without falling on its face. Now add parkour to that list of feats. Yes, that parkour. In a new video, you can see Atlas bounding up a multi-layered platform, shifting its weight from its right foot…

The lungs in Joan Nichols' lab have been keeping her up at night. Like children, they're delicate, developing, and in constant need of attention, which is why she and her team at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston's Lung Lab have spent the last several years taking turns driving to the lab at…

Quantum computers are still a dream, but the era of quantum communication is here. A new experiment out of Paris has demonstrated, for the first time, that quantum communication is superior to classical ways of transmitting information. “We are the first to show a quantum advantage for transmitted information that two parties have to share…

“I choose to go to the moon.” Those were among the first words uttered on stage Monday night by Yusaku Maezawa, the mysterious passenger whose existence SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had teased on Twitter last week. Maezawa, a Japanese retail entrepreneur and art collector, stood before a small crowd at SpaceX headquarters and announced that…

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Even in a dream-come-true scenario where we manage to stop all the world’s carbon emissions overnight, the Arctic would inevitably get hotter and hotter. That’s according to a new report by UN Environment, which says the region…

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Back in 2009, Simon Irish, an investment manager in New York, found the kind of opportunity that he thought could transform the world while — in the process — transforming dollars into riches. Irish saw that countries around the globe needed…

I guess it's a mixture of boredom from staying home in the super-cold weather and access to the internet that causes this problem. What problem, you ask? The countless videos of people throwing boiling water out into the Arctic cold air during the polar vortex. OK, I'll admit—it also looks really cool. Here's what it…

Many European scientists cheered back in January when it seemed the court of the European Union would ease its restrictions on gene-editing technology in food. In a 15,000-word opinion, an advisor to the European Court of Justice suggested that gene-edited crops should not face the same stiff regulations as genetically modified organisms—as long as they…

It’s no secret that NASA’s Space Launch System is struggling to meet its schedule. The multibillion-dollar launcher is expected to ferry humans and cargo into deep space. The problem is, the agency has vocally committed to sending an American craft to the moon next year. NASA’s new lunar taxi, called Orion, is almost ready to…