by Timon Singh, 07/21/12

filed under: News, Recycling / Compost, Renewable Energy
Egyptian teenagers are on a roll lately - if they’re not proposing the next-generation of space propulsion systems, then they’re figuring out how to use the country’s plastic waste for fuel! Sixteen-year-old Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad has found that an inexpensive catalyst ( Read more... )

Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz
You may have an opinion on climate change, evolution education, stem-cell research, and science funding. But do you have the facts to back up your opinion? This quiz will test your basic scientific literacy.

50 multiple choice questions.

Some of these are gimmes. Some of them are more math then ( Read more... )

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Cal Tech via physorg.com: Body temperatures of dinosaurs measured for the first time
by Marcus Woo
June 23, 2011

Were dinosaurs slow and lumbering, or quick and agile? It depends largely on whether they were cold or warm blooded. When dinosaurs were first discovered in the mid-19th century, paleontologists thought they were plodding beasts that had to ( Read more... )

As cryptic manuscripts and centuries-old labware yield their secrets, scholars are coming to realize that medieval "chymists" were real scientists after all.by Sara Reardon ( Read more... )

MIT: Shape-shifting robots
Self-folding sheets of a plastic-like material could lead to robots that can assume any conceivable 3-D structure
written by: Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - By combining origami and electrical engineering, researchers at MIT and Harvard are working to develop the ultimate reconfigurable robot - one ( Read more... )

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New Theory for Life's First Energy SourceAn obscure compound known as pyrophosphite could have been a source of energy that allowed the first life on Earth to form, scientists now say ( Read more... )

Since the last one was so well-received, I'm posting the next article I wrote. I hope you all don't mind my doing this.

Examiner.com: University of Michigan scientists devise new way to measure melting permafrost
by Vince Lamb, Detroit Science News Examiner

Three University of Michigan scientists have devised a new method of measuring melting ( Read more... )

A team of Russian and American scientists has discovered a new element that has long stood as a missing link among the heaviest bits of atomic matter ever produced. The element, still nameless, appears to point the way toward a brew of still more massive elements with chemical properties no one can predict.The team produced six atoms of the element ( Read more... )