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News & Articles By Frances Bloomfield

04/19/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Biologists film elephant smoking: One pachyderm in India seems to have developed a strange new habit

Elephants aren’t known for eating burned wood then breathing out smoke. Yet that’s exactly what conservation scientists at India’s Nagarahole National Park came across while checking out hidden camera traps. In the 57-second video, a female Asian elephant can be seen scooping up chunks of ashen wood with her trunk and stuffing them into her […]

04/15/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

New device nukes STD viruses with microwaves… including HPV

In the future, treating human papillomavirus (HPV) may be done with a microwave system. Tests with the device, a compact and portable applicator developed by Emblation Microwave, are underway and have yielded positive results thus far. According to HPV experts from the University of Glasgow, it works by delivering a precise and controlled low-energy dose […]

04/14/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

An unlikely hero in antibiotic resistance: Platypus milk could be used to fight superbugs

Back in 2010, researchers uncovered special antibacterial properties in platypus milk. Its antibacterial potency is such that the team believed it could one day help combat superbugs. Come 2018, a new group of scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has found out why. The milk on its own is unique. Firstly, […]

03/28/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Scientists are learning more about how comets are formed

Humans have known about comets for many years, but our greater understanding of them has only been a recent development. For instance, it has long been believed that comets formed when the planets came to be, billions of years ago. But new research shows that this is not necessarily true of all comets. Just look […]

03/23/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

NASA has identified an exoplanet with large amounts of water

Scientists have found water in the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet known as WASP-39b. Although its initial discovery was way back in 2011, little research has been directed towards the Saturn-sized extrasolar planet up until recently. The team who took the first in-depth look at WASP-39b collected data from various telescopes. Namely, the Hubble Space […]

03/20/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Scorpion venom: A natural remedy for rheumatoid arthritis?

Although scorpion venom is one of the deadliest chemicals in the world, it’s also one of the most useful. Multiple studies have shown this neurotoxin to have tremendous potential in the field of human medicine. The most recent of these studies, published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, has discovered yet another application […]

03/11/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Could 5,000 pencil-shaped robots help solve the mysteries of our universe?

At 45 years of age, the decades-old Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope was due for an upgrade. This four-meter reflector telescope will be given just that this year. Though instead of a new eyepiece or objective lens, the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope was instead outfitted with about 5,000 fiber optic sensor-equipped, pencil-sized robots. By adding these […]

03/11/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Researchers have recycled clothing waste into an “aerogel” supermaterial that can help stop wound bleeding

Cotton-based fabric waste has a multitude of uses that range from being recycled into polishing and wiper clothes to automotive insulation. Though, as researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered and demonstrated, this type of waste could be turned into cotton aerogels that have their own practical applications. The cotton aerogels, which […]

03/04/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Human bone tissue grown from a patient’s fat cells in a lab, then implanted to finish growing inside the patient’s body

Thanks to an extraordinary medical procedure, a man is on the road to recovering from a fractured tibia with a bone graft created from his own fat cells. This isn’t a work of science fiction; it’s the result of efforts made by Bonus BioGroup, an Israel-based biomedical company. According to the TimesOfIsrael.com, a traffic accident […]

02/25/2018 / By Frances Bloomfield

Researchers say any life on Mars was more likely subterranean rather than living on the surface

Forget the surface of Mars: if we want to find signs of life, we need to go underground. The red planet may be similar to Earth in some aspects, but it also greatly differs in others. That’s why, according to Dr. Joseph Michalski, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at The University […]

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