Category: Science

In next month’s Battle: Los Angeles, invading aliens go to war with the American military. It’s science fiction…except that a panel of UFO experts claims it’s factual. At a recent Sony Pictures press conference, the studio emphasized the movie’s “based in fact” premise by giving us a chance to chat with a pair of ufologists and two retired military officers who both claim to have had encounters with UFOs during their service. More »

We all know that women like funny guys (how else do you explain Woody Allen’s love life?), but empirical evidence for this phenomenon has been sorely lacking. Fortunately, in a recent study in the journal Psychological Reports, a French scientist took up the challenge of testing whether humor helps men pick up women. More »

The Kepler telescope discovered more than 1,200 planets in just one tiny corner of the Milky Way. Crunching the numbers, a conservative estimate says there should be at least fifty billion planets in the entire galaxy, and about 500 million of those should be inside the habitable zone. But how many of those planets have life on them, let alone other intelligent beings? That’s the question we still can’t answer…but we’re getting closer. More »

We might just be on the verge of discovering a real Planet X, according to astronomers John Matese and Dan Whitmire. Subtle gravitational influences on comets way out in the Oort Cloud suggest there could be a huge gas giant affecting the other objects, and now NASA’s Wise space telescope has given us the data to determine whether the planet really exists or not. For more on what Tyche might look like, check out The Independent – and for a little healthy skepticism about whether Tyche is really out there, check out Bad Astronomy. More »

In the first instance of gene transfer between a human host and bacteria, Gonorrhea was recently discovered to have a human DNA fragment. What the..how the..huh? Supposedly, it’s a relatively recent evolutionary event and scientists have no idea what it means. And though it’s a pseudo love story between star crossed lovers, I’m actually scaring myself as I read more into it. Scientists say: More »

Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that suppressing a single hormone may eliminate the need for insulin injections and may make the condition completely asymptomatic. More »

Microsoft’s Kinect has already brought us invisibility, motion-tracked underwear and giant animated Minecraft cats. Now, it’s taking us to a galaxy far far away, thanks to researchers from the MIT Media Lab. Using Kinect and a PC equipped with three off-the-shelf graphics cards, the researchers were able to create a three-inch holographic Princess Leia running at around 15 frames per second, according to the university’s news office. 

Two physicists recently announced they had figured out the secrets of cold fusion, which is a low energy nuclear reaction that, if it exists, could solve the world’s energy problems. But to call their story fishy is a massive understatement. More »

Stem cells should be the ideal treatment for fetuses with genetic disorders – their nascent immune systems could adopt the incoming cells seemingly without trouble. Yet these treatments have never worked. Until now. More »

For a month and a half, there’s absolutely no Sun in Greenland because of Earth’s angle in relation to our home star. People there eagerly await for January 13, when the Sun rises again, every year. Except this one. More »