You Can Now Mail Frozen Mouse Sperm On A Postcard (OK, Scientists Can)
Mouse sperm is incredibly important to science, but transporting it between labs can be complicated and difficult. This has led researchers to develop a technique to freeze-dry samples and fix them to weighing paper, allowing them to be attached to a postcard and sent through the mail. A “sperm book” has also been made, with pages full of sperm samples. Baby mice were born successfully from the freeze-dried samples.
Colored Stalagmites Painted By Neanderthals Are The Oldest “Cave Art” Known
The Cueva de Ardales in Spain is home to the oldest “cave art” in history, a new study reports. A dome of stalagmites was revealed to have been painted with pigments from an unknown source outside the cave by Neanderthals. One painting was measured to be over 65,000 years old, preceding previous records by almost 20,000 years and proving that the first artists were Neanderthals, not Homo Sapiens.
A Ginormous Structure Has Been Detected In The Milky Way, And It May Be A New Spiral Arm
Astronomers have just detected an enormous trail of gas lurking in the outer reaches of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The newly discovered behemoth has been named Cattail, and astronomers say it might be a previously unspotted spiral arm. While it’s possible that Cattail is simply an oversized gas filament, it fails to comply with many of the rules that such structures generally tend to obey.
"World’s Most Powerful” Tidal Turbine Starts Pumping Green Electricity To Onshore Grid
Tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from the natural rise and fall of ocean tides and currents. It doesn't release carbon emissions, and is more predictable than other renewable energy sources. The “world’s most powerful” tidal turbine, developed by Orbital Marine Power, has been hooked up to the onshore energy grid in Orkney, Scotland, where it will remain for 15 years, providing homes with clean, green electricity.
A 150-Year-Old Mathematical Theory Has Now Been Tested And It Seems It Was Wrong
In 1871, Lord Kelvin proposed the existence of a certain shape – an “isotropic helicoid” – which should naturally rotate when dropped into a fluid. Now, 150 years later, researchers have tested his theory, and it appears to be incorrect. They 3D printed one of these shapes and dropped it into silicone oil, where it didn’t spin at all. Mathematical modeling, revealed rotational force created by the fins was canceled out over the helicoid.
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A Boy Went Without Sleep For An 11-Day School Project – And Hallucinations Kicked In
In 1963, two teenage boys embarked upon a science project where one of them stayed awake as long as possible. What followed included hallucinations, delusions, new insights into neuroscience, and a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
