My Science Academy delivers quality science, engineering and technology content that matters on a daily basis. During a time when the role of science is being questioned, we’re here to advocate for the pursuit of truth.
Latest
A Harvard scientist reveals what humans will look like in 100 years and it’s bizarre
Today’s generation is far more self-absorbed than even our parent’s generation was. We want more and we want it now. So it seems strange to have a conversation about how the things we are doing and studying and experimenting with now are going to have not just global...
An expert geneticist explains how early life experiences are written into our DNA
With everything that we know about our bodies, our history, and our DNA today, it’s hard to believe there are still things to be discovered about how our world shapes us into the people we are today. Moshe Szyf, a geneticist, recounts his experiences with discovering...
Scientist exploits the secret of plants to protect crops against global warming
Climate change is no longer a myth that policy makers can scoff about. No pretending that it doesn’t exist. No pretending that it isn’t already affecting mankind. Not in the face of unprecedented and dramatic weather extremes that people all over the world are living...
Mind & Brain
A UK woman has an extra cone cell in her eyes and can see more colors
Most people are trichromats. Most animals are dichromats. In some rare cases some women might be a tetrachromats. Okay, I see you have lost me. I’ll teach you what I myself have just learned. We see color because of specialized nerve cells in the retina called cones,...
How long you need to do cardio to reap the benefits for your body and brain
Some years ago I was shocked when a colleague of mine complained about having to walk from her car to the office building. Since I knew where she parked her car, which was in the street right in front of the building, I asked, why? “I hate walking,” she said. Would...
If you get the chills when listening to music, you might be experiencing a “skin orgasm”
Okay, let’s just get this out of the way right now: Frisson is a scientific term for the feeling your body gets when you have chills running over your skin or you get goosebumps from a sensation related to music. Some researchers even call it "skin orgasm". You know...
Health & Psychology
Spinach makes you smarter, according to scientists
During the Great Depression, a 33% increase in spinach consumption was widely attributed to Popeye’s popularity and his famous conviction that spinach will make him strong enough to beat up anyone. As it turns out, the cartoon's link between spinach and rapidly...
Scientists make food from electricity, providing a solution to world hunger
Flint Lockwood has come to town and his future forecast is “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs”. His team is from Finland and they have made nutritious protein from thin air. The protein is in the form of a powder, but it can be modified into other textures....
New scientific research demonstrates magic mushrooms treat depression in ways conventional medicine can’t
Did you know that an estimated 350 million people worldwide are affected by depression? It's now the leading cause of global mental and physical disability and plays a major role in countless suicides, including among children, teens and young adults. The situation is...
Environment
Africa set to “leapfrog” over coal and choose renewable energy instead
Even though American leadership appears to be losing its motivation to tackle climate change, there's still a good chance the Earth can be saved. Climate activism has risen rapidly since Trump pulled out of the Paris agreement and global cooperation and market forces...
Earth’s sixth mass extinction is underway, scientists warn
How would you react if you read in the news that horses are on the endangered species list? Will you be untouched by news that all dogs will be extinct by 2025? How about cats? Take a moment to think about this. Can you imagine a world with no horses, no dogs and no...
If we stopped emitting greenhouse gases right now, would we stop climate change?
Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The primary cause of that change is...
Physics
Scientists have developed an experiment to see if the human mind is bound to the physical world
Ever since the discovery of quantum mechanics, “reality” has been hard to grasp, literally and figuratively. The laws of quantum mechanics seem to suggest that particles are neither here nor there. Particles or waves exist everywhere and nowhere at once. Only when...
Merging our brains with machines won’t stop the rise of the robots
Tesla chief executive and OpenAI founder Elon Musk suggested last week that humanity might stave off irrelevance from the rise of the machines by merging with the machines and becoming cyborgs. However, current trends in software-only artificial intelligence and deep...
Can Robots Take Over the World? A Renowned Expert Reveals the Truth
Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates have all issued warnings about the increasing capabilities of artificial intelligence. Yet how real is the threat? Is it something we need to worry about in the short to medium term or something that's so far away that we...
Space
There’s a compelling reason scientists think we’ve never found aliens, and it suggests humans are almost extinct
It’s reasonable to expect there to be someone out there if you consider the astronomical (pun intended) numbers involved when we talk about space and the heavenly bodies hurtling through it. NASA scientists estimate that there may be tens of billions of solar systems...
Fly me to the Moon? Why the world should be wary of Elon Musk’s space race
Want to fly to the moon? Well, now you won’t have to bother with all those years of rigorous astronaut training – all you need is a huge wad of cash. Elon Musk, technopreneur, has built a small spaceship called Dragon and if you slap down enough money – maybe a...
Astronomers Observe Strange Quantum Distortion in Empty Space for the First Time Ever
A team of scientists from INAF Milan and the University of Zielona Gora have observed a remarkable first ever vacuum birefringence. The Vacuum birefringence is a strange quantum phenomenon that had never been observed through a Very Large Telescope (VLT), only...
Technology
World renowned adviser reveals a new plan to make sure robots are our friends
The coming participation of robots in every aspect of our lives is a confusing prospect: it’s at once exciting and threatening. Above all, it’s inevitable and there is not a job that is not threatened. And what do you to earn an income if you have to give up your job...
A real-life, all-electric flying car just took off
The age of technology is really hard on regulators. They have to figure out how to incorporate internet-of-things to make smart cities a reality; how to provide sustainable clean energy; where AI fits into all this and they have transport challenges. If it isn’t...
Elon Musk believes it’s possible to power the entire United States with solar energy
The world's largest solar power plant, Karmuthi in Tamil Nadu, India, covers an area of almost 4 square miles, and is expected to power 150,000 homes. That’s impressive, but tiny compared to what Elon Musk has in mind. Think 100 square miles powering the whole of the...