Category archives: Technology

Jamestown settlers turned to cannibalism to survive, bones show The scarred skull of a 14-year-old girl reveals that English settlers in Jamestown, Va., may have engaged in cannibalism to survive. A brutal winter in 1609 brought a food shortage, killing off 80% of the population. Marks on the girl’s skull and tibia are the first […]

Nowadays we are getting more and more accustomed to making use of new technologies shortly after they have been developed. We like the idea of immediacy and our wishes coincide well with the commercial interests of industry. Nevertheless, there is a field in which this immediacy is almost impossible: the medical sector. Unfortunately, there is […]

Malaria reduced by preserving biodiversity of forests Researchers at Brazil’s University of Sao Paulo found that malaria could be kept from spreading while still preserving the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest. The traditional view is that clearing such forests curbed the spread of the disease. Using a mathematical model, researchers found that the parasite causing […]

Unlike road vehicles, all rail vehicles run through exactly the same piece of track and they cannot drift away to avoid a bad quality rail. Moreover, the contact patch between wheel and rail is a steel-to-steel contact with a small area and huge loads, so the stress the material is subject to is extremely high […]

Could cellulose feed the world? Researchers have discovered a way to turn cellulose into starch, a technique that could be used to create more food to feed the hungry. Science Now Chun You eta al (2013) Enzymatic transformation of nonfood biomass to starch PNAS DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1302420110 Fire ants prefer shortest route in terms of time […]

An abrupt and widespread climate shift in the Sahara 5,000 years ago The Sahara Desert’s shift from lush grasslands to barren sands happened quickly and simultaneously across the entire region. Scientists say the brief African Humid Period began and ended suddenly, about 5,000 years ago. MIT news D. McGee, P.B. deMenocal, G. Winckler, J.-B. Stuut […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most actives fields of computer science. The idea of a computer learning, in an autonomous way, complicate tasks is exciting from both the fundamental and applied points of view. One very recent and interesting approach to this problem is Deep Learning . This technology is becoming popular very […]

Scientists use 3D printer to create networks of artificial cells Researchers have developed networks of water droplets that can act like biological tissue cells. The researchers created the networks using a three-dimensional printer. The networks can support up to 35,000 droplets and have the potential to be a scaffold for growing synthetic tissues or a […]

If you have ever faced that thankless task of cleaning fish, for sure you will have realized, at least envisaged, the complex architecture of the fish’s natural armour. Fish scales play the role of a skeleton which provides both protection and flexibility at the same time. It goes without saying that this fact has not […]

Quantum computers are one of the most promising technologies under development, and all their promises are completely justified. Quantum systems are extremely expensive to compute, where “expensiveness” can be measured either by the memory or the computational time required in classical computers. But it should be much cheaper if the computer uses quantum mechanics rules […]