Sewage sludge, green waste, even animal excrement can be utilized for energy recovery with  the biobattery modular concept.  Biogas plants are an important element for decentralized energy…

This week I was traveling in Belgium so my blogging activities have been scarce. Back home, I will resume with serious articles soon (with the XVI Neutrino Telescopes conference next week, there will…

It has long been accepted that large power output requires big-sized fusion reactors. But, based on calculations performed on beta plasma parameter1 by researchers from Tokamak Energy, UK, a company…

There is microbiology and then there is micro-micro-microbiology. The existence of ultra-small bacteria has been debated for decades, but now there is comprehensive electron microscopy and DNA-based…

The Intrexon synthetic biology company announced today that it is acquiring Okanagan Specialty Fruits, the science start-up behind the non-browning Arctic apple, for $31 million in Intrexon common…

New transcriptome data for underutilized legumes means underappreciated crops could soon become valuable tools in agriculture. Thousands of species belong to the legume family, the Fabaceae, yet only…

A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth. This hypothetical cell membrane, modeled by a team of researchers, is composed of small…

In 1966, when the "Star Trek" television show debuted, it was revolutionary - not just in the ways that are commonly stated, like that it took a stand against racism and petty geopolitics, we had…

A dress that seems to be different colors to different people has all the Internet intrigued - and that's a good thing. It's a good way to understand science and psychology. There are two hypotheses…

A new paper challenges a long-accepted hypothesis about the role the hippocampus plays in our unconscious memory.  For decades, neuroscientists have believed that this part of the brain is not…

A strong electric field applied to a section of the Keystone pipeline can smooth oil flow and yield significant pump energy savings, found a new study. The physics basis is to electrically align…

Researchers focusing on a new way to discuss statistical mechanics have modeled "World War Z", an oral history of the first zombie war, to explore how an "actual" zombie outbreak might play out in…

The National Academy of Sciences is presenting its 2015 Public Welfare Medal to astrophysicist Dr.Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, in…

Though adopting a whole-food diet has become popular in some circles, is it really going to help you? Perhaps, perhaps not.  One reason to err on the side of caution and not chase diet fads is…

An international team of physicists from Russia and Germany have successfully applied a theory from 2009 to cool a relatively large macroscopic mirror (1.2 millimeters across) with lower fundamental…

It's been over 50 years since the first experimental use of adult stem cells - bone marrow transplants - began, and in that time over 1,000,000 hematopoietic stem cell (HSCT - cells isolated…

Nature is all about booms and busts - it is common for species to grow too large to be sustainable. Humans were once that way too, but science has now made it possible for even the poorest people to…

Reefs are made up of many coral species that live in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with microscopically small algae hosted in their tissue. These symbiont algae produce sugars that…

The recent slowdown in climate warming is due to natural oscillations in the climate, according to a team of climate scientists, who add that these oscillations represent variability internal to the…

By: Charles Q. Choi, Inside Science (Inside Science) -- Viruses that invaded the DNA of humanity's ancestors millions of years ago may now play critical roles in the earliest stages of human…