This year, the Food and Drug Administration is joining stoners the world over in celebrating 4/20. Continue reading An FDA Panel Just Recommended an Epilepsy Drug Made from Cannabis
Tag Archives: SCIENCE
The Meteorite Hunters Who Trade in Precious Space Debris
On January 16th 2018, a bright flash lit up the sky over Michigan, accompanied by a loud boom. Caught on dash cams and home surveillance systems, the meteor briefly turned night to day as it streaked to the ground at almost 36,000 miles per hour, causing a blast waveequivalent to a minor earthquake. Continue reading The Meteorite Hunters Who Trade in Precious Space Debris
Scientists Identify Protein That Could Let Birds See Magnetic Fields
Birds probably know quantum physics better than many humans—it just comes to them innately. Continue reading Scientists Identify Protein That Could Let Birds See Magnetic Fields
The guide to hitting a home run
If ever there were a sport to completely nerd out about, it’s baseball. Geeks across America have been crunching data for years on what makes certain players or teams so great. Continue reading The guide to hitting a home run
The USDA Just Gave the Green Light to CRISPR’d Food
For nearly two years now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been quietly giving the go-ahead to a handful of crops that have been genetically engineered using CRISPR. Editing the DNA of people and animals may be controversial, but when it comes to plants, the agency has taken the stance that as long as the gene-edited plants don’t include any foreign genetic material, CRISPR’d crops aren’t subject to special regulation. Continue reading The USDA Just Gave the Green Light to CRISPR’d Food
How Scientists Could Use DNA Sequencing to Identify Alien Life
Here’s a riddle: If an alien life form is, well, alien, how will we know what it is? DNA and RNA are the building blocks of life on Earth, but the molecules of life might differ substantially on another planet. So if scientists combing, say, the potentially habitable waters of Jupiter’s moon Europa were to stumble across a new life form, how could they know what they had discovered? Continue reading How Scientists Could Use DNA Sequencing to Identify Alien Life
Rare Type of Supernova Extinguishes Star at Unprecedented Speed
Supernovae produce some of the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, expelling a doomed star’s contents at velocities reaching 10 percent the speed of light. It usually takes a few weeks or months for a supernova to fade into nothingness, but astronomers have now documented a record-setting case in which a star was extinguished in just a few days. Continue reading Rare Type of Supernova Extinguishes Star at Unprecedented Speed