Nonvisual photoreception: Parts of your body can “see” without your eyes
Without the sun there would be no life on the planet. So, it makes sense that our bodies use light in more ways than to see with our eyes. Scientists have discovered that many animals—including human beings—have specialized light-detecting molecules in unexpected places, outside of the eyes. Read More...
The reports of the death of the internal combustion engine are not exaggerated
In 1893, a French newspaper complained that “human inventiveness…has still not found a mechanical process to replace horses as the propulsion for vehicles”. Soon after, the automobile powered by the internal combustion engine began changing the world. But the days of the car as we know it, Read More...
The promise of immunotherapy as cancer treatment
Immunotherapy is a promising new approach to cancer treatment that uses a series of precision strikes to disintegrate cancer from within the body itself. Doctors use gene therapy to train a patient's immune system to recognize and destroy their cancer in the same way it dispatches bacteria and Read More...
From Plato to the Christian mystics: Western philosophy is rooted in psychedelics
After the wild experiences of the 1960s psychedelic drugs were banned. However, Western philosophy has a huge debt to psychedelics, according to a new book on the philosophical significance of drugs. Plato wrote more than 2,000 years ago that he was inspired by an ancient religious ceremony that Read More...
Chile’s energy transformation is powered by wind, sun and volcanoes
It doesn’t hurt that Chile’s geography offers an embarrassment of riches for renewable energy. A constellation of solar fields built in the Atacama Desert in the north, one of the driest and sunniest places on Earth, has made Chile one of the most promising markets for producers of Read More...
Aboriginal meditation is being used to heal minds in the modern world
From the tiny community of Nauiyu, south of Darwin, Miriam Rose Baumann is preparing to meet her next group of interstate visitors. "It's not a tour where you have to pack your bags and get ready to jump on a bus that's going to be leaving at 6:00am in the morning, to take you to places and be Read More...
This simple box serves up running water and clean electricity in remote locations
Off Grid Box, an Italian startup, was founded to bring clean water and renewable energy to the millions of the people in the world who still live without. The box itself is a simple container, measuring six by six by six feet. With solar panels on top and water treatment inside, it can help remote Read More...
Solving the waste problem: Materials that self-destruct if they're not "fed"
Wouldn’t it be great if things you don’t longer use, would disappear and decompose automatically? Nature does not produce garbage dumps. Instead, biological cells are constantly synthesizing new molecules from recycled ones. Now researchers are mimicking this natural process and developing Read More...
Downtown parking solution: free bus passes
Columbus, Ohio is trying to solve a parking problem in its downtown area with an innovative solution. Instead of building 4,000 new parking spaces, property owners in the city plan to offer free bus passes to more than 40,000 people who work in the Read More...
Probiotics and a healthy gut can help fight multiple sclerosis
The importance of maintaining a healthy gut cannot be overstressed as new research keeps emerging. Now the Mayo Clinic has uncovered a gut microbe that has the potential to treat autoimmune diseases, including multiple Read More...