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Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have found that jellyfish go into a sleep-like state, making them the first animals without a brain or central nervous system to do so. The findings push the origin of sleep further down the evolutionary tree of life - to before the emergence of a centralised nervous system. "It is the first example of sleep in animals without a brain," said Howard Hughes, from California Institute of Technology in the US. Researchers studied Cassiopea, a mostly stationary jellyfish native to mudflats, mangrove swamps, and other warm, shallow waters. The jellfish were kept in tanks...

We were deployed in Orlando to wait out hurricane Irma in a hotel. Our job was to assess the damage after the storm came and went. The power went out in the hotel about 2:00am. Many could not continue to sleep at that time. We watched through the windows and the balconies where we could see the lights going out throughout the area, one by one, as cyclone progressed. If you never been in a hurricane when the wind is blowing in gusts up to 100 miles per hour, well, it is time that will beg you to make it...

Like most common metals, aluminium lacks natural buoyancy. However, with a little rearranging of the metal’s natural molecular structure, one can produce an ultra-light crystalline form of the metal that is actually less dense than water and, as a result, floats upon it. Research conducted by Utah State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Alexander Boldyrev and published in the latest issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C has yielded just such a crystalline form using computational modeling. ... According to the research team, the potential for the new aluminium structure is vast, as the metal already features...

And barely camouflaged, almost ready for its big reveal. Last time we caught the 2018 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 out testing, it was being flogged on the Nürburgring. A few days later, we caught it out on the ‘Ring again, this time with extra piping out back to keep its exhaust noise below the 100-decibel limit. This time around, the ZR1 was seen testing in much more pedestrian circumstances and wearing way less camouflage. As you can see, the camouflage that is still there doesn’t hide much. You can clearly see the aggressive splitter up front, as well as that massive...

Relatives estimate up to 50 people were in the building along Avenida Alvaro Obregon in west-central Mexico City when the quake hit Tuesday. Family members have waited nearby ever since -- some of them staying overnight in tents -- monitoring the search and hoping for the best. Similar scenes have been playing out across central Mexico as volunteers joined trained search and rescue workers to try to reach possible survivors and clear rubble, days after the quake that officials say killed at least 286 people. Navarro, who believes his brother, Jesus, was in the building at Avenida Alvaro Obregon, said...

Estimated range of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus in the United States, 2017* Prevention of mosquito bites is the best defense. Geographically, the 75% of the range includes approximately 85% of the U.S. population. CDC has updated the estimated range maps for Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitoes by using a model that predicts possible geographic ranges for these mosquitoes in the contiguous United States. The model used county-level records, historical records, and suitable climate variables to predict the likelihood (very low, low, moderate, or high) that these mosquitoes could survive and reproduce if introduced to an area during the...

From blob-like jellyfish to rock-like lichens, our planet teems with such diversity of life that it is difficult to recognise some organisms as even being alive. That complexity hints at the challenge of searching for life as we don’t know it – the alien biology that might have taken hold on other planets, where conditions could be unlike anything we’ve seen before. ‘The Universe is a really big place. Chances are, if we can imagine it, it’s probably out there on a planet somewhere,’ said Morgan Cable, an astrochemist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. ‘The question is,...

The idea of lifelike robots has moved a step closer to reality with scientists developing a new type of synthetic soft muscle capable of lifting 1,000 times its own weight. The rubber-like synthetic muscle that expands and contracts very much like its biological counterpart have been manufactured using a 3D printing technique. Heated by a small electric current, the material was capable of expanding up to nine times its normal size. The synthetic soft muscle doesn’t need an external compressor or high-voltage equipment like the previous models, and can push, pull, bend and twist, as well as lift weight. The...

Fiona Petrie and her family had headed out for a day of fun at Landmark Forest Adventure Park in the UK when they got a great surprise. Petrie, her partner, and her two sons got an extra boost of joy when they looked up and saw Petrie’s preborn child lighting up on the thermal imaging camera. Petrie and her family were in the Bamboozeleum section of the park which is touted as an “addictive and quite unique experience.” It includes illusions, puzzles, and special effects, including a thermal camera. The family looked up and there was their new baby on...

Detecting the presence of aerosols — which are tiny airborne particles that we can’t see but regularly breathe in — is vital to the health and wellbeing of long-haul space travelers. Determining the breathability and potential danger of any air source is of utmost importance, but current technologies that detect aerosols are too bulky to be considered for long space trips. NASA wants something smaller, but just as effective as today’s top-of-the-line tech. “NASA has identified particulate monitoring as a gap in its technology roadmap to enable future long-term missions,” the competition page explains. “Current technology does not provide the...

The two asteroids, collectively known as 288P, are locked in orbit around each other and are also spewing water vapor into space like comets (which originate in the region beyond Neptune). Many asteroids between Jupiter and Mars can claim one of those characteristics (orbiting one another or releasing vapor), but this is the first time that researchers have identified an object with both features... ... The peculiar rocks were initially identified as a single object, but follow-up observations by Agarwal and her team revealed that 288P consists of two asteroids, each about 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) wide, locked in orbit....

Big earthquakes can increase the long-term risk of seismic activity nearby by transferring stress within the Earth’s crust to adjacent geological faults. But that sort of ‘static stress’ transfer usually happens only within a radius equal to about three to four times the length of the original fault's rupture, says Gavin Hayes, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey... The 7 September earthquake ruptured about 100 kilometres of the crust, which would imply its stress transfer reached no more than about 300 to 400 kilometres away, Hayes says. That puts the 19 September quake, whose epicentre was 650 kilometres away,...

about 2 hours ago 4.6 magnitude, 48 km depth San Mateo del Mar, Oaxaca, Mexico about 6 hours ago 4.6 magnitude, 64 km depth San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca, Mexico about 8 hours ago 4.9 magnitude, 46 km depth San Francisco del Mar Viejo, Oaxaca, Mexico about 11 hours ago 7.1 magnitude, 51 km depth Raboso, Puebla, Mexico

The proposal, conceived by a bunch of pointy-headed Parisian philosophes, sounded brilliant: A universal system of measurement, derived from decimal-based units and identified by a shared set of prefixes. It would end the era of merchants buying goods according to one unit, selling in another, and pocketing the ill-gotten profit. It would simplify scientific calculations and enable the free exchange of ideas around the world. It was an enlightened system for an enlightened time. If only the French scientists could persuade other countries to adopt it. But pirates have a way of ruining even the best-laid plans. In 1793, botanist...

For years, Aeolis Dorsa has been of interest to scientists since it contains some of the most densely-packed sedimentary layers on Mars, which were deposited by flowing water (aka. fluvial deposits). These deposits are visible from orbit because of the way they have undergone a process known as “topographic inversion” – which consists of deposits filling low river channels, then being exhumed to create incised valleys. By definition, incised valleys are topographic lows produced by “riverine” erosion – i.e. relating to a river or riverbank. On Earth, these valleys are commonly created by rising sea levels, and then filled with...

The wreck of a German submarine that sank during World War One has been found in the North Sea and officials believe 23 bodies may be inside it. The type UB-II submarine is said to be in good condition, lying at a depth of 30m (100ft) off the Belgian coast. "The submarine is in such good condition that we reckon all the bodies are still on board," said West Flanders Governor Carl Decaluwé. The vessel is thought to have been sunk by a mine. Mr Decaluwé told reporters on Tuesday that the location of the wreck was being kept under...

University of British Columbia (UBC) geologist Matthijs Smit and research partner Klaus Mezger believe they have been able to show how the disappearance of a mineral called olivine from the Earth's crust led to an explosion of biological life. Earth's early atmosphere and oceans were devoid of free oxygen, even though tiny cyanobacteria were producing the gas as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Then, about 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen in the atmosphere suddenly increased by about 10,000 times in just 200 million years. 

By WND. Amid a summertime swarm of hundreds of earthquakes underneath Yellowstone National Park, NASA is developing a plan to tame a “super-volcano” that some experts believe is well overdue for a catastrophic eruption. The scientists’ plan: cool down the volcano . . . Brian Wilcox of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology told the BBC an attempt to drill from the top of the magma chamber could accidentally cause the very thing the drilling was designed to prevent. To avoid that risk, he suggested drilling from outside the borders of Yellowstone and coming into the...

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China has limited access to a nature reserve on its border with North Korea after mysterious seismic shakes at the rogue nation's nuclear test site were detected less than 10 minutes after it launched a missile earlier this month. Beijing reportedly closed the site over fears that underground detonations by the North Koreans at a facility near Punggye-ri could lead to rockslides and even trigger an eruption of the active volcano Mount Paektu, which is sacred to North Korea and located right on the border between the two countries.