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Audi just announced a new suspension system that harvests wasted energy and turns it into electricity, capable of adding juice to a vehicle’s 48-volt electrical subsystem. The automaker calls the system “eROT” after the electromechanical rotary dampers that capture kinetic energy and store it in a battery. Currently in the prototype phase, the system does away with conventional shock absorbers, replacing them with lever arms connected to a small gearbox and alternator. “Every pothole, every bump, every curve induces kinetic energy in the car,” said Stefan Knirsch, Audi’s technical development boss, in a release. “Today’s dampers absorb this energy, which...

Remember Tabby’s Star? It’s the star that astronomer Tabetha Boyajian – who reported its strangeness in a Ted Talk in February, 2016 – famously called “the most mysterious star in the galaxy.” It’s mysterious because astronomers have never seen another star do what this star does. One explanation for the strange dimming of its light is that the star has an alien-built megastructure – a Dyson sphere – around it. Does it? Will we ever know for sure? Those are unanswered questions, but, while you’re pondering it, here’s the latest on this wonderful star. On August 3, 2016, two astronomers...

A new study reveals that genetic manipulation of mice, rats, cows and pigs has increased threefold since 2004. Between 2004 and 2013, the number of tests conducted using genetically modified animals in Germany nearly tripled, according to reports by Funke Mediengruppe, citing a study by research group Testbiotech, which investigates the “consequences of genetic engineering”. In total nearly 950,000 animals, mainly mice and rats, were genetically tested in 2013 alone — one third of all animals on which scientific testing was conducted during that year in Germany. …

PEARLAND, TEXAS - The state of Texas heads to court on Friday to defend its bid to block the Obama administration’s recent guidance that said public schools should allow transgender students to use restrooms according to their gender identity. It’s not just lawmakers who are fighting over the issue -- it’s the people who are living it every day, including a 4-year-old and her mother in Pearland. As soon as she could, Kai Shappley gravitated towards dresses and dolls. But even though she was born a boy named Joseph Paul, she made it clear what she identified as. “By age...

New fossil finds from China push back the origins of deep soils by 20 million years, new research has uncovered. This is a key part of the stepwise conquest of the land and transformation of the continents, researchers from the universities of Peking and Bristol have discovered. One of the greatest transitions in Earth history was the greening of the land. Up to 450 million years ago, there was no life outside water, and the land surface was a rocky landscape. Without plants there were no soils, and the rocky landscape eroded fast. Then the first tiny plants crept out...

A royal palace has been discovered in the area reputed to be the birthplace of King Arthur. The palace discovered at Tintagel in Cornwall is believed to date from the sixth century - around the time that the legendary king may have lived. They believe the one-metre thick walls being unearthed are from a 6th century palace belonging to the rulers of the ancient south-west British kingdom of Dumnonia. Excavations have been taking place at the site as part of a five-year research project being run by English Heritage at the 13th century Tintagel Castle in Cornwall to find out...

The devastating earthquake that struck North Sumatra and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Boxing Day (26 December) in 2004 caused a tsunami that inundated coastal communities around the Indian Ocean, killing over 250,000 people in 14 countries. That earthquake was caused by a slip on a subduction zone plate boundary fault beneath the eastern Indian Ocean. Now, over the coming weeks, a team of international researchers are returning to offshore Sumatra to collect marine sediments, rocks and fluids from this particular zone for the first time to gain a better understanding of the materials and to collect data for...

How smart were human-like species of the Stone Age? New research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science by a team led by paleoanthropologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria reveals surprisingly sophisticated adaptations by early humans living 250,000 years ago in a former oasis near Azraq, Jordan. The research team from UVic and partner universities in the US and Jordan has found the oldest evidence of protein residue -- the residual remains of butchered animals including horse, rhinoceros, wild cattle and duck -- on stone tools. The discovery draws startling conclusions about how these early humans subsisted in...

While most people wouldn’t suspect it, the closest planet to our Sun is actually a potential candidate for settlement... Mercury’s very low axial tilt (0.034°) means that its polar regions are permanently shaded and cold enough to contain water ice. In the northern region, a number of craters were observed by NASA’s MESSENGER probe in 2012 which confirmed the existence of water ice and organic molecules. Scientists believe that Mercury’s southern pole may also have ice, and claim that an estimated 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of water ice could exist at both poles, which could be up to...

awrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on using carbon nanotubes to create a barrier that would be impenetrable to chemical and biological agents, but still water-permeable. The result could make suits designed to protect against chemical and biological threats more comfortable—and effective—for long-term wear. ... Each of the tubes has a diameter of less than five nanometers. For reference, there are about 254,000,000 nanometers in a single inch. Less than five nanometers, it turns out, is the sweet spot that allows water to pass through the fabric while keeping out chemical agents, viruses, and most microscopic organisms. The result is...

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study report. The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them. “These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have...

Eight months after raising hopes that they may have found an intriguing new particle that cannot be explained by the existing main physics theory, disappointed scientists are saying: Never mind. It was just a statistical burp, not a breakthrough, researchers reported Friday. […] Early unconfirmed readings of a new particle in December by physicists at the center, called CERN, set the physics world abuzz. Scientists there had discovered the Higgs boson or “God particle” in 2012, and two new readings from the Large Hadron Collider made it seem as though they may had found a revolutionary new particle. …

Black holes could be "back doors" to other regions of the universe, a new study suggests. However, it is unlikely anyone passing through one of the gateways would survive, say scientists. First they would be "spaghettified" - stretched out like a strand of pasta - by the black hole's immense gravity. Once on the other side of the "door" the traveller would be compacted back to normal size, but could not count on being restored back to life.

Both butterflies and moths have four stages of life – they go from the initial egg to a caterpillar, then to a cocoon and finally to a butterfly or moth. We often think that whatever comes out of the cocoon is always more beautiful than the caterpillar that made it, but in some cases, this is not the case. In these 19 pictures, you’ll see the transformation, and decide for yourself if you prefer the caterpillar or the butterfly/moth… Click on any of the images to see the transformation!

SPACE (8/3) reports that a new modeling study indicates that life on Earth may be “premature,” and that the probability of life emerging throughout the universe in the distant future is 1,000 times greater than it is now. Study Lead Author Avi Loeb, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, stated, “If you ask, ‘When is life most likely to emerge?’ you might naively say, ‘Now.’” He added that despite such inclinations, “we find that the chance of life grows much higher in the distant future.” The scientists conducting the research “determined that the main factor influencing the possible evolution of...

This odd habit by our feathered friends has long been theorized, but now German scientists say they have definitive proof for the first time ever. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Seewiesen, Bavaria, announced on Wednesday that they had proved for the first time that birds can fly while sleeping and still stay aloft. The researchers were able to monitor the brainwaves and movements of great frigate birds from the Galapagos Islands, whose airborne journeys may last for months. They strapped devices to the heads of female birds to measure brain activity over the course of ten days. […]...

"This was truly a dream come true for me. I can't thank the people at CCI and Speer enough for allowing me to do this. I couldn't possibly show everything that went on at the factory. However, hopefully I showed you enough for you to grasp the concept of how rimfire is made."

A propulsion system problem has left a U.S. military communications satellite short of its intended orbit, leaving a key communications network over the Middle East, Africa and Asia without a spare, officials said on Tuesday.

NASA has provided a perspective on our planet previously unthinkable for the earthbound. By creating a time-lapse video consisting of thousands of photos taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCVR) satellite from a million miles away, it allows everyone stuck on the third planet from the sun to watch Earth cycle through a year in a remarkably striking way. To read more about the process of making the video click here or just watch the video below.