If you close your fist right now, you will, for a brief moment, hold what won two scientists this year’s Nobel Prize in physics. The prize was given to Arthur McDonald of Queen’s University in Ontario and Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass.”
The year’s most prestigious prize in medicine has been bestowed upon Youyou Tu, the lead discoverer of powerful malaria drug artemisinin. In giving her the prize, the Nobel Prize committee has recognized the role ancient knowledge can play in the modern world.
The 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to three scientists from China, Ireland, and Japan.
This week’s announcement by NASA might make it seem like there is liquid water flowing on the surface of Mars right now. But when the agency’s scientists answered questions from the public via Reddit, they revealed a more nuanced picture. Quartz has edited and condensed a selection of their comments for clarity.
You don’t need to be a foodie for your gut to have a great influence on your health. It seems that every week, there is a new study that finds new ways in which your gut’s bacteria are linked to diseases.
While NASA was telling the world about its claim to have found liquid water on Mars, the Indian space agency ISRO quietly achieved what so many other nations have been dreaming of. ISRO’s list of achievements has grown quickly, and can only be beaten by rich nations who invest a lot more in space research than India does.
NASA claims to have found evidence of liquid water on Mars. If true, you’d expect the US government to scramble to set up a new mission to test the claim. After all, discovering that Mars has life or even that in can support life will be one of the greatest discoveries ever.
As much as a fifth of Mars may have been once covered with water—and there may still be some liquid water on the planet, NASA announced today. That is good news if we humans ever hope to find life there, or to colonize the red planet.
Half the world saw its skies go dark as Earth blocked the full moon’s main source of light on Sunday night (Sept. 27). But then the sunlight scattered through Earth’s thin atmosphere and made the moon turn blood red.
Mix economics, drugs, alcohol, and regulation, and you have all the ingredients for quite a party. This combination has produced a provocative new study, in which a group of economists from the University of Louisville show that places that ban the sale of alcohol tend to see more meth labs spring up within their borders.
You are not one organism, but a system of trillions. Each groove in the body and all its surfaces are teeming with microbes.
Thomas Blomseth Christiansen is not an ordinary geek. For the last five years he has been tracking everyday things about his life—from steps to sneezes. He now has more than 100,000 data points, and he has used them to improve his health. After many minor, and some major, changes to his lifestyle, he’s nearly gotten rid of his allergy to pollen.
Beyond the gifts of nature, we are surrounded by creations that came from science. Yet, scientists are rarely the ones who make money from the advances that shape our world. While Silicon Valley creates billionaires before they turn 30, no Nobel Laureate has ever become a billionaire.
Fear sells, and marketers know it. But as far as hygiene goes, proof is mounting that you don’t need to buy anti-bacterial soap to protect yourself against the germs of others.
Most people need eight hours of sleep, but a small fraction can do with less than six.
Each night you might have six different dreams, but how many do you actually remember?
Paleoanthropologists were in the limelight yesterday (Sept. 10), when they announced the discovery of a new ancient-human species. Homo naledi—named after “star” in a local South African language—is special for many reasons, but one that stands out is its tiny brain.
Paleoanthropologists have it hard. Their entire careers can be spent working on a femur or a mandible in the hopes that the bones may reveal some secret about our ancestors.
The human body is a weird wonder. Despite centuries of study, we are still discovering completely new phenomena. The most recent addition is the evidence that neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s—considered mostly diseases of aging—could be passed on from one person to another through medical procedures.
Astronauts and alcohol don’t mix, the American space agency ruled in 1972 (pdf). That, however, hasn’t meant there is no alcohol aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Doctors, more than anyone, deserve a quiet weekend whenever possible. Sadly, however, when too many take the weekend off, more people die than otherwise would.
Startup culture tends to emphasize the fact that an organization’s strengths are distributed among its staff, and encourage employees to seek each other out for advice and guidance.
Ice cream is already a scientific miracle. It has all three phases of matter—solid, liquid, and gas—in one delicious scoop. But unless you gobble it up, it can melt into a sad puddle too quickly in the summer heat. What if there were a way to slow down the melting?
Legend has it that a few drops of the elixir of life, or amrit, fell on my hometown some millennia ago. Since then, the town—now known as Nashik—has drawn huge gatherings of devotees. Every 12 years, the city hosts millions of people coming to bathe in the holy waters of the river Godavari.
