Worldcrunch
BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have recently introduced a “Ten Thousand Talents Support Program,” a nationwide project for selecting outstanding talent in all areas of scientific and technological innovation. Among those, 100 people would be identified as potential Nobel Prize winners. Similar programs, equally generous and costly, have been put in place before. But regrettably, […]
PARIS — Are Nobel Prizes a wicked luxury? This year, like every year for more than a century, Scandinavian juries will honor researchers in physics, chemistry and medicine, an author, and a man or a woman who contributed to peace. The season will end with the presentation of the latest prize, created a little more […]
GENEVA — No need to read Plato’s complete works or learn by heart the words of the Dalai Lama to understand the meaning of happiness. Science may have the answers. At the University Hospital of Geneva (UHG), neurologist Fabienne Picard has been studying for years a very rare phenomenon that scientific literature barely talks about […]
PHOENIX – Eight years ago, as brain researchers Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik were driving down the Las Vegas Strip, the billboards they passed suddenly got them to rethink about the brain’s capacity to process visual information. Until then, the two professors at the prestigious Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona had addressed this question by […]
BERLIN – Chances are, you don’t know anyone with professional interests quite like biologist Heike Reise. She and her colleagues at Germany’s Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Görlitz are studying the sex life of slugs, also known as “naked snails” for their lack of shells. Every year the scientists catch and observe primarily field […]
GENEVA – From one culture to another, the temperature of what people drink during their meals can vary. In many Asian countries for instance, people like to drink a hot beverage while they eat. Europeans for their part tend to favor drinks at room temperature, while North Americans prefer them ice-cold – on the rocks. […]
The procedure is gaining popularity amongst young men who believe, erroneously, that it eliminates any risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.
GENEVA – Wife: “I’ve done my share. It’s your turn now.” Husband: “If you leave me in the next five years, I’ll really feel like I sacrificed myself for nothing.” What are they talking about? Working part-time to spend more time with the kids? Turning down a promotion? Giving up paragliding and cycling on weekends […]
An estimated two million people took to the streets in cities all around the world on May 25 for a worldwide day of protest against agro-biotech giant Monsanto and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in general. The “March Against Monsanto” movement denounced GMOs as harmful to human health and the environment. Their claims, listed on their […]
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, THE GUARDIAN (UK), ATLANTICO (France) Worldcrunch Over the past two weeks, a growing number of cases have been reported of a new strain of coronavirus, a contagious and potentially fatal virus that resembles SARS, which caused a global health scare a decade ago. Here’s what you need to know: What is the […]
A probe finds Dilma’s government taking shortcuts to achieving competitiveness for the country.
Worldcrunch SEATTLE – Did you ever wonder what the Big Bang sounded like? Physics Professor John Cramer at the University of Washington has spent a chunk of his career trying to recreate what the ecoustic experience was like back billions of years ago when the universe was formed. Cramer has just released his most precise […]
ABC NEWS, HERALD SUN, MONASH UNIVERSITY (Australia) Worldcrunch MELBOURNE – An ingredient used in cough syrup could hold the key to improving memory, language skills and learning in people with Down syndrome. Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, believe BTD-001, an ingredient in cough syrup that was discovered in the 1920s, could help with […]
Can you guess what demographic smells the worst?
A new Swiss study helps explain why we think that our important changes are behind us — and how this false belief can drive us to make poor decisions.
KFAR KAMA – Bent down in his field in this lower Galilee town, Amjad Shami points out the countless underground tunnels dug by voles. Three years ago, he says, these rodents destroyed his entire harvest. Shami says he continues to try to fight them with pesticides, which do little more than poison his land, infect […]
BERLIN – It is a scientific theory of longevity that has the whiff of homemade pie: people live longer thanks to the grandmothers who help raise them. Though first put forth more than a half-century ago, the “grandmother hypothesis” has gotten renewed attention with a recent study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society […]
LE MONDE (France), VICE, USENIX SECURITY (USA) Worldcrunch Remember that scene in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader learns about Luke’s sister just by reading his thoughts? “Your thoughts betray you,” says Darth Vader Well the same might just happen to you soon – and if you don’t happen to […]
BUENOS AIRES – Many people think of it as an illness of the past, something you see only in books and historical movies. Wrong: Leprosy is a reality in modern Argentina, and the passage of time has not eradicated the stigma of the disease. Lepers are discriminated against at work and even by their own […]
GENEVA – The female mice are chasing the males around the cage; they raise their behinds in order to sniff their genitals, some even biting the males’ private parts. It is a strange spectacle, monitored by researchers from the University of Geneva (Unige). The phenomenon is described in an article in the latest issue of […]
For many researchers, one measure of intelligence is the ratio of brain size to body weight. But that would mean that the tiny mammal known as the shrew would be capable of great intellectual accomplishments, which it is not presently known for. Why is this? A human brain weighs 1.3 to 1.5 kilos (2.9 to […]
PARIS – Pirates, spies, moles, thieves: those who want to steal the scientific treasures of French research laboratories had better be careful. With a new measure to protect the “nation’s scientific and technical potential,” in the next few months every organization, university and engineering school will be receiving instructions on how to protect themselves. Indeed, […]
THE GUARDIAN (UK), LE FIGARO (France), WALL ST. JOURNAL (U.S.) Worldcrunch The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has risen to the top spot of the annual QS University World Rankings. Last year’s top two universities, Cambridge and Harvard, both lost out to the science and technology university, being bumped down to second and third place […]
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s largest mining company Vale has developed, in partnership with the University of São Paulo (USP), a method to identify bacteria and fungi capable of “eating” copper. What exactly does that mean and why does it matter? Now with this process, waste generated by copper processing — one of the steps […]
She remembers her panic attacks at age six, whenever she lost sight of her mother at the supermarket. Later, to avoid getting lost on her way to high school, she was constantly accompanied. Andrea* is now 47-years-old and lives with her father in Vancouver, Canada. To go to work, she follows an itinerary that is […]
BERLIN – Normally in Germany, there’s a waiting list procedure for organ transplants. The Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation (German Foundation for Organ Transplantation) coordinates the information about available organs from donors, and these organs are then allocated by the Netherlands-based Eurotransplant to seven central European member countries. In Germany, transplants take place at 50 transplant centers […]
ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, NASA (USA) Worldcrunch PASADENA – The NASA Curiosity robotic exploration vehicle successfully landed on Mars early on Monday morning at 5:30 a.m. GMT, a historic event that prompted relief and excitement within the scientific community. The Curiosity rover will spend the next two years looking for traces of life on the red […]