How Robots Are Building a 3D-Printed Metal Bridge in Amsterdam

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  1060 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

The quaint, cobblestoned city of Amsterdam is about to get a modern addition: a 3D-printed footbridge. The canal-spanning bridge, which is on track to be completed by 2017, is the brainchild of MX3D, a tech startup based in the Dutch capital. The bridge will be constructed entirely by robots that can "print" complex steel objects in midair. The autonomous bots are like mechanical, torch-wielding welders that melt together layer upon layer of steel to form a solid object, said Tim Geurtjens, MX3D's co-founder and chief technology officer. [Read More]

Mysterious 'blobs' near Norway are full of squid mucus and embryos, study finds

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  654 words  |  Fernande Dalal

Several years ago, divers exploring the western coast of Norway encountered an object they couldn't explain: An enormous, jelly-like orb, more than 3 feet (1 meter) wide, was hovering in place partway between the seafloor and the surface. A dark streak cut through the center of the orb, but the object was otherwise translucent and totally featureless. It was, simply put, a perfectly inscrutable blob. Nearly 100 similar blob sightings have been reported around Norway and the Mediterranean Sea since 1985, but the mysterious gelatinous masses have always evaded classification. [Read More]

Mystery of Memory: Why It's Not Perfect

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  6 minutes  |  1080 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

NEW YORK — When, as an adult, he returned to Alexandria, Egypt, where he lived as a child, writer André Aciman felt he remembered everything; he could walk and never get lost; he recognized the smells. But something was gone: a memory. Aciman knew he had forgotten because, previously, he had written about this one, a walk he had taken with his brother and their conversation, in a draft of a memoir. [Read More]

New Fossil Reveals Face of Oldest Known 'Lucy' Relative

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  6 minutes  |  1090 words  |  Patria Henriques

The face of the oldest known Australopithecus species — a relative of the famous "Lucy" — is no longer a mystery.  For the first time, paleontologists have discovered a near-complete skull of Australopithecus anamensis. The fossil, a bony visage with a protruding jaw and large canine teeth, dates back 3.8 million years, indicating that A. anamensis probably overlapped with Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, for at least 100,000 years.  The discovery reveals a face similar to that of Lucy, an A. [Read More]

Poisons and Panaceas: Plants Tell History of Healing

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  1008 words  |  Patria Henriques

NEW YORK — Modern medicine owes a great debt to botany. Plants exploited by ancient apothecaries have given rise to more complex and effective cures, and alkaloids isolated from natural herbs have found their way into the neat little pills people get from the pharmacy today. In a nod to the world's 30,000 herbs that belong to a storied history of healing, botanists have gathered 500 medicinal plants for a living exhibition called " [Read More]

Spooning skeletons: Who were these 3,000-year-old 'Romeo and Juliet'?

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  474 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

More than 3,000 years ago, a couple at the biblical site of Bethsaida, in Israel, was buried side by side in a spooning position, with the male's arm over the female's body, and the archaeologists who discovered the remains are now calling the couple "Romeo and Juliet."  Archaeologists think the individuals died at the same time, though they aren't sure what killed the couple, said Rami Arav, director of the Bethsaida project and a professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. [Read More]

Trove of Jewish artifacts discovered beneath a synagogue destroyed by Nazis during WWII

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  479 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

A historic synagogue near Kraków, Poland, was mostly destroyed by Nazis during World War II, but a secret hoard of precious ritual objects that was hidden there remained undetected and undisturbed — until now.  Recently, restorers at the Old Synagogue, an 18th-century temple in Wieliczka, Poland, unexpectedly found a cache of Jewish artifacts and other silver items in a large, wooden crate that had been concealed under the floor. They uncovered the crate while digging a hole to test the soundness of the building's foundation, the Jewish Chronicle reported. [Read More]

Unequal Division of Labor in Marriage Ups Risk of Divorce

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  839 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Contrary to what people might think, the money aspects of a marriage — the current earnings of a couple, or a wife's ability to support herself in the event her marriage breaks up, for example — don't appear to play a role in divorce, a new study suggests. Rather, for couples who wed between 1975 and 2011, whether husbands were doing full-time work outside the home was linked with the couples' divorce risk, the study showed. [Read More]

Watch a black hole rip 4 stars to shreds in epic new NASA simulation

 Posted on September 12, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  494 words  |  Patria Henriques

In a high-stakes game of cosmic putt-putt golf, NASA researchers knocked eight simulated stars into the path of a monstrous black hole. Four stars survived the encounter intact — a little bent out of shape, maybe, but still held together by the strength of their own gravity. And as for the other four stars? Well, let's say spaghetti will be the only dish on the menu there for the foreseeable future. [Read More]

'Bat Bot' Can Pull Off Impressive Aerial Acrobatics

 Posted on September 11, 2022  |  6 minutes  |  1112 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Whether they're swooping around to catch dinner or delicately hanging upside down to sleep, bats are known for their acrobatic prowess. Now, scientists have created a robot inspired by these flying creatures. Dubbed the "Bat Bot," it can fly, turn and swoop like its real-life counterpart in the animal kingdom. Since at least the time of Leonardo da Vinci, scientists have sought to mimic the acrobatic way in which bats maneuver the sky. [Read More]