Infection control experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have found that a combination of robot-like devices that disperse hydrogen peroxide vapor into the air and then detoxify the disinfecting chemical are highly effective at killing and preventing the spread of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria.


Of special note, researchers say, was that enhanced cleaning with the vapor reduced by 80 percent a patient's chances of becoming colonized by a particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat bacterium, vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). ...

We asks ourselves this a lot, so do stem cells!

Check out this amazing image of am urodid moth cocoon. According to entomologist and Amazon explorer Phil Torres, It has a really beautiful woven lattice structure that hangs about a foot below a leaf on a thin silk string.

This is an unusual structure because the pupa, resting inside the cocoon, seems fairly exposed to the elements. The hanging likely helps to prevent predation from ants, and the bright orange color may serve as an aposematic signal to predators to prevent it from getting eaten. The tube part at the bottom is the 'escape hatch' from which it eventually will exit as an adult moth. There is not a lot of research that has been done on the evolutionary origin structure - this is one of the many mysteries of the Amazon you can c ...

The lines over the circles are colour coded. Notice the single red line and 3 blue lines representing 13 groups together while the single green and 2 black lines take their own group. Simply draw your first group of lines in one direction then your second group of lines going over the first, count the groups of intersections and there\'s your answer.

In 1995 a group of NASA scientists repeated and refined some earlier tests on the effect that various drugs have on the web building abilities of the common garden spider. They tested the the effect of caffeine, benzedrine, marijuana and chloral hydrate and as you can see the results were pretty extreme!

Sometimes, the Sun itself seems to dance. On just this past New Years Eve, for example, NASAs Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressive prominence erupting from the Suns surface. The dramatic explosion was captured in ultraviolet light in the above time lapse video covering four hours. Of particular interest is the tangled magnetic field that directs a type of solar ballet for the hot plasma as it falls back to the Sun. The scale of the disintegrating prominence is huge -- the entire Earth would easily fit under the flowing curtain of hot gas. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection expelling hot gas into the Solar System. The energy mechanism that creates a ...

The answer might shock you

This miniature ecosystem has been thriving in an almost completely isolated state for more than forty years. It has been watered just once in that time.

The original single spiderwort plant has grown and multiplied, putting out seedlings. As it has access to light, it continues to photosynthesize. The water builds up on the inside of the bottle and then rains back down on the plants in a miniature version of the water cycle.

As leaves die, they fall off and rot at the bottom producing the carbon dioxide and nutrients required for more plants to grow. ...

This is the goblin shark, a bizarre and rarely spotted creature found in water deeper than 200 m throughout the world. Very little is known about their life history or reproduction, as encounters with them in their native habitat are incredibly rare. Most specimens are dragged up by deep sea fishers. They are famous for their strangely shaped heads - they have snouts much longer than any other shark, and retractable jaws.

This is the pink-necked green pigeon (Treron vernans) and it is honestly not Photoshopped. They\'re found in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical mangrove forests, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.

Many of us around the world will enjoy a firework display tonight (or have already); but what are the mechanisms behind the magnificent spectacle?



The story behind fireworks begins about 2000 years ago in China. Alchemists at the time were in search for an elixir which made them immortal. Obviously, they did not find this- what they did find however was a substance consisting of potassium nitrate, charcoal and suphur; or gunpowder,as we know it. The evolution of fireworks from gunpowder took another 1000 years until a monk named Li Tian realised that if you placed gunpowder into a bamboo tube and ignited it, an impressive explosion on sound and light ensued. Fireworks were born!

The gunpowder is responsible for the trajectory of the firework, ...

Meet the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), a monkey only found in Borneo Island, Asia.

The proboscis monkey is one of the largest monkeys native to Asia. It's very easily identified (for obvious reasons).

The species has very pronounced sexual dimorphism, with the male being much larger than the female. Males also have much larger noses (the individual pictured is a male), but the noses of females are still very pronounced. The bigger the nose a male proboscis monkey has, the bulkier he will be — increasing his chances of attracting a large harem. Both sexes have bulging stomachs that give them the impression of having a pot belly.

The proboscis monkey is assessed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and listed in Appen ...

A new study from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) estimates that our galaxy contains at least 100 billion planets. The team made their estimate while analysing planets orbiting a star called Kepler-32 - planets that are representative, they say, of the vast majority in the galaxy and thus serve as a perfect case study for understanding how most planets form.

This guy brings new meaning to the phrase “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”


The Venezuela Pebble Toad is a strange creature. It is typically found in mountainous regions, with many slopes and inclines. The toad is only about the size of a fingertip. As such, it is vulnerable to attacks from even a spider, like a tarantula.

The Pebble Toad has an ingenious defence mechanism. When faced with a danger, it tucks its limbs and head under its body and tenses its muscles. Forming a ball shape, it begins to roll down whatever slope it happens to be on. This allows it to evade whatever predator may be pursuing it. Since they are so tiny and their muscles are so rigid, they take no damage from the bouncing and rolling.

The Pebble Toad was featured in t ...

Bulletproof glass manufacturer 3M Security Glass placed this advertisement at a bus stop. There's apparently $3 million in cash inside there, behind their bulletproof glass. If you can break it, it's yours.


Here's how bulletproof glass works...

At first glance, bullet-resistant glass looks identical to an ordinary pane of glass, but that's where the similarities end. An ordinary piece of glass shatters when struck by a single bullet. Bullet resistant glass is designed to withstand one or several rounds of bullets depending on the thickness of the glass and the weapon being fired at it. So, what gives bullet-resistant glass the ability to stop bullets?

Different manufacturers make different variations of bullet-resistant glass, but it is basic ...