Anyone who has studied high school biology by now knows that human blood is classified into four ‘types’: A, B, AB and O. In addition, each type has a positive and a negative sign attached to it that is a representation of whether or not it has an RH factor associated with it. The discovery...Read More
Some parts of our body – like the liver – have an inherent ability to regenerate. Other organs like the heart cannot. But if modern medicine has its way, this could change by using cells that come from the unlikeliest of sources: our bellies. Conventionally, physicians have looked at our bones in search of stem...Read More
Don’t you just hate a know-it-all? Funnier is when someone pretends to be one and mouths a commonly held urban myth with all the confidence of a dancing peacock. Here we list some of our favourite misconceptions so that you can shut the speaker up if you hear them repeated somewhere. Napoleon Bonaparte’s height He’s...Read More
The world may just end on 26 August, 2032, just nineteen years from now. Ukranian astronomers have discovered a 410-meter rock which will destroy all life on the planet if it hits. It’s fifty times more powerful than the biggest nuclear bomb, the scientists said, and it’s one of the two most dangerous asteroids ever...Read More
Scientists have long been able to program skin cells to grow into cells that can exist in any organ of the body; which means that if you’re running short of red blood cells, you can leave a skin sample at your doctor’s and come back the next day. It’s not cheap enough for the average...Read More
All of the double-blind studies that have been carried out to test the question of homeopathy’s efficacy in treating diseases have concluded that it doesn’t work. The latest of these has come in April this year, when the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) released a draft information paper titled: Evidence of the effectiveness...Read More
The world has moved on from space shuttle launches, and NASA’s every little move is no longer scrutinised on front pages of newspapers. But thanks to Chris Hadfield, whose guitar song from space went viral, interest in space and NASA has picked up again. We’re not as obsessed about it as we are about –...Read More
Three-quarters of our planet’s surface area is covered with water. If you measure in volume, the amount of space covered by land is just a tiny fraction of the amount of space covered by water. Given this fact, it should not be surprising that we unearth unknown mysteries from our seas and oceans much more...Read More
As they say, the future is here. For those of us who grew up watching The Jetsons, it may come as relief (or fright) to know that we’re not as far as we may think from self-aware home machines. Research suggests that in less than ten years from now, we will be operating appliances at...Read More
According to new research, ‘Super Earths’ or planets which are bigger in size than our mother Earth are unlikely to be habitable for humans and also other known life forms, the reason being that their crushing atmosphere will prove fatal to the existence of life. This new research has destroyed any possibility of the existence...Read More